Introduction to the History of Religions Part 25

Whether the supernatural Powers are conceived of as animals or as plants or as what we call inanimate things, or, in more advanced thought, as ghosts or spirits or G.o.ds, they are held to be factors in human life, are regarded with awe, are dreaded and avoided, or are welcomed as helpers, and in any case are propitiated by gifts and other marks of respect. The potency inherent in things is the object of observation, its laws are studied, and it is used for purposes of life. The diversities in the form of ceremonies, in the conception of the characters of the Powers, and in the general tone and coloring of worship arise from economic and cultural differences, and are as numerous as the tribes of men; the unity of cults is a result of the psychological unity of the human race--the religious needs of men in all stages of culture are the same; there is nothing in the highest religious systems that is not found in germ in the lowest.

+944+. The earliest expression of religious feeling, as is pointed out above,[1729] is in the form of ceremonies. But ceremonies tend to group themselves round the persons of divine beings. G.o.ds, as the controllers of human fortunes here and hereafter, naturally become the centers of religious thought. Their characters and functions reflect the ideals of their worshipers, and all ritualistic and other usages and all doctrines concerning the relations between G.o.ds and men and, in general, all ideas concerning the physical and moral const.i.tution of the world attach themselves perforce to the divine embodiments of these ideals. Thus, in one sense, the history of the G.o.ds is the history of religion. From the earliest times up to the present the efforts of men have been directed toward defining the divine Powers that have been supposed to stand behind all phenomena. The problem of harmonizing diverse divine activities has always been a serious one, and its solution has been sought in various ways. G.o.ds have been locally limited, every one to his own human tribe, district, or nation; or, when they dwell together and their spheres of influence are larger, they have been given free scope of action, and the resulting contradictions in human affairs have been accepted as a part of the mysterious nature of things; or order has been sought in simplification--headship has been ascribed to some one deity, and the relation between him and the subordinate divinities has been somehow explained or has been left unexplained. The process of simplification has gone steadily on with the result that the great religious systems of the world fall into groups distinguished from one another by their conceptions of the divine government of the world, whether as pluralistic or as unitary. The development of these different conceptions may be traced here in outline, though the absence of exact data and the variety and complexity of the formative influences (economic, philosophical, political, and other) necessarily make it difficult or impossible to account satisfactorily for all details. The groups to be considered are polytheism, dualism, and monotheism, to which may be added brief mention of systems that do not recognize a personal divine ruler of the world.

POLYTHEISM

+945+. The first stage in the final theistic history of the world up to the present day, polytheism, appears in all the great civilized nations.

The great polytheistic systems have much in common: for example, protection of civil order and morality by a G.o.d; prominence of the G.o.d of a ruling tribe or family or of a great city; disposition to embody certain general facts, as war, love, learning, in divine figures; tendency to make some G.o.d universal. On the other hand, they differ among themselves in certain regards: in the degree of specialization and differentiation of divine functions, and in the stress that they lay on the various departments of human life. Their agreements and disagreements seem to be in some cases independent of racial relations and climatic conditions; their roots lie so far back in history that we have no means of tracing their genesis and development.

+946+. The Egyptian and the Semitic peoples were parts of the same original stock,[1730] and their systems of social and political organization were substantially identical--the government in its developed form was monarchical, but tribal and other locally isolated forms of organization maintained themselves to a certain extent--and their literary and artistic outputs do not differ materially. We might, then, expect their religions to be in the main identical. In fact they agree in having a relative meagerness of theistic differentiation, but in some important points they are far apart. The Semites were indifferent to the future life, the Egyptians constructed it elaborately (in this point taking precedence among the ancients); the Semites were averse to divinizing human beings, for the Egyptians kings were divine.

In this last point Egypt resembles China, but in other respects is at a world-wide remove from it. Other peoples thought of their G.o.ds as having relations with beasts; the Egyptians alone, among civilized nations, worshiped the living animal.[1731] Some Greek writers regarded Egypt as the religious mother of Greece, but h.e.l.lenic cults show little resemblance to Egyptian.

+947+. The Hebrews had the general Semitic theistic and cultic scheme, but in their capacity (in their higher development) to content themselves with one deity, and in their elaboration of ritualistic forms and inst.i.tutions, were more closely akin to the Aryan Persians than to any Semitic community, and borrowed freely from them. The resemblance between the two cults, however, was confined to these two points; in other respects they were very different.

