The Idea of God in Early Religions Part 2

The conviction with which the community ends the rite is the joyful conviction that the trouble is over-past. The joy which the community feels often expresses itself in feast and song; and where the offerings are, as they most commonly are, food-offerings or animal-sacrifice, the feast may come to be regarded as one at which the G.o.d himself is present and of which he partakes along with his wors.h.i.+ppers. The joy, which expresses itself in feast and song, may, however, not make itself felt until the prayer of the community has been fulfilled and the calamity has pa.s.sed away; and then the feast comes to be of the nature of a joyful thank-offering. But it is probably only in one or other of these two cases that the offering comes to be consumed in the service of feast and song. And although the rite may and does grow in this way, still this development of it--'eating with the G.o.d'--is rather potentially than actually present in the earliest form of the rite.

From this point of view, sacrificial meals or feasts are not part of the ritual of approach: they belong to the termination of the ceremony. They mark the fact of reconciliation; they are an expression of the conviction that friendly relations are restored. The sacrificial meal then is accordingly not a means by which reconciliation is effected, but the outward expression of the conviction that the end has been attained; and, as expressing, it has the force of confirming, the conviction. Where the sacrificial rite grows to comprehend a sacrificial feast or meal, there the food-offering or sacrifice is consumed in the service. But the rite does not always develop thus; and even without this development it discharges its proper function. Before this development, it is on occasions of distress that the G.o.d is approached by the community, in the conviction that the community has offended, and with the object of purging the community and removing the distress, of appeasing the G.o.d and restoring good relations. Yet even at this stage the object of the community is to be at one with its G.o.d--at-one-ment and communion so far are sought. There is implied the faith that he, the community's G.o.d, cannot possibly be for ever alienated and will not utterly forsake them, even though he be estranged for the time. Doubtless the feast, which in some cases came to crown the sacrificial rite, may, where it was practised amongst peoples who believed that persons partaking of common food became united by a common bond, have come to be regarded as const.i.tuting a fresh bond and a more intimate communion between the G.o.d and his wors.h.i.+ppers who alike partook of the sacrificial meal. But this belief is probably far from being, or having been, universal; and it is unnecessary to a.s.sume that this belief must have existed, wherever we find the accomplishment of the sacrificial rite accompanied by rejoicing. The performance of the sacrificial rite is prompted by the desire to restore the normal relation between the community and its G.o.d. It is carried out in the conviction that the G.o.d is willing to return to the normal relation; when it has been performed, the community is relieved and rejoices, whether the rejoicing does or does not take form in a feast; and the essence of the rejoicing is the conviction that all now is well, a conviction which arises from the performance of the sacrificial rite and not from the meal which may or may not follow it.

Where the inst.i.tution of the sacrificial feast did grow up, the natural tendency would be for it to become the most important feature in the whole rite. The original and the fundamental purpose of the rite was to reconcile the G.o.d and his wors.h.i.+ppers and to make them at one: the feast, therefore, which marked the accomplishment of the very purpose of the rite, would come to be regarded as the object of the rite. In that, however, there is nothing more than the s.h.i.+fting forward of the centre of religious interest from the sacrifice to the feast: there is nothing in it to change the character or conception of the feast. Yet, in the case of some peoples, its character and conception did change in a remarkable way. In the case of some peoples, we find that the feast is not an occasion of 'eating with the G.o.d' but what has been crudely called 'eating the G.o.d.' This conception existed, as is generally agreed, beyond the possibility of doubt, in Mexico amongst the Aztecs, and perhaps--though not beyond the possibility of doubt--elsewhere.

The Aztecs were a barbarous or semi-civilised people, with a long history behind them. The circ.u.mstances under which the belief and practice in question existed and had grown up amongst them are clear enough. The Aztecs wors.h.i.+pped deities, and amongst those deities were plants and vegetables, such as maize. It was, of course, not any one individual specimen that they wors.h.i.+pped: it was the spirit, the maize-mother, who manifested herself in every maize-plant, but was not identical with any one. At the same time, though they wors.h.i.+pped the spirit, or species, they grew and cultivated the individual plants, as furnis.h.i.+ng them with food. Thus they were in the position of eating as food the plant, the body, in which was manifested the spirit whom they wors.h.i.+pped. In this there was an outward resemblance to the Christian rite of communion, which could not fail to attract the attention of the Spanish priests at the time of the conquest of Mexico, but which has probably been unconsciously magnified by them. They naturally interpreted the Aztec ceremony in terms of Christianity, and the spirit of the translation probably differs accordingly from the spirit of the original.

We have now to consider the new phase of the sacrificial--indeed, in this connection, we may say the sacramental--rite which was found in Mexico, and to indicate the manner in which it probably originated.

The offerings earliest made to the G.o.ds were not necessarily, but were probably, food-offerings, animal or vegetable; and as we are not in a position to affirm that there was any restriction upon the kind of food offered, it seems advisable to a.s.sume that any kind of food might be offered to any kind of G.o.d. The intention of offerings seems to be to indicate merely that the wors.h.i.+ppers desire to be pleasing in the sight of the G.o.d whom they wish to approach. At this, the simplest and earliest stage of the rite, the sacrificial feast has not yet come into existence: it is enough if the food is offered to the G.o.d; it is not necessary that it should be eaten, or that any portion of it should be eaten, by the community. There is evidence enough to warrant us in believing that generally there was an aversion to eating the G.o.d's portion. If the wors.h.i.+ppers ate any portion, they certainly would not eat and did not eat, until after the G.o.d had done so. At this stage in the development of the rite, the offerings are occasional, and are not made at stated, recurring, seasons. The reason for believing this is that it is on occasions of alarm and distress that the community seeks to draw near its G.o.d. But though it is in alarm that the community draws nigh, it draws nigh in confidence that the G.o.d can be appeased and is willing to be appeased. It is part of the community's idea of its G.o.d that he has the power to punish; that he does not exercise his power without reason; and that, as he is powerful, so also he is just to his wors.h.i.+ppers, and merciful.

But though occasional offerings, and sacrifices made in trouble to G.o.ds who are conceived to be a very help in time of trouble, continue to be made, until a relatively late period in the history of religion, we also find that there are recurring sacrifices, annually made. At these annual ceremonies, the offerings are food-offerings. Where the food-offerings are offerings of vegetable food, they are made at harvest time. They are made on the occasion of harvest; and that they should be so made is probably no accident or fortuitous coincidence.

