Jffritm tt|? SIthrartr of 
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IRigberg ^beotoQtcat Xlbrar^. 
 
SYMPOSIUMS 
 
 ON 
 
 GREAT QUESTIONS IN THEOLOGY AND LIFE. 
 
 Uniform style, 12mo, cloth, $1.50 each. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION ; or, Modern Problems 
 of the Faith. By Various Writers. 
 
 NON-BIBLICAL SYSTEMS OF RELIGION: A Sympo- 
 
 slum. By the Ven. Archdeacon Farrar, D.D,, Rev. Canon Raw- 
 LiNSON, M.A., Rev. W. Wright, D.D., Rabbi G. J. Emanuel, B.A., 
 Sir William Muir, Rev. Edwin Johnson, M.A., T. W. Rhys 
 Davids, LL.D., Ph.D., the Hon. Rasmus B. Anderson, Rev. W. 
 Nicolson, M.A. 
 
 FUTURE PROBATION : A Symposium on the Question, " Is 
 Salvation Possible after Death ? " By the Rev. Stanley Leathes, 
 D.D., Principal J. Cairns, D.D., LL.D., Rev. Edward White, 
 Rev. Stopford Brooke, M.A., Rev. Dr. Littledale, Right Rev. 
 the Bishop of Amycla, &c. 
 
 IMMORTALITY: A Symposium on What are the Founda- 
 tions of the Belief in the Immortality of Man? By the Rev. 
 Prebendary Row, M.A., Rabbi Hermann Adler, Professor G. G. 
 Stokes, F.R.S., Rev. Canon Knox-Little, Right Rev. Bishop of 
 Amycla, Rev. John Cairns, D.D., Rev. Edward White, and 
 others. 
 
 THE .ATONEMENT : A Symposium. By Archdeacon Farrar, 
 Professor Israel Abrahams, Rev. Dr. Littledale, Rev. G. W. 
 Olver, Principal Rainy, D.D., the Bishop op Amycla, and others. 
 
 INSPIRATION : A Symposium on In what Sense and within 
 what Limits is the Bible the Word of God? By Archdeacon 
 Farrar, the Revs. Principal Cairns, Stanley Leathes, D.D., 
 Prebendary Row, J. Radford Thomson, Right Rev. Bishop op 
 Amycla, and others. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 and 3 BIBLE HOUSE. 
 
'Non-Biblical Systems 
 OF Religion. 
 
 H Symposium. V^/^t 
 
 BY THE 
 
 VEN. ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D., 
 
 REV. CANON RAWLINSON, M.A., 
 
 REV. W. WRIGHT, D.D., 
 
 RABBI G. J. EMANUEL, B.A., 
 
 SIR WILLIAM MUIR, 
 
 REV. EDWIN JOHNSON, M.A., 
 
 T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., Ph.D., 
 
 THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON, 
 
 REV. WM. NICOLSON, M.A. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 T. WHITTAKER, BIBLE HOUSE. 
 
 1887. 
 
)^ 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 T^HE following articles are reprinted from the 
 Homiletic Magazine. The subject is of 
 such importance that this volume will probably 
 be heartily welcomed by those ^vho are studying 
 Comparative Eeligionism, the questions connected 
 with which, the recent notable advances of research, 
 and our increasing facilities of intercourse with 
 foreign nations, have brought, in an unmistakable 
 manner, to the front. Our aim has been to furnish 
 comprehensive outlines of the chief religious systems 
 of the world in a popular yet fairly accurate and 
 scholarly way. Many of the waiters are recognised 
 authorities in their respective departments. A few 
 heathen systems — e.g., Brahmanism and Zoroastri- 
 anism — have not been touched upon, but the sources 
 
VI PEEFACE. 
 
 of information respectiDg them are both numerous 
 and easy of access. Believing, as we do, that Chris- 
 tianity has nothing to fear, but a great deal to gain, 
 from an intelligent comparison of its claims with 
 those of its predecessors and rivals, we commit the 
 book, with all confidence, to the judgment of the 
 
 public. 
 
 Fredk. Hastings, 
 
 A. F. MuiR, 
 
 Editors of the " Homiletic Magazine." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 mTRODUCTIO:^'— ETHNIC IXSPIRATION . . i 
 By the Ven. archdeacon FARRAR, D.D. 
 
 II. 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS . . . .17 
 
 By the Rev. GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A., Canon of 
 Canterbury Cathedral. 
 
 III. 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS— continued . .35 
 
 By the Rev. GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A., Canon 
 of Canterbury Cathedral. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ANCIENT CANAANITE RELIGIONS ... 54 
 By the Rev. WILLIAM WRIGHT, D.D., Secretary to 
 Vj the British and Foreign Bible Society, and Author of 
 
 " The Empire of the Hittites," &c. 
 
 Y. 
 
 EARLIER HELLENIC RELIGIONS .... 69 
 By the Rev. EDWIN JOHNSON, M.A., Professor of 
 Classical Literature, New College, London. 
 
VIU CONTENTS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE JEWISH EAITH .85 
 
 By Rabbi G. J. EMANUEL, B.A., of the Jews' Syna- 
 gogue, Birmingham. 
 
 VII. 
 
 ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY . . . .104 
 
 By Sir WILLIAM MUIR, Principal of Edinburgh Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 YIII. 
 
 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY . . .115 
 
 By T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., Ph.D., Barrister-at- 
 Law, and author of "Buddhism," "The Hibhert Lec- 
 tures, 1 88 1." 
 
 IX. 
 
 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION . . 135 
 
 By the Hon. RASMUS B. ANDERSON, Minister of 
 the United States, Denmark, and Author of " Norse 
 Mythology," "America not Discovered by Columbus," 
 &c. 
 
 X. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT SCANDINA- 
 VIANS 153 
 
 By the Hon. RASMUS B. ANDERSON. 
 
 XL 
 
 POSITIVISM AS A RELIGION . . . .178 
 
 By the Rev. Professor J. RADFORD THOMSON, 
 M.A., New College, London. 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 XII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION . . 195 
 
 By the Rev. W. NICOLSON, M.A., of St. Petersburg, 
 Secretary to the British and Foreign Bible Society's 
 Work in Russia. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE ONE PURELY MORAL 'RELIGIOI^— continued 214 
 By the Rev. W. NICOLSON, M,A. 
 
NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS. 
 
 A SYMPOSIUM ON: WHAT IS THE RELATION OF 
 NON-CHRISTIAN SYSTEMS TO BIBLICAL THEOLOGY? 
 
 INTRODUCTION— ETHNIC INSPIRATION. 
 
 I. 
 
 By the Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR, D.D. 
 
 "VTO one who studies tlie movements of theological 
 thought can have failed to observe that, of 
 late years, there has been a change of tone in the 
 manner of regarding heathen religions. In past 
 days it was common to speak of them with sweep- 
 ing denunciation as doctrines of devils unrelieved 
 by any ennobling elements. Since the beginning 
 of this century, and partly, perhaps, in consequence 
 of the influence of Lessing, there has been a tend- 
 ency to search for the elements of truth which they 
 all contain. Thus Brahmanism, dissevered from its 
 later corruptions, has been examined in the light 
 
2 ETHNIC INSPIRATION. 
 
 of the Yedas, and found to embody many 'noble 
 principles. Buddhism has been studied with pro- 
 found care, and though it must be freely admitted 
 that it is a religion which is practically without a 
 God, and without any doctrine of conscious immor- 
 tality, it has yet been seen to be in possession of 
 many deep spiritual truths. Our missionaries 
 have testified that in many instances the lives of 
 Buddhist priests set a conspicuous example of 
 sincerity and purity. When the early Jesuit 
 fathers first came in contact with the institutions 
 of Buddhism, they were startled and even shocked 
 by the close resemblance which they presented to 
 those of Latin Christianity. They could find no 
 other solution of the problem than diabolical cari- 
 cature. It may be that the resemblance is due in 
 part to the similarity of man's religious needs all 
 over the world, and in part to an early diff*usion of 
 Christian thought by Nestorian and other mis- 
 sionaries. There are strong grounds for believing 
 that the points of similarity between the story of 
 Guatama and the records of out Lord in the Gospel 
 of St. John are not purely accidental, and they 
 may have been imported into Eastern life by 
 wandering teachers at an age which nearly touches 
 on the Christian era. On the other hand, we have 
 no reason to reject the main contention of Mr. 
 
THE VEN. ARCHDEACON FARRAE. 3 
 
 Herbert Spencer's new book on ecclesiastical insti- 
 tutions, which is that many of the distinctive 
 truths and practices of the faith are not without 
 their analogue in many other forms of religion. 
 There should be nothing to surprise us in such a 
 fact. The heart and mind of man are the same 
 over all the world, and the instinctive impulses 
 of the human spirit have not been left unguided 
 by the great Father of mankind. Let us again 
 compare the treatment of Mohammedanism by re- 
 cent writers and by those of an earlier period. 
 Mohammed used always to be spoken of with 
 execration as though he were an incarnation of all 
 wickedness. " Blood-stained fanatic " and " wilv 
 impostor" were among the milder objurgations 
 bestowed upon him, while Islam was condemned, 
 without mitigation, as a sink of corruption. Deeper 
 knowledge has shown us that a true picture of this 
 religion of so many millions of our race cannot be 
 painted in colours so entirely black. If we still 
 condemn, we have learnt to do so with more fair- 
 ness and discrimination. We can see that, amons: 
 many crimes and vices, the Prophet of Arabia had 
 also some noble qualities, and that the ideal of the 
 true Moslem is very far indeed from being despi- 
 cable or degraded. 
 
 Multifarious as are the elements combined in 
 
4 ETHNIC INSPIRATION. 
 
 Scripture, and many as are tlie different tones in 
 which it speaks to us, yet even from the Old 
 Testament we might have learnt that there is such 
 a thing as Ethnic inspiration, and that God has 
 not confined to the chosen people either His other 
 gifts or His illuminating grace. More than one 
 fragmentary record of heathen origin has been 
 incorporated into Holy Writ. *' The spirit of man," 
 says Solomon, " is the candle of the Lord," and by 
 " man " he did not mean the Jew only. Cyrus was 
 a heathen, a worshipper of the sun, yet the later 
 Isaiah not only speaks of him with profound 
 respect, but even calls him "the Messiah" or 
 '' anointed " of the Lord. In the " Wisdom Litera- 
 ture " particularly there is a generous recognition 
 of the endowments which God has bestowed upon 
 various members of our race without distinction 
 of nationality or creed. We still read with plea- 
 sure on All Saints' Day the beautiful passage of 
 Ecclesiasticus, " Let us now praise famous men, and 
 our fathers that begat us. The Lord hath wrought 
 great glory by them through his power from the 
 beginning. Such as did bear rule in their 
 kingdoms . . . giving counsel by their under- 
 standing and declaring prophecies . . . wise and 
 eloquent in their instructions. Such as found 
 out musical tunes and recited verses in writing, 
 
THE YEN. ARCHDEACON FAKRAR. 5 
 
 rich men furnislied with ability, living peaceably in 
 their habitations." These eloquent teachers and 
 great discoverers were not all of the Hebrew race. 
 
 In the New Testament, as we should have ex- 
 pected, this thought of the Fatherhood of God 
 and brotherhood of men, and of the common heri- 
 tage of the gifts of the Spirit, is still more clearly 
 illus^-rated. Christ's type of love to our neighbour 
 is the mongrel and despised Samaritan. He says 
 of the heathen centurion, that He had not found so 
 great faith, no, not in Israel. Though he was not 
 sent but to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, 
 He extended His miraculous blessings even to the 
 poor Syro-Phoenician woman. His last message to 
 His Apostles was that they were to go into all the 
 world and make disciples of every nation. 
 
 Very early did they fulfil the mission. When 
 Peter opened to the Gentiles the gates of the king- 
 dom of Heaven, the Holy Spirit fell on the Eoman 
 centurion and his household even before they had 
 been baptized. Philip readily admitted into the 
 Church the Ethiopian eunuch. The Christians who 
 were scattered after the martyrdom of Stephen 
 preached as freely to Greeks as to Jews. Paul and 
 Barnabas devoted themselves mainly to the Apos- 
 tolate of the Gentiles. 
 
 And of all the Apostles, none admitted so fully 
 
6 ETHNIC INSPIRATION. 
 
 as St. Paul the principle of Ethnic inspiration, and 
 the free equal love of God to the heathen as to the 
 Hebrews. His large heart seemed to delight in 
 the prospect of a whole world equally guilty yet 
 equally redeemed. The cosmopolitan sympathies, 
 which may have been due in part to his early 
 Tarsian education, burst into full blossom when 
 they had been transplanted from the barren soil of 
 Pharisaism. In his speech at Lystra he makes 
 a direct appeal to the sense of God's presence as 
 revealed by the beauty and fruitfulness of the 
 natural world. The thought must have been 
 familiar to him from the Book of Wisdom. There, 
 though the heathen are blamed for worshipping 
 " fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the 
 stars, or the violent water, or the lights of heaven,'* 
 they are yet partially excused ^* because the things 
 that are seen are beautiful." They are reminded 
 that if their error arose while peradventure they 
 were seeking God, and desirous to find Him, it 
 would not have been beyond their capacity to infer 
 proportionally from the greatness and beauty of 
 the creatures, "how much mightier is He that 
 made them." ^' So St. Paul tells the Lystrenians 
 that they should turn from their imaginary gods 
 " unto the living God, who made heaven, and earth, 
 
 * Wisdom xiii. 1-9. 
 
THE VEN. ARCHDEACON FAREAR. 7 
 
 and the sea, and all things that are therein ; who 
 in times past suffered all nations to walk in their 
 own ways. Nevertheless He left not Himself 
 without witness, in that He did good, and gave 
 rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our 
 hearts with food and gladness." 
 
 With a skill and eloquence yet more remarkable 
 did St. Paul make use of his accidental notice of 
 an altar " to the unknown God " at Athens. He 
 won the attention of the Athenians by telling 
 them that he was but making known to them the 
 God whom, without knowing it, they worshipped. 
 In this speech occurs the noble passage which pre- 
 sents us with his philosophy of history. God — 
 so he tells the Athenian philosophers — had made 
 all the nations of one, and determined their des- 
 tinies and the bounds of their habitations expressly 
 that they should seek God, if haply they might feel 
 after Him and find Him, though He be not far 
 from every one of us : " For in Him we live and 
 move and have our being, as certain also of your 
 own poets have said,*For we are also His offspring.'" 
 
 Nor was this a mere passing thought with the 
 great Apostle. In the elaborate argument with 
 which he opens his greatest epistle, he contends 
 that it was fully within the power of the heathen 
 to have recognised that which may be known of 
 
8 ETHNIC INSPIRATION. 
 
 God, ^' for God manifested it unto them. For the 
 invisible things of Him since the creation of the 
 world are clearly seen, being perceived through the 
 things that are made, even His everlasting power 
 and divinity ; that they may be without excuse, 
 because that knowing God, they glorified Him not 
 as God, neither gave thanks." He also insists 
 upon the truths of natural religion when he says 
 that there were Gentiles who, not having the law, 
 did hy nature the things contained in the law. 
 Thus they were "a law unto themselves," and 
 showed "the work of the law written in their hearts, 
 their conscience also bearing witness, and their 
 thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing 
 one another." 
 
 And while St. Paul thus shows his recognition of 
 the elements of a natural religion by this broad and 
 kindly view of God's dealings with the heathen 
 world, he practically illustrates his belief by his 
 obvious sympathy with their institutions and mode 
 of life. The burning hatred of a Jew for every 
 form of idolatry did not prevent him from look- 
 ing with sympathy on the more innocent aspects 
 of pagan life. He twice derives his metaphors 
 from the theatre,* and frequently from the Greek 
 games — the chariot-race, the boxing-match, the 
 
 * I Cor. iv. 9 ; vii. 31. 
 
THE VEN. AECHDEACON FARPvAR. 9 
 
 runners and their prize garlands of parsley or of 
 pine.* It is also known to all that he introduces 
 at least three direct quotations from heathen poets 
 into the sacred page. In Titus i. 12 he quotes a 
 famous proverbial hexameter of Epimenides ; in 
 
 1 Cor. XV. 33 an iambic of Menander ; and in his 
 speech on the Areopagus an hemistich which is 
 found both in Kleanthes and Aratus. I have 
 shown elsewhere that each of the three quotations 
 was more or less proverbial ; t that each of them 
 occurs in at least two poets ; and that taken alone 
 they are wholly insufficient to prove that the 
 Apostle had anything but the most meagre ac- 
 quaintance with Greek literature. They are the 
 only quotations which he uses, unless the con- 
 clusion of the speech at Lystra, which easily falls 
 into an anapaestic rhythm, be also a quotation from 
 some unknown lyric poet. But whether St. Paul 
 had read much Greek literature or not, it is 
 interestmg to see that he does not shrink from 
 adducing the thoughts and words of heathen 
 writers not only in addressing idolaters, but even 
 in solemn epistles to Christian men. 
 
 And it may, I think, be fairly inferred from 
 
 * I Cor. ix. 24 ; Phil. lii. 14 ; i Thess. ii. 19 ; i Tim. vi. 12 ; 
 
 2 Tim. iv. 8. 
 
 t Life of St. Faulf i. 630-633 
 
10 ETHNIC INSPIRATION. 
 
 these arguments and quotations that St. Paul 
 would have been the last to deny that there was 
 such a thing as Ethnic inspiration. Nor would St. 
 James have denied it, though his whole tone of 
 mind was more rigid and Judaic than that of his 
 great contemporary. The hexametrical and iambic 
 rhythms in his epistle may not prove much, and 
 may even be due to a Greek amanuensis ; nor can 
 we insist on the classic 'parallels which may be 
 furnished for several passages in his epistle, nor 
 on the curious expression " the wheel of nature." * 
 But St. James lays down, without any limitation, 
 the great principle that every good gift (SoVt?) 
 and every perfect boon (Bwprjfia) is from above, 
 comino^ down from the Father of li2:hts — " with 
 whom," he adds, apparently with a reference to 
 the discoveries of astronomy, " can be no variation, 
 neither shadow that is cast by turning." 
 
 In this principle of St. James we find the 
 strongest recognition of the truth that there can 
 be no power of the human intellect which is not 
 bestowed by God. He must clearly, therefore, 
 have believed that the wisdom, the eloquence, the 
 piety of pagan writers was the result of an in- 
 spiration from above. 
 
 Nor is St. John less clear in his statement of the 
 
 * James iii. 6, Tbf rpbxov ttjs yeviaeus. 
 
THE VEN. ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 11 
 
 truth that God has revealed Himself to, and has in- 
 spired, men in all ages. He dwells on this thought 
 in the golden prologue of his Gospel. The Eternal 
 Word, he says, created all things. " In Him was 
 life, and the life was the light of men.'' He was 
 manifested in historic presence ; He was yet more 
 fully manifested by the outpouring of His Spirit ; but 
 He had been manifested by His works from the 
 beginning of the creation, not only to separate in- 
 dividuals, but to man, who, being made in the image 
 of God, stood in a special relation to Him. " He 
 saith not the light of the Jews only " — such is the 
 comment of Theophylact — " hut of all men : " for all 
 of us, so far as we have received intellect and 
 reason from that Word which created us, are said 
 to be illumined by Him. The light of the Divine 
 Word has been shining continuously amid man's 
 self -induced darkness, and deep as that darkness at 
 times became, it never wholly overcame [KarekaPev) 
 the heavenly light. Amid many false lights there 
 was always the true light, which in Nature and life 
 and conscience is ever coming into the world, and 
 which leaves no single man wholly destitute of a 
 Divine illumination.* In this profound passage 
 St. John does but clearly express and illustrate 
 what had been implied so long before in the rap- 
 * John i. 4, 5 9, and Canon Westcott's Commentary. 
 
12 ETHNIC INSPIRATION. 
 
 turous exclamation of David, '' How excellent is 
 Thy loving-kindness, God ! therefore the children 
 of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy 
 wings. . . . For with Thee is the fountain of life ; 
 in Thy light do we see light." *"' 
 
 We are prepared, then, to see the light of God 
 shininof even on the heathen. In the sacred books of 
 the East there are many lovely and holy thoughts, 
 many flashes of subtle insight, many trains of pro- 
 found speculation. The classic writers of Greece 
 and Eome have enriched the thoughts of the world 
 with a literature that has never been surpassed. 
 The attitude of Christians towards this literature 
 has often been singularly narrow and mistaken. 
 They have condemned the study of it as involving 
 a waste of time and a diminution of spirituality. 
 They have failed to see that exquisite thoughts 
 conveyed in perfect language could hardly have 
 been due to an inspiration of the devil. The 
 Emperor Julian showed deeper insight when he 
 saw that Christian teachers gained greatly from 
 the study of pagan literature, and therefore forbad 
 "the Galileans" to avail themselves of this source 
 of culture. He was well aware that among the 
 opponents of the pagan reaction, at the head of 
 which he placed himself, none were so much to be 
 
 * Psalm xxxvi. 7-9. 
 
THE VEN. ARCHDEACON FAERAR. 13 
 
 dreaded as the great Cappadocian scholars, Basil 
 the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus, who had been 
 fellow-students with himself in the schools of 
 Athens. It is true that the ascetic spirit was in- 
 clined to disparage the study of pagan writers as 
 a w^aste of time. Jerome in his early years had 
 been an ardent student of classical literature, but 
 his conscience was rendered uneasy by a dream, in 
 which he was suddenly taken before the judgment- 
 seat of God, and there fell on his face in terror. 
 Asked who he was, he replied, " I am a Christian." 
 " Thou liest," was the answer ; " thou art a Cicero- 
 nian, not a Christian ; for where your treasure is, 
 there also is your heart." He was then scourged, 
 and in his agony cried out that he would never 
 again offend by heathen studies. The frequency of 
 the classical allusions in later writings makes it 
 tolerably certain, however, that he could not 
 entirely have abandoned the favourite reading of 
 his earlier days. Indeed, when taunted by Eufinus 
 with having broken his vow, he falls back upon the 
 plea that after all that vow was only taken in a 
 dream. As time went on, the jealousy felt by 
 Christian writers towards grammatic studies be- 
 came deeper and stronger. Gregory the Great — 
 in terms which at once recall those which Shake- 
 speare puts into the mouth of Jack Cade — severely 
 
14 ETHNIC INSPIRATION. 
 
 reproved Diclier, Archbishop of Yienne, for trying 
 to reintroduce the teaching of grammar. But the 
 entire abandonment of classical studies synchro- 
 nised with the period in which mankind fell into 
 the deepest ignorance and subjection. The Eevival 
 of Letters led to the revival of a purer Christianity. 
 The Humanists were the immediate precursors of 
 the Eeformers. " Greece rose from the dead with 
 the New Testament in her hand." 
 