+948+. The linguistic ident.i.ty of the Indo-European peoples does not carry with it theologic ident.i.ty. The theistic scheme of India is more nearly allied, in the disposition to grant equality of significance to all G.o.ds, to the Egyptian and Semitic than to the Persian and the Greek, yet the tone and color of the Hindu deities do not resemble the tone and color of the Egyptian and Babylonian divinities.

Even between Greece and Rome the religious differences are great. Greece stands alone in its artistic creation of divine forms. Rome rather resembles the Hebrews in its sobriety of theistic creations, and particularly is like the Chinese in the purpose to make religion subservient to the interests of the family and the State; Roman religion, like Chinese, might be described as a body of public and private ceremonies to which G.o.ds were attached.[1732] The Roman G.o.ds, however, are much more definite figures than the Chinese; the latter are either unimportant folk-G.o.ds or powers of nature.

+949+. The contrast between Mexico, with its considerable number of departmental G.o.ds, some of them savage, and Peru, whose quasi-monotheistic system is relatively mild, is striking. But the origin of these two peoples (who perhaps are made up of different sets of tribes) is involved in obscurity, and it is uncertain whether or not we should expect a greater resemblance between their cults.

+950+. The differentiation in the theistic scheme of the Teutons, especially the Scandinavians, is noteworthy. Several of their deities, particularly Wodan (Odin), Thor, and Loki, are well-developed persons, and these and some others do not differ materially in character from the earlier corresponding Hindu and Greek G.o.ds. A comparison between the Teutonic figures and the Celtic and Slavic would be pertinent if we knew more of the character of these last; but the information about them is slight.[1733]

+951+. The extent of the anthropomorphization of G.o.ds in any system may be measured by the richness and refinement of its mythology. When the G.o.ds live apart from men, being conceived of mainly as transcendent Powers, or when they are not fully developed men, there is little room for the play of social emotions and for the creation of biographies of individual deities. It is the humanized G.o.d that has emotional life, and it is in this mythical life that the religious feeling of the worshiper is expressed with greatest fullness of detail.

+952+. The development of mythology through all its gradations of fullness and fineness can be traced in the religious systems of the world.[1734] Where there is no recognizable worship there is, of course, no mythology. This is the case in Australia, in Pygmy lands, in Tierra del Fuego, in parts of New Guinea, and perhaps elsewhere.[1735] Scarcely above these are parts of Central and Southern Africa, the countries of the Bantu, the Hottentots, and the Bushmen.[1736] A feeble mythological invention appears among the Zulus, whose conception of G.o.ds is indistinct;[1737] and the Masai and the Nandi, who are somewhat farther advanced in the construction of deities, show mythopoeic imagination in a single case only (the famous myth of the embrace of the earth and the sky), and this is perhaps borrowed.[1738] Along with these we may place the Todas whose theogonic conceptions appear to have been cramped by their buffalo cult, and their mythical material is small and vague.[1739]

+953+. A somewhat higher stage of mythopoeic development is represented by peoples of Oceania and North America. The myths are still prevailingly cosmologic and sociologic, but the beginning of biographical sketches of supernatural Powers is visible. The Melanesian Qat and the Polynesian Maui are on the border line between culture-heroes and G.o.ds, but they are real persons, and their adventures, while they describe origins, are also descriptions of character. Hawaii and Borneo have departmental G.o.ds and a body of stories about them.[1740] Certain tribes of Redmen have not only divine genealogical systems but also narratives resembling the Melanesian in character, the line between myth proper and folk-lore being often hard to trace.[1741] The stories fall into more or less well-defined groups, and of the Coyote and, less definitely, of certain other personages biographies might be written.

+954+. The half-civilized peoples of Madagascar, West Africa (Dahomi, Ashanti, Yoruba), the Malay Peninsula, and Southern India (Khonds) have more coherent figures and stories of divine personages.[1742] Here something like living human beings appear, though there is crudeness in the portraiture, and the interest is chiefly in the history of origins.

The Malayan and Khond figures are especially noteworthy, but are not free from the suspicion of influence from higher religions.