At the regularly recurring season of harvest, the community adheres to the custom, already formed, of not partaking of the food which it offers to its G.o.d, until a portion has been offered to the G.o.d. The custom, like other customs, tends to become obligatory: the wors.h.i.+ppers, that is to say the community, may not eat, until the offering has been made and accepted. Then, indeed, the wors.h.i.+ppers may eat, solemnly, in the presence of their G.o.d. The eating becomes a solemn feast of thanksgiving. The G.o.d, after whom they eat, and to whom they render thanks, becomes the G.o.d who gives them to eat. What is thus true of edible plants--whether wild or domesticated--may also hold true to some extent of animal life, where anything like a 'close time' comes to be observed.

As sacrificial ceremonies come to be, thus, annually recurring rites, a corresponding development takes place in the community's idea of its G.o.d. So long as the sacrificial ceremony was an irregularly recurring rite, the performance of which was prompted by the occurrence, or the threat, of disaster, so long it was the wrath of the G.o.d which filled the fore-ground, so to speak, of the religious consciousness; though behind it lay the conviction of his justice and his mercy. But when the ceremony becomes one of annual wors.h.i.+p, a regularly recurring occasion on which the wors.h.i.+ppers recognise that it is the G.o.d, to whom the first-fruits belong, who gives the wors.h.i.+ppers the harvest, then the community's idea of its G.o.d is correspondingly developed. The occasion of the sacrificial rite is no longer one of alarm and distress; it is no longer the wrath of the G.o.d, but his goodness as the giver of good gifts, that tends to emerge in the fore-ground of the religious consciousness. Harvest rites tend to become feasts of thanksgiving and thank-offerings; and so, by contrast with these joyous festivals, the occasional sacrifices, which continue to be offered in times of distress, tend to a.s.sume, more and more, the character of sin-offerings or guilt-offerings.

We have, however, now to notice a consequence which ensues upon the community's custom of not eating until after the first-fruits have been offered to the G.o.d. Not only is a habit or custom hard to break, simply because it is a habit; but, when the habit is the habit of a whole community, the individual who presumes to violate it is visited by the disapproval and the condemnation of the whole community. When then the custom has established itself of abstaining from eating, until the first-fruits have been offered to the G.o.d, any violation of the custom is condemned by the community as a whole. The consequence of this is that the fruit or the animal tends to be regarded by the community as sacred to the G.o.d, and not to be meddled with until after the first-fruits have been offered to him. The plant or animal becomes sacred to the G.o.d because the community has offered it to him, and intends to offer it to him, and does offer it to him annually. Now it is not a necessary and inevitable consequence that an animal or plant, which has come to be sacred, should become divine. But where we find divine animals or animal G.o.ds--divine corn or corn-G.o.ddesses--we are ent.i.tled to consider this as one way in which they may have come to be regarded as divine, because sacred, and as deities, because divine.

When we find the divine plant or animal const.i.tuting the sacrifice, and furnis.h.i.+ng forth the sacrificial meal, there is a possibility that it was in this way and by this process that the plant or animal came to be, first, sacred, then divine, and finally the deity, to whom it was offered. In many cases, certainly, this last stage was never reached. And we may conjecture a reason why it was not reached.

Whether it could be reached would depend largely on the degree of individuality, which the G.o.d, to whom the offering was made, had reached. A G.o.d who possesses a proper, personal name, must have a long history behind him, for a personal name is an epithet the meaning of which comes in course of time to be forgotten. If its meaning has come to be entirely forgotten, the G.o.d is thereby shown not only to have a long history behind him but to have acquired a high degree of individuality and personality, which will not be altered or modified by the offerings which are made to him. Where, however, the being or power wors.h.i.+pped is, as with the jungle-dwellers of Chota Nagpur, still nameless, his personality and individuality must be of the vaguest; and, in that case, there is the probability that the plant or animal offered to him may become sacred to him; and, having become sacred, may become divine. The animal or plant may become that in which the nameless being manifests himself. The corn or maize is offered to the nameless deity; the deity is the being to whom the corn or maize is habitually offered; and then becomes the corn-deity or maize-deity, the mother of the maize or the corn-G.o.ddess.

Like the _di indigites_ of Italy, these vegetation-G.o.ddesses are addressed by names which, though performing the function of personal names and enabling the wors.h.i.+ppers to make appeals to the deities personally, are still of perfectly transparent meaning. Both present to us that stage in the evolution of a deity, in which as yet the meaning of his name still survives; in which his name has not yet become a fully personal name; and in which he has not yet attained to full personality and complete individuality. This want of complete individuality can hardly be dissociated from another fact which goes with it. That fact is that the deity is to be found in any plant of the species sacred to him, or in any animal of the species sacred to him, but is not supposed to be found only in the particular plant or animal which is offered on one particular occasion. If the corn-G.o.ddess is present, or manifests herself, in one particular sheaf of corn, at her harvest festival this year, still she did manifest herself last year, and will manifest herself next year, in another.

The deity, that is to say, is the species; and the species, and no individual specimen thereof, is the deity. That is the reason which prevents, or tends to prevent, deities of this kind from attaining complete individuality.

This want of complete individuality and of full personality it is which characterises totems. The totem, also, is a being who, if he manifests himself in this particular animal, which is slain, has also manifested himself and will manifest himself in other animals of the same species: but he is not identical with any particular individual specimen. Not only is the individuality of the totem thus incomplete, but in many instances the name of the species has not begun to change into a proper personal name for the totem, as 'Ceres' or 'Chicomecoatl' or 'Xilonen' have changed into proper names of personal deities. Whether we are or are not to regard the totem as a G.o.d, at any rate, viewed as a being in the process of acquiring individuality, he seems to be acquiring it in the same way, and by the same process, as corn-G.o.ddesses and maize-mothers acquired theirs, and to present to our eyes a stage of growth through which these vegetation-deities themselves have pa.s.sed. They also at one time had not yet acquired the personal names by which they afterwards came to be addressed. They were, though nameless, the beings present in any and every sheaf of corn or maize, though not cabined and confined to any one sheaf or any number of sheaves. And these beings have it in them to become--for they did become--deities. The process by which and the period at which they may have become deities we have already suggested: the period is the stage at which offerings, originally made at irregular times of distress, become annual offerings, made at the time of harvest; the process is the process by which what is customary becomes obligatory.

