Ancient Faiths And Modern Part 14

If, then, we could frame any definite idea of the tenets held by the Jews before they came into contact with the Babylonians, and those which they professed afterwards, we might form a conception of what they got from the Chaldees, the Medes, and the Persians respectively. Without going very deeply into the matter, we may say that Hebrew scholars generally allow that the ideas of Satan--a power opposed to that of G.o.d, and of angels or spirits, were introduced between the captivity and the period when the scriptures were translated into Greek, and that the notion of a future life and the resurrection of the dead, was developed after the time of the Septuagint, about b.c. 277.

From the preceding considerations we draw the inference that the idea of the resurrection of the dead, of a future state of existence, in which each will be punished or rewarded for what had been done by him in his mortal condition, was not a portion of the original Median, Persian, Babylonian, or Jewish religion. A ma.s.s of circ.u.mstantial evidence has led me to believe that the idea of a Heaven for the good and a h.e.l.l for the bad, came from those who professed what we will call the Vedic or the Buddhist faith. If, in reply to this, it is alleged that it may have come from the Greeks directly, the rejoinder is simply this--that the Grecians, as Aryan colonists, brought with them only a rude notion of a futurity, which they were the medium of improving, when, through the influence of their arts and arms, they opened a highway to India both by sea and land. Those who could import into their armies such huge beasts as elephants, could far more readily import a new article of faith, if it pleased the priests.

If our reasoning is sound, we cannot, I think, regard the Avesta as a trustworthy exposition of the ancient teaching of Zoroaster. On the other hand, we must, in my opinion, consider it as a book fabricated to serve a particular purpose. In this respect it resembles our own Bible, which was composed for the glorification of the Hebrews when smarting under a series of ignominious defeats and enslavements; and then enlarged, contracted, or altered, to suit emergencies.

The following table will a.s.sist the reader to compare or contrast the religion of the Medo-Persians with that of the Hebrews in some matters:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: 285]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 286]

The Hebrews first wors.h.i.+pped a calf, and then a box; they believed that their G.o.d taught them to build a tabernacle first, then a temple, and to It is not the practice of the Perform altars for sacrifice. The Hebrews sians to erect statues, or temples, also believed that Elohim had one or or altars, and they charge with folly more human forms--see Gen. xviii. 1, those that do. They do not think 2, and the following chap. xix. 1--see the G.o.ds have human forms, also Gen. x.x.xii. 1 and 24-80, also Josh. v. 13, 14, 15, Jud. ii. 1-5.

The anthropomorphism of the Jewish Scriptures has already been referred to in Vol. I. of Ancient Faiths.

The Persians are accustomed to ascend the highest parts of the mountains, and offer sacrifice to Jupiter, calling the whole circle of the heavens by that name.

The Persians sacrificed to the son and moon, to the earth, fire, water, and the winds.

Amongst the Persians, sacrifices were attended by invocations and prayers, and were always offered up by a priest.

The Persians, next to bravery in battle, considered the greatest proof of manliness was to be able to exhibit many children.

Whoever has the leprosy or scrofula is not permitted to stay within a town, nor have communication with other Persians; and it is supposed that the infliction is caused by some offence against the deity (sun G.o.d). Herodotus, book I., chaps. 131,138.

The eldest son of the Persian king was instructed during youth in the learning of the Magi according to Zoroaster the son of Oromazes--by this learning is meant the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds--and likewise in the art of kingly government. Plato, in Alcibiades.

The Hebrews sacrificed on high places for a long period. Sacrifice in an enclosed place seems to have been adopted from the Phoenicians by David and Solomon, but not to have been popular for some centuries.

The Jewish people sacrificed to sun, moon, and some planets--had a sacred fire in the temple, and regarded clouds and wind as the ministers of G.o.d. The G.o.d that answered by fire was the one adopted by Elyah. The so-called orthodox Jews only acknowledged one G.o.d, and subsequently one devil.

The Jews neither offered invocation nor prayer at their sacrifices, and prophets and kings offered victims without priestly a.s.sistance. In later times every sacrifice was offered by a priest.