 And if some great Christian teachers — especially 
 among the later and Western Fathers — were in- 
 clined to disparage the entire life and thought and 
 literature of the heathen world, we must not forget 
 that the great Greek Fathers showed a wiser libe- 
 rality. Justin Martyr, who had himself entered 
 Christianity through the portals of Philosophy, 
 held that all who lived conformably to truth 
 were Christians, even if they were regarded as 
 atheists. Among them he mentions Socrates and 
 Heraclitus. He even goes so far as to say that 
 Socrates had known Christ, though only in part, 
 since Christ is the Divine Eeason, of whom every 
 race of men partakes.* He also, like other 
 Fathers, attributes inspiration to " The Sibyl " and 
 ' ' Hystaspes," and freely quotes from them. Clement 
 of Alexandria is still more cosmopolitan in his theo- 
 
 ■* Just. Mart. ApoLj i. 46, ii. 10, 
 
THE YEN. ARCHDEACUK FARRAR. 15 
 
 logy. He had anticipated Lessing by many cen- 
 turies in his conception of the education of the 
 human race by a Divine Instructor. He does 
 not give any definition of " Inspiration " — indeed 
 no Christian Father has done so, nor has any defi- 
 nition ever been accepted by the Universal Church 
 — but it appears from almost every page of his 
 writings that he drew no distinction in kind be- 
 tween the inspiration of the sacred writers and that 
 which he believed to have been imparted to the 
 greatest of the Greek philosophers. In these views 
 he was heartily followed by Origen and others of 
 the Greek fathers, who believed in the reality of 
 Ethnic inspiration, if by that phrase we mean to 
 imply that some of the greatest and wisest of the 
 heathen not only groped after God, but really found 
 Him, — that they w^ere sincere in their prayers for 
 a Divine illumination, and that those prayers were 
 not left unheard. 
 
 The study of classical literature has long occupied 
 a large part of the education of Christian youth. 
 It needs, of course, to be faithfully handled and 
 wisely supplemented, but in the hands of trul}' 
 Christian teachers it may become a distinct help 
 to religious training. Let us not forget that the 
 study of the Hortensius of Cicero was one of the 
 first strong influences which stirred the heart of 
 
1 6 ETHNIC INSPIRATION. 
 
 St. Augustine to nobler aspirations. In Plato, in 
 Seneca, in Epictetus, in Marcus Aurelius, we may 
 often find the " testimonium animw natiiraliter 
 Christians" How can we better express the 
 reality and blessing of Ethnic inspiration than in 
 the sweet verses of the Christian Year f — 
 
 " And now another Canaan yields 
 
 To Thine all- conquering Ark ; 
 Fly from the ' old poetic ' fields, 
 
 Ye Paynim shadows dark ! 
 Immortal Greece, dear land of glorious lays, 
 Lo ! here the ' unknown God ' of thy unconscious praise. 
 
 " The olive- wreath, the ivied wand, 
 
 * The sword in myrtles drest,' 
 Each legend of the shadowy strand. 
 
 Now wakes a vision blest ; 
 As little children lisp, and tell of heaven, 
 So thoughts beyond their thought to those high bards were given/* 
 
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS, 
 
 11. 
 
 By the Eev. GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A., Canon of 
 
 Canterbury Cathedral. 
 
 T^HE religious system of the ancient Egyptians, 
 as we see it in the palmy days of Amenhotep 
 II. and Thothmes III., or again in those of Seti I. 
 and Eameses 11. , was, externally at any rate, a 
 polytheism of a multitudinous and complicated 
 character. In all the temples we see the kings wor- 
 shipping a long string of gods and goddesses, each 
 distinguished by a special name, a special form, 
 and generally by special emblems. In the religious 
 books, as the " Eitual of the Dead " and the " Book 
 of Hades," there is the same multiplicity of deities, 
 and the same apparent distinctness of each deity 
 from all the rest. The myths present us with 
 groups of gods, acting as a society or as a family, 
 standing in diverse relations one towards another, 
 each with his own personality, speaking to each 
 other, giving or executing orders, offering counsel, 
 
18 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 sometimes quarrelling, or even fighting. The well- 
 known Osirid myth associates together a group of 
 seven divine personages : — Seb, Nut or Nutpe, 
 Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus, who play 
 their several parts in the strange and weird drama. 
 In the myth of the " Destruction of Mankind " 
 there is another group of seven or eight : — Nun, Ea, 
 Shu, Seb, Nut, Thoth, Tefnut, and (if she is distinct 
 from Tefnut) Athor. When the Greeks began their 
 attempts to systematise the Egyptian polytheism, 
 they distinguished eight gods of the first rank, 
 twelve of the second, and an indefinite number of 
 the third. Moderns, who attempt to enumerate 
 the " principal Egyptian deities," make them sixty- 
 three or seventy-three, or some other large num- 
 ber. The Egyptians themselves spoke of "the 
 thousand gods, the gods male, the gods female, 
 those which are of the land of Egypt," and in this 
 expression were probably far from intending to lay 
 down a fixed limit. 
 
 When we examine, by the light of the ancient 
 remains, the question whether this multiplicity of 
 gods was an original element of the Egyptian 
 religion or the result of growth and development, 
 we seem to find reason for deciding in favour of the 
 latter view. As we trace the religion backwards 
 towards its source, the pantheon diminishes. Such 
 
THE EEV. CANON RAWLINSON, M.A. 19 
 
 deities as Anta or Anaitis, Bar or Baal, Astaret or 
 Ashtoreth, Keshpu or Eeseph, and Ken or Kiun, 
 were unknown in Egypt until the Semitic influx, 
 which began about the twelfth dynasty. Ammon 
 himself received no acknowledgment until the rise 
 of Thebes to power a little earlier, neither did his 
 contemplar deities, Maut and Khonsu. On an 
 altar dedicated by Pepi, the third king of the sixth 
 dynasty, which seems to be intended as a com- 
 memoration of all the gods, the number of the 
 names does not exceed forty. Among these are 
 such abstractions as " Seeing," " Hearing," " Year," 
 "Age," "Eternity," "Life," "Stability," "Triumph," 
 "Justification," which can scarcely have been re- 
 garded as real deities. If we deduct these, and 
 some other equally doubtful entries, we may say 
 that Pepi appears to have acknowledged about 
 twenty-five deities. Following the stream of his- 
 tory somewhat farther up, we come to the pyramid 
 period, for which the records are ample. These set 
 before us as the objects of worship at the time about 
 eighteen gods and goddesses : — Ea, Phthah, Khem, 
 Kneph, Thoth, Neith, Seb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Set, 
 Horus, Anubis, Athor, Sokari, Ma, Saf, and Heka. 
 Finally, in the pre-pyramid period we find but nine 
 gods recognised : — Ka, Phthah, Osiris, Isis, Horus, 
 Set, Anubis, Athor, and Sokari. These nine are per- 
 
20 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 haps reducible to seven, for the identity of Isis with 
 Athor, and of Phthah with Sokari, is probable. 
 
 Thus Egyptian polytheism is seen to have been 
 a gradual growth, and the question naturally arises, 
 whether, if we could trace the stream a little farther 
 back, a little nearer to its source, we should not 
 find the multiplicity altogether disappear, and the 
 polytheism shrink up into monotheism. As in 
 Semitic theology El and Eliun, and Baal, and 
 Marnas, and Adonai, and Moloch, and Eam or 
 Eimmon, and Shaddai are originally only so many 
 names for the one Supreme Grod, though later they 
 became separate and grew into distinct personages, 
 so it may be at any rate suspected that, in the 
 Egyptian religion, the polytheism was to a large 
 extent owing to the tyranny of language, the 
 numerous nomina of the one God becoming by 
 degrees distinct numina. One special cause of this 
 in Egypt was the original separation and isolation 
 of the different parts of the country, in which each 
 nome was at first a distinct state with its own ruler, 
 its own capital, its own worship, and its own name 
 for the great object of worship, the god of its own 
 temple. Ka was originally the one god of On 
 ^elk>polis), Phthah of Memphis, Neith of Sais, Bast 
 or Pasht of Bubastis, Sabak of Crocodilopolis, Osiris 
 of Abydos, Mentuof Hermonthis, Amnion of Thebes, 
 
THE EEV. CANON EAWLINSON, M.A. 21 
 
 Knepli or Num of Elephantine, Atlior of Dienderah. 
 As Egypt became united, as the nomes were merged 
 into kingdoms, the god-names obtained a wider 
 acceptance, and so the pantheon grew. The kings, 
 whose object it was to parade the wide extent of 
 their dominion, gladly exhibited in their temple 
 bas-reliefs, and in their tombs the long trains of 
 local gods and goddesses, which showed that all 
 the nomes were subject to their power ; the priests^ 
 with a deeper mystic meaning, gladly employed 
 the multitude of epithets at once to set forth the 
 Divine nature and perfections, and to surround the 
 higher truths of religion with a mysteriousness that 
 should not be penetrable by the uninitiated. 
 
 We may trace three phases in the early Egyptian 
 religion. First, there is a time when all worship is 
 local — when at Memphis, and Sais, and Heliopolis, 
 and Bubastis, and Pisebek, and Sesennu, and Aby- 
 dos, and This, and Thebes, and Silsilis, and Ele- 
 phantine, isolated worships, similar in general 
 character, but differing in their symbolism and in 
 the name under which they speak of the Supreme 
 Being, prevail. Then follows a time in which sun- 
 worship becomes general, not superseding the local 
 cults, but being superadded to them. The Osirid 
 myth is formed, and there comes to be throughout 
 Egypt a recognition of the gods of the Osirid circle : 
 
22 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 — Seb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Set, Horus, in 
 addition to the earlier local belief and cult, what- 
 ever it was. Finally, by the joint efforts of the 
 kings and of the priests, an amalgamation is made 
 of all the various local cults and names, a vast 
 pantheon is created, which continually tends to 
 grow, multiplicity is desired as implying richness, 
 abstractions are made into deities, a special god is 
 placed over each of the elements, over the seasons, 
 and over every operation of Nature that can be 
 conceived of as separate and distinct. 
 
 But the primitive monotheism, which this poli- 
 tico-hierarchic system concealed and overlaid, was 
 never wholly suppressed. In the time of the 
 fifth dynasty, long after the introduction of the 
 Osirid circle of gods, we find simple monotheism 
 expressed in the " Maxims of Ptah-hotep," with an 
 artlessness and unconsciousness that clearly indi- 
 cate a mind on which polytheism has taken no 
 hold, which may have . accepted it as a mode of 
 representing deity to the vulgar mass, but has 
 allowed it no place in the inward convictions of the 
 religious consciousness. " Obedience," says Ptah- 
 hotep, **is of God ; disobedience is hateful to God;" 
 and again, " Good for a man is the discipline of 
 his father, of him from whom he has derived his 
 being. It is a great satisfaction to obey his wotds ; 
 
THE REV. CANON EAWLINSON, M.A. 23 
 
 for a good son is tlie gift of God ; " and further, 
 " If thou art known for thy wealth, and hast be- 
 come a great lord, let not thy heart grow proud 
 because of thy riches ; for it is God who has given 
 them unto thee." Later on, there is that curious 
 mixture of monotheism with polytheism which has 
 been called henotheism, a phase of religion under 
 which the god who for the time is present to the 
 worshipper's thought occupies and engrosses it so 
 entirely as to become, as it were, the only god, and 
 to be addressed with all the epithets suitable to the 
 purest monotheism. Thus in one hymn Ammon 
 is called " the Ancient of Heaven " (c£ Dan. vii. 
 9), " the Oldest of the Earth, Lord of all Existences, 
 the Support of all Things, the One in his Works, 
 Single among the Gods, Lord of Truth, Maker of 
 Men, Creator of Things below and above, En- 
 lightener of the Earth, Lord of Eternity, Maker 
 Everlasting, Lord of Adoration and of Life, the 
 One Maker of Existences." In another, Osiris is 
 " the Eldest, the King of the Gods, the Feeder of 
 Beings, the Euler of the two Worlds, the Beneficent 
 Spirit, Great in Dignity, Permanent in Empire." 
 In a third, even so local and inconsiderable a deity 
 as Hapi, the Nile-god, elsewhere spoken of as 
 created by Osiris, becomes to his worshipper the 
 sole representation of deity, and is addressed as 
 
24 ANCIEXT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 ''Bringer of Food, Great Lord of Provisions, 
 Creator of all Good Things, Lord of Terrors and of 
 Choicest Joys, Giver of Life to all." It is said of 
 him that "he is not graven in marble; he is not 
 beheld ; he is not adored in sanctuaries ; his abode 
 is not known ; no shrine is found of his with 
 painted figures ; there is no building that can 
 contain him; he hath no counsellor ; " and again, 
 " Unknown is his name in heaven ; he doth not 
 manifest his forms ; vain are all representations." 
 
 The educated classes among the Egyptians went 
 beyond henotheism. As Wilkinson long ago ob- 
 served — " The priests who were initiated into, and 
 who understood the mysteries of their religion, 
 believed in one Deity alone, and in performing 
 their adorations to any particular member of the 
 pantheon, addressed themselves directly to the sole 
 Ruler of the universe through that particular form. 
 Each form (whether called Ptah, Amon, or any 
 other of the figures representing various characters 
 of the Deity) was one of His attributes ; in the 
 same manner as our expressions, *the Creator,' 
 ' the Omniscient,' ' the Almighty,' or any other 
 title, indicate one and the same being." Similarly 
 Lenormant : — " Au fond de la religion de ceux qui 
 avaient approfondi la science religieuse se retrouvait 
 la grande idee de I'unitd de Dieu." The manifold 
 
THE EEV. CANON EAWLINSON, M.A. 25 
 
 gods of the popular mythology were understood by 
 the educated to be either personified attributes of 
 the Deity, or parts of the nature which He had 
 created, considered as informed and inspired by 
 Him. Num or Kneph represented the creative 
 mind ; Phthah, the creative hand, or act of creat- 
 ing; Maut represented matter; Ea, the sun; Khonsu, 
 the moon ; Seb, the earth ; Khem, the generative 
 power in Nature ; Nut, the upper hemisphere of 
 heaven ; Athor, the lower world or under hemi- 
 sphere ; Thoth personified the Divine wisdom ; 
 Ammon, perhaps the Divine mysteriousness or in- 
 comprehensibility ; Osiris (according to some), the 
 Divine goodness. When an educated Egyptian 
 worshipped Khem, or Kneph, or Ka, or Maut, or 
 Osiris, or Thoth, or Ammon, he understood that he 
 was worshipping the one God under some one of 
 His forms, or in some one of His aspects. In this 
 sense it is quite true to say, as Mr. Goodwin does, 
 that *'the recognition of one sole Creator and 
 Governor of the earth and all its inhabitants was 
 quite familiar to the Egyptians." 
 
 So far, then, as the primary truth of religion — 
 the unity of God — is concerned, the relation borne 
 by the Egyptian system or systems to Biblical 
 theology is this — While the Bible proclaims, clearly 
 and unmistakably, with a voice like that of a 
 
2G ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 trumpet, the great fact that there is one and one 
 only God, the Maker and Governor of the universe, 
 the sole proper object of worship to men and angels, 
 in ancient Egypt this truth was secretly inculcated 
 by the priests, formed a part of the esoteric religion, 
 was known to the initiated, while to the great mass 
 of the people it was so veiled and overshadowed by 
 a multitudinous polytheism, everywhere meeting 
 the eye and the ear, as practically to be unknown, 
 unrecognised, not even conceived of. The obscura- 
 tion of the truth was brought about gradually. A 
 primitive monotheism, derived from the primeval 
 revelation made to mankind, was by degrees over- 
 laid and hidden under a cloud of invented deities, 
 originally attributes or manifestations of the one 
 Supreme Being, but rapidly tending to detach 
 themselves, and to become separate personalities. 
 " L'idee de Dieu," as Lenormant says, " se confon- 
 dit peu a peu avec les manifestations de sa puis- 
 sance, ses attributs et ses qualites furent personifies 
 une foule d'agents secondaires, distribues dans un 
 ordre hidrarchique, concourant a I'organisation 
 gdnerale du monde, et a la conservation des dtres. 
 C'est ainsi que se forme ce polytheisme qui, dans 
 la variete et la bizarrerie de ses symboles, finit par 
 embrasser la nature entiere." 
 
 If we compare the Egyptian idea of the nature 
 
THE REV. CANON EAWLINSON, M.A. 27 
 
 and attributes of the one God with that which is 
 set before ns in the theology of the Bible, we shall 
 probably at first sight be surprised at the amount 
 of resemblance. The Supreme God of the Egyp- 
 tians is an Eternal Spirit, " the sole Producer of all 
 things both in heaven and earth, Himself not pro- 
 duced of any," "the only true living God, self- 
 originated," "who exists from the beginning," 
 "who has made all things, but has not Himself 
 been made." He is called " the Creator of Exis- 
 tences," " the Support of all Things," " the Lord of 
 Eternity, of Life, of Wisdom ; " and again, " the 
 Lord of Terror," "He whose eye subdues the 
 wicked." An inscrutable mystery attaches to Him. 
 " His abode is not known ; " " there is no building 
 that can contain Him " (cf. i Kings viii. 2 7 ; Isa. 
 Ixvi. i); "His name is hidden" — "unknown" 
 even " in heaven ; " His form is inconceivable — 
 " He does not manifest it ; " " vain are all represen- 
 tations." And He is omniscient. He is " the Lord 
 of Wisdom whose precepts are wise" — "no one 
 has ever been His counsellor" (cf. Isa. xl. 12-14); 
 "He lies awake when all men sleep" (ib. 28); 
 "He sees" and "knows all things." His moral 
 character is in many respects beautifully drawn by 
 the religious poets. He is "the Good God" — 
 "beneficent in will and word;" "the Giver of all 
 
28 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 Good Things " (cf. James i. 17); " the Lord of 
 Mercy, most loving ; " " the Hearer of Prayer " — 
 "He fulfils the desires of them who cry to Him" 
 (cf. Psalm cxlv. 19); "He listens to the poor in 
 distress, and is gentle of heart when one cries to 
 Him " (cf. 2 Cor. x. i) ; "He giveth help ; " He is 
 " a Strong Defender " — " no help comes from any 
 one except from Him ; " " vainly do men trust to 
 princes in their troubles " (cf. Psalm cxviii. 8, 9 ; 
 cxlvi. 3). At the same time that He is so merci- 
 ful, He is "the Lord of Truth;" "the Doer of 
 Justice ; " " He who maintains justice in the two 
 worlds ; " " He who overthrows and consumes His 
 enemies." The only marked deficiency in the 
 moral character of the Supreme God of the Egyp- 
 tians which strikes the student of Egyptian 
 texts, is the want of any insistence on His abso- 
 lute purity and holiness, and a consequent toning 
 down of that extreme awfulness which in the 
 Biblical theology attaches to the Almighty. We 
 miss parallel expressions to that of Isaiah (chap. 
 Ivii. 15) — "Thus saith the high and lofty One 
 that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; 
 . I dwell in the high and holy place ; " or that of 
 Habakkuk (chap. i. 13) — "Thou art of purer 
 eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look 
 on iniquity;" or that of Bildad the Shuhite — 
 
THE REV. CANON RAWLINSON, M.A. 29 
 
 " The stars are not pare in Thy sight;" and again 
 we miss parallel statements to those of the author 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews — " It is a fearful 
 thing to fall into the hands of the living God" 
 (chap. X. 31), and, " our God is a consuming fire " 
 (chap. xii. 29). 
 
 We must further note that the religious eleva- 
 tion, whereof we have given specimens, is never 
 long sustained in the Egyptian texts. There is 
 nothing in any of the Sacred Books that can compare 
 with the lofty flights of Isaiah or the magnificent 
 descriptions of Job, or even with the deep devotion 
 and spiritual elevation of the Psalms. Passing from 
 Scripture to the Egyptian texts, we breathe a 
 difl'erent atmosphere, we descend to a lower level. 
 In the same hymn in which Amen, representing 
 the Supreme God, has all the highest titles of 
 divinity showered upon him, he is also given 
 epithets which startle and shock the devout mind ; 
 e.g., he is *'the beautiful bull," "the bull of his 
 mother in his field," " the good being begotten of 
 Phthah ; " " the gods love his fragrance when he 
 comes from Arabia ; " he is " a beautiful youth ; " 
 he has " strong, beautiful horns ; " he " proceeds 
 from the firmament," and is described unmistakably 
 as the actual sun which rises and traverses the 
 heavens and sets. He " rises in the eastern hori- 
 
30 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 zon, and sets in the western ; " he " dawns on his 
 children daily ; " he is " lord of the boat and of the 
 barge that conduct him through the firmament in 
 peace ; " he " sails in the heaven in tranquillity." 
 Much as we would desire to give these expres- 
 sions a mystic or symbolic meaning, they seem 
 incapable of it; they constrain us to see in the 
 great Amen nothing after all but a sun-god, an 
 intelligence seated in the solar orb, circling round 
 the earth day after day; a slave chained to the 
 oar, with an existence which is one long monotony. 
 How different from this is the Biblical conception 
 of the Great Spirit, of whom heaven and earth, the 
 sun and moon and stars, are mere creatures, set to 
 perform their several tasks, " servants of His, that 
 do His pleasure " ! 
 