The offerings at harvest time, from customary, become obligatory. That which is offered, is thereby sacred; the very intention to offer it, this year in the same way as it was offered last year, suffices to make it sacred, before it is offered. Thus, the whole species, whether plant or animal, becomes sacred, to the deity to whom it is offered: it is his. And if he be as vague and shadowy as the power or being to whom the jungle-dwellers of Chota Nagpur make their offerings at stated seasons, then he may be looked for and found in the plant or animal species which is his. The harvest is his alone, until the first-fruits are offered. He makes the plants to grow: if they fail, it is to him the community prays. If they thrive, it is because he is, though not identical with them, yet in a way present in them, and is not to be distinguished from the being who not only manifests himself in every individual plant or animal of the species, though not identical with any one, but is called by the name of the species.

Whether we are to see in totems, as they occur in Australia, beings in the stage through which vegetation deities presumably pa.s.sed, before they became corn-G.o.ddesses and mothers of the maize, is a question, the answer to which depends upon our interpretation of the ceremonies in which they figure. It is difficult, at least, to dissociate those ceremonies from the ritual of first-fruits. The community may not eat of the animal or plant, at the appropriate season, until the head-man has solemnly and sparingly partaken of it. About the solemnity of the ceremonial and the reverence of those who perform it, there is no doubt. But, whereas in the ritual of first-fruits elsewhere, the first-fruits are, beyond possibility of doubt or mistake, offered to a G.o.d, a personal G.o.d, having a proper name, in Australia there is no satisfactory evidence to show that the offerings are supposed, by those who make them, to be made to any G.o.d; or that the totem-spirit, if it is distinguished from the totem-species, is regarded as a G.o.d.

There has accordingly been a tendency on the part of students of the science of religion to deny to totemism any place in the evolution of religion, and even to regard the Australian black-fellows as exemplifying, within the region of our observation, a pre-religious period in the process of human evolution. This latter view may safely be dismissed as untenable, whether we do or do not believe totemism to have a religious side. There is sufficient mythology, still existing amongst the Australian tribes, to show that the belief in G.o.ds survives amongst them, even though, as seems to be the case, no wors.h.i.+p now attaches to the G.o.ds, with personal names, who figure in the myths. That myths survive, when wors.h.i.+p has ceased; and that the names of G.o.ds linger on, even when myths are no longer told of them, are features to be seen in the decay of religious systems, all the world over, and not in Australia alone. The fact that these features are to be found in Australia points to a consideration which hitherto has generally been overlooked, or not sufficiently weighed. It is that in Australia we are in the midst of general religious decay, and are not witnessing the birth of religion nor in the presence of a pre-religious period. From this point of view, the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds, who figure in the myths, has ceased, but their names live on.

And from this point of view, the names of the beings wors.h.i.+pped, in the totemistic first-fruits ceremonies, have disappeared, though the ceremonies are elaborate, solemn, reverent, complicated and prolonged; and religion has been swallowed up in ritual.

Even amongst the Aztecs, who had reached a stage of social development, barbarous or semi-civilised, far beyond anything attained by the Australian tribes, the degree of personality and individuality reached by the vegetation deities was not such that those deities had strictly proper names: the deity of the maize was still only 'the maize-mother.' Amongst the Australians, who are so far below the level reached in Mexico, the beings wors.h.i.+pped at the first-fruits ceremonies may well have been as nameless as the beings wors.h.i.+pped by the jungle-dwellers of Chota Nagpur. Around these nameless beings, a ritual, simple in its origin, but luxuriant in its growth, has developed, overshadowing and obscuring them from our view, so that we, and perhaps the wors.h.i.+ppers, cannot see the G.o.d for the ritual.

In Mexico the vegetation-G.o.ddesses struggled for existence amongst a crowd of more developed deities, just as in Italy the _di indigites_ competed, at a disadvantage, with the great G.o.ds of the state. In Australia the greater G.o.ds of the myths seem to have given way before--or to--the spread of totemism. Where G.o.ds are wors.h.i.+pped for the benefits expected from them, beings who have in charge the food-supply of the community will be wors.h.i.+pped not only annually at the season of the first-fruits, but with greater zeal and more continuous devotion than can be displayed towards the older G.o.ds who are wors.h.i.+pped only at irregular periods. Not only does the existence of mythology in Australia indicate that the G.o.ds who figure in the myths were once wors.h.i.+pped, though wors.h.i.+p now no longer is rendered to them; but the totemistic ceremonies by their very nature show that they are a later development of the sacrificial rite. The simplest form of the rite is that in which the community draw near to their G.o.d, bearing with them offerings, acceptable to the G.o.d: it is at a later stage in the development of the rite that the offerings, having been accepted by the G.o.d, are consumed by the community, as is the case with the totem animals and plants. At its earliest stage, again, the rite is performed, at irregular periods, on occasions of distress: it is only at a more advanced stage that the rite is performed at fixed, annual periods, as in Australia. And this change of periodicity is plainly connected with the growth of the conviction that the annual first-fruits belong to the G.o.ds--a conviction springing from the belief that they are annually accepted by the G.o.d, a belief which in its turn implies a prior belief that they are acceptable. In other words, the centre of religious interest at first lies in approaching the G.o.d, that is in the desire to restore the normal state of relations, which calamity shows to have been disturbed. But in the end, religious interest is concentrated on, and expressed by, the feast which terminates the ceremony and marks the fact that the reconciliation is effected. What is at first accepted by the G.o.d at the feast comes to be regarded as belonging to him and sacred to him: the wors.h.i.+ppers may not touch it until a portion of it, the first-fruits, has been accepted by him. Thus the rite which indicates and marks his acceptance becomes more than ever the centre of religious interest. The rite may thus become of more importance than the G.o.d, as in Australia seems to be the case; for the performance of the rite is indispensable if the community is to be admitted to eat of the harvest. When this point of view has been reached, when the performance of the rite is the indispensable thing, the rite tends to be regarded as magical. If this is what has happened in the case of the Australian rite, it is but what tends to happen, wherever ritual flourishes at the expense of religion. If it were necessary to a.s.sume that only amongst the Australian black-fellows, and never elsewhere, did a rite, originally religious, tend to become magical, then it would be _a priori_ unlikely, in the extreme, that this happened in Australia. But inasmuch as this tendency is innate in ritual, it is rather likely that in Australia the tendency has run its course, as it has done elsewhere, in India, for example, where, also, the sacrificial rite has become magical. Whether a rite, originally religious, will become a.s.similated to magic, depends very much on the extent to which the community believes in magic. The more the community believes in magic, the more ready it will be to put a magical interpretation on its religious rites. But the fact that, in the lower communities, religion is always in danger of sinking into magic, does not prove that religion springs from magic and is but one kind of magic. That view, once held by some students, is now generally abandoned. It amounts simply to saying once more that in the earliest manifestations of religion there was no religion, and that religion is now, what it was in the beginning--nothing but magic. If that position is abandoned, then religious rites are, in their very nature, and from their very origin, different from magical rites. Religious rites are, first, rites of approach, whereby the community draws nigh to its G.o.d; and, afterwards, rites of sacramental meals whereby the community celebrates its reconciliation and enjoys communion with its G.o.d. Those meals are typically cases of 'eating with the G.o.d,' celebrated on the occasion of first-fruits, and based on the conviction, which has slowly grown up, that 'the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.' Meals, such as were found in Mexico, and have left their traces in Australia, in which the fruit or the animal that was offered had come to be regarded as standing in the same relation to the G.o.d as an individual does to the species, are meals having the same origin as those in which the community eats with its G.o.d, but following a different line of evolution.

