The Religious Sentiment Part 14

Vicarious sacrifice and the idea of sin.

Memorial rites are intended to recall the myth, or else to keep up the organization. The former are dramatic or imitative, the latter inst.i.tutionary. Tendency of memorial rites to become propitiatory.

Examples.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CULT, ITS SYMBOLS AND RITES.

As the side which a religious system presents to the intellect is shown in the Myth, so the side that it presents to sense is exhibited in the Cult. This includes the representation and forms of worship of the unknown power which presides over the fruition of the Prayer or religious wish. The representation is effected by the Symbol, the worship by the Rite. The development of these two, and their relation to religious thought, will be the subject of the present chapter.

The word Symbolism has a technical sense in theological writings, to wit, the discussion of creeds, quite different from that in which it is used in mythological science. Here it means the discussion of the natural objects which have been used to represent to sense supposed supernatural beings. As some conception of such beings must first be formed, the symbol is necessarily founded upon the myth, and must be explained by it.

A symbol is closely allied to an emblem, the distinction being that the latter is intended to represent some abstract conception or concrete fact, not supposed to be supernatural. Thus the serpent is the emblem of Esculapius, or, abstractly, of the art of healing; but in its use as a symbol in Christian art it stands for the Evil One, a supernatural being. The heraldric insignia of the Middle Ages were emblematic devices; but the architecture of the cathedrals was largely symbolic.

Both agree in aiming to aid the imagination and the memory, and both may appeal to any special sense, although the majority are addressed to sight alone.

Symbolism has not received the scientific treatment which has been so liberally bestowed on mythology. The first writer who approached it in the proper spirit was Professor Creuzer.[200-1] Previous to his labors the distinction between pictographic and symbolic art was not well defined. He drew the line sharply, and ill.u.s.trated it abundantly; but he did not preserve so clearly the relations of the symbol and the myth.

Indeed, he regarded the latter as a symbol, a "phonetic" one, to be treated by the same processes of a.n.a.lysis. Herein later students have not consented to follow him. The contrast between these two expressions of the religious sentiment becomes apparent when we examine their psychological origin. This Professor Creuzer did not include in his researches, nor is it dwelt upon at any length in the more recent works on the subject.[201-1] The neglect to do this has given rise to an arbitrariness in the interpretation of many symbols, which has often obscured their position in religious history.

What these principles are I shall endeavor to indicate; and first of the laws of the origin of symbols, the rules which guided the early intellect in choosing from the vast number of objects appealing to sense those fit to shadow forth the supernatural.

It may safely be a.s.sumed that this was not done capriciously, as the modern parvenue makes for himself a heraldric device. The simple and devout intellect of the primitive man imagined a real connection between the G.o.d and the symbol. Were this questioned, yet the wonderful unanimity with which the same natural objects, the serpent, the bird, the tree, for example, were everywhere chosen, proves that their selection was not the work of chance. The constant preference of these objects points conclusively to some strong and frequent connection of their images with mythical concepts.

The question of the origin of symbols therefore resolves itself into one of the a.s.sociation of ideas, and we start from sure ground in applying to their interpretation the established canons of a.s.sociation. These, as I have elsewhere said, are those of contiguity and similarity, the former producing a.s.sociation by the closeness of succession of impressions or thoughts, the latter through impressions or thoughts recalling like ones in previous experience. When the same occurrence affects different senses simultaneously, or nearly so, the a.s.sociation is one of _contiguity_, as thunder and lightning, for a sound cannot be _like_ a sight; when the same sense is affected in such a manner as to recall a previous impression, the a.s.sociation is one of _similarity_, as when the red autumn leaves recall the hue of sunset. Nearness in time or nearness in kind is the condition of a.s.sociation.

The intensity or permanence of the a.s.sociation depends somewhat on temperament, but chiefly on repet.i.tion or continuance. Not having an ear for music, I may find it difficult to recall a song from hearing its tune; but by dint of frequent repet.i.tion I learn to a.s.sociate them.

Light and heat, smoke and fire, poverty and hunger so frequently occur together, that the one is apt to recall the other. So do a large number of ant.i.thetical a.s.sociations, as light and darkness, heat and cold, by _inverse similarity_, opposite impressions reviving each other, in accordance with the positive and privative elements of a notion.