The Hebrews regarded a large family as a gift from Jehovah.

The Hebrews had the same practice; and, as we learn in the book of Job, and Deuter. xxviii, notably in the 27th verse, they deemed that botch, scab, itch, and emerods were punishments sent by Jehovah.

The royal families of Judah received no instruction, either in political matters or in religion, and were allowed to grow up and do much as they liked in regard to wors.h.i.+p. The only power which influenced them was that a.s.sumed by some man who professed to be divinely inspired.

In a chapter of ancient faiths and notice an allegation which has that Pa.r.s.eeism or Zoroastriamsm has been borrowed from Jews and Christians.

To this we wholly demur. Nowhere in the Avesta do we find a reference to the imminent destruction of the world, the resurrection of a dead man, his subjugating all the powers of evil, and reigning for a thousand years with his followers as kings and saints. Nowhere in the Avesta do we discover such immoral notions of G.o.d as prevailed amongst the ancient Jewish writers. Take these away from Judaism and Christianity, and then the two resemble the religions which are held everywhere by the thoughtful and the good. If there has really been any copying at all, we do not see the imitators in Central Asia but on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean. The Jews copied from Tyre, Babylon, and Greece--Christians have taken as models Egyptians, Grecians, Romans, and even barbarians, and they have denied a once pure faith by covering it over with the ordures of heathenism. Yet we talk of others imitating us!

I propose now to examine at some length into such of the developments as have taken place in certain religious systems, for by so doing we shall be better able to judge what are those doctrines which Christians hold, in common with what they call Pagan nations, and how far those matters which are regarded as fundamental points of doctrine are in reality trustworthy. We must ever bear in mind that if we find the same set of ideas entertained amongst peoples who by no possibility can have had any communication with each other, it is only rational to believe that each race possesses those notions in virtue of their being human. Or, if desirous of avoiding this admission, the orthodox declares that every a.s.serted fact is a copy of a precedent one, then we ask them to reconcile the legend of Hercules being begotten by Jupiter, and Jesus by the Holy Ghost, for unquestionably the story of Alcmena's son preceded that told of Mary's.

In the following chapter I shall avoid as far as possible any reference to the tales told of the conception of Jesus, for no man, however subtle he may be, can prove that the Son of Man had a certain mundane individual called Joseph for a father; all that I desire to show is, that in every nation whose history has come down to us there have been persons whose mothers have declared themselves to have been pure virgins until adopted by some G.o.d as a temporal and temporary spouse, or who, being wives, have a.s.serted that a son who has distinguished himself in the world has been of divine procreation--an affirmation, be it observed, that can only be made in case the spouse has been manifestly unfaithful, or by some fulsome historian desirous of exalting his hero to celestial rank. There is scarcely a barbaric dynasty known, indeed, which does not claim an origin from some heavenly father, mother, or both.

There have been many hierarchs who, having felt conscious of the absurdity of making, by miraculous agency, all wonderful beings come from woman only, have consequently invented legends in which men have produced offspring without a consort. Some may be disposed to deride these tales, who can readily credit the stories of virgin mothers; but in reality there is no difference between the two sets of legends, in probability, wherever "miracles" are a.s.sumed. It would have been quite as easy for the writer of Genesis to have made Isaac come from old Abraham's bosom as from the womb of his h.o.a.ry-headed wife. But the Jewish writers have never proved themselves as subtle as the Hindoos and Greeks. Instead of a.s.serting that a man, without a woman's a.s.sistance, has borne a son--a matter capable of proof--they have declared that a woman has conceived, without the a.s.sistance of a man; an a.s.severation for which there cannot be any proof whatever, no not even physical, for accoucheurs know that many a female conceives by her lover's instrumentality, and bears a child, at whose birth, or rather when parturition is imminent, that part which is called "the Hymen," and is the Mosaical test of virginity, is not only unbroken, but so small in aperture, and strong in flesh, as to require operative or surgical interference before the child can come into the world. According to Mosaism these must be regarded as absolutely virgin mothers.