The object of the sacrificial rite is first to restore and then to maintain good relations between the community and its G.o.d. Pushed to its logical conclusion, or rather perhaps we should say, pushed back to the premisses required for its logical demonstration, the very idea of renewing or restoring relations implies an original understanding between the community and its G.o.d; and implies that it is the community's departure from this understanding which has involved it in the disaster, from which it desires to escape, and to secure escape from which, it approaches its G.o.d, with desire to renew and restore the normal relations. The idea that if intelligent beings do something customarily, they must do so because once they entered into a contract, compact or covenant to do so, is one which in Plato's time manifested itself in the theory of a social compact, to account for the existence of morality, and which in j.a.pan was recorded in the tenth century A.D. as accounting for the fact that certain sacrifices were offered to the G.o.ds. Thus in the fourth ritual of 'the Way of the G.o.ds'--that is s.h.i.+nto--it is explained that the Spirits of the Storm took the j.a.panese to be their people, and the people of j.a.pan took the Spirits of the Storm to be G.o.ds of theirs. In pursuance of that covenant, the spirits on their part undertook to be G.o.ds of the Winds and to ripen and bless the harvest, while the people on their part undertook to found a temple to their new G.o.ds; and that is why the people are now wors.h.i.+pping them. It was, according to the account given in the fourth ritual, the G.o.ds themselves who dictated the conditions on which they were willing to take the j.a.panese to be their people, and fixed the terms of the covenant. So too in the account given in the sixth chapter of Exodus, it was Jehovah himself who dictated to Moses the terms of the covenant which he was willing to make with the children of Israel: 'I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a G.o.d.' In j.a.pan it was to the Emperor, as high priest, that the terms of the covenant were dictated, in consequence of which the temple was built and the wors.h.i.+p inst.i.tuted.

The train of thought is quite clear and logically consistent. If the G.o.ds of the Winds were to be trusted--as they were unquestionably trusted--it must be because they had made a covenant with the people, and would be faithful to it, if the people were. The direct statement, in plain, intelligible words, in the fourth ritual, that a covenant of this kind had actually been entered into, was but a statement of what is implied by the very idea, and in the very act, of offering sacrifices. And sacrifices had of course been offered in j.a.pan long before the tenth century: they were offered, and long had been offered annually to the G.o.ds of the Harvest. Probably they had been offered to the G.o.ds of the Storms long before they were offered to the G.o.ds of the Winds; and the procedure narrated in the fourth ritual records the transformation of the occasional and irregular sacrifices, made to the winds when they threatened the harvest with damage, into annual sacrifices, made every year as a matter of course. Thus, we have an example of the way in which the older sacrifices, made originally only in times of disaster, come to be a.s.similated to the more recent sacrifices, which from their nature and origin, are offered regularly every year. Not only is there a natural tendency in man to a.s.similate things which admit of a.s.similation and can be brought under one rule; but also it is advisable to avert calamity rather than to wait for it, and, when it has happened, to do something. It would therefore be desirable from this point of view to render regular wors.h.i.+p to deities who can send disaster; and thus to induce them to abstain from sending it.

In the fourth s.h.i.+nto ritual the G.o.ds of the Winds are represented as initiating the contract and prescribing its terms. But in the first ritual, which is concerned with the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds of the Harvest, it is the community which is represented as taking the first step, and as undertaking that, if the G.o.ds grant an abundant harvest, the people will, through their high priest, the Emperor, make a thank-offering, in the shape of first-fruits, to the G.o.ds of the Harvest. This is, of course, no more an historical account of the way in which the G.o.ds of the Harvest actually came to be wors.h.i.+pped, than is the account which the fourth s.h.i.+nto ritual gives of the way the G.o.ds of the Winds came to be wors.h.i.+pped. In both cases the wors.h.i.+p existed, and sacrifices had been made, as a matter of custom, long before any need was felt to explain the origin of the custom. As soon as the need was felt, the explanation was forthcoming: if the community had made these sacrifices, for as long back as the memory of man could run, and if the G.o.ds had granted good harvests in consequence, it must have been in consequence of an agreement entered into by both parties; and therefore a covenant had been established between them, on some past occasion, which soon became historical.