 Again, it cannot reasonably be denied that the 
 Egyptian religion must have grievously lowered 
 and debased the conception of the Divine nature in 
 the minds of those who accepted it by its animal 
 worship. It is an unworthy attempt on the part 
 of a learned Egyptologist to throw dust in the eyes 
 of the unlearned and ignorant, to assure them, 
 as Mr. Goodwin does, that "probably the well- 
 instructed Egyptians no more worshipped as gods 
 crocodiles, ibises, and cats, than the Dutch do 
 storks, or than we do the animals in the Zoological 
 
THE REV. CANON KAWLINSON, M.A. 31 
 
 Gardens." The Dutch do not put men to death for 
 killing storks, as the Egyptians did those who 
 killed hawks, or cats, or ibises. They would not, 
 in case of a fire in one of their cities, leave the 
 flames to spread as chance might direct, and con- 
 centrate all their attention and their efibrts on 
 preventing the storks from singeing their wings, 
 as Herodotus tells us the Egyptians concentrated 
 theirs on saving the cats. We keep our foreign 
 animals in the Zoological Gardens as curiosities, 
 that we may see what they are like. We do 
 not lodge them in magnificent abodes, or have 
 them attended by trains of priests, or lead them in 
 procession through the streets for people to fall 
 down before them and worship them, or proclaim 
 a public festival when a new one makes his 
 appearance in our midst, or go, one and all of us, 
 into mourning on their decease, or spend twenty 
 or thirty thousand pounds upon their funerals, as 
 the Egyptians did with their Apis and Mnevis 
 bulls at Memphis and Heliopolis. The fact is, 
 that, according to all the ancient authorities, and 
 according to the Egyptian remains themselves, the 
 Apis and Mnevis bulls at Memphis and Heliopolis, 
 and other sacred animals elsewhere, held the actual 
 position of gods in Egypt, were called gods, were 
 actually worshipped, had their own priests and 
 
32 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 temples, and were viewed as incarnations of deity. 
 The ordinary inscription on the tomb of an Apis 
 bull runs as follows : — " The — th year, the — th of 
 the month — , under the sanctity of the Horus who 
 makes strong the heart, the King of Upper and 
 Lower Egypt, the Lord of the Northern and 
 Southern regions, the Lord of Strength, the Euler 
 of the two Worlds, the Horus of gold, the Sun who 
 
 rejoices the heart, the son of the Sun, (name 
 
 of king), beloved of Api-Osiris, the god was em- 
 barked to unite himself with the good Amenti, and 
 was given his reunion and his seat in the Kherneter, 
 on the side of the "v^est, at Phthah-Ka. The mani- 
 festation of the sanctity of the God towards heaven 
 took place in the — th year, the — th of the month — ; 
 his birth took place in the — th year, on the — th 
 of the month — , under the sanctity of the Horus 
 who glorifies the heart, the Sun, the son of the Sun, 
 (name of king), living for ever. His instal- 
 lation in the temple of Phthah took place in the 
 — th year, on the — th of the month — , under the 
 sanctity of the Horus who benefits the heart, the 
 Sun who bestows goodness upon the heart, the son 
 
 of the Sun, (name of king). The happy 
 
 duration of this god was — years, — months, and — 
 days. The good god, (name of king), ar- 
 ranged for the august god all the grave-clothes 
 
THE REV. CANON RAWLINSON, M.A. 33 
 
 and other worked things, and all the ceremonies. 
 This he did that he might obtain the gift of an 
 eternal and powerful existence." It will be seen 
 that the Apis bull is called a god four times over in 
 his epitaph. ^ 
 
 ■ No doubt the bulk of the sacred animals were of 
 less account, and were rather reverenced than wor- 
 shipped. Still it was a religious feeling to which 
 they appealed, not a sentiment of kindness merely, 
 far less a feeling of curiosity. They were consi- 
 dered in a certain sense Divine, and the regard in 
 which they were held could not but have absorbed 
 an appreciable portion of the religious sentiment 
 of the nation. Still it did, comparatively speak- 
 ing, little harm. The animal-worship which was 
 debasing and degrading, which lowered men's con- 
 ceptions of the Divine nature, and was justly ridi- 
 culed by the Greeks, the Persians, and the Eomans, 
 was that of the Apis and Mnevis bulls, and of the 
 other animals supposed to be gods incarnate. 
 
 The Egyptian animal-worship is thought by some 
 to be a remnant of " totemism," a partial survival 
 from the time when the nation consisted of a set 
 of tribes, each of which regarded itself as descended 
 from some animal or other. But this theory in no 
 way rises above the dignity of an improbable con- 
 jecture. It was not their ancestors whom the 
 
 c 
 
34 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 Egyptians connected with animal forms, but their 
 gods ; and from the gods they held that no human 
 being was really descended (Herod, ii. 143). The 
 true origin of the worship of animals in Egypt is 
 probably to be found in that exaggerated symbolism 
 which is characteristic of the Egyptian religion. 
 Some resemblance, real or fancied, was traced, or 
 thought to be traced, between the idiosyncrasy of 
 some animal and the peculiar features of some god. 
 Forthwith the animal became the symbol of the 
 god, as the wise ibis of Thoth, the far-seeing hawk 
 of Ea, the watchful dog of Anubis, the cow of 
 bounteous Athor, the crocodile of awful Sabak, the 
 hippopotamus of Taourt, the lion of Pasht or 
 Sekhet. After this the deities were themselves 
 represented in the form or with the head of the 
 animal thus associated with them. Finally, the 
 animals themselves, through this association, became 
 sacred. 
 
 Biblical theology, it is evident, bears no relation 
 at all to this element of the Egyptian religion, 
 which is an excrescence or accretion, the result of 
 human thought and fancy exercising itself in the 
 ' domain of religion with too much freedom, and too 
 little sense of the necessity of self-restraint. 
 
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS^ 
 
 {Continued), 
 
 III. 
 
 By the Rev. GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A., Canon of 
 Canterbury Cathedral. 
 
 ^PHE religious system of the ancient Eg3^ptians 
 i& dijSerentiated from all other non- Christian 
 systems most pointedly in the stress that it laid 
 upon the after life, and the detail into which it 
 entered with respect to the conditions, trials, cir- 
 cumstances, and ultimate fate of the dead. It was 
 the universal belief in Egypt, from a date long 
 anterior to Abraham, that immediately after death 
 the soul descended into the lower world (Amenti), 
 and was conducted into the Hall of Truth, or "of the 
 Two Truths," where it was judged in the presence 
 of Osiris, and of his forty-two assessors, the " Lords 
 of Truth " and judges of the dead. Anubis (Anepu), 
 the " Director of the Weight," son of Osiris and 
 Nephthys, brought forth a pair of scales, and, after 
 placing in one of the scales a figure or emblem of 
 Ma (Truth), set in the other a vase containing the 
 
36 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 good deeds of the deceased, Thoth — the Divine^ 
 Wisdom — standing by the while with a tablet in 
 his hand, whereon to record the result. If the 
 good deeds preponderated, if they weighed down 
 the scale wherein they were placed, then the happy 
 soul was permitted to enter " the boat of the sun," 
 and was conducted by good spirits to the Elysian 
 fields (Aahlu), to the " Pools of Peace " and the 
 dwelling-places of the blest. If, on the contrary, 
 the good deeds were insufficient, if the scale con- 
 taining them remained suspended in the air, then 
 the unhappy soul was sentenced, according to the 
 degree of its ill-desert, to begin a round of trans- 
 migrations in the bodies of more or less unclean 
 animals ; the number, nature, and duration of the 
 transmigrations depending on the degree of the 
 deceased's demerits, and the consequent length and 
 severity of the punishment which he deserved or 
 the purification which he needed. Ultimately, if 
 after many trials sufficient purity was not attained, 
 the wicked soul, which had proved itself incurable, 
 underwent a final sentence at the hands of Osiris, 
 Judge of the Dead, and being condemned to com- 
 plete and absolute annihilation, was destroyed upon 
 the steps of heaven by Shu, the Lord of Light. 
 The good soul, having made a long peregrination 
 through the infernal regions, encountering many 
 
THE EEV. CANON EAWLINSON, M.A. 37 
 
 dangers, and having then been freed from its 
 infirmities by passing through the basin of purga- 
 torial fire, guarded by the four ape-faced genii, 
 was made the companion of Osiris for a period of 
 three thousand years, after which it returned from 
 Amenti, re-entered its former body, rose from the 
 dead, and lived once more a human life on earth. 
 This process was gone through again and again, 
 until a certain mystic cycle of years became com- 
 plete, when, to crown all, the good and blessed 
 attained the final joy of union with God, being 
 absorbed into the Divine essence from which they 
 had once emanated, and so attaining the full per- 
 fection and true end of their existence. 
 
 A later form of the belief regarded each justified 
 soul as in some sense absorbed into Osiris imme- 
 diately upon its justification, and hence the name 
 of Osiris was freely bestowed on each such soul. 
 Individuality was not, however, wholly lost. The 
 justified soul still bears its own earthly name, 
 together with that of Osiris, and is conceived of 
 as standing in a certain relation to its mummified 
 body, which it occasionally revisits, and in the 
 offerings made to which it participates. The clear- 
 ness, definiteness, and precision of the Egyptian 
 belief in respect of the future state is certainly in 
 striking contrast to the dimness and indefiniteness 
 
38 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 in which the subject is left by the Biblical writers, 
 especially those of the more early times. Mosaism 
 pointedly avoided the entire subject of a future life, 
 concentrating itself upon the duties of this life, and 
 setting before men temporal rewards and punish- 
 ments, with the object of keeping them within the 
 line of their duties. As Moses cannot but have 
 heen thoroughly conversant with the Egyptian 
 views with respect to a future existence and a 
 judgment of all men after death according to their 
 works, it is impossible to doubt that his reticence 
 w^as intentional, premeditated, perhaps commanded. 
 The fact was, that the Egyptian system, whatever 
 amount of truth it contained — and we are far from 
 denying that the amount was considerable — rested 
 on no sound basis, was a fabric built up by fancy 
 out of very questionable materials, and involved 
 much false teaching of a practically dangerous 
 character, against which Moses had to guard his 
 countrymen. 
 
 I. The doctrine of absorption into the Divine 
 essence, whether at death or ultimately, was a pan- 
 theistic conception, which involved logically the 
 whole degrading theory of Pantheism. If the 
 human spirit was to become at some future time a 
 part of the Divine essence, then it must have been 
 derived from that essence, not in the way of crea- 
 
THE REV. CANON RAWLINSON, M.A. 39 
 
 tion, but of emanation, and so must be really, 
 during the whole period of its seemingly separate 
 existence, a part of God. This doctrine leads to 
 the most intolerable spiritual pride, the most ruin- 
 ous self-conceit, the putting away of self-control as 
 unnecessary, and belief in the indifferency of actions. 
 If in Egypt it did not have these worst results, we 
 must account for it by the fact that the Egyp- 
 tian teaching on the subject was not uniform nor 
 consistent; the defunct Egyptian of the time of 
 Moses was at once Osiris, and not altogether 
 Osiris ; he " dwelt in the eternal seat " — he was the 
 " triumphant one " — he had " splendour in heaven 
 and power on earth ;" yet he ** went in and came 
 out from his tomb; "he enjoyed the sepulchral 
 meals that were offered to him by his relatives ; he 
 liked to feel the north wind blowing on him, and 
 he refreshed himself beneath the branches of the 
 trees which he had planted. As for the final ab- 
 sorption into God at the end of the mystic cycle 
 of years, it was too remote an event to occupy the 
 minds of living men, and probably only a few 
 philosophers among the priests ever thought out 
 its logical consequences. 
 
 11. The features of the future life, as set before 
 the mass of the Egyptians by the priests, were not 
 of such a character as to attract the approval of 
 
40 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 a divinely-inspired teacher like Moses. The has,, 
 or spirits of the dead, were represented as " wan- 
 dering over the earth, going to the tomb, visit- 
 ing those who belonged to them, enjoying the 
 offerings of their relations, and then disappear- 
 ing to the body in the grave." Even in the 
 " Fields of Peace," where they dwelt in Amenti, 
 they prayed that some " might come to them with 
 jugs of heer and cakes, the cakes of the lords of 
 eternity," and hoped to " receive slices from the 
 joint upon the table of the great god^ The most 
 spiritual of their enjoyments were '^ the breathing 
 of the delightful breezes of the north wind, the eat- 
 ing of bread, the gathering of flowers, and the re- 
 ceiving of food in felicity from the produce of the 
 Sekhet Aahlu." 
 
 III. The Egyptian "justification" was not of 
 such a nature that a Divine legislator could give it 
 his sanction. An Egyptian, at the judgment, was 
 supposed to appear before the assessors of Osiris, 
 and to deny wholly that he had ever committed 
 any of the forty-two sins of the Egyptian sacred 
 code. *'I have not blasphemed," he had to say; 
 "I have not deceived ; I have not stolen ; I have 
 not slain any one treacherously ; I have not been 
 cruel to any one ; I have not caused disturbance ; 
 I have not been idle ; I have not been drunken ; I 
 
THE EEV. CANON EAWLINSON, M.A. 41 
 
 have not issued unjust orders ; I have not been 
 indiscreetly curious ; I have not multiplied words 
 in speaking ; I have struck no one ; I have caused 
 fear to no one ; I have slandered no one ; I have 
 not eaten my heart through envy ; I have not re- 
 viled the face of the king nor the face of my father ; 
 I have not made false accusations ; I have not kept 
 milk from the mouth of sucklings ; I have not 
 caused abortion ; I have not ill-used my slaves ; I 
 have not killed sacred beasts ; I have not defiled 
 the river ; I have not polluted myself carnally ; I 
 have not taken the clothes of the dead," &c. He 
 was to protest perfect sinlessness : " My mouth and 
 my hands are pure," he was to say. As he quitted 
 the Hall of the Two Truths, he was to repeat ^ve 
 times over the words, " I am pure." Thus he was 
 to be justified by his own merits. He was not to 
 throw himself on the Divine mercy, and confess 
 himself " Unclean, unclean ; " on the contrary, he 
 was to claim that his actions had deserved an 
 eternal reward. 
 
 lY. The original doctrine of retribution, of 
 rewards and punishments distributed after death 
 according to desert, was early corrupted and over- 
 laid in the Egyptian system by an elaborate 
 " Eitual of the Dead," which substituted, as the 
 means of salvation, for inherent righteousness, a 
 
42 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 kDowledge of certain elaborate prayers and set 
 incantations, by tbe help of whicli alone could 
 justified souls secure their passage from the Hall 
 of the Two Truths, where they had been judged, 
 to the " Pools of Peace," the blessed fields of 
 Aahlu. Numerous and terrible perils lay in the 
 way. Here crocodiles and lions, there vipers and 
 serpents of huge size, in places monsters of inde- 
 scribable form and of extreme ferocity, barred the 
 way to the soul's farther progress, and had to be 
 propitiated before they would allow the soul to 
 pass onward. The propitiation was by means of 
 charms or of set forms of prayer, which must be 
 recited by the soul arrested on its course, each at 
 the proper time and in the proper place. With a 
 view to help the memory, if it failed, the most 
 important passages of the ritual were inscribed in 
 the inner part of the coffin wherein the mummy 
 lay, or on the bandages wherewith it was swathed 
 from head to foot, or upon the inner walls of the 
 tomb. Sometimes even a complete copy of the 
 book was buried with the corpse, in ord^r that the 
 Z;a, or soul, might refer to it for the proper prayer, 
 charm, or invocation, whereby alone could the 
 difficulties be surmounted which met the soul at 
 every stage of its perilous journey. The effect of 
 all this was to substitute a material for a moral 
 
THE EEV. CAN0:N EAWLINSON, M.A. 4 
 
 Q 
 
 rigliteousness — to make ultimate salvation depend 
 on memory, acquaintance with formulae, or ready 
 access by priestly favour to the formulae needed. 
 
 V. Moreover, the whole Egyptian belief on the 
 subject of the dead was so inseparably bound up 
 with the prevalent polytheism, worship of ances- 
 tors, and sun-worship, that a prudent legislator, 
 having to legislate for a people of material tenden- 
 cies, greatly inclined to idolatry, might well hesi- 
 tate to lend any countenance to views in which 
 the false and the true, the elevating and the de- 
 grading, were inseparably intermixed, and might 
 be wise in determining to leave the future life in 
 the vagueness and the mystery from which the 
 daring speculations of the Egyptian priests had 
 withdrawn it, and to concentrate men's attention 
 on that present life which is their immediate con- 
 cern, and the rightful conduct of which is the best 
 preparation for whatever existence God designs 
 them to lead in the world to come. The Egyptian 
 priests, taking as their basis man's instinctive 
 belief in his immortality, and his conviction that 
 goodness must somewhere receive adequate reward, 
 and wickedness adequate punishment, built up an 
 artificial system of which much was purely fanciful, 
 a large portion absolutely false, and ooily a com- 
 paratively small residuum sound and true. Bibli- 
 
44 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 cal theology kept itself aloof from this mixed, 
 fanciful system. It implied from the first, without 
 distinctly teaching it, a life beyond the grave ; it 
 gradually brought this life more and more into 
 prominence ; by the time of Daniel (Dan. xii. 2) 
 it hinted at immortality, and at a judgment ; 
 finally, by the mouth of Jesus, and of His " be- 
 loved disciple," it declared without ambiguity the 
 nature of the judgment (Matt. xxv. 31-46; Eev. 
 XX. IT -1 5), and the fate, respectively, of those 
 who shall be condemned and of those who shall 
 be acquitted. It left much still in obscurity, 
 especially abstaining from any description of the 
 life which the blessed lead in the other world. It 
 thus avoids the almost inconceivable bathos of the 
 Egyptian teaching, which told of " cakes " and 
 ''jugs of beer," and "slices from the joint which 
 lay upon the table of the supreme god." 
 
 As the Egyptian religion was at once remarkably 
 in advance of others, and at the same time in 
 certain respects curiously mistaken and defective 
 in its teachings on the subject of man's future 
 destiny, so it was at once in advance of other 
 systems and strangely defective on certain points 
 in its teachings with respect to morality. The 
 Egyptian idea of morality was predominantly 
 negative. Justification was claimed, in the main, 
 
THE EEV. CANON EAWLINSON, M.A. 45 
 
 upon a series of negative declarations — ^^ I have 
 not blasphemed ; I have not deceived," and the 
 like. Hence the pleading of the soul newly ar- 
 rived in Amenti before Osiris and his forty-two 
 assessors has received the name of " the negative 
 confession." But "the negative confession," ex- 
 tensive as it may appear to be, since it is a 
 declaration of freedom from forty-two main sins, 
 contains important omissions. One form alone of 
 impurity is denied, and the omission of all others 
 painfully reminds us of the charges brought 
 against the Egyptians by the classical writers, 
 who tax them both with religious impurity, and 
 with a general laxity in the matter of the sexual 
 relations. The charge is borne out by the levity 
 of treatment which sexual irregularities receive 
 at the hands of the native romance- writers, with 
 whom, they are a stock subject, and from whom 
 they get no word of blame. The state of 
 morals thus indicated was a natural consequence 
 of the impure rites which formed a part of the 
 religion, and of the free toleration by the priest 
 class of the extensive polygamy and the incest 
 which were practised by the kings. Again, the 
 cruel treatment of enemies was not disclaimed in 
 the " negative confession ;" and it is clear that it 
 was widely and openly practised. Captives taken 
 
46 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 in war were either put to death by their captors, or 
 carried off into a servitude of the most oppressive' 
 kind, involving in many cases continuous forced 
 labour under the lash, and treatment such as made 
 Egypt \ " furnace of affliction " to the people of 
 Israel. Another vice which the Egyptian was 
 not required to disclaim, and which consequently 
 flourished in the greatest luxuriance, was pride 
 and self-conceit. The ordinary Egyptian was ac- 
 customed to declare himself, not merely before the 
 assessors in Amenti, but on earth among his con- 
 temporaries, exempt from all human imperfection. 
 " I was not an idler," says one ; " I was no listener 
 to the counsels of sloth ; my name was not heard 
 in the place of reproof. .... All men respected 
 me. I gave w^ater to the thirsty ; I set the wan- 
 derer in his path ; I took away the oppressor, 
 and put a stop to violence." "I myself was just 
 and true," writes another on his tombstone; "I 
 was without malice, having put God in my heart, 
 and being quick to discern His will. I have done 
 good upon earth ; I have harboured no prejudice ; 
 I have not been wicked ; I have not approved of 
 any offence or iniquity ; I have taken pleasure in 
 speaking the truth. . . . Pure is my soul; while 
 livini^ I bore no malice; there are no errors 
 attributable to me ; no sins of mine are before the 
 
THE REV. CANON EAWLINSON, M.A. 47 
 
 judges. The men of the future, while they live, 
 will be charmed by my remarkable merits." '* I 
 have come to thee," says another, " Lord of Tasert, 
 Osiris, Prince of Abydos. I was law-abiding while 
 upon earth ; I did that which was right ; I was 
 free from faults.'" Here, however, as in so many 
 other cases, the Egyptian system was not wholly 
 consistent with itself While the tone of self- 
 glorification is almost universal, and king after 
 king, noble after noble, courtier after courtier, calls 
 on us from the tomb to admire his "remarkable 
 merits," occasionally, but very rarely, there strikes 
 upon the ear an undertone of self-humiliation and 
 sadness, which affords a welcome relief Convic- 
 tion of sin has come home to a guilty soul, and the 
 trembling heart pours itself out in prayer. " Come 
 to me, thou Sun," says a spirit thus oppressed. 
 " Horus of the Horizon, give me help ; thou art he 
 that giveth help ; there is no help without thee. 
 Come to me, Tum ; hear me, thou great god ! My 
 heart goeth forth towards On; let my desires be 
 fulfilled ; let my heart rejoice, my inmost heart 
 rejoice in gladness. Hear my vows, my humble 
 supplications, every day; hear my adorations 
 every night — my cries of terror — cries that issue 
 from my mouth, that come forth from it one by 
 one. Horus of the Horizon, there is none other 
 
48 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 beside thee, Protector of Millions, Deliverer of ^ 
 Tens of Thousands, Defender of him who calls 
 upon thee, Lord of On ! Reproach me not for 
 my many sins. I am young and weak of body ; 
 I am a man without a heart. Anxiety preys 
 upon me, as an ox feeds upon grass. If I pass 
 the night in sleep, and therein find refreshment, 
 anxiety nevertheless returns to me ere the day 
 is done." 
 
 The positive side of the Egyptian morality con- 
 tains some striking parallels with the teaching of 
 the Bible. Monsieur F. Chabas has well compared 
 the folk) wing passages : — 
 
 " I gave my bread to the hungry, 
 And drink to him that was athirst ; 
 I clothed the naked with garments, 
 I sheltered the wanderer." 
 
 (" Kitual of the Dead," ch. cxxv. § 38.) 
 
 and — 
 
 *' I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; 
 I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink ; 
 I was a stranger, and ye took me in ; 
 (I was) naked, and ye clothed me." 
 
 (Matt. XXV. 35, 36.) 
 
 But he has failed to notice that the moral teachinor 
 put forward in them is that of the Old Testament, 
 no less than of the New, dating in Biblical theology 
 from the time of Isaiah, if not even from that of 
 
THE EEV. CANON EAWLINSON, M.A. 49 
 
 Job. If we turn to Job's protestation of his integ- 
 rity (Job xxxi.), we find the following: — "If I 
 have withheld the poor from their desire, or have 
 caused the eyes of the widow to fail, or have eaten 
 my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath 
 not eaten thereof; if I have seen any perish for 
 want of clothing, or any poor without covering, if 
 his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not 
 warmed with the fleece of my sheep . . , then let 
 mine arm fall from my shoulder-blade, and mine 
 arm be broken from the bone" (verses 16-22). In 
 Isaiah the resemblance is still closer. The fast that 
 God has chosen — that pleases Him — is this : — " To 
 deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring 
 the poor that are cast out to thy house — when thou 
 seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that 
 thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh" (ch. 
 Iviii. 7). Elementary as is the teaching, it has a 
 beautiful simplicity, which wiU never lose its 
 charm, and a far-reaching application, which will 
 always save it from being commonplace or trite. 
 
