Ten Great Religions Part 19

duration. Two or three pa.s.sages in the Avesta refer to the resurrection.[149] But the conflict between Ormazd and Ahriman, the present struggle between good and evil, the ideal world of the Fravas.h.i.+s and good spirits,--these unquestionably belong to the original belief.

-- 10. Relation of this System to Christianity. The Kingdom of Heaven.

Of this system we will say, in conclusion, that in some respects it comes nearer to Christianity than any other. Moreover, though so long dead, like the great nation of which it was the inspiration and life,--though swept away by Mohammedanism,--its influence remains, and has permeated both Judaism and Christianity. Christianity has probably received from it, through Judaism, its doctrine of angels and devils, and its tendency to establish evil in the world as the permanent and equal adversary of good.

Such a picture as that by Retzsch of the Devil playing chess with the young man for his soul, such a picture as that by Guido of the conflict between Michael and Satan, such poems as Milton's Paradise Lost and Goethe's Faust, could perhaps never have appeared in Christendom, had it not been for the influence of the system of Zoroaster on Jewish, and, through Jewish, on Christian thought. It was after the return from Babylon that the Devil and demons, in conflict with man, became a part of the company of spiritual beings in the Jewish mythology. Angels there were before, as messengers of G.o.d, but devils there were not; for till then an absolute Providence ruled the world, excluding all interference of antagonistic powers. Satan, in Job, is an angel of G.o.d, not a devil; doing a low kind of work, indeed, a sort of critical business, fault-finding, and looking for flaws in the saints, but still an angel, and no devil. But after the captivity the horizon of the Jewish mind enlarged, and it took in the conception of G.o.d as allowing freedom to man and angels, and so permitting bad as well as good to have its way. And then came in also the conception of a future life, and a resurrection for ultimate judgment.

These doctrines have been supposed, with good reason, to have come to the Jews from the influence of the great system of Zoroaster.

There is no doubt, however, that the Jewish prophets had already prepared a point of contact and attachment for this system, and developed affinities therewith, by their great battle-cry to the nation for right against wrong, and their undying conviction of an ultimate restoration of all good things. But the Jews found also in the Persian faith the one among all religions most like their own, in this, that it had no idols, and no wors.h.i.+p but that addressed to the Unseen. Sun and fire were his symbols, but he himself was hidden behind the glorious veil of being. And it seems as if the Jews needed this support of finding another nation also hating idolatry, before they could really rise above their tendency to backslide into it. "In the mouth of two witnesses," the spiritual wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d was established; and not till Zoroaster took the hand of Moses did the Jews cease to be idolaters. After the return from the captivity that tendency wholly disappears.

But a deeper and more essential point of agreement is to be found in the special practical character of the two systems, regarding life as a battle between right and wrong, waged by a communion of good men fighting against bad men and bad principles.

Perhaps, in reading the New Testament, we do not always see how much Christianity turns around the phrase, and the idea behind it, of a "kingdom of Heaven." The Beat.i.tudes begin "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." Both John the Baptist and Christ announce that the _kingdom of Heaven_ is at hand. The parables revolve round the same idea of "the kingdom." which is likened first to this, and then to that; and so, pa.s.sing on into the Epistles, we have the "kingdom of Heaven" still as the leading conception of Christianity. "The kingdom of G.o.d is not meat nor drink";--such are common expressions.

The peculiar conception of the Messiah also is of the King, the Anointed one, the Head of this divine Monarchy. When we call Jesus the Christ, we repeat this ancient notion of the kingdom of G.o.d among men. He himself accepted it; he called himself the Christ. "Thou sayest," said he, to Pilate, "that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth."

All through antiquity there ran the longing for a communion or a.s.sociation of the wise and good, in order to establish truth and justice in the world. The tendency of error is to divide; the tendency of selfishness is to separation. Only goodness and truth are capable of real communion, interpenetration, and so of organic life and growth. This is their strength, power, and hope. Hence all the efforts at a.s.sociated action in antiquity, such as the College of Pythagoras, the ideal Republic of Plato, the Spartan Commonwealth, the communities of the Essenes, the monastic inst.i.tutions of Asia and Europe; and hence, too, the modern attempts, in Protestantism, by Fourier, the Moravians, the Shakers, Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, and others.

But among the Jews this desire appeared, first in their national organization, as a theosophic and theocratic community, and afterward, when this broke down and the nation was divided, in a larger prophetic hope of the Messianic times. There is a tendency in the human mind, when it sees a great work to be done, to look for a leader. So the Jewish hope looked for a leader. Their true King was to come, and under him peace and righteousness were to reign, and the kingdom of heaven begin on earth. It was to be on earth. It was to be here and now. And so they waited and longed.