CHAPTER VIII.

Supernatural generation. What is meant by the term. Examples. Children given by the G.o.ds. Anecdote. Frequency of G.o.d-begotten children in Ancient Greece. Their general fate. The stories not credited by the grandfathers of children, nor apparently by the mothers. The babies, how treated. Foundlings and Hospitals. Antiope. Leucothoe. Divinely conceived persons not necessarily great or good. Babylonian idea that a G.o.d came down to enjoy human women. Tale from Herodotus. Jehovah as a man. Grecian idea attached to the expression Son of G.o.d. Homer. Hebrew ideas. Roman notions. Romulus, son of Mars and a Vestal Augustus, son of Apollo. Modern ideas respecting Incubi. Prevalence of the belief.

Its suppression. Causes of its origin. Bible made to pander to priestly l.u.s.t. Dictionnaire Infernal. History of incubi therefrom. Stories.

Strange idea that the G.o.ds who made men out of nothing cannot as easily make babies. Divine Androgynes. Strange stories of single G.o.ds having offspring. Narayana and the Spirit of G.o.d of Genesis. Chaos. Hindoo mythos of Brahma. Birth from churning a dead man's left arm, and again his right. Ayonyesvara, his strange history. Similar ones referred to. History of Carticeya. Christian parallels. Immaculate conception a Hindoo myth. The dove in India and Christendom. Agni and cloven fiery tongues. Penance and its powers. Miraculous conception by means' of a dove. Other myths from various sources.

It is a question which should, in my opinion, be asked by every individual in a rational community, whether it is advisable to continue, as a matter of faith, a doctrine which must be repudiated, as a matter of fact. To this we may join, as a rider, can anyone who puts his credence in a legend because it is old, claim to be superior to those who originally invented the tale, in the darkness of antiquity? When moderns smile at the stories told by the cla.s.sic Varro, how certain mares in Lusitania were impregnated by the wind on a certain mountain, without any access to a horse, and at the credence given to similar accounts by Virgil, Pliny, and even the Christian bishop Augustine; and by some old Scotch authority how a young woman became a mother through the intervention of the ashes of the dead: and when they pity the benighted Greeks who gave to Hercules, Jupiter for a father; and to Mars, Juno for a mother, without intercourse with her celestial spouse, it behoves them to inquire whether each may not be addressed in the sentence, "Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur"--i.e., change but the name of the believers from Greeks and Romans to modern Christians, and it will be found that Popes, priests, and peoples believe as firmly now in supernatural generation as the most cra.s.s pagan of which history treats.

Our cla.s.sical reading tells us abundance of marvellous stories--how Jupiter seduced Danae in the form of a golden shower, and yet had a common son by her, who was not an aureous coin; how Leda received Zeus as a swan, and bore therefrom a couple of eggs; how Europa was tempted by him as a bull, and yet did not bear a calf; and how Callisto, a maiden of Diana, was debauched by the same G.o.d under the guise of her mistress, and yet that from two maidens a boy was formed.

Of the amours of Apollo with a dozen and a half damsels, and of the very numerous disguises which he a.s.sumed, we find abundant details in our cla.s.sical dictionaries. Mars, though not so frequently adopted by human females as a lover, had many children of whom he was the putative father.

Jupiter had Bacchus and Minerva without Juno's aid, and Juno retaliated by bearing Ares without conversation with her consort. We deride these tales, and yet think, that because we laugh at a hundred such we shall be pardoned for believing one. How little we are justified in acting thus a few philosophical considerations will demonstrate.

There are few things in mythology that are more curious than the subject of the miraculous formation of certain individuals. Some of these have been regarded as the offspring of a celestial father and a mother of earthly mould; others again, as for example aeneas, were said to be the result of a union between a heavenly mother and a terrestrial father--e.g., aeneas was the son of Anchises, a handsome man, and Venus, G.o.ddess of beauty and love. Some, though these are few, are said to be children of a virgin or deserted wife, who has produced them without any extraneous a.s.sistance,* and others are declared to be descended from a father whom no consort could ever claim. One individual, indeed, called Orion, is represented as having been wholly independent of both father and mother, and the result of a strange form of development, the like of which Darwin never dreamed of as he came from a bladder into which three G.o.ds had micturated. His name, we are gravely a.s.sured, came _ab urina_.