 Monsieur Chabas has also noticed the accord 
 between Egyptian and Biblical morality with 
 respect to the duties of children towards their 
 parents, and to the special blessing attached to 
 their observance. As the Decalogue requires chil- 
 dren to honour and obey their parents, and pro- 
 
50 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTEMS. 
 
 raises tliem long life as the reward of tlieir filial 
 piety (Ex. xx. 7), so in the maxims of Ptah-hotep 
 we find it laid down that " the son who accepts the 
 words of his father will grow old in consequence " 
 — or, as it is elsewhere expressed, "will enjoy an 
 honoured senility." To curse or revile a father 
 w^as, by the Mosaic code, punishable with death 
 (Ex. xxi. 17); under the Egyptian it was a deadly 
 sin, punished by exclusion from heaven. Fleshly 
 fathers were entitled to chasten their children under 
 both codes ; while smiting father and mother was, 
 under each, an unpardonable offence. " Good for a 
 son is the discipline of his father," is the Egyptian 
 saying ; " He that loveth his son chasteneth him 
 betimes," is the dictum of the Bible. 
 
 It is, perhaps, still more remarkable that among 
 the Egyptian moral precepts is found one which is 
 a near equivalent of the command of Christ — 
 " Swear not at all " (Matt. v. 34). The Jews were 
 strictly forbidden under the Mosaic Law to swear 
 falsely (Lev. xix. 12), and the third commandment 
 may be understood as intended to check the 
 habitual interlarding of the conversation with oaths 
 (Juite unsuitable to the occasion. But no Biblical 
 moralist earlier than the son of Sirach distinctly 
 interdicted all oaths (or all but judicial oaths, which 
 we must suppose excepted) as irreverent. Li 
 
THE REV. CANON EAWLINSON, M.A. 51 
 
 Egypt, however, as early as the twelfth century 
 B.C., it was laid down as "a true and just precept 
 of the good doctrine contained in the ancient 
 texts," that men were not to " open their mouth in 
 swearing." 
 
 But though advanced in some respects, the 
 
 Egyptian positive morality cannot fairly be said to 
 
 have been, altogether, of a very elevated character, 
 
 much less " to have fallen short in nothing of the 
 
 teachings of Christianity," as one of its panegyrists 
 
 has asserted. The list of virtues was a short one, 
 
 scarcely including more than piety, truthfulness, 
 
 justice, temperance, kindness towards the poor 
 
 and afflicted, and obedience to parents and rulers. 
 
 There was nothing heroic about the Egyptian 
 
 morality. It inculcated no severe self-denial, no 
 
 stern control of the passions, no love of enemies, no 
 
 turning of the cheek to the smiter, no patient 
 
 endurance of injuries, no humility, no real purity, 
 
 no complete resignation to the Divine will under 
 
 all circumstances. It was a comparatively easy 
 
 code to keep, and we cannot be surprised that so 
 
 many Egyptians were fully satisfied that they had 
 
 kept it. If a man had been a fairly good son, an 
 
 orderly subject, deeply respectful, not to say servile, 
 
 when brought into contact with the monarch, 
 
 regular in bringing the expected offerings to the 
 
52 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SYSTExMS. 
 
 temples and to the ancestral tomb, not haughty in 
 his demeanour, not cruel in his treatment of his 
 dependents, not given to drunkenness or to profane 
 swearing, and tolerably charitable to the poor and 
 distressed, he would naturally feel quite satisfied 
 with himself, and entitled to declare, in the words 
 of one Egyptian on his tomb, " I was a good man 
 before the king ; I shielded the weak against the 
 strong ; I did all good things when the time came 
 to do them ; I was pious towards my father, and 
 did the will of my mother ; I was kind-hearted 
 towards my brethren. When calamity befell the 
 land, I made the children live, I established the 
 houses ; I did for them all such good things as a 
 father doth for his sons" — or, in the words of 
 another, " I have done the behests of men, and the 
 will of the gods ; I have given bread to the hungry 
 and satisfied the indigent ; I have followed the god 
 in his temple ; my mouth hath not spoken in- 
 solently against my superior ofiicers ; there hath 
 been no haughtiness in my carriage, but I have 
 walked measuredly ; I have performed the law 
 which the king approved ; I have understood his 
 commands, and watched in my place to execute his 
 will ; I have risen up for his worship every day ; I 
 have given my mind to his words without con- 
 sidering how he regarded me : I have observed 
 
THE EEV. CANON RAWLINSON, M.A. 53 
 
 uprightness and fairness ; I have understood when 
 to keep silence." The self-complacency which 
 characterises the Egyptian epitaphs is the cor- 
 relative and the natural consequence of the easy- 
 going moral system from which the Egyptians 
 generally derived their sense of the extent of their 
 duties. 
 
ANCIENT CANAANITE RELIGIONS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 By the Eev. Wm. WRIGHT, D.D., Secretary to the British 
 AND Foreign Bible Society, and Author of " The Empire 
 OF the Hittites," &c. 
 
 ^j 
 
 'PHE scientific groupiog of ancient religions is 
 largely due to recent philological research. 
 When Bopp, in his Comparative Grammar, drew 
 attention to the relationships of certain European 
 languages to the idioms of Persia and India, it 
 was concluded that the Greeks and Eomans had 
 no more invented their religions than they had 
 invented their languages. Their gods, like their 
 words, were reckoned as heritages of the past. 
 As the geologist examines the strata of the earth, 
 so the philologist examines the structure of lan- 
 guages. Fossil words, by the processes of com- 
 parative philology, live again in the light and the 
 local colour of bygone ages, and not only reveal 
 the secrets of their own youth, but are eloquent 
 as to the origin and growth of the current thought 
 
THE REV. AVILLIAM WRIGHT, D-D. 55 
 
 and religion of their tinie. The current language 
 of an age embodies the living thought of that age, 
 and beneath the dead crust of the language is dis- 
 covered the religious sentiment which once touched 
 the imagination, and fired the heart and swayed 
 the religious instinct of the people. Through the 
 letter of the word the spirit is reached, and thus 
 comparative mythology, or the science of religion, 
 is a branch of philology. 
 
 Comparative grammar, in recent years, has de- 
 monstrated that the language of Phoenicia was the 
 language of Canaan ; indeed Canaan, or Lowlands, 
 was the designation by which the Phoenicians knew 
 their own country before the descriptive title was 
 extended to the whole of Palestine. The people of 
 Phoenicia and the people of Canaan were brothers, 
 and their gods and religion, like their language, 
 were common to both people. There were differ- 
 ences of dialect among the inhabitants of ancient 
 Canaan, but the former inhabitants of the land, 
 subdued by the invading Israelites, were, with 
 perhaps the exception of the retreating Hittites, 
 branches of the same Semitic stock, one in lan- 
 guage and religion. 
 
 The Phoenicians were the great commercial and 
 colonising people of antiquity. Their narrow foot- 
 hold between the mountains and the main was the 
 
56 ANCIENT CANAANITE RELIGIONS. 
 
 commercial centre of the world. The coast viHages 
 became mighty cities, the storehouses of Eastern 
 and Western merchandise. The desert caravans 
 Lore the luxuries of the East to the gates of Tyre 
 and Sidon, and the hardy Phoenician sailors, from 
 the terraced homes of Lebanon, steered their white- 
 winged ships through all known seas, distributing 
 the products of civilisation among the Western 
 barbarians. The Phoenicians, the predecessors of 
 the Anglo-Saxon race, pushed out from the con- 
 tracted homeland their surplus and enterprising 
 population, and planted colonies on the lines of 
 their commerce. The Phoenician in search of gain, 
 or of a new home, did not leave his religion behind 
 him. The colonists erected splendid temples in the 
 lands of their adoption to the gods of Phoenicia, 
 and even in distant Ireland Phoenician influence is 
 traced in the Baal fires and in the ancient worship 
 of the Baal of heaven. 
 
 As to the real character of Phoenician religion, 
 we have scarcely any information from the Phoeni- 
 cians themselves. Josephus informs us that every 
 Phoenician city had its collection of registers and 
 •public documents. It is believed that the Phoeni- 
 cians may have written on clay like the Assyrians, 
 and yet, notwithstanding the enormous number of 
 colonies planted by the Phoenicians, and the mar- 
 
THE REY. WILLIAM WEIGHT, D.D. 57 
 
 vellous commercial enterprise and literary careful- 
 ness of the people, a few short inscriptions and 
 some sculptures and gems are as yet their only 
 records of themselves. Philo of Byblus, in the 
 reign of Hadrian, gave to the world what pur- 
 ported to be a version of Sanchoniathon's history 
 of Phoenicia and Egypt. Some quotations made 
 from Philo's work by Porphyrins found their way 
 into the writing^s of Eusebius. Philo's work has 
 been looked upon by some as a forgery, but it is 
 probable that he had access to original Phoenician 
 documents, even if Sanchoniathon may have been 
 as shadowy a historian as our own Ossian. The 
 portions of the work that have come down to us 
 are confused fragments, but they supply a few 
 threads which, joined with others, furnish a clue 
 to the religion of the people. 
 
 In the paucity of material for coming to a satis- 
 factory conclusion as to the religion of Phoenicia, 
 the newly discovered records of the buried cities of 
 Babylonia and Assyria come to our aid. 
 
 According to tradition the Phoenicians came 
 from near the Persian Gulf, and it now appears 
 that they spoke the same language as that em- 
 ployed by Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees. The 
 unearthed libraries of Assyria have enabled the 
 comparative grammarian to prove that the Ian- 
 
58 ANCIENT CANAANITE RELIGIONS. 
 
 guages of the Phoenicians, the Cunaanites, the, 
 Moabites, the Hebrews, and the Assyrians are 
 not only descended from the same stock, but are 
 closely allied to each other as different dialects of 
 the same language. According to Professor Sayce, 
 " Assyrian turns out to be very closely related to 
 Hebrew, as closely related, in fact, as two strongly 
 marked English dialects are to one another. There 
 is no other Semitic language (except, of course, 
 Phoenician, which is practically the same as He- 
 brew) which is so closely allied to it." ^ The 
 Canaanitish religion thus differing from the Assy- 
 rian only as one English dialect differs from an- 
 other, we may look to the Assyrian for information 
 as to the religion of Canaan. 
 
 AYhile the first wave of Semitic migration was 
 settling in the Palm land, on the east coast of 
 the Mediterranean, the Semites who remained in 
 Babylonia were gaining the ascendency over their 
 Accadian predecessors. Semitic force prevailed 
 over Accadian, but Accadian religion and culture 
 triumphed over the Semites. The gods of the 
 Accadians were taken over by the Assyrians, who 
 semiticised the civilisation, the culture, and the 
 religion of the early inhabitants of Babylonia 
 whom they supplanted. The religion of Assyria 
 
 ^ Assyria : Its rrincts and People, p. 1 1. 
 
THE EEV. WILLIAM WEIGHT, D.D. 59 
 
 was Accadianism in Semitic moulds, and compara- 
 tive philology demonstrates that the religion of 
 Assyria in its main features became the religion of 
 the Canaanites, whether inhabiting the land of 
 Palestine, or colonising the islands and shores of 
 the Mediterranean. 
 
 " The Semitic," says Professor Max Miiller, "like 
 the Aryan languages, possesses a number of names 
 of the Deity in common, which must have existed 
 before the Southern, or Arabic, the Northern, or 
 Aramaic, the middle, or Hebrew, branches, became 
 permanently separated, and which, therefore, allow 
 us an insight into the religious conceptions of the 
 once united Semitic race long before Jehovah was 
 worshipped by Abraham, or Baal was invoked in 
 Phoenicia, or EL in Babylon." ^ 
 
 The Accadian El, or Ilu, is perhaps the earliest 
 name by which the Deity was known. The name 
 appears in Babylonia in Bab-^Z. In Hebrew, Ha- 
 El, Beth-^/, El-Ely on, &c. In PhcBnician we have 
 El, son of the earth, and Philo connects the word 
 with Elohim. It is the Ilah, or Allah, of the 
 Arabic tongue. 
 
 The god Bel, or Baal, was worshipped in Baby- 
 lonia, Assyria, Phoenicia, Moab, Philistia, Carthage, 
 and throughout the Phoenician colonies, and the 
 
 1 Introduction to the Science of Languages, p. no. 
 
60 ANCIENT CANAANITE RELIGIONS. 
 
 name still clino-s to distant lands with which the 
 Phoenicians traded. 
 
 The name of the one Accadian goddess, Istar, 
 may be read on the Moabite monument of King 
 Mesh a, and among the inscriptions of the city of 
 Zenobia. The Semites gave to the name the femi- 
 nine form Ashtoreth, by which she was known 
 among the Canaanites, and she became the Astarte 
 of Askelon and Paphos, and the Aphrodite of the 
 Greeks. 
 
 Other deities, such as Melech, or Moloch, 
 Adonai, or Adonis, may also be traced in the 
 common language of the different branches of the 
 Semitic peoples. As the language and chief 
 deities of Canaan were in close affinity to those 
 of the other branches of the Semitic family, so 
 the religion of Canaan resembled closely the rites 
 practised by the other Semitic peoples. 
 
 The centre and chief object of Canaauitish wor- 
 ship was the Sun-god, Baal ; and the Baal religion 
 was based largely on the feelings of reverence or 
 awe. The Accadian s considered that every object 
 or phenomenon in Nature possessed a spirit, and 
 that these multitudinous spirits were either bene- 
 volent or malevolent. When the Semitic Baby- 
 lonians took over the Acadian Pantheon they 
 changed Anu, the supreme Sky-god, into Shamas, 
 
THE REV. WILLIAM WKIGHT, D.D. 61 
 
 tlie Sun-god, and they endowed him with the 
 qualities of active benevolence and active malevo- 
 lence. 
 
 The Canaanites adored the Sun-god, Baal, as the 
 chaser away of darkness and cold, and the giver of 
 light and heat. He was ^' Baal," the dual-natured 
 deity of life and fruitfulness. The Baal, the male 
 principle of life and reproduction in Nature, was 
 worshipped by the Canaanites in conjunction with 
 Ashera, the female principle of Nature. They 
 looked upon the Baal as the god of Heaven, who 
 made earth fertile and gladsome, and whose func- 
 tion was recognised in all the generative forces of 
 Nature. 
 
 Baal, the active principle of Nature, was generally 
 allied with Ashera, the passive ; but he was some- 
 times associated with Ashtoreth or Astarte, and 
 Baal in the plural was associated with Ashtoreth 
 in the plural, as in i Sam. vii. 4, where it is said, 
 " The children of Israel did put away Baalim and 
 Ashtaroth, and served the Lord only." 
 
 The confusion that has arisen by confounding 
 Ashera with Ashtoreth has been accounted for by 
 Professor Kobertson-Smith in the following man- 
 ner : — 
 
 ''The planet Venus was w^orshipped in Assyria 
 as the chaste goddess Istar, when she appeared as 
 
G2 ANCIENT CANAANITE RELIGIONS. 
 
 the morning star, and as the impure Beltis when 
 she was the evening star. These two goddesses, 
 associated yefc contrasted, seem to correspond re- 
 spectively to the chaste Ashtoreth and the foul 
 Ashdra, though the distinction between the rising 
 and setting planet was not kept up, and the nobler 
 deity came at length to be viewed as the goddess 
 of the moon." 
 
 The Sun-god, Baal, was malevolent when in the 
 heat of summer he exhausted the sap of life, burnt 
 up the grass, drunk the rivers dry, and slew the 
 people with miasma fever. As calamities were 
 supposed to befall the Accadians through the in- 
 strumentality of the malevolent spirits, so the 
 Canaanites believed that calamities befell them 
 through the wrath of Baal. In every form of evil 
 they recognised the displeasure of Baal. Hence it 
 became necessary to appease the god ; and as the 
 Accadians used to offer human sacrifices to avert 
 the wrath of the malevolent Zi, or spirits, so the 
 Canaanites sacrificed their firstborn sons to appease 
 the relentless deity. The fiery Sun-god demanded 
 a sacrifice by fire. The offering must be a real 
 ■sacrifice. He would have nothing but the best, 
 the firstborn, the only son, and the offering had to 
 l)e made willingly, and with signs of gladness. 
 The children were burnt alive, the victims and the 
 
THE EEV. WILLIAM WRIGHT, D.D. 63 
 
 image of the god being garlanded with flowers, and 
 the hideous ceremony was accompanied with music 
 and other signs of joy. Prof. Sayce, speaking of 
 this act of Canaanitish worship, which became com- 
 mon among the Canaanites, says, " It was no sign 
 of savagery or brutality, but of profound self-sacri- 
 fice, which led the worshipper to give even more 
 than his own life to the offended gods. It was, in 
 fact, a true auto da fe, or act of faith ; and so 
 deeply rooted was the conviction of its necessity, 
 that not only did the Israelites yield again and 
 again to its fascination, despite the remonstrances 
 of the prophets, but in far later times, when Car- 
 thage had been overthrown by the Eomans, all the 
 edicts of the conquerors, aU the vigilance of the 
 police, were unable to prevent the horrible sacri- 
 fices from secretly taking place." 
 
 Notwithstanding the stern warnings against this 
 form of Canaanite idolatry (Lev. xviii. 21, and xx. 
 2-5) the Israelites sometimes joined in the abomi- 
 nable sacrifices. We find the Kings Ahaz (2 
 Kings xvi. 3) and Manasseh (2 Kings xxi. 6) 
 causing " their children to pass through the fire " 
 to Baal. Nor is this phrase a mere euphemism to 
 avoid the mention of a barbarous rite, as some sup- 
 pose, but expresses the idea which underlay the 
 sacrifice. The children by passing through the fire 
 
64 ANCIENT CANAAN ITE EELIGIONS. 
 
 were purified from earthly dross, and rendered fit 
 to enjoy the favour of the god. 
 
 Movers has clearly established the fact that 
 Moloch is only a special development of Baal in 
 his destructive instead of in his life-giviog mood. 
 And it was to Moloch, as king, that human sacri- 
 fices were ofi'ered. This is abundantly clear from 
 the language of the prophets (Jer. xxxii. 35), 
 " They built the high places of Baal, which are in 
 the valley of the sons of Hinnom, to cause their 
 sons and their daughters to pass through the fire 
 to Moloch." (See also Jer. vii. 31 ; xix. 5.) As 
 Creutzer has pointed out, Moloch the king, and 
 Baal the lord, are simply difi'erent names of the 
 Sun-god, but in altered relations — Moloch is the 
 Sun, who, in his course through the signs of Zodise, 
 burns up his own children. 
 
 Another form of Canaanitish worship, connected 
 with the dual-natured god, became a snare to the 
 people of Israel. Baal, as the active male principle 
 associated in worship with the unchaste Ashera, 
 became the patron of sensuality and licensed har- 
 lotry. We see an instance of this worship at Baal- 
 Peor (Num. xxv.) Baal was represented on the 
 idolatrous high places by stone obelisks, or upright 
 columns, while Ashera (translated groves in the Au- 
 thorised Version) was represented by tree trunks, 
 
THE REV. WILLIAM WRIGHT, D.D. 65 
 
 or upright wooden posts. It is believed that these 
 symbols had not always been associated with the 
 foul rites of Baal, but that they had been the 
 memorials of the places where worshippers had 
 once been in contact with God (Gen. xxviii. i8, 
 22). In process of time they became the symbols 
 of Nature- worship, and as such fell under the con- 
 demnation of the prophets of Jehovah (Isa. xvii. 8 ; 
 xxvii. 9; Micah V. 13-14). 
 
 As the firstborn sons were passed through the 
 fire to Baal-Molech, so chaste virgins were devoted 
 to wickedness in the name of religion. But it was 
 not religion. It was only Kitual, unconnected 
 with morality. In these unspeakable rites the 
 Baal demanded the purest, the loveliest, and the 
 most tenderly loved, and Canaanitish religion com- 
 pelled its devotees to comply with the requests of 
 the deity. Fathers and mothers, with heroic self- 
 sacrifice devoted their young daughters to the re- 
 morseless god, believing that they were performing 
 acts of boundless merit in the sight of heaven. So 
 completely may ecclesiastic ritual be divorced from 
 morality ! 
 
 It is no wonder that this form of Canaanitish 
 worship was so hateful in the sight of God's pro- 
 phets, or that such condign punishment was meted 
 out to the chosen people when " they forsook the 
 
 E 
 
66 ANCIENT CANAANITE RELIGIONS. 
 
 Lord, and served Baal and Ashtoretli" (Judges 
 ii. 13 ; iii. 7). Their "fathers dwelt on the other 
 side of the flood (river) in old time, even 
 Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of 
 Nahor; and they served other gods" (Joshua 
 xxiv. 2). What made Abraham and his seed to 
 differ from the Semitic worshippers of other 
 gods ? The one true God had called them to be 
 His people. 
 
 According to Max Mtiller, "the worship of Je- 
 hovah made the Jews a peculiar people, the people 
 of Jehovah, separated by their God, though not by 
 their language, from the people of Chemosh, and 
 from the worshippers of Baal and Ashtoreth. It 
 was their faith in Jehovah that changed the wan- 
 dering tribes of Israel into a nation." ^ 
 
 Abraham heard the voice and followed the lead- 
 ing of Jehovah, and he became the father of the 
 chosen people, who in Egypt, in the desert, among 
 the Cauaanites, and the other peoples of the world, 
 remained witnesses to the one Living and True 
 God. Phoenicia might barter her merchandise in 
 all lands ; Egypt might erect her mighty monu- 
 ments ; the Hittites might beat back the tides of 
 invasion ; Greece might instruct the world in cul- 
 ture and artistic beauty ; Home might teach the 
 
 ^ Introduction to the Science of Religion, p. ^6, 
 
THE EEV. WILLIAM WRIGHT, D.D. 67 
 
 Bations law and order; but the descendants of 
 that one man, called by Jehovah out of Ur of the 
 Chaldees, preserved among the nations the know- 
 ledge of a personal holy God nigh at hand, who 
 knoweth the righteous and who will " by no means 
 clear the guilty." 
 
 How did it happen that the other Semitic 
 peoples differed from the seed of Abraham by 
 practising crime-stained religions ? They too had 
 heard the voice of "the one Living and True 
 God." Canon Eawlinson, in his admirable tract 
 on " The Early Prevalence of Monotheistic Beliefs," 
 tells us ''that in the early times, everywhere, or 
 almost everywhere, belief in the unity of God 
 existed." This is admitted generally, as regards 
 the Semitic peoples, and it can be demonstrated 
 from their inscriptions and their literature. What 
 then is the secret of their religious degradation ? 
 The true scientific historical answer is given by 
 the Apostle Paul : " Because that knowing God, 
 they glorified Him not as God, neither gave 
 thanks ; but became vain in their reasonings, and 
 their senseless heart was darkened. Professing 
 themselves to be wise, they became fools, and 
 changed the glory of the incorruptible God for 
 the likeness of an image of corruptible man . . . 
 wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their 
 
68 ANCIENT CANAANITE RELIGIONS. 
 
 hearts unto uncleanness, that their bodies should' 
 be dishonoured among themselves ; for that they 
 changed the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped 
 and served the creature rather than the Creator, 
 who is blessed for ever. Amen/' 
 
EARLIER HELLENIC RELIGIONS. 
 