This history of the origin and meaning of sacrifice has an obvious affinity with the gift-theory of sacrifice. Both in the gift-theory and the covenant-theory, the terms of the transaction are that so much blessing shall be forthcoming for so much service, or so much sacrifice for so much blessing. The point of view is commercial; the obligation is legal; if the terms are strictly kept on the one part, then they are strictly binding on the other. The covenant-theory, like the gift-theory, is eventually discovered by spiritual experience, if pushed far enough, to be a false interpretation of the relations existing between G.o.d and man. Being an interpretation, it is an outcome of reflection--of reflection upon the fact that, in the time of trouble, man turns to his G.o.ds, and that, in returning to them, he escapes from his trouble. On that fact all systems of wors.h.i.+p are based, from that fact all systems of wors.h.i.+p start. If, as is the case, they start in different directions and diverge from one another, it is because men, in the process of reflecting upon that fact, come to put different interpretations upon it. And so far as they eventually come to feel that any interpretation is a misinterpretation, they do so because they find that it is not, as they had been taught to believe, a correct interpretation but a misinterpretation of the fact: there is found in the experience of returning to G.o.d, something with which the misinterpretation is irreconcilable; and, when the misinterpretation is dispersed, like a vapour, the vision of G.o.d, the idea of G.o.d, s.h.i.+nes forth the more brightly. One such misinterpretation is the reflection that the favour of the G.o.ds can be bought by gifts. Another is the reflection that the G.o.ds sell their favours, on the terms of a covenant agreed upon between them and man. Another is that that which is offered is sacred, and that that which is sacred is divine--that the G.o.d is himself the offering which is made to him.

In all systems of wors.h.i.+p man not only turns to his G.o.ds but does so in the conviction that he is returning, or trying to return, to them--trying to return to them, because they have been estranged, and access to them is therefore difficult. Accordingly, he draws near to them, bearing in his hands something intended to express his desire to return to them. The material, external symbol of his desire--the oblation, offering or sacrifice which he brings with him because it expresses his desire--is that on which at first his attention centres.

And because his attention centres on it, the rite of sacrifice, the outward ceremony, develops in ways already described. The object of the rite is to procure access to the G.o.d; and the greater the extent to which attention is concentrated on the right way of performing the external acts and the outward ceremony, the less attention is bestowed upon the inward purpose which accompanies the outward actions, and for the sake of which those external actions are performed. As the object of the rite is to procure access, it seems to follow that the proper performance of the rite will ensure the access desired. The reason why access is sought, at all, is the belief--arising on occasions when calamity visits the community--that the G.o.d has been estranged, and the faith that he may yet become reconciled to his wors.h.i.+ppers. The reason why his wrath descends, in the shape of calamities, upon the community, is that the community, in the person of one of its members, has offended the G.o.d, by breaking the custom of the community in some way. For this reason--in this belief and faith--access is sought, by means of the sacrificial rite; and the purpose of the rite is a.s.sumed to be realised by the performance of the ceremonies, in which the outward rite consists. The meaning and the value of the outward ceremonies consists in the desire for reconciliation which expresses itself in the acts performed; and the mere performance of the acts tends of itself to relieve the desire. That is why the covenant-theory of sacrifice gains acceptance: it represents--it is an official representation--that performance of the sacrificial ceremony is all that is required, by the terms of the agreement, to obtain reconciliation and to effect atonement. But the representation is found to be a misrepresentation: the desire for reconciliation and atonement is not to be satisfied by outward ceremonies, but by hearkening and obedience. 'To obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams.' Sacrifice remains the outward rite, but it is p.r.o.nounced to have value only so far as it is an expression of the spirit of obedience. Oblations are vain unless the person who offers them is changed in heart, unless there is an inward, spiritual process, of which the external ceremony is an expression. Though this was an interpretation of the meaning of the sacrificial rite which was incompatible with the covenant-theory and which was eventually fatal to it, it was at once a return to the original object of the rite and a disclosure of its meaning. Some such internal, spiritual process is implied by sacrifice from the beginning, for it is a plain impossibility to suppose that in the beginning it consisted of mere external actions which had absolutely no meaning whatever, for those who performed them; and it is equally impossible to maintain that such meaning as they had was not a religious meaning. The history of religion is the history of the process by which the import of that meaning rises to the surface of clear consciousness, and is gradually revealed. Beneath the ceremony and the outward rite there was always a moral and religious process--moral because it was the community of fellow-wors.h.i.+ppers who offered the sacrifice, on occasions of a breach of the custom, that is of the customary morality, of the tribe; religious because it was to their G.o.d that they offered it. The very purpose with which the community offered it was to purge itself of the offence committed by one of its members. The condition precedent, on which alone sacrifice could be offered, was that the offence was repented of. From the beginning sacrifice implied repentance and was impossible without it. But it sufficed if the community repented and punished the transgressor: his repentance however was not necessary--all that was necessary was his punishment.

The re-interpretation of the sacrificial rite by the prophets of Israel was that until there was hearkening and obedience there could be nothing but an outward performance of the rite. The revelation made by Christ was that every man may take part in the supreme act of wors.h.i.+p, if he has first become reconciled to his brother, if he has first repented his own offences, from love for G.o.d and his fellow-man.

The old covenant made the favour of G.o.d conditional on the receipt of sacrificial offerings. The new covenant removes that limit, and all others, from G.o.d's love to his children: it is infinite love. It is not conditional or limited; conditional on man's loving G.o.d, or limited to those who love Him. Otherwise the new covenant would be of the same nature as the old. But love asks for love; the greater love for the greater love; infinite love for the greatest man is capable of. And it is hard for a man to resist love; impossible indeed in the end: all men come under and into the new covenant, in which there is infinite love on the one side, and love that may grow infinitely on the other. If it is to grow, however, it is in a new life that it must grow: a life of sacrifice, a life in which he who comes under the new covenant is himself the offering and the 'lively sacrifice.'