Meantime, in the Persian religion, the seed of the same hope was sown.

There also the work of life was, to unite together a community of good men and good angels, against bad men and devils, and so make a kingdom of heaven. Long and sore should the conflict be; but the victory at last would be sure. And they also looked for a Sosioch, or Mediator, who was to be what the Messiah was to be to the Jews. And here was the deep and real point of union between the two religions; and this makes the profound meaning of the story of the Star which was seen in the East and which guided the Magi of Zoroaster to the cradle of Christ.

Jesus came to be the Messiah. He fulfilled that great hope as he did others. It was not fulfilled, in the sense of the letter of a prophecy being acted out, but in the sense of the prophecy being carried up and on to its highest point, and so being filled full of truth and value. The first and chief purpose of Christianity was, not to save the souls of men hereafter, as the Church has often taught, but to found a kingdom of heaven here, on earth and in time. It was not to say, "Lo here!" or "Lo there!" but to say, "_Now_ is the accepted time"; "the kingdom of G.o.d is among you." In thus continuing and developing to its highest point the central idea of his national religion, Jesus made himself the true Christ and fulfilled all the prophecies. Perhaps what we need now is to come back to that notion of the kingdom of heaven here below, and of Jesus the present king,--present, because still bearing witness to the truth.

Christians must give up thinking about Christianity as only a means of escaping a future h.e.l.l and arriving at a future heaven. They must show now, more than ever, that, by a union of loving and truthful hearts, G.o.d comes here, immortality begins here, and heaven lies about us. To fight the good fight of justice and truth, as the disciples of Zoroaster tried to fight it,--this is still the true work of man; and to make a union of those who wish thus to fight for good against evil,--this is still the true church of Christ.

The old religion of Zoroaster died, Taut as the corn of wheat, which, if it die, brings forth much fruit.

A small body of Parsis remain to-day in Persia, and another in India,--disciples of this venerable faith. They are a good, moral, industrious people. Some of them are very wealthy and very generous. Until Mr. George Peabody's large donations, no one had bestowed so much on public objects as Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeeboy, who had given to hospitals, schools, and charities, some years since, a million and a half of dollars.

During our Rebellion, some of the Parsis sent gifts to the Sanitary Commission, out of sympathy with the cause of freedom and Union.

Who can estimate the power of a single life? Of Zoroaster we do not know the true name, nor when he lived, nor where he lived, nor exactly what he taught. But the current from that fountain has flowed on for thousands of years, fertilizing the souls of men out of its hidden sources, and helping on, by the decree of Divine Providence, the ultimate triumph of good over evil, right over wrong.

Chapter VI.

The G.o.ds of Egypt.

-- 1. Antiquity and Extent of Egyptian Civilization.

-- 2. Religious Character of the Egyptians. Their Ritual.

-- 3. Theology of Egypt. Sources of our Knowledge concerning it.

-- 4. Central Idea of Egyptian Theology and Religion. Animal Wors.h.i.+p.

-- 5. Sources of Egyptian Theology. Age of the Empire and Affinities of the Race.

-- 6. The Three Orders of G.o.ds.

-- 7. Influence of Egypt upon Judaism and Christianity.

-- 1. Antiquity and Extent of Egyptian Civilization.