+955+. True literary mythology is found only in civilized peoples, and among these a gradation is recognizable. We have first the stage of culture represented by the j.a.panese, the Finns, the Mexicans, and the Peruvians, with fairly well-developed G.o.ds, who have emotions and histories. In this group j.a.pan takes the lowest place;[1743] it is chiefly in the figures regarded as deified men that definiteness of character and human warmth are found. j.a.panese theogony was depressed by the interest of the people in family and State organization; the G.o.ds, though civilized, are vague personalities. The Finnish literary mythical material, given in the Kalevala, has a highly humanized coloring and is worked up into a coherent story; the social system revealed in the myths is superior in many regards to that of the Redmen, but the theistic scheme is crude.[1744] The few Mexican myths that have come down to us (probably only the remains out of a large ma.s.s) show reflection and portray human experiences.[1745] Both in Mexico and in Peru the Spanish conquest appears to have destroyed no little material that, if preserved, would have ill.u.s.trated the mythical constructions of these lands. In Peru, further, it may be that the monotheistic tinge of the State religion had the effect of banishing subordinate deities and the stories connected with them. For whatever reason little is known of its mythical material, but the little that is known shows a certain degree of refinement. South America, excluding Peru, has no mythical constructions of interest.[1746]

+956+. Of the great religions the Chinese may be pa.s.sed by in the present sketch; its form leaves no place for mythology; its virtual monotheism excludes lesser supernatural figures as actors in the drama of human life.[1747]

+957+. The Persian cosmogonic myths are merely statements of great facts without biographical features. In the hands of late writers they shaded into legendary accounts of the origin of the kingdom, and the whole was colored by the developed Mazdaism. We thus have theological constructions rather than true myths.[1748] The few mythical stories that have survived play an insignificant part in the religious system--a sort of result that is to be expected whenever a substantially definite monotheistic conception has been reached.

+958+. Egypt produced a couple of myths of great interest.[1749] The story of Ra's anger with men, and his act of wholesale destruction, belongs in the group of myths (in which flood stories and others are included) the motif of which is antagonism between G.o.ds and men. The conception of such antagonism seems to go back to the early opinion that all misfortunes were caused by supernatural beings; in civilized times some great calamity would be singled out as a special result of divine anger, and imagination would construct a history of the event, why the G.o.d was angry, and how he was appeased. What particular occurrence this Egyptian story refers to is unknown.

The Osiris myth has better literary form and more cultic significance.[1750] The slaying of Osiris by Set, Isis's search for the body of her husband, and the role of the young Horus as avenger of his father make a coherent history. Osiris had the singular fortune of being the most widely popular G.o.d in Egypt, the hero of a romantic episode, and the ethical judge of men in the Underworld. The motif of the myth is the cosmic struggle between life and death; the actors are made real persons, and the story is instinct with human interest. No great cultic a.s.sociation like the Eleusinian mysteries was created in connection with it, but the echo of the conception appears in the great role later a.s.signed to Isis.

+959+. All Semitic myths of which we have records are cosmogonic or sociologic or, in some late forms, theological constructions. It is Babylonia that has furnished the greater part of the material, perhaps all of it.[1751] The stories preserved give little or no portraiture of divine persons--it is always cosmic phenomena that are described, and G.o.ds and heroes are introduced simply as actors. The purpose in the two cosmogonic poems--to explain the reduction of the world to order and the existing const.i.tution of earth and sky--is one that is found everywhere in ancient systems of thought. The Gilgamesh epic, a collection of popular usages and tales without definite unity, is contaminated with legend; Gilgamesh is now a G.o.d, now a national hero; at the end, however, there is a bit of speculation concerning the future state of men. Ishtar's descent to the Underworld is a pure nature myth; Ishtar and the G.o.ddess of the Underworld are real persons, yet merely attachments to the fact. The seizure of the tablets of fate from Bel by the storm-G.o.d Zu represents some natural phenomenon (perhaps the reign of winter), possibly, also, a transference of headship from one deity to another. The story of Adapa is in part an explanation of how men came to lose immortality. There is, thus, in these myths a fairly full history of the origin of the large facts of human life, with little interest in the personalities of the divine actors.

Hebrew mythical material is in general identical with Babylonian; its Old Testament form has been more or less revised by late monotheistic editors. The two cosmogonies in Genesis, the flood story, and the dragon of chaos (a late figure in the Old Testament[1752]) are merely descriptions of cosmic or local facts. The dispersion at Babel (not now found in Babylonian records, but paralleled elsewhere) deals with a sociological fact of great interest for the Hebrews, marking them off, as it did, from all other peoples.[1753] The heroes of the early time[1754] belong to folk-lore, probably a mixture of myth and legend.