 V. 
 
 By the Rev. EDWIN JOHNSON, M.A., late Professor of 
 Classical Literature, New College, London. 
 
 IVrO one who has lived with the Greek religious 
 traditions — the deposit of a dateless antiquity 
 — long enough to appreciate their profound signi- 
 ficance in the life of the people, and through them 
 upon our own culture, can care to deal in hasty 
 generalisations upon a subject so far-reachiug in 
 its scope as that which is stated at the head of 
 this paper. 
 
 What can we do beyond rapidly indicating a 
 few points of view, from which long perspectives 
 profitable study open out? Such a standpoint, 
 for example, is the period of Alexander and his 
 successors, when the Greek language, Greek man- 
 ners, Greek intuitions and philosophies made their 
 way in Asia Minor, in Palestine, and, above all, 
 in Alexandria. The Septuagint translation of the 
 Hebrew Scriptures marks an epoch of the great- 
 
70 EARLIER HELLENIC RELIGIONS. 
 
 est moment in connection with tlie origins of' 
 our religion. The Greek myth of the miraculous 
 unanimity of the translators ^ witnesses to this in 
 one way. In another way, the feeling of Jewish 
 doctors witnesses to the same thing. Denuncia- 
 tions of the sacrilegious act occur in the Talmud ; 
 for it was thought that a garbled version of the 
 sacred records had been given to the world. ^ 
 And hatred of swine and hatred of Greek learn- 
 ing seem to have been passions of equal strength. 
 Yet this is but one side of the case. A recoil 
 was certain to follow from the first impetuous at- 
 tack on a thing so all-pervading as Greek culture. 
 And Dr Joel, the accomplished Eabbi of Breslau, 
 has recently shown the other aspect of the matter. 
 "When the boy Ovid — as the tale runs — promised 
 his father, after a beating, that he would give up 
 verse making, he did so — in a hexameter ! Simi- 
 larly, the Eabbins rebuked the teaching of Greek, 
 using Greek words in the act. Some of them even 
 recommended Greek for girls. And the time came 
 when proselytising Pharisees found the Septuagint 
 useful, probably indispensable, in their work.^ A 
 stream takes colour from the bed through which it 
 
 ^ See Pseudo- Justin Martyr, Cohort j 13. 
 
 2 Joel, Blicke. Edersheim, Life of Jesus, i. 30. 
 
 ^ Stapler, La Palestine au temps de Jesus Christ. 
 
THE EEV. EDWIN JOHNSON, M.A. 7l 
 
 flows ; and that, from about two centuries before 
 Christ, the oracles of the Hebrew prophets should 
 have been conveyed to the world through the 
 vehicle of the Greek logos, is one of the most im- 
 portant facts in the history of our religion. This 
 wedding of Jewish substance with Hellenic form 
 reaches its complete expression in Philo, a most 
 epochal man.^ Not without reason have scholars 
 seen in him the father of Catholic theology, or the 
 fount and origin of that mystical apprehension of 
 the Old Testament Scriptures which has obtained 
 ever since his day, and which will to all appear- 
 ance still obtain. There seems no reason why 
 Philo himself should not have embraced the new 
 faith which was destined to spiritual empire : he 
 was not a Judaiser, but rather a Helleniser ; not 
 a zealot for the observance of the Law, but rather 
 a champion of spiritual freedom. He reads the 
 current ideas of the educated world into the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, not out of them. 
 
 But the name of Philo reminds us of his em- 
 bassy to Kome, and of Apion, the slanderous 
 Greek who went with him, and whom Josephus 
 later so severely handled ; and this again reminds 
 us of the bitter feuds between Greeks and Jews 
 
 1 Parallels between him and the recently discovered DidacMoi the 
 Apostles are shown in the edition of Massebieau. 
 
72 EARLIER HELLENIC RELIGIONS. 
 
 at Alexandria, and the unhappy mutual aspersions 
 in which they indulged. Here again is a point 
 of moment in reference to our subject. In that 
 intense and long rivalry of two conquered peoples, 
 — both so highly endowed, — for spiritual mastery 
 over their conquerors, which in the end prevailed, 
 Jews or Hellenes ? Is our religion more a debtor, 
 humanly and historically speaking, to these or to 
 those ? Or are we to see in Christianity, after 
 the same manner of speaking, a chemic combina- 
 tion of the Hellenic with the Hebrew spirit ? ^ 
 Surely these are questions for patient analytic 
 study in detail, rather than for swift and sweep- 
 ing decision. To say nothing of the strong con- 
 trast between such writings as the '' Book of 
 Enoch," and the writings of the Greek apologists 
 and fathers, in the New Testament itself the 
 diverse currents of theological belief, the Judaic 
 and the anti-Judaic feeling, are too marked not 
 to demand renewed inquiry on the part of every 
 thoughtful student. 
 
 Let us select another standpoint. Let us plant 
 ourselves in Hellas itself early in the second cen- 
 tury A.D. Here we are in the hands of a guide 
 
 1 On Early Christianity, Rooted in the Old Testament and the 
 Hellenic Spirit, — Ci'. Harnack on Havet's Le Christianisme in Theol. 
 Lit. Ztg., 1885. 
 
THE EEY. EDWIN JOHNSON, M.A. 73 
 
 and witness whom we cannot too highly value, 
 Pansanias, an Asiatic Greek, a man of plain and 
 unsophisticated thought, of competent learning, 
 of simple piety, a man to be respected. After all 
 that has been written on the subject, let ns re- 
 peat what others have said before, that the Perie- 
 gesis of this writer is our best introduction, on 
 the whole, to the story of Greek religion and 
 mythology. But this is a book you must pore 
 over for years. The information Pausanias gives 
 us is often far from self-intelligible. When our 
 curiosity is excited by the hope of discovering 
 something, our guide tells us that he is under 
 the vow of an initiate, or that he is warned by a 
 dream not to divulge the secret truth. Still, 
 much may be gleaned by patient thought and 
 comparison ; and the sense grows upon us in this 
 study that nowhere was religion held in a more 
 intense and awe-stricken manner, nowhere was the 
 popular intuition more ghostly, more saturated 
 with the presence of spiritual life and activity than 
 in ancient Hellas. Another book, dense with trage- 
 dies and horrors, is the Bihliotheca^ of Apollo- 
 doros.^ No one who desires to get a deep im- 
 pression of the religious ideas of the Greeks should 
 omit the reading of the legends, as they here are 
 
 ^C. 115 B.C. 
 
74 EARLIER HELLENIC RELIGIONS. 
 
 evidently told without a touch of extenuation. A 
 student will be pardoned if he insists that the 
 subject cannot be "got up" from handbooks, nor 
 yet from the perusal of Mr. Morris's " Epic of 
 Hades." The most striking and luminous com- 
 mentary on the Greek religious myths that has 
 yet been furnished, is to be found in the lore of 
 negroes and other tribes of the great continents, 
 and of the islands of the present day. ThiDgs 
 that are dark and enigmatic to us in the mytho- 
 graphers would be perfectly intelligible to the 
 savage, if rendered into his tongue. The fear 
 of the ghosts of the dead, who pass now under the 
 name of ** Heroes," now under that of *' Daemons," 
 is the one pole of Greek religion ; the other is the 
 belief in gods who were saviours, atoners, purifiers, 
 healers, imparters of dreams and of oracles. 
 
 If we desire to study the influence of Greek 
 religious conceptions upon Christian theology, we 
 can hardly do better than compare Pausanias with 
 Justin Martyr, who is nearly his contemporary. 
 There are points in this comparison which will 
 strike every student coming freshly to the subject 
 with great force. For example, the conception of 
 incarnate, human, sufiering, atoning deity is not 
 once, but many times, exhibited in the Greek re- 
 ligious myths, in a manner certainly less refined 
 
THE REV. EDWIN JOHNSON, M.A. 75 
 
 than that of the Gospels, but one that indicates 
 intense popular belief and pathos. The concep- 
 tion of the mother goddess, in some cases the 
 union of the conceptions of maiden and mother 
 (Athena, Artemis), was also mightily endeared to 
 the Hellenes. "We cannot wonder at the enthrone- 
 ment of the Panagia on the Athenian Acropolis 
 in place of her who sprang from the brain of 
 Zeus. Justin Martyr's "Apology" and "Dialogue 
 with Trypho " show how keenly he felt the force 
 of Hellenic analogies to Christianity.^ But how 
 does he dispose of them ? In a way that can 
 satisfy nowadays no common -sense Christian. 
 The birth legends of the gods are set down to 
 the invention of "wicked daemons." The resem- 
 blance between the mysterious rites of the god 
 Mithras and the Eucharist is ascribed to the like 
 devilish imitation . But the worship of Mithras 
 long antedates Christianity. How does Justin 
 distin Ornish the Christian beliefs in the incarna- 
 tion of the atoning cross from corresponding 
 heathen beliefs ? He finds them prefigured in 
 the Old Testament. Hardly would an intelligent 
 apologist of the present day care to use such ar- 
 guments, or think that other than mischief could 
 be done by them. But Justin's method is another 
 
 1 Apol I, 21, 54, 62, 64, 66 ; Dial. c. Trijph. 69, 70. 
 
76 EARLIER HELLENIC RELIGIONS. 
 
 remarkable proof of the powerful spell exerted by 
 the Hebrew Scriptures in the propagation of the 
 new faith — interpreted, that is, and suffused by 
 Greek reasoninsfs. The strono: thino: in Justin 
 Martyr is his doctrine of the immanence of the 
 logos in Socrates, and in the " Barbarians.*' ^ Had 
 he been consistent with that, he might have felt 
 his way to the true basis of " Christian evid- 
 ences," namely, that our religion has its founda- 
 tion in the conscience, the affections, and the ideal 
 nature of man. As they stand, his "apologies" 
 awaken doubts which they cannot quell ; and one 
 cannot conceive of any but the weakest heads 
 converted whether from Judaism or from pagan- 
 ism by them. The analogies of the supernatural 
 in Hellenism and in Christianity, which his 
 '* wicked demons," ex macJiina, are introduced 
 to explain, still demand our careful examination. 
 Are they possibly, like other cases of reputed 
 analogy, resolvable into identities of intuition ? 
 The demands of a true sacred science, a sacred 
 anthropology, if you will, are not met till these 
 and kindred problems are in all candour and ear- 
 nestness grappled with. 
 
 Pausanias, livingj in the time of Hadrian and 
 
 1 Sec the recent treatise of Professor V. G. Allen, The Continuity 
 oj Christia7i Thought. 
 
THE REV. EDWIN JOHNSON, M.A. 77 
 
 the Antonines, apparently knows notliing of the 
 new religious movement which was destined to 
 dispossess gods and heroes from the shrines he 
 visited with all a pilgrim's zeal. And his know- 
 ledge of the Jews is as limited as that of Plut- 
 arch, of Tacitus, and other writers of the first two 
 centuries. Pausanias has heard of the Sabbath 
 of the Jews, and of their prophetic lore. And 
 there rises before his imagination the figure of 
 "an oracular woman among the Hebrews beyond 
 Palestine, whose name was Sabbe, and who was 
 said to be daughter of Berosus and of Erymanthe. 
 Some call her the Babylonian and others the Egyp- 
 tian Sibyll" (lo, 12, 5). Compare the idle tales 
 about early Jewish history in Tacitus* " Histories" 
 (v. 1 K) and in the "Epitome" of Junian Justin 
 (c. 160 A.D.) : what a gulf, caused by ignorance, 
 deepened by antipathy, is fixed between the Eoman 
 and the Jewish and early Christian world! The 
 genial and learned Plutarch (c. 100 a.d.) made the 
 profound discovery that the "God of the Hebrews" 
 was none other than Dionysos, apparently because 
 at the Feast of Tabernacles wine was enjoyed, and 
 an invocation was made which sounded like a name 
 of the Greek god ! ^ A little later Tacitus (c. 116 
 A.D.) was writing down (the first time, probably, a 
 
 1 Sym]j. iv. and foil. 
 
78 EARLIER HELLENIC RELIGIONS. 
 
 Eoman pen dropped the word) the Christiani and 
 their "deadly superstition." During the second 
 centurj, Greek and Eoman religions, ever in spirit 
 tual alliance, the Egyptian rites of Isis and the 
 Persian rites of Mithras still "held the field." 
 How did Christianity attain to spiritual empire ? 
 How did it quell those " wicked demons " ? By 
 exorcism in the name of Jesus, is the chief ex- 
 planation of Justin Martyr. As the Christian 
 Church has long ceased to recognise the functions 
 of the exorcist, this is for us hardly an intelligible 
 explanation. Nor can we find what we need in 
 that nawe literature which passes under the name 
 of the " Apostolic Fathers ! " ^ Massive popular 
 movements and changes are never traceable to 
 origins of that kind. In truth, the whole pro- 
 gress of Christianity from the time of Trajan and 
 Hadrian, when it began to make itself seriously 
 felt, is like the course of one of the subterranean 
 rivers of Greece. We cannot adequately trace it 
 in any written sources. It is sometimes said that 
 heathendom "perished before the blows" of the 
 Christian apologists and fathers. But it is diffi- 
 cult to think of anything being overcome by 
 
 ^ The first six chapters of the DidacM compared with Ep. Bar- 
 nabace 18-20, and Apost. Constt.^ bk. vii., also with Testaments of the 
 Twelve Patriarchs^ are richly ethical, not theological. See Dr. War- 
 field's art. ill Bihl. Sacra., Jan. 1886. 
 
THE EEV. EDWIN JOHNSON, M.A. 79 
 
 their declamations, for tlie most part so weak 
 and rhetorical. There were in the second and 
 the third century men far more than a match for 
 the ''fathers'' in point of learning and art, had 
 the future of Christianity depended on such re- 
 sources. It is painful in this respect to turn from 
 the pages of Plutarch, of Lucian, of Athenaeus, of 
 Pausanias, and again from Plotinus and Porphyry, 
 to the new polemists. It is an exchange of intel- 
 lectual wealth for poverty. The life of the mass 
 of the people is little affected by controversies of 
 the educated. It is a still life ; it goes on from 
 generation to generation, stirred with the like 
 pathos, nourished by the same thoughts, rooted 
 in the associations of the old festivals. Names 
 change, but the time-honoured customs are kept 
 up under them, until they are put down by force 
 or their profit ceases. A compromise was silently 
 going on during these times ; the early Jewish- 
 Christian conception of the Christ, and the expec- 
 tation of the Parousia, passed away ; the demands 
 of a rigid monotheism yielded to the prevalence of 
 the Hellenic spirit, which finally triumphed at the 
 Council of Nicsea. 
 
 If, now, we take our stand with the fathers of 
 the third and fourth century, we find the whole 
 representation of Christian dogma coloured by old 
 
80 EARLIER HELLENIC RELIGIONS. 
 
 Hellenic feelino: and intuition. Take the dogma 
 of the atonement. It is startling to modern ideas 
 to find the sacrifice of Christ represented as a 
 ransom paid to the devil on behalf of the human 
 race, in consequence of a Divine pact.^ Yet so 
 Origen and Basil taught, with the use of imagery 
 the most realistic and coarse. They did but fall 
 in with prevailing conceptions. For what lay 
 implicit in the legend of Apollo and his combat 
 with the fiendish Python at Delphi, was the belief 
 that the god, menaced at his birth by infernal 
 power, was destined to overcome it, and that by 
 self-sacrifice. While the heathen Plutarch ex- 
 presses distaste for the tale of the god and the 
 serpent told by the iheologoi of Delphi, the Chris- 
 tian Minucius Felix, on the other hand, tells us that 
 the tradition ran that the god was swallowed up 
 of the Python. It may be inferred that the Chris- 
 tian atonement could not be understood by the 
 people except under analogies borrowed from the 
 old religions. And so with other matters. The 
 old idea of initiation in the mysteries, and of a 
 secret knowledge reserved for the few, is kept up 
 in Chrysostom, who very frequently uses the phrase, 
 *^ The initiated know." ^ 
 
 1 See Mr. Oxenham's work on Tlic Atonement, 2cl ed. 
 
 2 It is noteworthy also that this distinction of mysts and ami/sts 
 is already in Philo. 
 
THE REV. EDWIN JOHNSON, M.A. 81 
 
 If we study only the lore of leading Hellenic 
 deities in historical times, Zeus, Apollo, Dionysos, 
 we cannot but feel liow fertile a bed bad Ions; been 
 preparing for the new seed. That lore contains, 
 under dramatic forms of narrative, representatious 
 the most tragic of the necessity of human sacrifice, 
 of the slaying father and the slain son, the vicari- 
 ous animal substitute, of the hereditary blood-guilt 
 only to be wiped out by annual or other periodic 
 atonements and purificatious. The need of willing- 
 hood on the part of the human victims is also 
 strongly impressed in many legends of a most 
 thrilling character. The rites of Dionysos Eleu- 
 therios, the Liberator, have been well compared 
 with the Paschal Feast, when the one sacrifice of 
 the tribal god on behalf of his people, doing away 
 with the cruel necessity of the slaughter of their 
 own children, is thankfully commemorated.^ 
 
 With regard to the future life, there is no 
 reason to suppose that it was ever doubted of by 
 the general mind in Greece. Initiation was craved 
 because it was believed to ensure well-being both 
 in the present life and in the life to come. It is 
 a charge frequently brought by the early Christians 
 against the heathen, that they worshipped " dead 
 
 1 Cf. Julius Lippert, Die Religg. der Euro}!. Cultur-Volher^ one of 
 the most luminous of recent writers on tliese subjects. 
 
 F 
 
82 EARLIER HELLENIC RELIGIONS. 
 
 gods." Certainly the ancestral tomb was tlie great; 
 focus of Hellenic piety. But the departed were the 
 spiritually living in the belief of the people. And 
 the idea of the baptism in fire by which the 
 humanum onus, the burden of flesh and blood, 
 might be removed and immortality be secured, sur- 
 vived and reasserted itself in the doctrine of purga- 
 tory. 
 
 Christian teachers came bringing a message of 
 soteria, of salvation to the world. But the mind 
 of the heathen was no blank in respect to the 
 nature of soteria. He meant by it the aversion of 
 disease from the body, famine from the fields, de- 
 fence against the power of evil spirits, oracular 
 guidance for the future, good hopes for all time. 
 There was an intense craving for salvation in the 
 Hellenic world, in this sense, at the beginning of 
 our era, a deep and sorrowful sense of degradation 
 from a once happier state. One of the most note- 
 worthy passages in Pausanias is that where his 
 mind reverts to blessed times when the gods held 
 close communion with mortals, and were born from 
 mortals. The great fame of the god Asklepios 
 '(Aesculapius) in Argolis and Athens during his- 
 torical times is another striking evidence of the 
 state of popular feeling. His worship was the 
 centre of a great system of "faitb-hcaling." The 
 
THE REV. EDWIN JOHNSON, M.A. 83 
 
 spring and the gymnasium lay hard by the temple. 
 Pilgrims were believed to gain invigoration for the 
 body and comfort for the mind in nightly visions. 
 The god was held to have raised many heroes from 
 the dead. 
 
 When we consider how sharply and sternly the 
 most enlightened Jewish spirits, and again the Jew- 
 ish-Christian *' Apostles and prophets," of whose 
 life and teaching so interestiag glimpses are given 
 ns in the Didaclie, opposed not only common 
 heathen vices of the flesh, but also the practices 
 of sorcery and divination, so rife in the Hellenic- 
 Eoman religions ; how at the same time they met 
 the yearning for salvation by the preaching of a 
 creed at once sublime and simple, a morality in 
 every sense sound and sweet : we may, perhaps, 
 see where the victorious principle in the new re- 
 ligjion was felt to lie. But as ever in human affairs, 
 the tide rolled back ; once more, victi victoribus 
 leges dederunt. Heathendom reconquered most of 
 its lost ground, even as Kome reconquered in 
 Southern Europe after the Keformation. If the 
 question be asked, " Is the religion of the mass of 
 the people under the rule of the Greek and Roman 
 Churches at the present day more heathen or Chris- 
 tian ? " it must be answered that the whole question 
 of the relations of new religions to old, partly anti- 
 
84 EARLIER HELLENIC RELIGIONS. 
 
 pathetic, partly sympathetic, demands ever fresh 
 consideration. Beneath all historical changes, there 
 ever remain some unchanging elements. To detect 
 these is to get at the heart of the matter, for, ideally 
 or spiritually speaking, there is but one religion. 
 If, however, it be still, to every serious student, 
 one of the most difficult things in the world to 
 understand the history of our religion during the 
 first two centuries, how much more so to understand 
 those systems which had for so many centuries 
 been preparing the ground for it in Greek and 
 Roman culture. Among the many works we have 
 consulted on the subject, we are inclined to think 
 the work of Hartung on the Eeligion and Mytho- 
 logy of the Greeks will be found most suggestive 
 to the general student. The mere examination of 
 the rich religious vocabulary of the Greeks will of 
 itself teach how mistaken it is to assume, as has 
 been often done, that "Nature worship" rather 
 than spiritual experience lies at the foundation of 
 their religions. 
 
( 85 ) 
 
 THE JEWISH FAITH. 
 
 VI. 
 
 By Eabbi G. J. EMANUEL, B.A., of the Jews' Synagogue, 
 
 Birmingham. 
 
 n^HEEE are few more gratifying signs of our ad- 
 vanced and still advancing civilisation, than 
 the marked and continually growing decrease of 
 the animosity arising from difference of religious 
 belief. In times past, men who, but for this dif- 
 ference, might have been friendly neighbours and 
 mutually helpful fellow-citizens, were thereby sepa- 
 rated into hostile bands. Dogmas rose up between 
 them like huge walls; and from behind these walls, 
 within which they stood like armed garrisons, they 
 glared angrily out on all beyond the narrow bound- 
 aries of their sect. These walls have been lowered, 
 the light of reason has entered the dark enclosures, 
 the free air of liberty has swept through the close 
 ])enfolds, and men, casting down their weapons, 
 wonder why they regarded as enemies those who 
 
86 THE JEWISH FAITH. 
 
 but exercised like themselves the godlike faculty of 
 thought, and stood firm to their convictions. 
 
 A most striking and significant instance of this 
 welcome change, is furnished by the changed rela- 
 tions of Judaism and Christianity. Christianity 
 could once see in Judaism only blind, obstinate, 
 wilful and sinful disbelief, an infatuated clinging 
 to what it denounced as superstitious practices, a 
 mad rejection of what it proclaimed the only possi- 
 bility of salvation. While Judaism could see in 
 Christianity only an active denial of its most 
 cherished convictions — denial of God's Unity, denial 
 of God's spirituality, denial of God's unswerving 
 justice in rewarding the good and punishing the 
 sinful — idolatry the more hopeless because bound 
 up with it was belief in the true God — and withal, 
 a ferocious enemy and implacable persecutor. 
 