The wors.h.i.+pper's idea of G.o.d necessarily determines the spirit in which he wors.h.i.+ps. The idea of G.o.d as a G.o.d of love is different from the idea of Him as a G.o.d of justice, who justly requires hearkening and obedience. The idea of G.o.d as a G.o.d who demands obedience and is not to be put off with vain oblations is different from that of a G.o.d to whom, by the terms of a covenant, offerings are to be made in return for benefits received. But each and all of these ideas imply the existence, in the individual consciousness, and in the common consciousness, of the desire to draw near to G.o.d, and of the need of drawing nigh. Wherever that need and that desire are felt, there religion is; and the need and the desire are part of the common consciousness of mankind. From the beginning they have always expressed or symbolised themselves in outward acts or rites. The experience of the human race is testimony that rites are indispensable, in the same way and for the same reason that language is indispensable to thought. Thought would not develop were there no speech, whereby thought could be sharpened on thought. Nor has religion ever, anywhere, developed without rites. They, like language, are the work of the community, collectively; and they are a mode of expression which is, like language, intelligible to the community, because the community expresses itself in this way, and because each member of the community finds that other members have thoughts like his, and the same desire to draw near to a Being whose existence they doubt not, however vaguely they conceive Him, or however contradictorily they interpret His being. But, if language is indispensable to thought, and a means whereby we become conscious of each other's thought, language is not thought. Nor are rites, and outward acts, religion--indispensable though they be to it. They are an expression of it. They must be an inadequate expression; and they are always liable to misinterpretation, even by some of those who perform them. The history of religion contains the record of the misinterpretations of the rite of sacrifice. But it also records the progressive correction of those misinterpretations, and the process whereby the meaning implicit in the rite from the beginning has been made manifest in the end.

The need and the desire to draw nigh to the G.o.d of the community are felt in the earliest of ages on occasions when calamity befalls the community. The calamity is interpreted as sent by the G.o.d; and the G.o.d is conceived to have been provoked by an offence of which some member of the community had been guilty. We may say, therefore, that from the beginning there has been present in the common consciousness a sense of sin and the desire to make atonement. Psychologically it seems clear that at the present day, in the case of the individual, personal religion first manifests itself usually in the consciousness of sin. And what is true in the psychology of the individual may be expected within limits to hold true in the psychology of the common consciousness. But though we may say that, in the beginning, it was by the occurrence of public calamity that the community became conscious that sin had been committed, still it is also true to say that the community felt that it was by some one of its members, rather than by the community, that the offence had been committed, for which the community was responsible. It was the responsibility, rather than the offence, which was prominent in the common consciousness--as indeed tends to be the case with the individual also. But the fact that the offence had been committed, not by the community, but by some one member of the community, doubtless helped to give the community the confidence without which its att.i.tude towards the offended power would have been simply one of fear. Had the feeling been one of fear, pure and unmixed, the movement of the community could not have been towards the offended being. But religion manifests itself from the beginning in the action of drawing near to the G.o.d. The fact that the offence was the deed of some one member, and not of the community as a whole, doubtless helped to give the community the confidence, without which its att.i.tude towards the offended power would have been simply one of fear. But it also tended necessarily to make religion an affair of the community rather than a personal need: sin had indeed been committed, but not by those who drew near to the G.o.d for the purpose of making the atonement. They were not the offenders. The community admitted its responsibility, indeed, but it found one of its members guilty.

We may, therefore, fairly say that personal religion had at this time scarcely begun to emerge. And the reason why this was so is quite clear: it is that in the infancy of the race, as in the infancy of the individual, personal self-consciousness is as yet undeveloped. And it is only as personal self-consciousness develops that personal religion becomes possible. We must not however from this infer that personal religion is a necessary, or, at any rate, an immediate consequence of the development of self-consciousness. In ancient Greece one manifestation--and in the religious domain the first manifestation--of the individual's consciousness of himself was the growth of 'mysteries.' Individuals voluntarily entered these a.s.sociations: they were not born into them as they were into the state and the state-wors.h.i.+p. And they entered them for the sake of individual purification and in the hope of personal immortality. The desire for salvation, for individual salvation, is manifest. But it was in rites and ceremonies that the _mystae_ put their trust, and in the fact that they were initiated that they found their confidence--so long as they could keep it. The traditional conviction of the efficacy of ritual was unshaken: and, so long as men believed in the efficacy of rites, the question, 'What shall I do to be saved?' admitted of no permanently satisfactory answer. The only answer that has been found permanently satisfying to the personal need of religion is one which goes beyond rites and ceremonies: it is that a man shall love his neighbour and his G.o.d.

But in thus becoming personal, religion involved man's fellow-men as much as himself. In becoming personal thus, religion became, thereby, more than ever before, the relation of the community to its G.o.d. The relation however is no longer that the community admits the transgressions of some one of its members: it prays for the forgiveness of 'our trespa.s.ses'; and though it prays for each of its members, still it is the community that prays and wors.h.i.+ps and comes before its G.o.d, as it has done from the beginning of the history of religion. It is with rites of wors.h.i.+p that the community, at any period in the history of religion, draws nigh to its G.o.d; for its inward purpose cannot but reveal itself in some outward manifestation.

Indeed it seeks to manifest itself as naturally and as necessarily as thought found expression for itself in the languages it has created; and, though the re-action of forms of wors.h.i.+p upon religion sometimes results, like the re-action of language upon thought, in misleading confusion, still, for the most part, language does serve to express more or less clearly--indeed we may say more and more clearly--that which we have it in us to utter.

As there are more forms of speech than one, so there are more forms of religion than one; and as the language of savages who can count no higher than three is inadequate for the purposes of the higher mathematics, so the religion of man in the lower stages of his development is inadequate, compared with that of the higher stages.

Nevertheless the civilised man can come to understand the savage's form of speech; and it would be strange to say that the savage's form of speech, or that his form of religion, is unintelligible nonsense.

Behind the varieties of speech and of religion there is that in the spirit of man which is seeking to express itself and which is intelligible to all, because it is in all. Though few of us understand any but civilised languages, we feel no difficulty in believing that savage languages not merely are intelligible but must have sprung from the same source as our own, though far inferior to it for every purpose that language is employed to subserve. The many different forms of religion are all attempts--successful in as many very various degrees as language itself--to give expression to the idea of G.o.d.

IV

THE IDEA OF G.o.d IN PRAYER

The question may perhaps be raised, whether it is necessary for us to travel beyond wors.h.i.+p, in order to discover what was, in early religions, or is now, the idea of G.o.d, as it presents itself to the wors.h.i.+pper. The answer to the question will depend partly on what we consider the essence of religion to be. If we take the view, which is held by some writers of authority on the history of religion, that the essence of religion is adoration, then indeed we neither need nor can travel further, for we shall hold that wors.h.i.+p is adoration, and adoration, wors.h.i.+p.