The explanation of various human experiences in the Eden story[1755]

appears to be of Hebrew origination; it is, however, rather a late theological theory than a myth. The Syrian and Palestinian Tammuz (Adonis) myth is identical in general form with the Babylonian myth of Tammuz and Ishtar.[1756]

+960+. The Indo-European mythical material shows an advance over the Egyptian and Semitic in distinctness and fullness of life corresponding to the distincter individuality of the Indo-European divine personages.

These are not mere powers in the world, more or less identified with natural forces and phenomena, nor a collection of deities substantially identical in character and functions; they have grown into persons, differing, indeed, in the degree of individualization, but all p.r.o.nounced personalities.

+961+. Hindu myths, though less numerous and less highly elaborated than the Greek, still reflect fairly well the characters of certain divinities, especially Indra, Agni, the Acvins, the Maruts, and some others.[1757] Indra, particularly, is portrayed in detail, so that he is as distinct a person as Ares or Mars. Krishna and other figures in the epics live human lives with all human virtues and vices.

+962+. The full literary form of the myth is found only in Greece. As Zeus, Apollo, Athene, Aphrodite, and others are well-defined personalities, each with certain intellectual and moral characteristics and with a unity of development, so the stories about them recount adventures and acts that form biographical unities; and, as these stories are of diverse nature, some reflecting barbarous periods, others marked by refinement, they exhibit, when brought together and arranged in order of moral or intellectual excellence or according to their geographical or ethnical origin, not only the history of the G.o.ds, but also the development of Greek religious feeling. Being the embodiment of human experiences, they lend themselves readily to processes of allegorizing and spiritualizing.[1758]

+963+. Roman G.o.ds, homely figures, occupied with agriculture and affairs of State, have no adventures and no biographies. The practical Roman mind was concerned with the domestic functions of divine beings, and the Roman genius was not of a sort to conceive G.o.ds as individuals leading lives filled with human pa.s.sions. Myths do not figure in the Roman religious scheme except as they are borrowed from Greece or from some other land.

+964+. Teutonic mythology is largely cosmogonic or cosmologic, not without shrewd portraitures and attractive episodes, but never reaching the point of artistic roundness and grace.[1759] The adventures of Odin, Thor, Loki, and other divine persons reflect for the most part the daring and savagery of the viking age, though there are kindly features and an occasional touch of humor.[1760] Loki in some stories is a genuine villain, and the death of Balder is a real tragedy. The great cosmogonic and eschatological myths are conceived in grandiose style.

The struggle between G.o.ds and giants is in its basis the widespread nature myth of the conflict of seasons. The overthrow of the old divine government (the Twilight of the G.o.ds) and the rise of a new order appear to have a Christian coloring, but the belief that the world is to be destroyed may be old Teutonic.[1761]

The history of theistic movements in civilized peoples shows that the effectiveness of a polytheistic system as a framework of religious life is in proportion to the extent of its anthropomorphization of deities, that is, it is in proportion to their humanization that G.o.ds enter into intimate a.s.sociation with human experiences. On the other hand, it is true that the tendency toward a unitary conception of the divine government of the world is in inverse proportion to such humanization; the more definitely aloof from men the G.o.ds have stood (as among the Hebrews and the Persians), the easier it has been for the people to attach themselves to a single deity as all-sufficient. The Romans form no exception to this general rule, for though, while they did not create great anthropomorphic deities, there was yet no native Roman movement toward monolatry, the place of such deities in worship was taken by a mult.i.tude of minor divine patrons who presided over all the details of private and public life and satisfied the demand for divine guidance.

While polytheism has a.s.sumed various forms, differing from one another in elaboration of deities and in general cultural character, it has had, as a system, a distinctly marked place in human experience.

+965+. _General role of polytheism._ Polytheism has played a great role in the religious history of the world. Representing in general a thoughtful protest against the earlier shapeless ma.s.s of spirits, it expressed more definitely the belief in the intellectual and moral divine control of all things. It flourished at a time when there was no general demand in human thought for cooperation in supernatural Powers.