* The following is a good case in corroboration of what is said in the text. In the _Dictionnaire Infernal_, to which more particular reference will be made shortly, there is, s.

v. Fecondite, a report of a trial before the Parliament of Gren.o.ble, in which the question was, whether a certain infant could be declared legitimate which was born after the husband had been absent from his wife four full years. The wife a.s.serted that the baby was the offspring of a dream, in which she had a vivid idea that her wandering spouse had returned to love and duty. Midwives and physicians were consulted, and reported on the subject. As a result, the Parliament ordained that the infant should be adjudged legitimate, and that its mother should be regarded as a true and honourable wife. The judgment bears date 13th February 1537.

The quaint ideas a.s.sociated in mythology with the supernatural generation here referred to have been various. In some instances they have been wholly poetical, as when we are told that "the Supreme" by his union with law and order (Themis) produced "Justice," "the Hours," "Good Laws," and "Peace" (Hesiod Theogony, 900), and as when Europa is said to have tempted Jupiter to leave Phoenicia, and travel westward to Crete as the first step towards the colonization of an unknown continent. In other instances, the ideas have been framed upon the very natural belief that anyone--whether existent in story only, or in reality--who has greatly surpa.s.sed his fellows, must have had a large element of the Deity in his const.i.tution. In other instances, the notion has been a.s.sociated with the once prevalent belief, that the Creator had a s.e.x, to which we shall refer by and by; and in other cases, the fancy has clearly been mingled with the fact, that many an unmarried woman has attributed to some G.o.d, a pregnancy, or baby, which has been due, in reality, to a very mortal man. Here we may notice that the fecundity which damsels of old were wont to refer to a G.o.d or some inferior, but yet beneficent, deity, more modern christian girls have a.s.sociated with a demon. Jupiter and Apollo being replaced by a special cla.s.s of imps who were named "incubi," and of the particulars of whose embraces the strangest stories are told. This small truth seems to be sufficient to demonstrate that the Greeks were not familiar with the being to whom we give the name of "Satan" and the "Devil," and that their belief coincided in one respect with that of the older Jews, who considered that whatever occurrence happened in the world, whether apparently for good or evil, was done by Jehovah, or as the h.e.l.lenic damsels reported by Jupiter, Apollo, or Mars.

Here, too, I may be permitted to introduce a remark suggested by a narrative, told to me by a lady of high British rank. She had been brought up in a foreign country under the eye of a sensible and pious, we may add prudish, mother, who endeavoured to s.h.i.+eld her daughter from all contact with external vicious influences, and to prevent her ears or her mind from ever coming to the knowledge of those matters which are a.s.sociated with love, marriage, and offspring. When the young lady naturally inquired of mamma where the infants sprang from which came into the world and grew up around her, she was told, "from G.o.d," and she was referred to Psalm cxxvii. 3, which declares that "children are an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is His reward." After having attained adult age, and being wholly imbued with this belief, she, on one occasion, expressed her opinion that Mademoiselle--who had recently been confined--must have been a peculiarly virtuous maiden, to have received so great a present as a baby from the beneficent Creator.

This speech fell like a bombsh.e.l.l amongst a mixed company, but she knew not why. It was not until her marriage some time subsequently, that she learned that infants were said to come from G.o.d or the Devil according to circ.u.mstances, but that in reality they were always due to men and women.