 The two faiths are beginning to understand each 
 other better. Christianity does Judaism the jus- 
 tice of admitting that it has moulded a race 
 marked, if not by heroic, at least by substantial 
 virtues — by parental care, conjugal fidelity, and 
 filial afi'ection ; by brotherly love, tender compas- 
 sion, large-hearted philanthropy, and a passionate 
 attachment to liberty. While Judaism gladly ac- 
 knowledges that "Christianity has carried the 
 golden germs of religion and morality, long hidden 
 
THE EABBI G. J. EMANUEL, B.A. 87 
 
 in the schools of the learned, into the market of 
 humanity, and has communicated that * Kingdom 
 of Heaven ' of which the Talmud is full from the 
 first page to the last, to the herd, to the lepers." ^ 
 
 We seek now not the differences, but the points 
 of contact between the two religions, and we find 
 them to be numerous and vital. And who will 
 wonder at it who remembers that the New Testa- 
 ment was written, as Lightfoot puts it, "among 
 Jews, by Jews, for Jews." 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield, in one of his earlier works, 
 speaks of Christianity as the developed religion of 
 the ancient Israelites, and of Judaism as that re- 
 ligion suddenly arrested in its growth and petrified. 
 A truer description would be that Judaism and 
 Christianity are alike evolutions differentiated from 
 one common stock, that stock being the conceptions 
 and practices held by the remarkable race that 
 lived and ruled in Palestine from the time of Moses 
 to the Common Era, a period of about 1400 years. 
 
 It is not for us here to discuss the origin of these 
 conceptions and practices. On this point there will 
 always be, as there ahvays has been, two opinions 
 wide apart as the poles. The critical student will 
 seek their source in the religious system of the 
 ancient Egyptians, in the travelled experience and 
 
 1 Deutsch's LiterUrt/ Remains^ page 27. 
 
88 THE JEWISH FAITH. 
 
 ripe sagacity of Israel's leader, in the attempts to 
 explain the phenomena of Nature and the cere- 
 monies arising therefrom, which, following the 
 same laws of thought, are so strikingly similar in 
 early races of widely different types and locales. 
 While the pious Jew and the devout Christian will 
 be content with the all-sufficient explanation, that 
 these conceptions and practices were divinely com- 
 municated to the inspired legislator of the Israel- 
 itish people. 
 
 Waiving then the question of their origin, let us 
 seek to draw a faithful picture of those principles 
 and institutions which formed the foundation alike 
 of Christianity and modern Judaism. 
 
 First and foremost among these principles is the 
 conception of the Deity, and of His relations to all 
 besides Him. 
 
 The God of Israel is more than the God of gods, 
 in the sense that He is greater than the deities 
 worshipped by other nations ; He is sole God, all 
 others are idols, " with eyes that see not and ears 
 that hear not " — nothings — powerless to help their 
 most devoted worshippers. Self-Existent and Eter- 
 nal (as exhibited in His name Jehovah, or Jahveh, 
 from the Hebrew, "to be"), He is Creator of the 
 universe and of man. But power is the least 
 of His attributes. He is scrupulously just, in- 
 
THE RABBI G. J. EMANUEL, B.A. 89 
 
 finitely good, tenderly merciful ; patiently bearing 
 sin, that the sinner may repent, but punishing the 
 persistent sinner, and accepting no ransom except 
 the ransom of remorse and return to right-doing. 
 He is absolutely spiritual, free from corporeality 
 and all its attendant defects. And He is One of a 
 Unity rigorously severe, " Hear, Israel ! the Lord 
 thy God, the Lord is One" (Deut. vi. 4). 
 
 It is worthy of note here, how the derived re- 
 ligions — modern Judaism and Christianity — while 
 agreeing in adopting en hloc these ancient concep- 
 tions of the Deity, have diverged in the develop- 
 ment of these principles, the former in the direction 
 of severity, the latter in the direction of laxity. 
 
 The Israelite in Canaan was ever prone to make 
 material representations of the Supreme — the Jew 
 throughout the world will suffer no sculptured 
 figure in his synagogue, nor even pictorial form, to 
 disturb his profound sense of the spirituality of 
 the Being he worships ; but the Christian con- 
 ceives the Deity as having been for years incar- 
 nated in a human creature. 
 
 The ancient Israelite, though his prophets hurled 
 ridicule and invective against the notion, thought 
 that the death of the animal he sacrificed expiated 
 his sin and saved his life — the modern Jew, on 
 the great Day of Atonement, proclaims that only 
 
90 THE JEWISH FAITH. 
 
 prayer, good deeds, and repentauce, can revoke the, 
 decree pronounced on the sinner; the Christian 
 hopes and believes that the sufferings and death of 
 Jesus atone his guilt and secure his salvation. 
 
 Finally, the Israelites of Palestine, despite the 
 terrible penalties that instantly followed it, fell 
 again and again under the fascination of idolatry. 
 The watchword of Judaism at the present day is 
 the Unity of God ; the first words of prayer the 
 Jewish child learns to utter, the last words of 
 prayer that fall on the ears of the Jew at the 
 moment of death, are the words already quoted ; 
 " Hear, Israel ! the Lord our God, the Lord is 
 One ; " while Christianity adores a holy trinity, 
 God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost. 
 
 To resume — The God of Israel, the Creator of all, 
 is the Father of all. All nations are His, and all 
 are dear to Him. He took Israel as His chosen 
 people, not in the sense that He would pet and 
 favour them at the expense of other nations, or 
 that He would permit them to indulge with im- 
 punity in vice and sin, but in the sense that He 
 took them to do a great work, to perform a service 
 on which He set great value, viz., that they should 
 be *' His kingdom of priests," teachers to the world 
 of His truth and worship. Thus God's selection of 
 Israel was an evidence of His universal love. Nor 
 
THE EABBI G. J. EMANUEL, B.A. 91 
 
 was man only the object of His affectionate regard 
 — He looked with consideration on the lower pro- 
 ductions of His creative power. True, He gave 
 over all other livinsr creatures to man for his use 
 and benefit, but man was not to abuse his power. 
 He might slaughter animals for food, but he was to 
 inflict no unnecessary pain upon them ; he might 
 employ them in labour, but he might not overwork 
 them, their burdens were not to be made too heavy, 
 and they too were to rest on the holy Sabbath-day. 
 Their feelings, so to speak, were to be respected : 
 " Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth 
 out the corn " (Deut. xxv. 4). The dumb creature 
 was not to be tantalised by the sight of the dainty 
 on which he was working while he was prevented 
 from taking a mouthful. 
 
 The God of Israel is pure and holy, and His 
 people must become distinguished by the same 
 qualities. They were to practise a morality which 
 would do honour to the most advanced race of the 
 nineteenth century, and which formed a marked 
 contrast to the lawlessness and licentiousness pre- 
 valent alike among the Egyptians and Canaanites. 
 
 The relations between the sexes were to be 
 characterised by refinement and mutual fidelity. 
 All incestuous connections were to be avoided ; the 
 seducer was to marry his victim by a union that no 
 
92 THE JEWISH FAITH. 
 
 divorce could dissolve (Deut. xxii. 29) ; adultery 
 was to be purged by the death of the guilty ones 
 (Deut, xxii. 22). And the purity acquired by a 
 lofty morality was to be maintained by careful 
 separation from all that could defile the body or 
 disturb the mind ; hence, probably, the laws con- 
 cerning Levitical purity and dietary laws. 
 
 The relations between man and man were to be 
 marked by strictest justice and tenderest love. 
 Wrong should not be committed, either by act 
 (sixth, seventh, and eighth commandments), or by 
 word (ninth), or even by thought (tenth). And 
 wrong inflicted should not be revenged, or even 
 borne in mind (Lev. xix. 18). 
 
 Judaism and Christianity have alike inherited 
 these noble conceptions of human relations, but 
 Judaism has emphasised justice as the fundamental 
 virtue, while Christianity identifies itself with love. 
 The modern Jewish term for philanthropy, alms- 
 giving, is '^1^7'^ '* justice," "righteousness," while 
 the virtue constantly joined to the adjective 
 Christian is charity — " Christian charity." But 
 "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Lev. 
 xix. 18) is still a precept acknowledged and largely 
 obeyed by Jews as well as Christians. 
 
 The God of Israel, Creator and Sustainer, in 
 every way the Benefactor of His people, was to be 
 
THE RABBI G. J. EMANUEL, B.A. 93 
 
 regarded by them with reverence and affection, 
 was to be obeyed and worshipped. Days were to 
 be observed holy to Him — the Sabbath, as their 
 testimony to His mighty and beneficent work in 
 creation ; the Festivals and the Sabbath, too, as 
 their testimony to His mighty and beneficent work 
 in the deliverance from Egypt, the giving of the 
 Law, the protection of His people in the wilderness, 
 and in presenting, year by year, His gracious gift 
 of the earth's products. Worship was to be mani- 
 fested mainly in the one form known to the ancient 
 world, the presentation of ofi"erings. But it is to 
 be noted that sacrifices for sins to God were to be 
 preceded by confession (Lev. xvi. 21), for sins to 
 man by restitution (Lev. v. 23); thank-offerings 
 were to be accompanied by a declaration of God's 
 goodness and of the gratitude of the worshipper 
 (Deut. XX vi. I -11), while the whole institution of 
 sacrifices is introduced in such a way as represents 
 it rather as regulating an existing practice than as 
 establishing it as God's chosen form of service (Lev. 
 i. 2). Thus the prophet Jeremiah (vii. 22) says: 
 " For I spake not unto your fathers nor commanded 
 them in the day that I brought them out of the 
 land of Egypt concerning burnt- offerings and sacri- 
 fices." And all tbe prophets and psalmists speak 
 of them as being of little value in God's eyes. 
 
94 'LHE JEWISH FAITH. 
 
 One further element of the ancient religion of 
 Israel remains to be cousidered — the place that the 
 thought of eternity held in it. It is generally 
 asserted that existence after death, with all the 
 ideas connected with it, was either unknown or 
 denied in Mosaism. This assertion I venture em- 
 phatically to contradict. True, the rewards pro- 
 mised to good deeds, the punishments threatened 
 against crimes, are all temporal, terrestrial. There 
 is no mention of happiness or misery beyond the 
 grave, but good reasons may be assigned for this 
 reticence. Moses, in speaking to the people of the 
 results of their conduct, speaks to them as a nation 
 (Lev. xxvii. ; Deut. xxviii.), and nations have no 
 existence in a future world as individuals have ; 
 their whole lives are spent here ; here on earth 
 they '* eat the fruit of their doings ;" here and here 
 only they enjoy the reward of their virtues and 
 suffer the penalty of their vices. 
 
 Again, the condition of the nation of Israel was 
 to be an illustration to all the world of the effects 
 of righteousness and sin. Their worldly prosperity, 
 their power and happiness, were to encourage other 
 nations to godliness. Their disasters, their defeat, 
 and their misery, were to deter other nations from 
 fallini^ into their backslidino-s. Hence all stress 
 was laid on the immediate results of their actions. 
 
THE RABBI G. J. EMANUEL, B.A. 95 
 
 Finally, the promise of future bliss, the threat of 
 future wretchedness, is a terrible weapon when 
 Avielded by an unscrupulous priesthood. Eesearches 
 into Egyptian history liave shown how large a space 
 the doctrine of immortality held in the cult of the 
 ancient inhabitants of the Nile Valley, and what 
 enormous power was usurped in consequence by 
 the priestly caste. Koman Catholicism^ in modern 
 days furnishes another illustration of the same 
 abuse. Dying men were terrified into bequeathing 
 vast sums and large estates to the Church. Thus 
 the clergy grew rich and powerful, while families 
 were despoiled and the State impoverished. But 
 the priests of Israel were to flourish with the pro- 
 sperity of their people, not to fatten on their 
 degradation and dependence. They were to hold 
 no land, but to live on the ofi"ering[s of those to 
 w^hom they ministered. 
 
 For these reasons no distinct declaration is made 
 concerning existence after death. But it is a mis- 
 take to imao;ine that no allusion is made to such 
 an existence. 
 
 There is the injunction (Deut. xviii. ii) forbid- 
 ding enquiring of the dead. 
 
 The term for death is "being gathered unto one's 
 
 ^ Compare Benisch's Judaism Surveyed, p. ^t^. 
 
96 THE JEWISH FAITH. 
 
 fathers,'^ implying the thought of re-union of loved 
 and loving ones after death. 
 
 God, forbidding to Noah and his sons murder 
 and suicide, strengthens his prohibitions by the 
 words : *' Your blood of your souls will I require" 
 (Gen. ix. 5) ; while in other books of the Bible the 
 allusions to another state of existence are neither 
 few nor obscure. 
 
 Thus briefly and imperfectly (for the subject 
 demands a volume rather than a magazine article) 
 have I sketched the ideas and practices which 
 formed the religion of the nation rescued from 
 Egypt and settled in Canaan, a religion that may 
 rightly be named after him who took so large a 
 share in the establishment of the nation — Mosaism. 
 
 Let us now proceed to enquire what modifications 
 resulted from the terrible vicissitudes the people of 
 Israel experienced — their repeated defeats and final 
 overthrow as an independent nation, the destruc- 
 tion of their Temple, the loss of their country, their 
 dispersion throughout the world, their persecution 
 on every side, and lastly their re-admission into 
 the ranks of humanity, a beneficent movement 
 commenced not a century ago, and still very far 
 from being universally accomplished. 
 
 I. From Babylon there returned to the land of 
 Judah, with Ezra, a remnant poor in number and 
 
THE EABBI G. J. EMANUEL, B.A. 97 
 
 in influence, but rich in religious zeal. The nation 
 of Israel had passed through a fiery furnace ; it 
 came forth terribly reduced but greatly purified. 
 We hear never again of idol worship in connection 
 with Israel. Henceforth their belief in God's Unity, 
 in God's Spirituality, reigns supreme. 
 
 Another characteristic of the restored nation, was 
 an anxious desire to know and to perform all the 
 institutions of the Law. There are passages scat- 
 tered throughout the historical books which would 
 lead us to suppose that, during the times of the 
 Judges and the Kings, some of the most important 
 laws were ignored or neglected. The great Festi- 
 vals seem not to have been regularly observed. We 
 know (2 Chron. xxxvi. 21) that the Sabbatical year 
 was not kept as a period of rest for the land. 
 During the Babylonian exile, of necessity the insti- 
 tution of sacrifices had fallen into desuetude. 
 
 Now began an earnest investigation, an almost 
 feverish activity, to know the requirements of the 
 Law in their entirety. All that remained of the 
 ancient literature was sought out and put together, 
 and gradually the Canon was formed. The Penta- 
 teuch was studied with an ardour not to be satiated. 
 Believed to be inspired, it was thought that every 
 word, letter, and point, had secret meanings, which 
 would reveal themselves to the diligent student. 
 
98 THE JEWISH FAITH. 
 
 The memories of the aged were racked for details 
 as to how institutions had been observed in olden 
 times. The recollections of scholars were sought 
 for as to the teachings of their departed instructors. 
 And thus there grew up a mass of material, consist- 
 ing of traditions and the results of original investi- 
 gation, which afterwards became arranged as Mishna 
 and Gemara, together forming the Talmud. 
 
 2. Thus centuries passed, during which the ten- 
 dency became more and more pronounced to revive 
 with increasing rigour and minuteness every insti- 
 tution of ancient Mosaism. A political crisis which 
 seemed likely to arrest and subvert this tendency, 
 did in the sequel only expedite and intensify it. 
 The nation fell under the Grecian yoke, and a class 
 — the governing class too — attracted by a learniDg, 
 luxury, and refinement hitherto unknown to them, 
 attracted too by the sensuous joys it held out to 
 them — a class including even the High Priest — was 
 ready to abandon the ancestral faith, and to adopt 
 that of their conquerors. For imperial reasons in 
 connection with his projected vengeance on Kome, 
 Antiochus encouraged this disposition, and even 
 attempted by savage enactments to drive the entire 
 nation to follow their aristocratic leaders. But 
 persecution generally produces results exactly 
 opposite to those aimed at by it, and the Mac- 
 
THE RABBI G. J. EMANUEL, B.A. 99 
 
 cabean uprising resulted not only in the throwing 
 off of the Grecian yoke, but in the increase of 
 attachment to the national religion and to those 
 distinctive rites the Greeks had specially striven to 
 efface. 
 
 Thus grew up Pharisaism, generally regarded as 
 synonymous with all that was base, narrow-minded, 
 and hypocritical, but which in truth was genuine 
 religious ardour expressing itself in externals. 
 Unfortunately externals alone are visible and 
 imitable to the multitude, the spirit that animates 
 and dignifies them is not so apparent nor so readily 
 adopted. 
 
 At this epoch there arose the Great Teacher 
 whose influence has so profoundly affected the 
 world. He moved in Judea, filled with noble 
 aspirations, denouncing mere formalities, impatient 
 of all that fell short of His own high ideal. 
 So far as I can perceive, His recorded words har- 
 monise with what Isaiah, Jeremiah, or any Hebrew 
 prophet taught concerning religion when they 
 thundered against the follies or vices of their 
 brethren. He lived and died an obedient son of 
 Israel. Nor was His death the signal for the 
 establishment of a new religion. His disciples, 
 all born Jews, maintained Jewish institutions. It 
 was not until forty years after, and then only under 
 
100 THE JEWISH FAITH. 
 
 the influence of a vision (Acts x. 1 1-16), that Peter 
 set aside the dietary laws. The Jewish Sabbath 
 was long retained as the holy Day of Eest, and 
 until the Gentiles in numbers gave ear to the 
 preaching of the Apostles, the rite of circumcision 
 was considered an essential qualification for Chris- 
 tianity, as it had been for Judaism. Indeed, it 
 was Paul's preaching that authorised such de- 
 partures from Jewish practice as constituted the 
 establishment of a new faith, and from an historical 
 point of view, I am inclined to name Paul rather 
 than Jesus as the founder of the Christian religion. 
 
 During this period, and in the ages immedi- 
 ately succeeding, important changes took place in 
 Judaism. The doctrine of life after death became 
 prominent — now as belief in the resurrection of the 
 body on the Day of Judgment, now in the more 
 refined form of belief in the immortality of the 
 soul. The Pharisees held both beliefs, the Sad- 
 ducees (the Conservative party in Judaism) denied 
 the former and were disposed to keep the latter in 
 the background, hence they were popularly believed 
 to reject altogether belief in a future state. 
 
 The development of the Messianic idea is another 
 characteristic of this epoch. Every prophet had 
 looked forward to a time when the fortunes of 
 Israel should be triumphant, and the condition of 
 
THE KABBI G. J. EMANUEL, B.A. 101 
 
 man generally one of perfect peace and happiness, 
 and most of the Hebrew seers had united with this 
 glorious future the renewed splendour of the House 
 of David. In times of material prosperity, as the 
 need and so the desire for this future was less felt, 
 the Messianic idea receded to the background. In 
 times of gloom and disaster, and in proportion to 
 the hopelessness of the present outlook, the Mes- 
 sianic idea became prominent, and its promises 
 were passionately longed and prayed for. And to 
 this day the Messianic idea is one of the most im- 
 portant and pregnant in Judaism, holding a chief 
 place in its creed, and greatly influencing its ritual 
 in every quarter of the globe — with this difierence, 
 that where the Jewish people are oppressed and 
 trodden down, where their position is poor and 
 degraded, there its special and personal features 
 are most considered, there the Messiah is the 
 earthly prince that will bring back Israel to 
 Palestine, once more a great and powerful nation. 
 Where the Jewish people possess religious liberty 
 and civil rights, where they can enjoy without 
 molestation the fruits of their labours, and find a 
 fair field for the exercise of their talents, there the 
 grander, the universal characteristics of the Mes- 
 sianic ao;e are more res^arded, and the cominof of 
 the Messiah means there the advent of the happy 
 
102 THE JEWISH FAITH. 
 
 time when sin and want, war and misery, ignoranqe 
 and superstition shall be no more. 
 
 One last and, perhaps, greatest change has to be 
 considered, the change in the form of worship from 
 sacrifice to prayer. While the second Temple still 
 existed, certain prayers accompanied the sacrificial 
 rites ; but when the Temple was razed to the 
 ground, and the Jewish people were cast forth to 
 wander over the world, when it was no longer 
 possible to present the prescribed offerings, then 
 prayer became the only possible means whereby 
 the Supreme could be publicly adored. Devotional 
 compositions were prepared to be recited at the 
 hours when the sacrifices had been offered. These 
 compositions have increased as the ages have rolled 
 on, but they are still grouped into services cor- 
 responding with the sacrifices offered daily and on 
 special occasions. 
 
 Thus Judaism has maintained itself side by side' 
 with what, in connection with it, is often termed 
 the daughter religion, but which, perhaps, should 
 more correctly be termed its sister religion — 
 Christianity ; the one struggling for dear life 
 against the suspicion and hate of the world, the 
 other allied with greatness and power ; once rivals, 
 long foes, now and henceforth, it is to be hoped, 
 friends and fellow- workers, differing in very im- 
 
THE RABBI G. J. EMANUEL, B.A. 103 
 
 portant principles and practices, but holding in 
 common other principles of priceless worth, pro- 
 claiming together God as the Father of all His 
 children, striving together, though by different 
 methods, to bring all men to the knowledge and 
 worship of the Most High. 
 
ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 VII. 
 
 By Sir WILLIAM MUIE, Principal of Edinburgh 
 University. 
 
 "DEFOEE proceeding to compare the teaching of 
 
 Islam with that of the Gospel, one or two 
 
 things may be mentioned on its relation to Judaism. 
 
 Built up as the religion was of materials borrowed 
 mainly from the Jews, we should not be surprised at 
 its assimilating more with the Mosaic Dispensation 
 than with the Gospel, from which comparatively 
 little was taken. Yet even from Judaism the 
 divergence is very wide. 
 
 The Jews lived in constant anticipation of a 
 future prophet and of a kingdom to come. Ma- 
 homet, on the other hand, announced himself the 
 last of the prophets. As such, he is at once the 
 Founder and the Finisher of the faith. The Jewish 
 sentiment is expectation ; the Moslem that of con- 
 summation. It was from Eabbinical sources, sacred 
 and profane, that Mahomet took the greater part of 
 
PRINCIPAL SIR WILLIAM MUIR. 105 
 
 his system, both doctrinal and ritualistic. Having 
 taken what he wanted, he then brushed his au- 
 thorities all aside. Nominally the prophets and 
 their writings still remain objects of belief, but 
 practically they are banished from sight, and no- 
 where to be found. The new revelation — the 
 Coran and the Prophet's dicta — become thus the 
 sole depository of Divine teaching. Professing to 
 recognise "the previous Scriptures," Jewish and 
 Christian, as inspired of God, — " a Light and Guide 
 unto mankind " — Mahomet cast them all away, and 
 they are to his followers practically as if they never 
 had been. Thus the new Theology, though in 
 theory a continuation of the Jewish and Christian 
 Dispensations, took an altogether fresh point of 
 departure. Unlike both the Jewish and Christian 
 systems, it is founded exclusively on a single / 
 book, and on the authority and teaching of a 
 sinorle man. 
 