The sense of variety in the world was predominant, corresponding to the absence of cooperation among the tribes and nations of the world; the apparently isolated character of natural phenomena and the independence of the nations, each of the others, seemed to men to demand a number of separate divine agencies. These were all made to accord with the external and internal condition of their worshipers and met the demands of life in that they represented redemption, salvation, and, in general, all blessings. They were not offensive ethically to the people for the reason that they embodied the ethical conceptions and usages of their time. Thus they furnished the framework for religious feeling--they secured the union of divine and human in life, brought the divine, indeed, into most intimate contact with the human, and so supplied the material for the expression of pious feeling. When the G.o.ds were represented by idols, these tended to become merely the symbols and reminders of their divine originals. The elastic character of this theistic system permitted the widest variety of cults, with the possibility of bringing any new social tendency or idea into immediate connection with a divine patron, so that human life became religious with a degree of intelligence and intensity that has perhaps not existed under any other system.

+966+. The great civilizations of the ancient world arose and were developed under polytheism--many n.o.ble human characters and customs and inst.i.tutions were created under the dominance of this system in Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and elsewhere--that is to say, human instincts and aspirations developed freely under a theistic organization that satisfied in general the intellectual and moral needs of the time.

The different polytheistic cults of the world differed considerably in intellectual and moral value. These differences pertain to the diversity of characteristics among the nations of the world and are to be studied in connection with the histories of the various peoples. Here it is sufficient to note the general position which polytheism has occupied in the whole religious development of the world.[1762]

+967+. At a relatively early time, however, dissatisfaction arose with the discordances of the polytheistic conception. It raised many problems and failed to account for many phenomena, and efforts were made to systematize and simplify the conceptions of the divine government of the world. These efforts took the shape of dualism, monotheism, pantheism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and later tended to regard the supernatural in the world as Ultimate Force or as Moral Ideal. These tendencies may be examined in the order just given.

DUALISM

+968+. In all the religious systems so far considered the existence of human suffering is a.s.sumed. The sole object of religious practices, in all cults except the highest, has been to secure extrahuman or superhuman aid and comfort in the ills of life. There has been the conviction, for the most part implicit, that man is not in harmony with his surroundings. We have now to consider those systems of religious thought in which the existence of this disharmony is more or less distinctly announced and the effort is made to discover its source.

The conception of two sets of Powers in the world, one helpful and the other harmful, is suggested by human experience and by the larger observation of natural phenomena, and it is found all over the world, among low communities as well as high, perhaps in all tribes of men.[1763] Possibly there are some low groups, such as the Fuegians and the African Pygmies in which the conception does not exist; but as the religious ideas of these low groups are yet imperfectly understood, we cannot say what their position on this point is. In general, for the lower tribes the world is peopled by spirits, which are the ghosts of the departed or the embodiment of natural forces, and the feeling has been that these are sometimes friendly, sometimes unfriendly.[1764] In some cases the hurtful spirits stand in contrast with a G.o.d who may be a strict ruler and somewhat indifferent to men, but not hostile; in other cases there is a simple division of spirits into two cla.s.ses, the friendly and the unfriendly,[1765] and in the higher forms of savage life there may be two such cla.s.ses of deities.[1766] The double feeling of man respecting the att.i.tude of ghosts toward living human beings is referred to above.[1767]

+969+. In certain higher forms of savage and half-civilized life we find the conception of a definite contrast between the two sets of Powers.

The Hottentots are said to believe in two opposed supernatural beings, the struggle between them ending to the advantage of the one who is beneficent toward men.[1768] The Masai have two powerful beings, one accounted good, the other bad; the difference between them is not ethical, but represents only the relation of their acts to man's well-being.[1769] The Malays have a very elaborate system of good and evil spirits, but the system is colored by foreign influences.[1770] For the Ainu snakes are an embodiment of merely physical evil, and other Powers are the dispensers of physical well-being.[1771] The Arab jinn represent the unwholesome and antagonistic conditions of nature, stand opposed to the G.o.ds, and are without ethical motives.[1772] Even the Andamanese, one of the lowest of human communities, have a division of Powers into one who is friendly and two who are unfriendly.[1773] In all these cases we have to recognize simply the expression of the perception of two sets of physical agencies in the world. It is easy to exaggerate the nature of these contrasts and to represent certain low tribes as possessing general divine embodiments of good and evil.