The anecdote given above, naturally enables us to call attention to the remarkable fact that though the Grecian poets repeatedly spoke of maidens being fertilized by a divinity, yet Greek fathers never paid any heed to the power of that G.o.d, whom their daughters a.s.serted to have operated upon their femininity; but always treated the earthly love of the alleged celestial spouse, as if the latter was wholly powerless to punish the hard-hearted parent, who had no scruples to turn his daughter from his door, so that she might hide her shame in distant lands. In those cla.s.sic times, procreation by a G.o.d upon a human being was the attempted cover for b.a.s.t.a.r.dy. Moreover, even the woman herself, to whom Jupiter or Apollo was alleged to have descended from heaven to honour, felt herself so much injured by the visit, that she either tried to destroy the resulting offspring with her own hands, or exposed it upon a mountain to the tender mercies of dogs and vultures. Much in the same way many a modern maiden places her shame-covered infant in the turn-table of a foundling inst.i.tution. Antiope, for example, the daughter of a king of Thebes, was, according to her version, beloved by

Jupiter, who visited her in the form of a satyr and implanted twins.

When she discovered the coming event, which casts its shadow before, she left the paternal mansion, to avoid her father's anger, and fled to a mountain, on which she left her hapless offspring. They were found by shepherds and brought up.

The story of fair Leucothoe is still more to the point. She was sufficiently beautiful to attract Apollo, who seduced her under the form of her own mother--not a very likely story it is true, but the two lived happily together until a rival told the loved one's father of the amour.

The incensed paterfamilias ordered his daughter to be buried alive, and yet the G.o.d who could change her body after death into the frankincense tree, and himself into a matronly looking woman and yet retain his s.e.x, could not prevent his earthly spouse from dying a cruel death. In other words, Orchamus, the parent of the damsel, wholly disbelieved in the existence of a divine "spark," and felt a.s.sured that his daughter had disgraced herself with a man far below her in earthly rank.

From these, and a number of other Grecian anecdotes, we can draw no other conclusions than that the sires in those days were as jealous of the honour of their daughters as we are of our own now; that when that honour was in danger of being tarnished, a G.o.d was alleged by the damsel to be the offender; that the story was not believed; and that the daughter fled, was punished, or was pardoned, according to the sternness or credulity of the parents. The idea that individuals who were the sons or daughters of a G.o.d, must necessarily be great and good, does not appear to have prevailed amongst the ancient Greeks. Nay, we may even doubt whether any of them really believed that Jupiter, Apollo, or Neptune, could, or had ever become incarnate, for the sole purpose of impregnating a human female. That such an idea, however, prevailed amongst the Babylonians we learn from Herodotus, who informs us, book i.

c. 181, that Belus comes into a chamber at the summit of a sacred tower to meet therein a native woman, chosen by the G.o.d from the whole nation; and in the succeeding chapter he indicates that a similar occurrence takes place in Egyptian Thebes, and in Lycian Patarae. Yet even whilst writing the tales, the historian expresses his own incredulity of their value, and we may well suppose that the thoughtful generally, would only give such credence to the statements of the temple priests, as was given to certain Christian stories by a philosopher, who said he believed them because they were impossible. Even if the common people credited the a.s.sertion that "The Supreme" did elect a woman with whom to converse, we must not despise them too lightly, for we are distinctly told in our own scriptures that Jehovah appeared as a man, and as such, ate, drank, and talked with Abraham (Gen. ch. xviii.); that Elohim was in the habit of conversing face to face with Moses (Exod. x.x.xiii. 11); and that the same G.o.d wrestled with Jacob as a man, and could not prevail against the patriarch until he had lamed him. We must also notice that myriads of Christians have believed, and many still do so, that He in a certain form had commerce with a Hebrew maiden (Luke i. 34, 35), and had by her a begotten son.