To exclude adoration, to say that adoration does not, or should not, form any part of wors.h.i.+p, seems alike contrary to the very meaning of the word 'wors.h.i.+p' and to be at variance with a large and important body of the facts recorded in the history of religion. The courts of a G.o.d are customarily entered with the praise which is the outward expression of the feeling of adoration with which the wors.h.i.+ppers spiritually gaze upon the might and majesty of the G.o.d whom they approach. He is to them a great G.o.d, above all other G.o.ds. Even to polytheists, the G.o.d who is wors.h.i.+pped at the moment, is, at that moment, one than whom there is no one, and nought, greater, _quo nihil maius_. A G.o.d who should not be wors.h.i.+pped thus--a G.o.d who was not the object of adoration--would not be worthy of the name, and would hardly be called a G.o.d. So strongly is this felt that even writers who incline to regard religion as an illusion, define G.o.ds as beings conceived to be superior to man. The degree of respect, rising to adoration, will vary directly with the degree of superiority attributed to them; but not even in the case of a fetish, so long as it is wors.h.i.+pped, is the respect, which is the germ of adoration, wholly wanting. Even in the case of G.o.ds, on whom, on occasion, insult is put, it is precisely in moments when their superiority is in doubt that the wors.h.i.+p of adoration is momentarily wanting. Wors.h.i.+p without adoration is wors.h.i.+p only in name, or rather is no wors.h.i.+p at all.

Only with adoration can wors.h.i.+p begin: 'hallowed be Thy name'

expresses the emotion with which all wors.h.i.+p begins, even where the emotion has not yet found the words in which to express itself. It is because the emotion is there, pent up and seeking escape, that it can travel along the words, and make them something more than a succession of syllables and sounds.

If then it is on the wings of adoration that the soul has at all times striven to rise to heaven to find its G.o.d, even though it flutters but a little height and soon falls again to the ground, then we must admit that from the beginning there has been a mystical element, or a tendency to mysticism, in religion. In the lowest, and probably in the earliest, stages of the evolution of religion, this tendency is most manifest in individual members of the community, who are subject to 'possession,' ecstasy, trance and visions, and are believed, both by themselves and others, to be in especial communion with their G.o.d.

This is the earliest manifestation of the fact that religion, besides being a social act and a matter in which the community is concerned, is also one which may profoundly affect the individual soul. But in these cases it is the exceptional soul which is alone affected--the seer of visions, the prophet. And it is not necessarily in connection with the ordinary wors.h.i.+p, or customary sacrifice, that such instances of mystic communion with the G.o.ds are manifested. For the development of the mystical tendency of wors.h.i.+p and sacrifice, we must look, not to the lowest, or to the earliest, stages of religious evolution, but to a later stage in the evolution of the sacrificial meal. It is where, as in ancient Mexico, the plant, or animal, which furnishes forth the sacrificial meal, is in some way regarded as, or identified with, the body of the deity wors.h.i.+pped, that the rite of sacrifice is tinged with mysticism and that all partakers of the meal, and not some exceptional individuals, are felt to be brought into some mystic communion with the G.o.d whom they adore.

In these cases, adoration is wors.h.i.+p; and wors.h.i.+p is adoration--and little more. Judging them by their fruits, we cannot say that the Mexican rites, or even the Greek mysteries, encourage us to believe that adoration is all that is required to make wors.h.i.+p what the heart of man divines that it should be. Doubtless, this is due in part to the fact that the idea of G.o.d was so imperfectly disclosed to the polytheists of Mexico and Greece. Let us not therefore use Greece and Mexico as examples for the disparagement of mysticism or for the depreciation of man's tendency to seek communion with the Highest. Let us rather appeal at once to the reason which makes mysticism, of itself, inadequate to satisfy all the needs of man. The reason simply is that man is not merely a contemplative but an active being. If action were alien to his nature, then man might be satisfied to gaze, and merely gaze, on G.o.d. But man is active and not merely contemplative. We must therefore either hold that religion, being in its essence adoration and nothing more, has no function to perform, or sphere to fill, in the practical life of man; or else, if we hold that it does, or should, affect the practice of his life, we must admit that, though religion implies adoration always, it cannot properly be fulfilled in quietism, but must bear its fruit in what man does, or in the way he does it. The being or beings whom man wors.h.i.+ps are, indeed, the object of adoration, an object _quo nihil maius_; but they are something more. To them are addressed man's prayers.

It is vain to pretend that prayer, even the simple pet.i.tion for our daily bread, is not religious. It may perhaps be argued that prayer is not essential to religion; that it has not always formed part of religion; and that it is incompatible with that acquiescence in the will of G.o.d, and that perfect adoration of G.o.d, which is religion in its purest and most perfect sense. Whether there is in fact any incompatibility between the pet.i.tion for deliverance from evil, and the aspiration that G.o.d's will may be done on earth, is a question on which we need not enter here. But the statement that prayer has not always formed part of religion is one which it should be possible to bring to the test of fact.

In the literature of the science of religion, the prayers of the lower races of mankind have not been recorded to any great extent by those who have had the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with them, if and so far as they actually exist. This is probably due in part to their seeming too obvious and too trivial to deserve being put on record. It may possibly in some cases be due to the reticence the savage observes towards the white man, on matters too sacred to be revealed. The error of omission, so far as it can be remedied henceforth, will probably be repaired, now that savage beliefs are coming to be examined and recorded on the spot by scientific students in the interests of science. And the reticence of the savage promises to avail him but little: the comparative method has thrown a flood of light on his most sacred mysteries.

There may however be another reason why the prayers of the lower races have not been recorded to any great extent: they may not have been recorded for the simple reason that they may not have been uttered.

The nature and the occasion of the rite with which the G.o.d is approached may be such as to make words superfluous: the purpose of the ceremony may find adequate expression in the acts performed, and may require no words to make it clear. If a community approaches its G.o.d with sacrifice or offering, in time of sore distress, it approaches him with full conviction that he understands the circ.u.mstances and the purpose of their coming. Words of dedication--'this to thee' is a formula actually in use--may be necessary, but nothing more. Indeed, the Australian tribes, in rites a.n.a.logous to harvest-offerings, use no spoken words at all. We cannot, however, imagine that the rites are, or in their origin were, absolutely without meaning or purpose. We must interpret them on the a.n.a.logy of similar rites elsewhere, the purpose of which is expressed not merely, as in Australia, by gesture-language, but is reinforced by the spoken word. Indeed, we may, perhaps, go even further, and believe that as gesture-language was earlier than speech, so the earliest rites were conducted wholly by means of ritual acts or gestures; and that it was only in course of time, and as a consequence of the development of language, that verbal formulae came to be used to give fuller expression to the emotions which prompted the rites.