The ancient Egyptians have been the object of interest to the civilized world in all ages; for Egypt was the favorite home of civilization, science, and religion. It was a little country, the gift of the river Nile; a little strip of land not more than seven miles wide, but containing innumerable cities and towns, and in ancient times supporting seven millions of inhabitants. Renowned for its discoveries in art and science, it was the world's university; where Moses and Pythagoras, Herodotus and Plato, all philosophers and lawgivers, went to school. The Egyptians knew the length of the year and the form of the earth; they could calculate eclipses of the sun and moon; were partially acquainted with geometry, music, chemistry, the arts of design, medicine, anatomy, architecture, agriculture, and mining. In architecture, in the qualities of grandeur and ma.s.sive proportions, they are yet to be surpa.s.sed. The largest buildings elsewhere erected by man are smaller than their pyramids; which are also the oldest human works still remaining, the beauty of whose masonry, says Wilkinson, has not been surpa.s.sed in any subsequent age. An obelisk of a single stone now standing in Egypt weighs three hundred tons, and a colossus of Ramses II. nearly nine hundred. But Herodotus describes a monolithic temple, which must have weighed five thousand tons, and which was carried the whole length of the Nile, to the Delta. And there is a roof of a doorway at Karnak, covered with sandstone blocks forty feet long. Sculpture and bas-reliefs three thousand five hundred years old, where the granite is cut with exquisite delicacy, are still to be seen throughout Egypt. Many inventions, hitherto supposed to be modern, such as gla.s.s, mosaics, false gems, glazed tiles, enamelling, were well known to the Egyptians. But, for us, the most fortunate circ.u.mstance in their taste was their fondness for writing. No nation has ever equalled them in their love for recording all human events and transactions. They wrote down all the details of private life with wonderful zeal, method, and regularity. Every year, month, and day had its record, and thus Egypt is the monumental land of the earth. Bunsen says that "the genuine Egyptian writing is at least as old as Menes, the founder of the Empire; perhaps three thousand years before Christ." No other human records, whether of India or China, go back so far. Lepsius saw the hieroglyph of the reed and inkstand on the monuments of the fourth dynasty, and the sign of the papyrus roll on that of the twelfth dynasty, which was the last but one of the old Empire. "No Egyptian," says Herodotus, "omits taking accurate note of extraordinary and striking events." Everything was written down. Scribes are seen everywhere on the monuments, taking accounts of the products of the farms, even to every single egg and chicken. "In spite of the ravages of time, and though systematic excavation has scarcely yet commenced," says Bunsen, "we possess chronological records of a date anterior to any period of which ma.n.u.scripts are preserved, or the art of writing existed in any other quarter." Because they were thus fond of recording everything, both in pictures and in three different kinds of writing; because they were also fond of building and excavating temples and tombs in the imperishable granite; because, lastly, the dryness of the air has preserved for us these paintings, and the sand which has buried the monuments has prevented their destruction,--we have wonderfully preserved, over an interval of forty-five centuries, the daily habits, the opinions, and the religious faith of that ancient time.

The oldest mural paintings disclose a state of the arts of civilization so advanced as to surprise even those who have made archaeology a study, and who consequently know how few new things there are under the sun. It is _not_ astonis.h.i.+ng to find houses with doors and windows, with verandas, with barns for grain, vineyards, gardens, fruit-trees, etc. We might also expect, since man is a fighting animal, to see, as we do, pictures of marching troops, armed with spears and s.h.i.+elds, bows, slings, daggers, axes, maces, and the boomerang; or to notice coats of mail, standards, war-chariots; or to find the a.s.sault of forts by means of scaling-ladders.

But these ancient tombs also exhibit to us scenes of domestic life and manners which would seem to belong to the nineteenth century after our era, rather than to the fifteenth century before it. Thus we see monkeys trained to gather fruit from the trees in an orchard; houses furnished with a great variety of chairs, tables, ottomans, carpets, couches, as elegant and elaborate as any used now. There are comic and _genre_ pictures of parties, where the gentlemen and ladies are sometimes represented as being the worse for wine; of dances where ballet-girls in short dresses perform very modern-looking pirouettes; of exercises in wrestling, games of ball, games of chance like chess or checkers, of throwing knives at a mark, of the modern thimblerig, wooden dolls for children, curiously carved wooden boxes, dice, and toy-b.a.l.l.s. There are men and women playing on harps, flutes, pipes, cymbals, trumpets, drums, guitars, and tambourines. Gla.s.s was, till recently, believed to be a modern invention, unknown to the ancients. But we find it commonly used as early as the age of Osertasen I., more than three thousand eight hundred years ago; and we have pictures of gla.s.s-blowing and of gla.s.s bottles as far back as the fourth dynasty. The best Venetian gla.s.s-workers are unable to rival some of the old Egyptian work; for the Egyptians could combine all colors in one cup, introduce gold between two surfaces of gla.s.s, and finish in gla.s.s details of feathers, etc., which it now requires a microscope to make out. It is evident, therefore, that they understood the use of the magnifying-gla.s.s. The Egyptians also imitated successfully the colors of precious stones, and could even make statues thirteen feet high, closely resembling an emerald. They also made mosaics in gla.s.s, of wonderfully brilliant colors. They could cut gla.s.s, at the most remote periods. Chinese bottles have also been found in previously unopened tombs of the eighteenth dynasty, indicating commercial intercourse reaching as far back as that epoch. They were able to spin and weave, and color cloth; and were acquainted with the use of mordants, the wonder in modern calico-printing. Pliny describes this process as used in Egypt, but evidently without understanding its nature. Writing-paper made of the papyrus is as old as the Pyramids. The Egyptians tanned leather and made shoes; and the shoemakers on their benches are represented working exactly like ours. Their carpenters used axes, saws, chisels, drills, planes, rulers, plummets, squares, hammers, nails, and hones for sharpening. They also understood the use of glue in cabinet-making, and there are paintings of veneering, in which a piece of thin dark wood is fastened by glue to a coa.r.s.er piece of light wood. Their boats were propelled by sails on yards and masts, as well as by oars. They used the blow-pipe in the manufacture of gold chains and other ornaments. They had rings of gold and silver for money, and weighed it in scales of a careful construction. Their hieroglyphics are carved on the hardest granite with a delicacy and accuracy which indicates the use of some metallic cutting instrument, probably harder than our best steel. The siphon was known in the fifteenth century before Christ. The most singular part of their costume was the wig, worn by all the higher cla.s.ses, who constantly shaved their heads, as well as their chins,--which shaving of the head is supposed by Herodotus to be the reason of the thickness of the Egyptian skull. They frequently wore false beards. Sandals, shoes, and low boots, some very elegant, are found in the tombs. Women wore loose robes, ear-rings, finger-rings, bracelets, armlets, anklets, gold necklaces. In the tombs are found vases for ointment, mirrors, combs, needles. Doctors and drugs were not unknown to them; and the pa.s.sport system is no modern invention, for their deeds contain careful descriptions of the person, exactly in the style with which European travellers are familiar. We have only mentioned a small part of the customs and arts with which the tombs of the Egyptians show them to have been familiar. These instances are mostly taken from Wilkinson, whose works contain numerous engravings from the monuments which more than verify all we have said.