This brief reference to the laws of applied thought,--too brief, did I not take for granted that they are generally familiar--furnishes the clue to guide us through the labyrinth of symbolism, to wit, the repeated a.s.sociation of the event or power recorded in the myth with some sensuous image. Where there is a connection in kind between the symbol and that for which it stands, there is _related_ symbolism; where the connection is one of juxtaposition in time, there is _coincident_ symbolism. Mother Earth, fertile and fecund, was a popular deity in many nations, and especially among the Egyptians, who worshipped her under the symbol of a cow; this is related symbolism; the historical event of the execution of Christ occurred by crucifixion, one of several methods common in that age, and since then the cross has been the symbol of Christianity; this is coincident symbolism. It is easy for the two to merge, as when the cross was identified with a somewhat similar and much older symbol, one of the cla.s.s I have called "related," signifying the reproductive principle, and became the "tree of life." As a coincident symbol is to a certain extent accidental in origin, related symbols have always been most agreeable to the religious sentiment.

This remark embodies the explanation of the growth of religious symbolism, and also its gradual decay into decorative art and mnemonic design. The tendency of related symbolism is toward the identification of the symbol with that for which it stands, toward personification or prosopopeia; while what I may call the _secularization_ of symbols is brought about by regarding them more and more as accidental connections, by giving them conventional forms, and treating them as elements of architectural or pictorial design, or as aids to memory.

This tendency of related symbolism depends on a law of applied thought which has lately been formulated by a distinguished logician in the following words: "What is true of a thing, is true of its like."[204-1]

The similarity of the symbol to its prototype a.s.sumed, the qualities of the symbol, even those which had no share in deciding its selection, no likeness to the original, were lumped, and transferred to the divinity.

As those like by similarity, so those unlike, were identified by contiguity, as traits of the unknown power. This is the active element in the degeneracy of religious idealism. The cow or the bull, chosen first as a symbol of creation or fecundity, led to a worship of the animal itself, and a transfer of its traits, even to its horns, to the G.o.d. In a less repulsive form, the same tendency shows itself in the pietistic ingenuity of such poets as Adam de Sancto Victore and George Herbert, who delight in taking some biblical symbol, and developing from it a score of applications which the original user never dreamt of. In such hands a chance simile grows to an elaborate myth.

Correct thought would prevent the extension of the value of the symbol beyond the original element of similarity. More than this, it would recognize the fact that similarity does not suppose ident.i.ty, but the reverse, to wit, defect of likeness; and this dissimilitude must be the greater, as the original and symbol are naturally discrepant. The supernatual,[TN-11] however, whether by this term we mean the unknown or the universal--still more if we mean the incomprehensible--is utterly discrepant with the known, except by an indefinitely faint a.n.a.logy. In the higher thought, therefore, the symbol loses all trace of ident.i.ty and becomes merely emblematic.

The ancients defended symbolic teaching on this very ground, that the symbol left so much unexplained, that it stimulated the intellect and trained it to profounder thinking;[205-1] practically it had the reverse effect, the symbol being accepted as the thing itself.

Pa.s.sing from these general rules of the selection of symbols, to the history of the symbol when chosen, this presents itself to us in a reciprocal form, first as the myth led to the adoption and changes in the symbol, and as the latter in turn altered and reformed the myth.

The tropes and figures of rhetoric by which the conceptions of the supernatural were first expressed, give the clue to primitive symbolism.

A very few examples will be sufficient. No one can doubt that the figure of the serpent was sometimes used in pictorial art to represent the lightning, when he reads that the Algonkins _straightly_ called the latter a snake; when he sees the same adjective, spiral or winding, (??????ed??) applied by the Greeks to the lightning and a snake; when the Quiche call the electric flash a strong serpent; and many other such examples. The Pueblo Indians represent lightning in their pictographs by a zigzag line. A zigzag fence is called in the Middle States a worm or "snake" fence. Besides this, adjectives which describe the line traced by the serpent in motion are applied to many twisting or winding objects, as a river, a curl or lock of hair, the tendrils of a vine, the intestines, a trailing plant, the mazes of a dance, a bracelet, a broken ray of light, a sickle, a crooked limb, an anfractuous path, the phallus, etc. Hence the figure of a serpent may, and in fact has been, used with direct reference to every one of these, as could easily be shown. How short-sighted then the expounder of symbolism who would explain the frequent recurrence of the symbol or the myth of the serpent wherever he finds it by any one of these!

This narrowness of exposition becomes doubly evident when we give consideration to two other elements in primitive symbolism--the multivocal nature of early designs, and the misapprehensions due to contiguous a.s.sociation.