 In another matter, — that, namely, of religious 
 warfare, — there might have been expected some 
 consent of opinion between Judaism and Islam. 
 In point of fact, there is none whatever. With the 
 Israelites the command to fight had reference to the 
 promised land from which alone the heathen were 
 to be driven out ; that accomplished, the command 
 ceased and determined. The idea of fio;htino: for 
 
106 ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the propagation of the law of Moses was unknown, 
 either in the day of Joshua or at any subsequent 
 era in Jewish history. With the Moslems, on the 
 contrary, the propagation of Islam was the grand 
 motive for drawing the sword. The command 
 (though meant at first, it may be, only for Arabia) 
 soon extended in ever- widening circles to the whole 
 world. In one respect, indeed, the Moslem prin- 
 ciple may seem more merciful than the Jewish ; for 
 the Arabian warriors were bidden first to call upon 
 the nations to embrace Islam ; and only on the 
 failure of these to comply, were they to fight 
 ao^ainst them. Still, the efiect on the national 
 sentiment of the two peoples was as difierent as it 
 possibly could be. If with the Jews there was the 
 maxim. Hate thine enemy, it was in a sense com- 
 mon throughout the world, and never led to war- 
 fare for the aggrandisement of their religion. The 
 command passed away with the occasion, and left 
 none of its colouring behind.-^ With the Mahome- 
 tans it ing^rained itself as a leadin^: element of their 
 creed, and an abiding sentiment of national life. 
 
 1 See Isaac Taylor in his Spirit of the Hehrew Poetry. "The 
 Hebrew tribes did indeed enact tlie extermination of the Canaan- 
 itish races (so far as this was done), but the work of slaughter, done 
 as it was, did not settle itself down in the national temper and 
 liabits, so as to show itself in the people as a permanent dispo- 
 sition." p. 132. 
 
PRINCIPAL SIR WILLIAM MUIPv. 107 
 
 Witli them "warring in the ways of the Lord" 
 was, and so remains, the highest kind of religious 
 merit, brino^insj with it also the material reward of 
 captive maids and riches upon earth, and for those 
 falling on the battlefield, special blessedness with 
 houris in the world to cpme. The soul of the 
 Moslem is thus inflamed at once with the fire of 
 fanaticism and the lust of plunder — sentiments 
 with which the Jewish command failed to inspire 
 the children of the conquerors of the Holy Land. 
 
 Points, moreover, of contrast with the Christian 
 faith, both in doctrine, ritual and morals, meet us 
 at every turn. And first as to Doctrine. 
 
 There is in Islam no mediator between God and v 
 man. The Deity, as conceived in the sense of 
 severe unity, is approached immediately and di- 
 rectly. He is known as the just and sovereign 
 Euler of the Universe, whose special providence 
 extends to the minutest concerns on earth, and who 
 is the Hearer of prayer and the Judge of men and 
 angels ; — but not as the Christian knows Him, "the 
 Father in heaven ; " — fear thus with the Moslem 
 worshipper rather than love predominating. Jesus 
 is known historically as a Prophet ; but He did not 
 die ; He was taken up into heaven. Sin may be 
 forgiven ; but it is so by the mere act of God — 
 not for any merit's sake of a Kedeemer. And the 
 
108 ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit is ignored 
 altogether. Islam has not anything to put in 
 place of these grand influences of grace and love 
 by which the Christian's life is moulded and his 
 heart constrained. 
 
 Next as to Ceremonial. Here everythiDg is laid 
 down by rule, and hence the tendency to mechani- 
 cal performance. The round of ritual is prescribed 
 aud stereotyped. Prayer is divinely appointed to 
 be said, with fixed rule of prostration and of genu- 
 flexion, at five stated periods of the day. One 
 month for fasting every year is obligatory upon all, 
 and is observed with singular rigour, day by day, 
 from early dawn to sunset. The discipline is un- 
 doubtedly a severe exercise of self-denial, and of 
 devotion to the faith ; but its virtue is much neu- 
 tralised by the indulgence allowed from sunset 
 again till dawn of day, during which period re- 
 striction of every kind is withdrawn. Of similar 
 tendency is the ordinance of Pilgrimage to Mecca 
 and the neighbouring holy places — the tour termi- 
 nated by the slaying of victims (the Bairam 
 festival of the Turks), — a sacrificial custom like 
 that of the Jews, but shorn of its Mosaic lesson. 
 This pilgrimage is enjoined on all from every land 
 who are possessed of the means to enter on it. All 
 these solemnities are observed as works of merit in 
 
PRINCIPAL SIR WILLIAM MUIR. 109 
 
 themselves, and also, no doubt, by many as means 
 of religious elevation and improvement ; but the 
 tendency with the great mass of the Moslem world 
 is towards the former end alone. Prayer, fasting, 
 and pilgrimage, are services working out the salva- 
 tion of the worshipper. ■ No true believer can be 
 lost, but if his bad deeds outweigh the good he 
 must expiate the same in the life to come. On the 
 other hand, heaven is drawn in the Goran in colour- 
 ing of the most worldly and material hues. There 
 are black-eyed virgins for wives, rich couches and 
 carpets, fountains and cup-bearers of wine that 
 exhilarates without inebriating — pictures these the 
 sensuous tendencies of which must be to deaden 
 the spiritual aspirations of the worshipper. 
 
 We turn now to the moral and social aspects of 
 Islam. The relations established by the Goran 
 between the sexes, will not compare with those of 
 the Pentateuch, much less of the Gospel. Besides 
 the privilege of having four free wives at a time, 
 and of having as concubines any number of slaves 
 he likes, the Moslem husband has by Divine law 
 the power of divorcing the former at any moment 
 and without any reason assigned. He is thus at 
 liberty to "vary" even his married wives at his 
 mere caprice and fancy. Social and domestic influ- 
 ences happily correct largely the abuse of this 
 
 sy 
 
110 ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 power. Nevertheless, that such is the license given 
 by their Scripture cannot but have a deteriorat- 
 ing effect on the moral habitude of the people. 
 Even in Mecca, for example, the citadel of the 
 faith, there is enough to show the scandalous ebb 
 to which in some quarters, without any transgres- 
 sion of the law, the sacred institution of marriao^e 
 has fallen. 
 
 The jealous temperament of the Prophet pro- 
 vided restrictions on the liberty of women, not 
 uncongenial to his followers, but materially affect- 
 ing the position of the sex. They may be chastised, 
 and they may be shut up in seclusion. They are 
 forbidden to appear abroad without the veil, 
 and stringent conditions are enjoined as to the 
 admission into their rooms of any but the nearest 
 relatives. All these depressing and unfriendly 
 influences notwithstanding, woman, no doubt, re- 
 tains by virtue of the remedial power of domestic 
 life, a dominant, though it may be an uncertain, 
 position within the harem or zenana ; but beyond 
 its bounds her influence is well-nio^h unknown. 
 She is shut out from all the walks of outer life, 
 and from all those sweet offices of mercy and phil- 
 anthropy to Avhich — but for the barrier of the 
 Moslem revelation — she might, like her Jewish 
 and Christian sisters, devote her life. 
 
PRINCIPAL SIR WILLIAM MUIR. Ill 
 
 Nor is there hope of any effective amelioration. 
 The law of the Goran is not, like the wide and 
 adaptive inculcations of the Gospel, fitted for all 
 time and for every onward movement of mankind. 
 Its rule is hard and fast, a set of rigid ordinances 
 incapable of change and relaxation. And thus, so 
 long as the Goran prevails, woman remains secluded 
 — her soft and purifying power lost upon the other 
 sex outside the walls of the harem. It is the same 
 with Slavery, the curse of Moslem lands. It can- 
 not be eliminated from the law which, the Mussul- 
 man holds to be Divine ; it must continue to hold 
 its place as an institution, casting a blight upon 
 the proud slave-holder sadder even than on the 
 poor victim of his pleasure. 
 
 It remains only now to notice the contrast to the 
 teaching of the Gospel in the sphere of politics — 
 namely, in the unity of the secular and spiritual 
 elements forming the Moslem theory of government. 
 Ghurch and state are integrally one. The head of 
 the state is head also of the faith ; and the fusion 
 runs throughout. The functions are synonymous. 
 With the armies of Islam, for instance, which over- 
 ran the world, the Ameer, or chief commander, as 
 such, led also the prayers of his force. The spiritual 
 function was badge also of secular and military 
 supremacy. In theory Islam is a theocracy, origin- 
 
112 ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ating in the Caliphate, or succession from tlie 
 Prophet ; and when the Caliphate passed away, 
 breaking up into separate polities, the head of each 
 of which is at once its secular and its ecclesiastical 
 ruler. The result of such a system is that the chief 
 must by necessity be absolute sovereign — a despot 
 in the proper sense of the term. His power is only 
 limited by the patience of the people, though also 
 in a manner by the Futwas (theological and legal 
 deliverances) of the Ulema and Doctors, which as 
 Vicegerent of the Prophet the sovereign is bound 
 to follow. The outcome of all this is that freedom, 
 in the political sense of the word, is unknown. 
 Liberal institutions, in which the people can take 
 their share, and through which they may give 
 eflfect to their collective wish, are altogether foreign 
 to the genius of Islam, and under the regime of the 
 Coran beyond the scope of expectation. 
 
 In fine, the fatal demerit of Islam, viewed in its 
 social and political aspect, is that, tied and en- 
 crusted round as it is by the text of the Coran, 
 progress and adaptation to varying circumstance 
 are unattainable. Institutions based on the sanction 
 of a revelation held to be divinely given are un- 
 alterable ; they present a bar impassable to social 
 and political amelioration. Elsewhere the world 
 may advance ; Islam, with its polity and law, as 
 
PRINCIPAL SIR WILLIAM MUIR. 113 
 
 Mahomet left them twelve centuries ago, remains 
 the same. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to point out the difference 
 of Christian teaching in respect of the various 
 points enumerated above. They will, no doubt, 
 have suggested themselves to the reader who may 
 have been kindly giving his attention as he went 
 along. For example, the Gospel, though holding 
 the wife subject to the husband, has not the less 
 implanted principles w^hich now culminate in the 
 elevation of the sex to a position of virtual equality. 
 The social rules of the Bible possess a plastic virtue 
 suitable for every race and clime and time. In place 
 of the veil and restrictions on social intercourse, it 
 simply enjoins modest apparel and "chaste conver- 
 sation." And so, while altogether shut out from 
 her legitimate influence on Moslem society, woman 
 takes her place with us in all the walks of mercy 
 and benevolence. She sheds the light and grace 
 upon the world which the female sex alone can 
 give, and the absence of which keeps Moslem life 
 outside the harem austere and dark. 
 
 Not less marked is the contrast to the political 
 environments of Islam. The doctrine of a common 
 Father in heaven has opened the way to universal 
 freedom. The captive, as "a brother beloved," at 
 last is set at liberty ; while the ordinance of slavery 
 
 H 
 
114 ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 must prevail so long as the scripture of Mahomet is 
 law. So also with political progress. Csesar and 
 the Church are free to go each its own way, and 
 thus advance is possible on either side. The Gospel 
 sheds its approval on every step of moral and social 
 progress, if it do not indeed actually point out the 
 way thereto. 
 
 And finally, instead of the cold lesson of morality 
 which is all that Islam offers, with its fixed round 
 of prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage, we have the 
 warm and constraininoj influences of a faith and 
 love which the personal sacrifice of a Eedeemer 
 alone can give ; — 
 
 "In this was manifested the love of God toward 
 us, because that God sent His only begotten Son 
 into the world, that w^e might live through Him. 
 
 " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that 
 He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation 
 for our sins. 
 
 ** Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to 
 love one another." ^ 
 
 In this consists the sovereign virtue of the 
 Gospel. We should search in vain for like virtue 
 anywhere in the Goran or in the teaching of 
 Mahomet. 
 
 1 1 Jolin iv. 9-11. 
 
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 T. W. EHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., Ph.D., Barrister-at-Law, and 
 Author of "Buddhism," "The Hibbert Lectures," i88i, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 ANE of the principal advantages of the great pro- 
 gress made in recent years in our knowledge 
 of Buddhism is the opportunity which it affords 
 for the comparison of our own civilisation with one 
 which is altogether independent of it. To compare 
 Biblical Theology with Mohammedanism is to com- 
 pare it with a weak and modern system, the best 
 parts of which are an inadequate and inaccurate 
 reproduction, and that not immediately, but at 
 second hand, from Biblical Theology itself. And 
 to compare it with the popular religions, or philo- 
 sophical systems of Greece and Rome, is to compare 
 it with modes of thought which are very intimately 
 connected, both by action and reaction, with itself. 
 There has been, it is true, no little wild talk about 
 the borrowings of Christianity from Buddhism. 
 
116 BUDDHISM AKD CHEISTIANITY. 
 
 But there has not as yet been discovered the, 
 slightest scintilla of evidence for any historical 
 connection between the two. And the more we 
 know about Buddhism the more clearly does it 
 appear that the supposed resemblances are either 
 due to passages in Buddhist books, which are post- 
 Christian in date, or are only of the most superficial 
 character. The fact is, that Buddhism is the most 
 different from Christianity of all the great religions. 
 Its fundamental conceptions are not only distinct 
 from, but are in absolute contradiction to those of 
 the Bible. And it is precisely on that account that 
 the study of Buddhism is by far more instructive 
 and interesting, from the comparative point of 
 view, than any other of the systems that have 
 been dealt with in this Symposium. 
 
 Many streams unite to form the religious con- 
 ceptions of India. The main stream is that of 
 Aryan thought, into which, from a very early date, 
 there continually flow^ed not a few tributaries from 
 the ideas of the non- Aryan peoples whom the 
 Aryans gradually overcame in their progress down 
 the valley of the Ganges. It would be impossible, 
 within the limits of this short paper, to attempt to 
 differentiate, in any detail, between these various 
 constituents of Hinduism as it existed at the time 
 of the rise of Buddhism, five hundred years before 
 
T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., PH.D. 117 
 
 the birtli of Christ. But the evolution of theology 
 had followed among the Indian Aryans very much 
 the same lines as it had followed among the Greeks, 
 and had reached, at the time of which we speak, 
 much the same result as had been reached at the 
 same time by the Aryans in Europe. 
 
 Ethics and theology were as yet distinct. All 
 mysteries in Nature were explained by the action 
 of spirits. Among the innumerable spirits on the 
 earth and in the sky, a few, the personifications of 
 the more striking natural events, had been raised 
 to the rank of great gods. And the pantheistic 
 philosophers had already dimly supposed a unity 
 behind the multiplicity of these spiritual hypo- 
 theses, and had postulated a first cause, a god 
 whom they called Brahm^, as the one being of 
 whom all other spirits, and all men, and animals, 
 and things, were but the temporary and changing 
 forms. With these speculations, and even with 
 the great gods, the mass of the people did not much 
 concern themselves. They were great believers in 
 all kinds of lucky signs and dreams and omens. 
 They worshipped all kinds of local or tribal gods 
 with the object of averting misfortune or gaining 
 wealth. They believed in the existence of spirits 
 or souls inside their own bodies, and in a kind of 
 shadowy future life for those souls after their bodies 
 
118 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 had died. And such existence would be happy or 
 the reverse, not so much in consequence of their' 
 conduct in life, as in consequence of certain cere- 
 monies being performed or not at the time of their 
 death. 
 
 Meanwhile, side by side with these theological or 
 spiritual ideas, but quite independent of them, there 
 had been gradually forming a set of elementary 
 ethical ideas — life, except that of enemies, or of 
 animals required for food, was not to be taken. 
 There were limitations as regards marriage, and 
 the chastity of any woman under the protection of 
 other men was carefully respected. The rights of 
 individual property had been already acknowledged, 
 and there was an elaborate code of customary rules 
 with regard to communal property. Great stress 
 was laid on reverence to elders, on etiquette, and 
 on ceremonial behaviour. Gratitude, kindness, 
 generosity, and of course bravery, were held in 
 high esteem. And the caste system, already in 
 full vogue, involved a number of carefully balanced 
 rights and duties. 
 
 The next stage in the ordinary course of things 
 would have been for some reformer to amalcfamate 
 the results of ethical and of theoloo:ical thoufjht 
 into a new pantheistic or theistic religion — religion, 
 that is, in the modern sense, a guide not only to 
 
T. W. EHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., PH.D. 119 
 
 belief about spirits, but also to ngbt conduct. The 
 peculiarity of Gotama's reform lay in this : that he 
 ignored and despised the whole of the theology, 
 and after elaborating, refining, and enlarging the 
 ethics, made them alone the basis of a new system 
 entirely independent of all the previous spirit 
 hypotheses. 
 
 He considered, and deliberately condemned as 
 vague speculation — not only useless but inimical to 
 righteousness of life — the idea of a personal God as 
 the first cause and immanent reality of all things. 
 He considered, and deliberately condemned as vain 
 speculation — injurious to character or to any 
 growth in goodness — the idea of a soul as the 
 eternal substratum of the individual life of men. 
 He considered, and deliberately condemned as vain, 
 immoral, and weak, the prevalent idea that the 
 salvation of the soul could be ultimately attained 
 by a happy life in heaven. It would be superfluous 
 to compare such conclusions with Biblical Theology. 
 May we not rather ask whether it would be possible 
 to formulate any system which should be in more 
 absolute and categorical contradiction to all the 
 bases of Christian belief ? 
 
 The further question now arises whether the 
 ethics of the Buddhist scriptures, the positive 
 aspects of Gotama's teaching, stand in the same 
 
120 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 violent contrast to Christian ethics as the BuddMst 
 views of God and the soul do to Biblical Theology ? 
 Partly yes and partly no. The Buddhist theory 
 distinguishes the morality of the ordinary uncon- 
 verted man from that of the converted man, the 
 sotd-panno, who has entered on the excellent way. 
 With regard to the former the resemblances are 
 sometimes, no doubt, very close. But they are 
 also, for the purposes of our present enquiry, very 
 unimportant. It is inaccurate to quote such 
 resemblances as evidence of any anticipation of 
 Christian by Buddhist ethics. They have in 
 reality very little to do either with the one or 
 with the other. And Buddhist ethics, to be rightly 
 understood or judged, must be considered from 
 the point of view of the higher morality^^fthe 
 converted man. 
 
 The Buddhist salvation was held to consist in a 
 certain state of mind to be gained and enjoyed in 
 this present life, and not extending beyond the 
 grave. This state of mind is occasionally in the 
 Buddhist books called Nirvd,na, or "the going 
 out," and meaning the going out in the heart of 
 ,the three fires of lust, ill-will, and foolishness. 
 This name of the blissful state I refer to first as it 
 is the one exclusively used in English works on the 
 subject of Buddhism. But in the Buddhist books 
 
T. W. EHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., PH.D. 121 
 
 it is only one out of many epithets of the perfect 
 rest of Arahatship. Others are Freedom, Purity, 
 Holiness, Bliss, Happiness, the End of Suffering, 
 the Cessation of Craving, Peace, Calm, Tranquillity, 
 the Other Shore, the Island of Eefuge, Emancipation, 
 the Cessation (of human passion), the Secure, the 
 Cave, the Supreme, the Transcendent, the Formless, 
 the Truth, the Imperishable, the Infinite, Ambrosia, 
 the Immaterial, the Abstract, the Uncreated, the 
 Unseen, the Ineffable, the Sorrowless, Detachment, 
 the Fruit (of the path of Arahatship), and many 
 others. Each of these terms is used quite absolutely, 
 without any qualifying expression, and many of 
 them would require a commentary to make their 
 full connotation plain. Some of them are used 
 quite as frequently as that epithet of "the going 
 out," which has been selected by European writers, 
 and the Pali words for them would be quite as 
 accurate a name for the Buddhist ideal state. 
 More frequent than any is, however, the expression 
 Arahatship, " the state of him who is worthy," and 1^ 
 that word, therefore, is the one that will be used in 
 the remainder of this paper. 
 
 Now Arahatship is best defined, both from the 
 positive side and the negative, by an enumeration f' 
 of the various things which are to be included or 
 excluded by the state of mind of the Arahat. In 
 
^122 
 
 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the first place, he is one who has traversed the 
 so-called Excellent Way, which consists of eight 
 divisions or categories : — 
 
 1. Eight Views — free from superstition or 
 delusion. 
 
 2. Eight Desires — such inclinations, aspirations, 
 as lead a man to choose the right. 
 
 3. Eight Speech — kindly, open, truthful. 
 
 4. Eight Conduct — peaceful, honest, pure. 
 
 5. Eight Livelihood — bringing hurt or danger to 
 no livino^ thinor. 
 
 6. Eight Effort — in self-training and in self- 
 control. 
 
 7. Eight Mindfulness — the ever active mind, 
 watchful and alert. 
 
 8. Eight Eapture — the ecstasy which follows 
 an earnest contemplation of the deep mysteries 
 of life. 
 
 This division, due to Gotama himself, is supple- 
 mented by another, also due to the founder of 
 Buddhism, in which the Excellent Way is divided 
 into four stages ; each of these stages consisting in 
 the breaking of certain bonds or chains by which 
 :the unconverted are bound. 
 
 In the first, the stage of Conversion, the disciple 
 gets rid of delusions regarding the permanency and 
 importance of his own individuality. Tlie breaking 
 
T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., PH.D. 123 
 
 of this bond is the entrance upon the excellent 
 way. It is the breaking away from self, the self- 
 renunciation, which is held to be the foundation of 
 all righteousness. 
 
 The next step (in the same stage) is the destruc- 
 tion of Doubt. When the eyes of the disciple are ^ 
 open to the insignificance and the impermanency 
 of his own being, he must not, therefore, give up 
 hope, and think that all is lost. By faith in the 
 victory already achieved by the great Arahat, the 
 Buddha himself, over the powers of evil ; by faith 
 in the efficacy of the excellent way pointed out by 
 him for the destruction of sorrow, he must over- 
 come all doubt, and proceed, full of assurance of his 
 ultimate success (for those who have once entered 
 the path can never lose it, can never fail), to the 
 next step. 
 