When civilization spread over Greece, there seems to have been a change of expression--which being at the first wholly metaphorical, subsequently became realistic. Thus, any man peculiarly characteristic amongst his fellows for strength, knowledge, or power, was designated "a son of G.o.d." Thus, as Grote remarks (12 vol. edition), vol. ii. p. 132, note 1. "Even Aristotle ascribed to Homer a divine parentage; a damsel of the isle of Ios, pregnant by some G.o.d, was carried off by pirates to Smyrna at the time of the Ionic emigration, and there gave birth to the poet" (Aristotle ap. Plutarch Vit. Homer, p. 1059). Plato, also by some, called "the divine," was said by Seusippus to be a son of Apollo (_Smith's Dictionary_, 8. v.) The Hebrews had a similar metaphorical expression, and gave to everything supereminently good, an epithet which we may paraphrase as "divine." Some few writers used the t.i.tle, "sons of G.o.d," as for example, Job i. 6, and x.x.xviii. 7, and Hosea i. 10; an epithet adopted by John i. 12, Rom. viii. 14, 19, Phil ii. 15, 1 John iii 1, 2, as if the same were applicable to all who are virtuous and good to an especial degree. The Hebrews even seem to have adopted the belief that Elohim, like the Grecian Zeus, had many children, could, and did really, a.s.sociate with human beings, for we can in no other way reasonably interpret the strange narrative in Genesis vi, wherein we are told that the sons of G.o.d came in unto the daughters of men, who became the sires of mighty men of great renown.

Amongst the Romans, similar ideas to those which we find amongst the Greeks prevailed. For example, Romulus was said to be the son of Mars and a Vestal virgin; but so little did her relatives believe in the possibility of the occurrence, or the divine nature of the maiden's offspring, that the mother was buried alive, and the twins which she bare were exposed, much in the same way as modern "foundlings" are. In this case, as in many others, it is probable that little notice would have been taken of such supernatural generation had the mother been of low origin--but when a G.o.d inveigles a king's daughter from her duty, both the one and the other must be punished; the one in her person, the other in his child. Yet these very writers who told of the punishment of the Vestal Hia for her intrigue with Mars, took advantage of the story, and spread a report that Romulus, the offspring of the two, was, after his death, taken up to heaven to dwell there as a G.o.d. At a subsequent period, Augustus Caesar announced, on his mother's authority, that he was the son of Apollo, and claimed to be treated as a veritable scion of that venerable deity.

The account of the conception and birth of Servius Tullius is curious from its circ.u.mstantiality. Ovid tells us, _Fasti_, vi., 625-659, Bonn's translation: "Vulcan was the father of Tullius; Ocrisia was his mother, a woman of Corniculum, remarkable for her beauty. Her, Tanaquil, having duly performed the sacred rites, ordered, in company with herself, to pour some wine on the decorated altar. Here amongst the ashes, either was, or seemed to be, a form of obscene shape; but such it really was.

Being ordered to do so, the captive (Ocrisia was a slave), submits to its embraces; conceived by her, Servius had the origin of his birth from heaven. His father afforded a proof, at the time when he touched his head with the gleaming fire, and a flame rising to a point, blazed upon his locks." In some earlier lines, the poet tells us that the G.o.ddess, Fortune, was enamoured of this same Roman king, and visited him nightly--much as Venus came to converse with Anchises.

In this story, we have an unusual ingredient, inasmuch as there is a witness to that which we may call the immaculate conception, and after birth, a proof of the child's divine origin! Of course there are many irreverent people who declare that the story is untrue--that it is far more likely that the real father was Tarquin, who, finding his consort's beautiful servant to be with child, contrived a plan by which she would escape the vindictiveness of the mistress--one which, if devotionally inclined, she was bound to give credence to. Nor can devout Christians altogether range themselves amongst the unbelievers in the miracle, for the founder of their religion was borne by a woman of low condition, and is said to have been begotten by an overshadowing spirit. He a.s.sumed to be a king; but the son of Ocrisia became one in reality, and inst.i.tuted games in honour of his divine progenitor.

For some more modern poetical fictions of the same nature, we may refer our readers to Scott's _Lady of the Lake_, where, in the account of the Highland seer, Brian, they will find a parallel to the story promulgated by Alexander the false prophet, respecting his birth, described by Lucian.

The same ideas, with which we are all of us so familiar in Christendom, that they form a portion of the creeds which the orthodox weekly rehea.r.s.e, have obtained in far Ceylon. Thus, for example, we read in a Buddhistic legend (_Kusa Iatakaya_, translated by T. Steele, Trubner, London, 1871, small 8vo., pp. 260):--