To ill.u.s.trate the first, let us suppose, with Schwarz[207-1] and others, that the serpent was at first the symbol of the lightning. Its most natural representation would be in motion; it might then stand for the other serpentine objects I have mentioned; but once accepted as an acknowledged symbol, the other qualities and properties of the serpent would present themselves to the mind, and the effort would be made to discover or to imagine likenesses to these in the electric flash. The serpent is venomous; it casts its skin and thus seems to renew its life; it is said to fascinate its prey; it lives in the ground; it hisses or rattles when disturbed: none of these properties is present to the mind of the savage who scratches on the rock a zigzag line to represent the lightning G.o.d. But after-thought brings them up, and the a.s.sociation of contiguity can apply them all to the lightning, and actually has done so over and over again; and not only to it, but also to other objects originally represented by a broken line, for example, the river G.o.ds and the rays of light.

This complexity is increased by the ambiguous representation of symbolic designs. The serpent, no longer chosen for its motion alone, will be expressed in art in that form best suited to the meaning of the symbol present in the mind of the artist. Realism is never the aim of religious art. The zigzag line, the coil, the spiral, the circle and the straight line, are all geometrical radicals of various serpentine forms. Any one of these may be displayed with fanciful embellishments and artistic aids. Or the artist, proceeding by synecdoche, takes a part for the whole, and instead of portraying the entire animal, contents himself with one prominent feature or one aspect of it. A striking instance of this has been developed by Dr. Harrison Allen, in the prevalence of what he calls the "crotalean curve," in aboriginal American art, a line which is the radical of the profile view of the head of the rattlesnake (_crotalus_).[208-1] This he has detected in the architectural monuments of Mexico and Yucatan, in the Maya phonetic scrip, and even in the rude efforts of the savage tribes. Each of these elective methods of representing the serpent, would itself, by independent a.s.sociation, call up ideas out of all connection whatever with that which the figure first symbolized. These, in the mind entertaining them, will supersede and efface the primitive meaning. Thus the circle is used in conventional symbolic art to designate the serpent; but also the eye, the ear, the open mouth, the mamma, the sun, the moon, a wheel, the womb, the v.a.g.i.n.a, the return of the seasons, time, continued life, hence health, and many other things. Whichever of these ideas is easiest recalled will first appear on looking at a circle. The error of those who have discussed mythological symbolism has been to trace a connection of such advent.i.tious ideas beyond the symbol to its original meaning; whereas the symbol itself is the starting-point. To one living in a region where venomous serpents abound, the figure of one will recall the sense of danger, the dread of the bite, and the natural hostility we feel to those who hurt us; whereas no such ideas would occur to the native of a country where there are no snakes, or where they are harmless, unless taught this a.s.sociation.

Few symbols have received more extended study than that of the cross, owing to its prominence in Christian art. This, as I have said, was coincident or incidental only. It corresponded, however, to a current "phonetic symbol," in the expression common to the Greeks and Romans of that day, "to take up one's cross," meaning to prepare for the worst, a metaphor used by Christ himself.

Now there is no agreement as to what was the precise form of the cross on which he suffered. Three materially unlike crosses are each equally probable. In symbolic art these have been so multiplied that now _two hundred and twenty-two_ variants of the figure are described![210-1] Of course there is nothing easier than to find among these similarities, with many other conventional symbols, the Egyptian Tau, the Hammer of Thor, the "Tree of Fertility," on which the Aztecs nailed their victims, the crossed lines which are described on Etruscan tombs, or the logs crossed at rectangles, on which the Muskogee Indians built the sacred fire. The four cardinal points are so generally objects of worship, that more than any other mythical conception they have been represented by cruciform figures. But to connect these in any way with the symbol as it appears in Christian art, is to violate every scientific principle.

Each variant of a symbol may give rise to myths quite independent of its original meaning. A symbol once adopted is preserved by its sacred character, exists long as a symbol, but with ever fluctuating significations. It always takes that which is uppermost in the mind of the votary and the congregation. Hence, psychology, and especially the psychology of races, is the only true guide in symbolic exegesis.

Nor is the wide adoption and preservation of symbols alone due to an easily noticed similarity between certain objects and the earliest conceptions of the supernatural, or to the preservative power of religious veneration.

I have previously referred to the a.s.sociations of ideas arising from ancestral reversions of memory, and from the principles of minimum muscular action and harmonic excitation. Such laws make themselves felt unconsciously from the commencement of life, with greater or less power, dependent on the susceptibility of the nervous system. They go far toward explaining the recurrence and permanence of symbols, whether of sight or sound. Thus I attribute the prevalence of the serpentine curve in early religious art largely to its approach to the "line of beauty,"

which is none other than that line which the eye, owing to the arrangement of its muscles, can follow with the minimum expenditure of nervous energy. The satisfaction of the mind in viewing symmetrical figures or harmonious coloring, as also that of the ear, in hearing accordant sounds, is, as I have remarked, based on the principle of maximum action with minimum waste. The mind gets the most at the least cost.