+970+. Such a conception has been attributed to the American Redmen,[1774] but on insufficient grounds. The most careful recent investigations of the religious ideas of the Creeks, the Lenape, the p.a.w.nees, and the Californian Shasta (four typical communities) fail to discover anything that can be called a real dualistic conception.[1775]

Dorsey mentions a p.a.w.nee myth of the introduction of death into the world by a member of the heavenly council of G.o.ds who felt himself slighted; but this isolated story does not prove the existence of a general dualistic scheme--the act in question has parallels in savage systems that recognize various unfriendly Powers.[1776] The reports we have of two definite morally antagonistic deities in Redmen tribes resolve themselves on examination into misconceptions or exaggerations on the part of the reporters; or, so far as the antagonism really exists, it is due to Christian influence. The Iroquois dualistic system as described by Chief Cusic (in 1825)--two brothers, Good Mind and Bad Mind, the former the creator of all things good, the latter the creator of all things bad--appears in the version of Brebeuf (in 1636) as a simple nature myth, the two deities in question being somewhat more definite forms of the friendly and unfriendly spirits met with in all lower communities.[1777] In like manner Winslow's two opposed Powers of the New England Algonkins turn out not to be morally antagonistic to each other, in fact, according to Brinton, not antagonistic at all.[1778] These facts warn us to treat with caution the vague statements of early travelers respecting dualistic views supposed to be held by tribes in North America and South America.[1779]

+971+. In West Africa the Ashanti embody the sources of physical misfortune in several deities, who are malignant but do not stand in opposition to the friendly G.o.ds. A preliminary step to the conception of a G.o.d of misfortunes is the a.s.signment of a sort of headship to one of a ma.s.s of unfriendly or hurtful spirits--such a crude organization is natural in a community in which there is a fairly developed form of social organization, and the head spirit easily grows into a G.o.d. A simple headship over hurtful spirits appears to be found in the Ainu system, though this latter is in general not well developed.[1780]

+972+. A definite antagonism of good and bad Powers is found in the religion of the non-Aryan Khonds of Orissa: the earth-G.o.ddess Tari, the creature but the opponent of the sun-G.o.d Bella Pennu, introduced sin and death into the world and contested (and, according to one native account, still contests) with her creator the control of life. This explanation of the origin of death is a higher form of stories that occur abundantly in savage lore, with the important difference that in these death comes by accident, but here by malicious purpose. It is not clear whether or not the characters of Tari and Bella Pennu are conceived of ethically. The weapons (comets, winds, mountains) employed by the two deities indicate that the basis of the representation is a nature myth. Advanced eschatological thought appears in the opinion, held by some natives, that the good G.o.d was victorious in the contest.[1781]

+973+. In the great ancient religions, with the exception of Zoroastrianism, no dualistic scheme appears. An Egyptian G.o.d may be angry, as, for example, Ra, who in a fit of resentment causes men to be slain but soon repents; and Set, the enemy of Osiris, a nature G.o.d, seemed at one time to be on the way to become an embodiment of evil, but the Egyptian cult rejected this idea and Set gradually disappeared.[1782] The Babylonian cosmogonic myth, in which Tiamat is the enemy of the G.o.ds of order, has no cultic significance; the great ma.s.s of demonic beings was not organized into a kingdom of evil, and the Underworld deities, nature G.o.ds, while subject to ordinary human pa.s.sions, are not hostile to the G.o.ds of heaven and earth. The Hebrews adopted the Babylonian cosmogonic myth,[1783] but it became a mere literary attachment to the conception of the supreme G.o.d Yahweh, and was otherwise ineffective.

+974+. The same thing is true of certain cosmogonic myths of the Greeks, such as the war of the t.i.tans against Zeus and similar episodes. Ate and the Erinyes are embodiments of man's own evil nature or represent the punishment that overtakes guilt, but they do not represent a formal opposition to goodness nor are they organized into a definite body.[1784] The Roman Furies are practically identical in function with the Erinyes. In the old Teutonic religion the only figure who approaches essential badness is Loki; but he, though at times malignant and treacherous (as a human chieftain might be), remains a recognized member of the a.s.sembly of G.o.ds. As a nature G.o.d he may represent the elements of darkness and unhappiness in life, just as the various evil spirits in the world do, but he never approaches the position of an independent creator of evil.[1785] The Celtic deities Llew and Dylan are said to stand over against each other and to represent good and bad tendencies and elements of life; but they are not very distinct and are probably nothing more than somewhat developed local deities.[1786] In the Chinese and j.a.panese cults there is no indication of a conflict; evil spirits there are in abundance, but no cosmic antagonism.