If then we had merely to account for cases in which prayer does not happen to have been recorded as a const.i.tuent part of the rite of wors.h.i.+p, we should not be warranted in inferring that prayer was really absent. The presumption would rather be that either the records are faulty, or that prayer, even though not uttered in word, yet played its part. The ground for the presumption is found in the nature of the occasions on which the G.o.ds are approached in the lower stages of religion. Those occasions are either exceptional or regularly recurring. The exceptional occasions are those on which the community is threatened, or afflicted, with calamity; and on such occasions, whether spoken words of prayer happen to have been recorded by our informants, or not, it is beyond doubt that the purpose of the community is to escape the calamity, and that the att.i.tude of mind in which the G.o.d is approached is one of supplication or prayer. The regularly recurring occasions are those of seed-time and harvest, or first-fruits. The ceremonies at seed-time obviously admit of the presumption, even if there be no spoken prayers to prove it, that they too have a pet.i.tionary purpose; while the recorded instances of the prayers put up at harvest time, and on the occasion of the offering of first-fruits, suffice to show that thanksgiving is made along with prayers for continued prosperity.

It is however not merely on the ground of the absence of recorded prayers that it is maintained that there was a stage in the evolution of religion when prayer was unpractised and unknown. It is the presence and the use of spells which is supposed to show that there may have been a time when prayer was as yet unknown, and that the process of development was a progress from spell to prayer. On this theory, spells, in the course of time, and in accordance with their own law of growth, become prayers. The nature and operation of this law, it may be difficult or impossible now for us to observe. The process took place in the night of time and is therefore not open to our observation. But that the process, by which the one becomes the other, is a possible process, is perhaps shown by the fact that we can witness for ourselves prayer reverting or casting back to spell.

Wherever prayers become 'vain repet.i.tions,' it is obvious that they are conceived to act in the same way as the savage believes spells to act: the mere utterance of the formula has the same magical power, as making the sign of the cross, to avert supernatural danger. If prayers thus cast back to spells, it may reasonably be presumed that it is because prayer is in its origin but spell. It is because oxygen and hydrogen, combined, produce water, that water can be resolved into oxygen and hydrogen.

This theory, when examined, seems to imply that spell and prayer, so far from being different and incompatible things, are one and the same thing: seen from one point of view, and in one set of surroundings, it is spell; seen from another point of view, and in other surroundings, it is prayer. The point of view and the circ.u.mstances may change, but the thing itself remains the same always. What then is the thing itself, which, whether it presents itself as prayer or as spell, still always remains the same? It is, and can only be, desire. In spell and prayer alike the common, operative element present is desire. Desire may issue in spell or prayer; but were there no desires, there would be neither prayer nor spell. That we may admit. But, then, we may, or rather must go further: if there were no desire, neither would there be any action, whatever, performed by man. Men's actions, however, differ endlessly from one another. They differ partly because men's desires, themselves, differ; and partly because the means they adopt to satisfy them differ also. It would be vain to say that different means cannot be adopted for attaining one and the same end. Equally vain would it be to say that the various means may not differ from one another, to the point of incompatibility. If then we regard prayer and spell as alike means which have been employed by man for the purpose of realising his desires, we are yet at liberty to maintain that prayer and spell are different and incompatible.

That there is a difference between prayer and spell--a difference at any rate great enough to allow the two words to be used in contradistinction to one another--is clear enough. The cardinal distinction between the two is also clear: a spell takes effect in virtue of the power resident in the formula itself or in the person who utters it; while a prayer is an appeal to a personal power, or to a power personal enough to be able to listen to the appeal, and to understand it, and to grant it, if so it seems good. That this difference obtains between prayer and spell will not be denied by any student of the science of religion. But if this difference is admitted, as admitted it must be, it is plain that prayer and spell are terms which apply to two different moods or states of mind. Desire is implied by each alike: were there no desire, there would be neither prayer nor spell. But, whereas prayer is an appeal to some one who has the power to grant one's desire, spell is the exercise of power which one possesses oneself, or has at one's command.

That the two moods are different, and are incompatible with one another, is clear upon the face of it: to beg for a thing as a mercy or a gift is quite different from commanding that the thing be done.

The whole att.i.tude of mind a.s.sumed in the one case is different from that a.s.sumed in the other. It is possible, indeed, to pa.s.s from the one att.i.tude to the other. But it is impossible to say that the one att.i.tude is the other. It is correct to say that the one att.i.tude may follow the other. But it is to be misled by language to say that the one att.i.tude becomes the other. It is possible for one and the same man to fluctuate between the two att.i.tudes, to alternate between them--possible, though inconsistent. The child, or even that larger child, the man, may beg and scold, almost in the same breath. The savage, as is well known, will treat his fetish in the same inconsequential way. That it is inconsequential is a fact; but it is a fact which, if learned, is but very slowly learned. The process by which it is learned is part of the evolution of religion; and it is a process in the course of which the idea of G.o.d tends to disengage itself from the confusion of thought and the confusion of feeling, in which it is at first enshrouded.

We, indeed, at the present day, may see, or at any rate feel, the difference between magic and religion, between spell and prayer. And we may imagine that the difference, because real, has always been seen or felt, as we see and feel it. But, if we so imagine, we are mistaken. The difference was not felt so strongly, or seen so definitely, as to make it impossible to ascribe magic to Moses, or rain-making to Elijah. In still earlier ages, the difference was still more blurred. The two things were not discriminated as we now discriminate them: they were not felt then, as they are felt now to be inconsistent and incompatible. It was the likeness between the two that filled the field of mental vision, originally. Whether a man makes a pet.i.tion or a command, the fact is that he wants something; and, with his attention centred on that fact, he may be but little aware, as the child is little, if at all, aware, that he pa.s.ses, or is guilty of unreasonable inconsistency in pa.s.sing, from the one mood to the other, and back again. It is in the course of time and as a consequence of mental growth that he becomes aware of the difference between the two moods.