The celebrated French Egyptologist, M. Mariette, has very much enlarged our knowledge of the more ancient dynasties, by his explorations, first under a mission from the French government, and afterward from that of Egypt. The immense temples and palaces of Thebes are all of a date at least B.C. 1000. We know the history of Egypt very well as far back as the time of the Hyksos, or to the eighteenth dynasty. M. Mariette has discovered statues and Sphinxes which he believes to have been the work of the Hyksos, the features being wholly different from that of the typical Egyptian. Four of these Sphinxes, found by Mariette on the site of the old Tanis, have the regular body of a lion, according to the canon of Egyptian art, but the human heads are wholly un-Egyptian. Mariette, in describing them, says that in the true Egyptian Sphinx there is always a quiet majesty, the eye calm and wide open, a smile on the lips, a round face, and a peculiar coiffure with wide open wings. Nothing of this is to be found in these Sphinxes. Their eyes are small, the nose aquiline, the cheeks hard, the mouth drawn down with a grave expression.

These Shepherd Kings, the Hyksos, ruled Lower Egypt, according to Manetho, five hundred and eleven years, which, according to Renan,[150] brings the preceding dynasty (the fourteenth of Manetho) as early as B.C. 2000.

Monuments of the twelfth and thirteenth dynasties are common. The oldest obelisk dates B.C. 2800. Thanks to the excavations of M. Mariette, we now have a large quant.i.ty of sculptures and statues of a still earlier epoch.

M. Renan describes[151] tombs visited by himself, which he considers to be the oldest known, and which he regards as being B.C. 4000,[152] where were represented all the details of domestic life. The tone of these pictures was glad and gay; and, what is remarkable, they had no trace of the funeral ritual or the G.o.d Osiris. These were not like tombs, but rather like homes. To secure the body from all profanation, it was concealed in a pit, carefully hidden in the solid masonry. These tombs belong to the six first dynasties.

The great antiquity of Egyptian civilization is universally admitted; but to fix its chronology and precise age becomes very difficult, from the fact that the Egyptians had no era from which to date forward or backward.

This question we shall return to in a subsequent section of this chapter.

-- 2. Religious Character of the Egyptians. Their Ritual.

But, wonderful as was the civilization of Egypt, it is not this which now chiefly interests us. They were prominent among all ancient nations for their interest in religion, especially of the ceremonial part of religion, or wors.h.i.+p. Herodotus says: "They are of all men the most excessively attentive to the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds." And beside his statement to that effect, there is evidence that the origin of much of the theology, mythology, and ceremonies of the Hebrews and Greeks was in Egypt. "The names of almost all the G.o.ds," says Herodotus, "came from Egypt into Greece" (Euterpe, 50). The Greek oracles, especially that of Dodona, he also states to have been brought from Egypt (II. 54-57), and adds, moreover, that the Egyptians were the first who introduced public festivals, processions, and solemn supplications, which the Greeks learned from them. "The Egyptians, then," says he, "are beyond measure scrupulous in matters of religion (-- 64). They invented the calendar, and connected astrology therewith." "Each month and day," says Herodotus (II. 82), "is a.s.signed to some particular G.o.d, and each person's birthday determines his fate." He testifies (II. 123) that "the Egyptians were also the first to say that the soul of man is immortal, and that when the body perishes it transmigrates through every variety of animal." It seems apparent, also, that the Greek mysteries of Eleusis were taken from those of Isis; the story of the wanderings of Ceres in pursuit of Proserpine being manifestly borrowed from those of Isis in search of the body of Osiris. With this testimony of Herodotus modern writers agree. "The Egyptians," says Wilkinson, "were unquestionably the most pious nation of all antiquity.