+975+. In India the cosmogonic myths are to be interpreted in the same way as those mentioned above. Soma and Indra, as slayers of the demon Vritya, represent order as against disorder, but Vritya never had cultic significance; he appears only as a bodily demonstration of the power of the great G.o.ds. The asuras are not essentially different from the harmful spirits of savages, though it is true that they come into conflict with the friendly G.o.ds. Rahu, who causes eclipses by swallowing the sun, is only a nature deity of great might. In the Mahabharata there are powerful demons, and the civaite cult includes the worship of dread beings, but such worship only reflects the fear of the unfriendly elements of physical nature.[1787] Nor do we find in the persons of Durga, Kali, and the Yakshas, unpleasantly savage as these are, a conception of evil as an organized force directed against the good G.o.ds; they are rather the embodiment of evil human dispositions. The underground demons are punishers of sin, but not themselves morally evil. There is, it is true, in the Hindu religious scheme the general ant.i.thesis of light and darkness, which are connected with right and wrong--an ant.i.thesis that appears abundantly in other religious systems;[1788] but the powers of darkness are not organized against the powers of light, and there is no complete dualism, though we have here, perhaps, the starting-point for such a conception.

+976+. While thus a vague sense of duality has existed all over the world, and in certain cases, as it seems, there were vague attempts at organization, it is only in Zoroastrianism that the decisive step has been taken. We have to recognize in this system a distinct movement towards a unitary conception of the world; but the sense of difference in human experiences was so great in the mind of the creators of the system that they were led to a unification in two divisions.[1789] The origin of the movement lies far back at a time when there were no records of thought and social movements, and it is impossible now to say definitely what were the original elements of the cult. We may surmise that there was an Indo-Iranian conception of a general contrast between light and darkness, and that this was the starting-point or the basis of the developed Iranian theological system. The old Indic and the old Iranian religions seem to have been independent developments from a common original ma.s.s of material; but we do not know what determined the differences in the two developments. The constructions were the work, doubtless, of successions of reformers, but the details of these long-continued efforts have not come down to us.[1790] The essential point is that the evil ma.s.s in the world was conceived of as a unity by the Iranians and a.s.signed a head, Angro Mainyu. This name does not occur in the Achaemenian inscriptions, but it is mentioned in the Gathas and by Aristotle,[1791] so that it appears to belong to an early stratum of the Iranian religion. The present state of the world is regarded as the result of a constant series of antagonisms between the two creators, Spenta Mainyu (Ahura Mazda) and Angro Mainyu, these being attended each by a circle of helpers. A polytheistic interpretation of the helpers is avoided by making them abstractions (though with a tendency toward personification), the representatives of various features or elements in the government of the world or in the experiences of men.[1792]

+977+. A strictly dualistic system recognizes only two Powers in the world. The Avestan religion, however, admits other deities besides Ahura Mazda and Angro Mainyu; Mitra, Anahita, and others are objects of worship. The ancient national faiths, that is, were not content with a simple division of things between two divine beings. An approach to such a view was made by Judaism, which, partly under Persian influence, produced the figure of the Satan, a quasi-independent being hostile to the Supreme Deity.[1793] Christianity, adopting this conception from Judaism, elaborated it into the person of the Devil, the veritable head of a kingdom of evil, called in the New Testament "the G.o.d of this age."[1794] Though doomed to final defeat, as Ahriman in the Avesta is doomed, the Devil in the orthodox Christian system is practically omnipresent and is powerful enough to defeat the plans of G.o.d in many cases. In modern enlightened Christian feeling, however, he has become little more than a name. Though he is credited in theory with suggesting evil and alluring men to sin, this dogma has small force in the better minds against the strong conviction of individual freedom and responsibility. Current Christianity, in its highest forms, is theoretically, but not really, dualistic. The Satan is taken more seriously by Islam, which has adopted the conception from Christianity and Judaism.[1795] For the ordinary Moslem he belongs in the category of evil spirits and is as real as one of the jinn; he may be cursed and stoned and driven away,[1796] but he does not affect the Moslem belief in the oneness of G.o.d.

+978+. From the conquest of Persia by Alexander to the fall of the Parthian dynasty (a period of over five hundred years) little is known of the history of Mazdaism beyond the fact that it seems to have been adopted by the Parthians in a debased form; but about the time of the Persian revival under the Sa.s.sanians (226 A.D.) it pa.s.sed the bounds of its native land and made its way into the Roman Empire in the shape of Manichaeism, a mixture of dualistic and Christian Gnostic conceptions.