The equilateral triangle, which is the simplest geometrical figure which can enclose a s.p.a.ce, thus satisfying the mind the easiest of any, is nigh universal in symbolism. It is seen in the Egyptian pyramids, whose sides are equilateral triangles with a common apex, in the mediaeval cathedrals, whose designs are combinations of such triangles, in the sign for the trinity, the pentalpha, etc.

The cla.s.sification of some symbols of less extensive prevalence must be made from their phonetic values. One cla.s.s was formed as were the "canting arms" in heraldry, that is, by a rebus. This is in its simpler form, direct, as when Quetzalcoatl, the mystical hero-G.o.d of Atzlan, is represented by a bird on a serpent, _quetzal_ signifying a bird, _coatl_ a serpent; or composite, two or more of such rebus symbols being blended by synecdoche, like the "marshalling" of arms in heraldry, as when the same G.o.d is portrayed by a feathered serpent; or the rebus may occur with paronymy, especially when the literal meaning of a name of the G.o.d is lost, as when the Algonkins forgot the sense of the word _wabish_, white or bright, as applied to their chief divinity, and confounding it with _wabos_, a rabbit, wove various myths about their ancestor, the Great Hare, and chose the hare or rabbit as a totemic badge.[212-1]

It is almost needless to add further that the ideas most frequently a.s.sociated with the unknown object of religion are those, which, struggling after material expression, were most fecund in symbols. We have but to turn to the Orphic hymns, or those of the Vedas or the Hebrew Psalms, to see how inexhaustible was the poetic fancy, stirred by religious awe, in the discovery of similitudes, any of which, under favoring circ.u.mstances, might become a symbol.

Before leaving this branch of my subject, I may ill.u.s.trate some of the preceding comments by applying them to one or two well known subjects of religious art.

A pleasing symbol, which has played a conspicuous part in many religions, is the Egyptian lotus, or "lily of the Nile." It is an aquatic plant, with white, roseate or blue flowers, which float upon the water, and send up from their centre long stamens. In Egypt it grows with the rising of the Nile, and as its appearance was coincident with that important event, it came to take prominence in the worship of Isis and Osiris as the symbol of fertility. Their mystical marriage took place in its blossom. In the technical language of the priests, however, it bore a profounder meaning, that of the supremacy of reason above matter, the contrast being between the beautiful flower and the muddy water which bears it.[214-1] In India the lotus bears other and manifold meanings. It is a symbol of the sacred river Ganges, and of the morally pure. No prayer in the world has ever been more frequently repeated than this: "Om! the jewel in the lotus. Amen" (_om mani padme hum_). Many millions of times, every hour, for centuries, has this been iterated by the Buddhists of Thibet and the countries north of it. What it means, they can only explain by fantastic and mystical guesses.

Probably it refers to the legendary birth of their chief saint, Avalokitesvara, who is said to have been born of a lotus flower. But some say it is a piece of symbolism not strange to its meaning in Egypt,[214-2] and borrowed by Buddhism from the Siva worship. In the symbolic language of this sect the lotus is the symbol of the v.a.g.i.n.a, while the phallus is called "the jewel." With this interpretation the Buddhist prayer would refer to the reproductive act; but it is ill.u.s.trative of the necessity of attributing wholly diverse meanings to the same symbol, that the Buddhists neither now nor at any past time attached any such signification to the expression, and it would be most discrepant with their doctrines to do so.[214-3]

Another symbol has frequently been open to this duplicate interpretation, that is, the upright pillar. The Egyptian obelisk, the pillars of "Irmin" or of "Roland," set up now of wood, now of stone by the ancient Germans, the "red-painted great warpole" of the American Indians, the May-pole of Old England, the spire of sacred edifices, the staff planted on the grave, the terminus of the Roman landholders, all these objects have been interpreted to be symbols of life, or the life-force. As they were often of wood, the trunk of a tree for instance, they have often been called by t.i.tles equivalent to the "tree of life," and are thus connected with the nigh innumerable myths which relate to some mystic tree as the source of life. The ash Ygdrasyl of the Edda, the oak of Dordona and of the Druid, the modern Christmas tree, the sacred banyan, the holy groves, ill.u.s.trate but faintly the prevalence of tree worship. Even so late as the time of Canute, it had to be forbidden in England by royal edict.