The oldest monuments show their belief in a future life. And Osiris, the Judge, is mentioned in tombs erected two thousand years before Christ."

Bunsen tells us that "it has at last been ascertained that all the great G.o.ds of Egypt are on the oldest monuments," and says: "It is a great and astounding fact, established beyond the possibility of doubt, that the empire of Menes on its first appearance in history possessed an established mythology, that is, a series of G.o.ds. Before the empire of Menes, the separate Egyptian states had their temple wors.h.i.+p regularly organized."

Everything among the Egyptians, says M. Maury,[153] took the stamp of religion. Their writing was so full of sacred symbols that it could scarcely be used for any purely secular purpose. Literature and science were only branches of theology. Art labored only in the service of wors.h.i.+p and to glorify the G.o.ds. Religious observances were so numerous and so imperative, that the most common labors of daily life could not be performed without a perpetual reference to some priestly regulation. The Egyptian only lived to wors.h.i.+p. His fate in the future life was constantly present to him. The sun, when it set, seemed to him to die; and when it rose the next morning, and tricking its beams flamed once more in the forehead of the sky, it was a perpetual symbol of a future resurrection.

Religion penetrated so deeply into the habits of the land, that it almost made a part of the intellectual and physical organization of its inhabitants. Habits continued during many generations at last become instincts, and are transmitted with the blood.[154] So religion in Egypt became an instinct. Unaltered by the dominion of the Persians, the Ptolemies, and Romans, it was, of all polytheisms, the most obstinate in its resistance to Christianity, and retained its devotees down to the sixth century of our era.[155]

There were more festivals in Egypt than among any other ancient people, the Greeks not excepted. Every month and day was governed by a G.o.d. There were two feasts of the New-Year, twelve of the first days of the months, one of the rising of the dog-star (Sirius, called Sothis), and others to the great G.o.ds, to seed-time and harvest, to the rise and fall of the Nile. The feast of lamps at Sais was in honor of Neith, and was kept throughout Egypt.[156] The feast of the death of Osiris; the feast of his resurrection (when people called out, "We have found him! Good luck!"); feasts of Isis (one of which lasted four days); the great feast at Bubastis, greatest of all,--these were festivals belonging to all Egypt.

On one of them as many as seven hundred thousand persons sailed on the Nile with music. At another, the image of the G.o.d was carried to the temple by armed men, who were resisted by armed priests in a battle in which many were often killed.

The history of the G.o.ds was embodied in the daily life of the people. In an old papyrus described by De Rouge,[157] it is said: "On the twelfth of Chorak no one is to go out of doors, for on that day the transformation of Osiris into the bird Wennu took place; on the fourteenth of Toby no voluptuous songs must be listened to, for Isis and Nepthys bewail Osiris on that day. On the third of Mechir no one can go on a journey, because Set then began a war." On another day no one must go out. Another was lucky, because on it the G.o.ds conquered Set; and a child born on that day was supposed to live to a great age.

Every temple had its own body of priests. They did not const.i.tute an exclusive caste, though they were continued in families. Priests might be military commanders, governors of provinces, judges, and architects.

Soldiers had priests for sons, and the daughters of priests married soldiers. Of three brothers, one was a priest, another a soldier, and a third held a civil employment.[158] Joseph, a stranger, though naturalized in the country, received as a wife the daughter of the High-Priest of On, or Heliopolis.

The priests in Egypt were of various grades, as the chief priests or pontiffs, prophets, judges, scribes, those who examined the victims, keepers of the robes, of the sacred animals, etc.

Women also held offices in the temple and performed duties there, though not as priestesses.

The priests were exempt from taxes, and were provided for out of the public stores. They superintended sacrifices, processions, funerals, and were initiated into the greater and lesser mysteries; they were also instructed in surveying. They were particular in diet, both as to quant.i.ty and quality. Flesh of swine was particularly forbidden, and also that of fish. Beans were held in utter abhorrence, also peas, onions, and garlic, which, however, were offered on the altar. They bathed twice a day and twice in the night, and shaved the head and body every three days. A great purification took place before their fasts, which lasted from seven to forty-two days.

They offered prayers for the dead.