Now, the general meaning of this symbol I take to be the same as that which led to the choice of hills and "high places," as sites for altars and temples, and to the a.s.signing of mountain tops as the abodes of the chief G.o.ds. It is seen in adjectives applied, I believe, in all languages, certainly all developed ones, to such deities themselves.

These adjectives are related to adverbs of place, signifying _above_, _up_ or _over_. We speak of the supernatural, or supernal powers, the Supreme Being, the Most High, He in Heaven, and such like. So do all Aryan and Semitic tongues. Beyond them, the Chinese name for the Supreme Deity, Tien, means _up_. I have elsewhere ill.u.s.trated the same fact in native American tongues. The a.s.sociation of light and the sky above, the sun and the heaven, is why we raise our hands and eyes in confident prayer to divinity. That at times, however, a religion of s.e.x-love did identify these erect symbols with the phallus as the life-giver, is very true, but this was a temporary and advent.i.tious meaning a.s.signed a symbol far more ancient than this form of religion.

In this review of the principles of religious symbolism, I have attempted mainly to exhibit the part it has sustained in the development of the religious sentiment. It has been generally unfavorable to the growth of higher thought. The symbol, in what it is above the emblem, a.s.sumes more than a similarity, a closer relation than a.n.a.logy; to some degree it pretends to a hypostatic union or ident.i.ty of the material with the divine, the known to sense with the unknown. Fully seen, this becomes object worship; partially so, personification.

There is no exception to this. The refined symbolisms which pa.s.s current to day as religious philosophies exemplify it. The one, esthetic symbolism, has its field in musical and architectural art, in the study and portraiture of the beautiful; the other, scientific symbolism, claims to discover in the morphology of organisms, in the harmonic laws of physics, and in the processes of the dialectic, the proof that symbolism, if not a revelation, is at least an unconscious inspiration of universal truth. This is the "Doctrine of Correspondences," much in favor with Swedenborgians, but by no means introduced by the founder of that sect. The recognition of the ident.i.ty in form of the fundamental laws of motion and thought, and the clearer understanding of the character of harmony which the experiments of Helmholtz and others give us, disperse most of the mystery about these similarities. The religion of art, as such, will come up for consideration in the next chapter.

The second form of the Cult is the Rite. This includes the acts or ceremonies of worship. Considered in the gross, they can be cla.s.sed as of two kinds, the first and earliest propitiatory, the second and later memorial or inst.i.tutionary.

We have but to bear in mind the one aspiration of commencing religious thought, to wit, the attainment of a wish, to see that whatever action arose therefrom must be directed to that purpose. Hence, when we a.n.a.lyze the rude ceremonies of savage cults, the motive is extremely apparent.

They, like their prayers, all point to the securing of some material advantage. They are designed

"to cozen The G.o.ds that constrain us and curse."

The motives which underlie these simplest as well as the most elaborate rituals, and impress upon them their distinctively religious character can be reduced to two, the idea of _sacrifice_ and the idea of _specific performance_.

The simplest notion involved in a sacrifice is that of _giving_. The value of the gift is not, however, the intrinsic worth of the thing given, nor even the pleasure or advantage the recipient derives therefrom, but, singularly enough, the amount of pain the giver experiences in depriving himself of it! This is also often seen in ordinary transactions. A rich man who subscribes a hundred dollars to a charity, is thought to merit less commendation than the widow who gives her mite. Measured by motive, this reasoning is correct. There is a justice which can be vindicated in holding self-denial to be a standard of motive. All developed religions have demanded the renunciation of what is dearest. The Ynglyngasaga tells us that in a time of famine, the first sacrifice offered to the G.o.ds was of beasts only; if this failed, men were slain to appease them; and if this did not mitigate their anger, the king himself was obliged to die that they might send plenty.

The Latin writers have handed it down that among the Germans and Gauls a human sacrifice was deemed the more efficacious the more distinguished the victim, and the nearer his relationship to him who offered the rite.[219-1] The slaughter of children and wives to please the G.o.ds was common in many religions, and the self-emasculation of the priests of Cybele, with other such painful rites, indicates that the measure of the sacrifice was very usually not what the G.o.d needed, but the willingness of the worshipper to give.

The second idea, that of _specific performance_, has been well expressed and humorously commented upon by Hume in his _Natural History of Religions_. He says: "Here I cannot forbear observing a fact which may be worth the attention of those who make human nature the object of their inquiry. It is certain that in every religion, many of the votaries, perhaps the greatest number, will seek the divine favor, not by virtue and good morals, but either by frivolous observances, by intemperate zeal, by rapturous ecstasies, or by the belief of mysterious and absurd opinions.