 This is the getting rid of the bond called *' Belief 
 in the efficacy of rites and ceremonies, ascetic 
 practices, and mere outward works of worldly 
 morality." It is the perception of the only method 
 by which the disciples can hope for salvation. The 
 first parti of it is a protest against the benefits sup- 
 posed to result from the ritual prescribed by the 
 Brahmins, and from all those ascetic practices 
 which have been so popular in India. But it 
 probably includes also in its condemnation, any 
 
124/ 
 
 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 worship in any manner of any spiritual power or 
 being.^ The second part, based on the destruction 
 above pointed out, is an inculcation of the necessity 
 of " inwardness," of a real change of heart, and is 
 the Buddhist analogue to the long vexed battle 
 between faith and works so hotly waged between 
 Christian writers. 
 
 When the disciple whose eyes have been opened 
 has thus renounced self, is full of faith, and has 
 grasped the right method to be followed in the 
 struggle, his conversion is complete, and he is sure 
 of attaining to Arahatship, either in his present, or 
 in some future birth. 
 
 The next two stages are entirely occupied with 
 the struggle against the three deadly enemies of 
 the religious life — Lust, Ill-will, and Dulness. I 
 must call attention to the fact — it is the only bit 
 of controversy that has been allowed to intrude 
 upon our narrow space — that it is lust, and not 
 desire, which is the chain or bond to be broken. 
 It is a common blunder in English treatises on 
 Buddhism that the Buddhist scriptures, or Gotama 
 himself, inculcated the extinction of desire. There 
 
 1 The worship of the "Great Being," the one god of Brahmin 
 speculation, is expressly forbidden in the Brahma Jala Sulla, I., 26, 
 among a list of vain ceremonies, including astrology and witchcraft ! 
 And the reference there is not to the righteousness of the Arahat, 
 but ouly to the lower morality of the Silas. 
 
T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., PH.D. 125 
 
 is not one passage in the Buddhist books to support 
 so absurd a contention. Lusts, craving, longing, 
 excitement, greed, all that lies at the root of that 
 unworthy scramble for wealth or power or social 
 position so characteristic of the un-Christian life of 
 modern Christian cities, is undoubtedly condemned 
 in many passages ; and is even stated, under the 
 frequent simile of burning thirst, to be the 
 ultimate cause of all sorrow. But the cultivation 
 of right desires is an essential part of Buddhist 
 ethics. 
 
 The destruction of the second of these three 
 bonds. Ill-will, is to be brought about by the cul- 
 tivation of the opposite quality of Love, and that 
 not to men only, but to animals and gods. " As a 
 mother, even at the risk of her own life, protects 
 her son, her only son, so let him (the Arahat) 
 cultivate good-will without measure towards all 
 beings : let him cultivate a heart of love that 
 knows no measure, and that knows no stint, un- 
 obstructed by any sense of differing or opposing 
 interests, towards the whole world above, below, 
 around ! " ^ When the disciple has reached the 
 end of this stage of the excellent way he will 
 attain to Arahatship in his next birth. This is 
 the only place found in the higher Buddhist ethics 
 1 Sutta Nipdta, I., 8, 7. 
 
 y 
 
126 ' BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 for love to God ; and even then the words are not 
 used in any Christian sense. ** The Great Being " 
 is only Bralim4 and the love is not the filial love 
 of a father. 
 
 By the third of this evil trio, Dulness, is not of 
 course meant dulness in the modern sense, want of 
 excitement, but dulness in a peculiar Buddhist 
 sense, want of impressibility to higher things, that 
 spiritual deadness to the higher life which would 
 prevent the disciple from progressing in his struggle, 
 in his journey along the excellent way. And with 
 the complete victory over this " dulness " the dis- 
 ciple has reached the end of the first half of the 
 path. 
 
 The latter half is occupied with the breaking of 
 bonds, considered, in Buddhist ethics, to be even 
 more difficult to get free from than the evil trio 
 just explained. These new foes are, firstly, the 
 desire for future life, either on earth or in heaven ; 
 and, secondly, the desire for future life in the 
 immaterial worlds beyond. It is strange tbat with 
 this injunction on the very threshold of Buddhist 
 ethics there should still be popular writers who / 
 describe the Buddhist ideal as an absorption into 
 nothing. I very much doubt whether any man at 
 any time or place can ever have held any such 
 ideal. There were, no doubt, isolated Brahmin 
 
T. W. KHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., PH.D. 127 
 
 thinkers in the time of Gotama who desired a 
 future life in an immaterial world. And this 
 might possibly be described, but inaccurately, 
 loosely, and inadequately, as an absorption into 
 nothing. Now even any such desire is here ex- 
 pressly declared to be, not only not a part of, 
 but incompatible with the Buddhist ideal life of 
 Arahatship. 
 
 The third and fourth of these tighter bonds are, 
 like the first and second, closely allied. They are 
 Pride and Self-righteousness, which are to be over- 
 come by the cultivation of the opposite virtues of 
 humility and reverence for others. And the last 
 enemy to be conquered, the last bond to be broken, 
 is Ignorance, considered, in Buddhist ethics, to be 
 the most deadly obstacle to the attainment of 
 religious perfection. This word, also, is here used 
 in a technical sense. It was not simply ignorance 
 of history, or science, or any worldly wisdom, but ^ 
 rather, ignorance of the Four Noble Truths, and 
 other similar fundamental points in religious know- 
 ledsfe and insight. 
 
 I have Q-one thus far into detail resfardino; 
 Arahatship, not only because it is the central and 
 most fundamental part of Buddhist ethics, but 
 because a knowledge of those details will enable 
 any reader of this paper to understand at once and 
 
128 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 without any further discussioD, precisely the degree 
 in which Buddhist ethics do, and still more do not 
 agree with Christian ethics. The conclusion may, 
 I think, be summed up somewhat in this way. 
 
 We find scattered throughout the Bible a number 
 of passages describing the ideal character, or point- 
 ing out mental or spiritual dispositions, qualities, 
 which it should, on the one hand, include, and on 
 the other hand, exclude. It is true that these 
 statements are not systematised, and that diflferent 
 writers, or occasionally the same writers in different 
 passages, seem to lay different stress on some one 
 side rather than on some other side of the ideal 
 Christian character. This is partly because of the 
 importance attached rather to the spirit than the 
 letter, partly because the necessary space is occu- 
 pied with other matters, partly because of the way 
 in which the Bible was formed. We find, in con- 
 sequence, that the great fathers and leaders of the 
 Christian Church do not always take precisely the 
 same view of the Christian character. But the 
 picture drawn in the sacred writings is very suf- 
 ficiently clear as a whole, and the differences of 
 interpretation either deal with minor points, or 
 consist in the greater prominence given to some 
 portion of the doctrine held after all, though in less 
 degree, by opposing theologians. 
 
T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., PH.D. 129 
 
 On comparing this ideal with the Buddhist 
 Arahatship (or Nirvd^na), we find a not inconsider- 
 able number of what may fairly be called resem- 
 blances, but of what I think it would be more 
 accurate to call points of contact. Some of these 
 are in such elementary matters as truthfulness, 
 honesty, chastity, kindliness. Others have relation 
 to the deeper side of the religious life, and one or 
 two of these are strange coincidences. The im- 
 portance attached to conversion, to a change of 
 heart, to self-renunciation, to inwardness, to faith, 
 to humility, and to love, are of the essence of 
 ethics. Such coincidences as that of the final 
 perseverance of the saints, of the peace which 
 passeth understanding, of the absolute conscious- 
 ness of the victory won, of the position taken in 
 the controversy as to faith and works, are striking. 
 And the feeling of the New Testament as to 
 wealth, and the feeling of many Christians as to 
 preference, in the highest religious life of all, for 
 the unmarried over the married life, might be 
 matched with passages from the Buddhist scrip- 
 tures. But a critical examination of any one of 
 these resemblances would show that in no single 
 instance are the ideas identical. They are at most 
 analogous. The words are never used in precisely 
 the same sense. They are wrapped up with 
 
V 
 
 130 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 implications, connotations, which are always more 
 or less present to the minds of the Buddhists who 
 use them. The ideas themselves, therefore, ex- 
 pressed in the words are not the same, and we 
 have to deal, not with any real agreement, but only 
 with points of contact. 
 
 Another matter to which considerable importance 
 is often attached (but which is really a question, 
 neither of theology nor of ethics, but of literature), 
 is that the terms of expression, or the similes em- 
 ployed in the Buddhist texts, are sometimes 
 straugely suggestive of other texts more familiar 
 to us. Thus we find parables of the sower, of the 
 mustard seed, and of the two mites, a set of very 
 beautiful beatitudes,^ a section (or chapter) on the 
 treasure laid up in the inward man which no thief 
 can steal. We are told how it is bad actions and 
 not the eating of so-called unclean foods, which 
 defile a man, and how the wages of sin is death. 
 There is a frequently recurriug phrase, "in the 
 spirit and not in the letter." Arahatship is ob- 
 tained without money and without price. The 
 Arahat is described as dead to the world, while at 
 the same time he is not to hide his light, but so to 
 let it shine forth that others may profit. Of the 
 
 1 One of the blessed states, by tlie way, being "having right 
 desires in the heart." 
 
T. W. EHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., PH.D. 131 
 
 ascetics it is said in condemnation that " within 
 thee there is ravening, while the outside thou 
 makest clean.'' And we have the whole armour 
 of the Buddhist, with uprightness as the cloak, 
 and meditation as the breastplate, watchfulness as 
 the shield, insight as the spear, the Word as the 
 sword, the threefold wisdom as the crest of the 
 helmet, and the fruit of the excellent way (that is, 
 Arahatship or Nirvana) as the jewel at its summit. 
 One might go on quoting such passages indefinitely 
 or point out phrases in the Buddhist writings ^vhich 
 could be transferred to Christian sermons. But in 
 no case does the analogy really run on all fours, 
 nor could any serious argument be founded on the 
 apparent identity of expression, or the suggested 
 similarity of thought. 
 
 For — and here we come to the gist of the matter 
 — it is precisely those ideas in the Bible which are 
 most instinctively and specially Christian, which '^ 
 are not only wanting in, but are absolutely con- 
 tradicted in, Buddhism. In it we have an ethical 
 system but no lawgiver, a world without a Creator, , 
 a salvation without eteymal life, and a sense of evil, 
 but no conception of pardon, atonement, reconcili- 
 ation, or redemption. To a Christian the world, 
 though a vale of tears, is after all the Father's 
 world; and the powers of sin and evil, though 
 
132 ^ BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 mighty, are as nothing when compared with the 
 omnipotence of a reconciled Father. The Buddhist 
 reverences the Buddha as the best and the wisest 
 of men, the king of righteousness who has led the 
 way to victory. But the Christian worships the 
 Son of God, who is at the same time the Son of 
 Man, the Divine Man, with that unspeakable love 
 and adoration which are due to Him for His incar- 
 nation and atoning death upon the cross. To the 
 Christian life and immortality are brought to light 
 by the Gospel ; by the Buddhist an immortal life 
 is not only conceived as impossible, but ivould he 
 looked upon as a disaster. These are essential 
 matters. It is in such that not merely divergence 
 but contradiction is visible at every step. And 
 they really colour all those points of contact which 
 seem to show, at first sight, a superjicial resem- 
 blance. Thus the Buddhist humility is not humility 
 before God, the Buddhist peace is not the peace of 
 God, and the Buddhist wisdom is ignorance of 
 God, 
 ,^ In the foregoing analysis I have only endeavoured, 
 ^ as clearly and accurately as possible, to compare the 
 Buddhism of the Buddhist scriptures with Biblical 
 theology. The history of Buddhism is the history 
 of the greater half of the civilised world for nearly 
 two and a half millenniums ; the history of Chris- 
 
T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., PH.D. 133 
 
 tiaiiity is the history of the other half for nearly 
 two millenniums. To compare all Buddhism with 
 all Christianity would be a colossal, perhaps an im- 
 possible task. And no attempt has been made to 
 touch upon the points of contact between the Gospels 
 and the Buddhist lives of the Buddha. Those who 
 wish to see a full discussion of this latter subject, 
 will find it in the elaborate work of Professor Seydel, 
 of Leipsic. 
 
 But perhaps the most instructive part of a com- 
 parative study of Buddhism, is to be found in the 
 astounding fact that the ethical revolution of 
 Gotama, the stately bridge which he has attempted 
 to bnild over the sorrow of the world, has led to 
 the establishment of a papal hierarchy holding 
 views as far apart from the subtle and deep-reaching 
 doctrine of the Excellent Way, as Eoman Ultramon- 
 tanism is from the simplicity of the Gospel. It is 
 true that the resemblances here also are more 
 apparent than real. But it is none the less in- 
 structive that a system in many respects so true 
 and so beautiful that Dr. Eeynolds says of its 
 founder,^ "Verily our Lord would have said of 
 Gotama, 'Thou art not far from the kingdom of 
 God,' " should have ended in Lamaism, its shaven 
 
 1 In " Buddhism : a comparison and a contrast between Buddhism 
 and Christianity ; " published by the Religious Tract Society, p. 64. 
 
134 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 priests, its bells and rosaries and images and holj 
 water, its services in surpliced robes with double 
 choirs and processions and mystic rites and incense, 
 its abbots and monks and nuns of many grades, its 
 Avorship of the double Virgin and of saints and 
 angels, its huge monasteries, its gorgeous cathedrals, 
 its powerful hierarchy, its cardinals, and above all, 
 its pope with a tiara on his head, and thought to 
 be the incarnation and vicegerent of a spiritual 
 power in the skies. 
 
 Are we to suppose that this marvellous coinci- 
 cidence is due to a miracle (or rather to ten 
 thousand miracles) ? or are we to conclude that 
 in such matters similar causes acting, quite in- 
 dependently, under similar conditions will produce 
 similar results ? 
 
ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 IX. 
 
 By the Hon. RASMUS B. ANDERSON", Minister of the 
 United States, Denmark, and Author op "Norse 
 Mythology," " America not discovered by Columbus," &c. 
 
 TN the forces and phenomena of Nature we must 
 look for the origin of the heathen mythologies. 
 Thus the shepherds found their gods in the bright 
 stars that twinkled every night, and seemed to 
 whisper to them of secrets which they could not 
 themselves divine and of powers they did not 
 know. Thus when the Norsemen heard the 
 thunder roll and saw the lightning-flash crushing 
 everything in its way, there came to them an 
 image of a mighty god who rode in his chariot 
 athwart the heavens with such din and crash, and 
 so fast that his path was wrapped in flames. 
 
 The two European mythologies best known to 
 us are the Greek and the Scandinavian. As widely 
 as Greeks differ from the Scandinavians, so widely 
 
136 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN EELIGION. 
 
 is Scandinavian mythology different from tlie 
 Greek. The chief end sought by the Greeks was 
 beauty and harmony. Fostered beneath a clear 
 sky and a sun that never scorches, in a climate 
 where north winds never pierce, the Greek cherished 
 beauty in his soul and fashioned gods and goddesses 
 remarkable for their sweetness and grace. But in 
 the ice-bound regions of the North, where the long 
 arms of the glaciers clutch the valleys in their cold 
 embrace, and the death-portending avalanches cut 
 their way down the mountain sides, the people 
 dwelt with a peculiar intensity of feeling upon the 
 tragedy of Nature. From childhood the Norsemen 
 were trained to strife, and thus a race was developed 
 fond of rocking on the stormy seas and of reddening 
 the keen sword-edge in the blood of the foe — and 
 hence their gods became strong and warlike. The 
 old Norsemen cared but little for quiet harmony 
 and beauty. Theirs were the valkyries who rode 
 through the air and hovered over the battlefield to 
 select the heroes who were to fall and be carried to 
 Odin, there to fight again until the world should 
 perish in Eagnarok. 
 
 The ancient Scandinavians cannot be said to 
 have possessed any clearly-defined knowledge of a 
 god outside of Nature— that is, of any Supreme 
 God. Their highest divinity was Odin, the father 
 
THE HON. EASMUS B. ANDERSON. 137 
 
 of gods and men, as lie is styled. He occupies a 
 position like that of Zeus in Greek mytholog}^ 
 Still there are passages both in the Eddas and in 
 the Sagas which more or less vaguely point to a 
 god outside of Nature and higher than Odin. In 
 the lay of Hyndla, in the Elder Edda, we find this 
 striking passage : — 
 
 Then one is born Then comes another 
 
 Greater than all ; Yet more mighty ; 
 
 He becomes strong But him dare I not 
 
 With the strengths of earth ; Venture to name : 
 
 The mightiest king Few further may look 
 
 Men call him, Than to where Odin 
 
 Fast knit in peace To meet the wolf goes. 
 With all powers. 
 
 Odin we know ^^goes to meet the wolf" (that is, 
 the Fenriswolf), in Kagnarok, in the final conflict 
 between all good and evil powers, and thus the 
 poet has here referred to an unknown or nameless 
 god, just as the Greeks, according to Paul, had an 
 altar with the inscription : To the Unknown God. 
 It was of this same unknown god that one of the 
 ancient Greek poets had said that in him we live, 
 and move, and have our being. Thus just as the 
 Greeks found in the labyrinth of their heathen 
 deities a god greater than Zeus, so the Supreme 
 God, superior to Odin, stands out, though less dis- 
 tinctly, in the Scandinavian heathen belief. 
 
138 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 And in accordance with this statement we 
 find that this " yet more mighty one " whom' 
 the rhapsodist "dare not venture to name" is 
 worshipped by various old and thoughtful men 
 in the pre-Christian age. I will mention a few 
 examples. 
 
 It is recorded that Ingemund the Old, a heathen 
 Norseman in Iceland, bleeding and dying, prayed 
 the nameless god to forgive his murderer, Kolleif. 
 
 Thorkel Maane, a supreme judge of Iceland in 
 the heathen time, a man of unblemished life, and 
 distinguished as a most wise magistrate, declared 
 that he would worship no other God than Him 
 who had created the sun, and in his dying hour he 
 prayed the Father of Light to illuminate his soul 
 in the darkness of death. It is related that when 
 Thorkel Maane had arrived at the age of maturity 
 and reflection he refused a blind obedience to tra- 
 ditionary custom, and employed much of his time 
 in weighing the established tenets of his country- 
 men by the standard of reason. He divested his 
 mind of all prejudice ; he pondered on the sublimity 
 of Nature, and guided himself by maxims founded 
 , on truth and good sense. By these means he dis- 
 covered not only the fallacy of the asafaith, but 
 also became a convert to the belief in the existence 
 of a power more mighty than Odin or Thor. In 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON. 139 
 
 his Creator lie recognised his God and to Him 
 alone directed his worship, from a conviction that 
 none other was worthy to be honoured and adored. 
 On perceiving the approach of death this pious 
 man asked to be conveyed into the open air in 
 order that, as he said, he might in his last moments 
 contemplate the glories of the great God who had 
 made the earth and the heavens and all that in 
 them is. 
 
 One more example will suffice. Harold Fairhair, 
 the first sovereign of Norway, the king who united 
 Norway under his sceptre in the year 872, was 
 accustomed to assist at the public offerings made 
 by the people in honour of their gods. As none 
 other than the Odinic religion was known in that 
 country in their days, he acted with prudence in 
 not betraying either contempt or disregard for the 
 prevailing worship of the land, lest his subjects, 
 stimulated by such example, might become in- 
 difierent, not only to their sacred, but also to their 
 political duties. Yet in his heart of hearts he re- 
 jected those superstitious ceremonies, and believed 
 in the existence of a more powerful divinity whom 
 he secretly worshipped. " I swear," he once said, 
 "never to make my ofierings to an idol, but to 
 that God alone whose omnipotence has formed the 
 world and stamped man with His own image. It 
 
140 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 would be an act of folly in me to expect help from 
 him whose power and empire arises from the 
 accidental hollow of a tree or the peculiar form of 
 a stone." 
 
 All will agree that every mythology embodies 
 some religious faith. Just as we at the present 
 time seek to find God by philosophical speculation 
 (natural theology), by our emotional nature, by our 
 good deeds, or by all these at one time, and just as 
 we, when we have found Him, rest upon His breast, 
 although we do not fully agree as to our conception 
 of Him, each one of us having his own god as each 
 has his own rainbow, so the heathens of old sought 
 God everywhere — in the rocks, in the babbling 
 stream, in the heavy ear of grain, in the star- 
 strewn sky of night, and in the splendour of the 
 sun. To interpret a myth therefore is not only to 
 give its source but also its aim, too^ether with the 
 thouQ-hts and feelino^s it awakened in the human 
 breast. 
 
 Many writers have claimed that the Scandinavian 
 mythology is a degradation of and aberration from 
 the Biblical religion. They take the position that 
 there was originally one tongue and one religion. 
 Viewed from this standpoint the two Eddas of 
 Iceland are a sort of Old and New Testament, 
 which have come down to us through vast ages, 
 
THE HON. EASMUS B. ANDERSON". 141 
 
 growing, as traditions do, continually more obscure, 
 and accumulating lower matter and more divergent 
 and more pagan doctrines, as the walls of old castles 
 become covered with mosses and lichens, till they 
 finally assume the form in which they were col- 
 lected from the lips of the Norsemen and put in a 
 permanent written form. Interpreters of this school 
 claim that through all mythologies there run certain 
 o^reat lines which convero^e toward one common 
 centre, and point to an original source of a religious 
 faith which has grown dimmer and more disfigured 
 the further it has gone. They say Central Asia is 
 the geographical centre from which all the systems 
 of heathen belief have proceeded. Upon this theory 
 Loke of the Scandinavians, Pluto of the Greeks, 
 Ahriman of the Persians, Siva of the Hindoos, &c., 
 are all originally the devil of the Bible, who has 
 changed his name and, more or less, his personal 
 form and characteristics. The Scandinavian Odin, 
 Vile, and Ye ; Odin, Hoener, and Loder ; and Odin, 
 Thor, and Bilder, are degenerated representatives 
 of the Biblical Trinity. There are scholars even at 
 the present day who find in the Scandinavian cos- 
 mogony, in a somewhat mutilated and interpolated 
 condition, the Biblical story of the creation, pre- 
 servation, destruction, and regeneration of this 
 world. Ygdrasil, the wonderful ash- tree of exist- 
 
142 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 ence, is the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. 
 Ask and Embla, the first human pair, are Adam 
 and Eve ; the blood of the slain giant Ymer, in 
 which the whole race of frost giants was drowned, 
 excepting one pair who were saved in a skiff and 
 from whom a new giant race descended, is made to 
 represent the deluge. The citadel called Midgard 
 is the Tower of Babel. In the death of Balder, 
 slain by Hoder, who was instigated by Loke, is 
 found the crucifixion of Christ slain by Judas, who 
 was instigated by the devil. The heaven and hell 
 so vividly described in the Eddas furnish a large 
 field for comparison with Biblical passages on the 
 same subjects. The trouble with these interpreters 
 is that they attempt to prove too much. It is in 
 our judgment sufficient to say that races which can 
 trace their languages to a common origin have also 
 got their religious systems from a common source. 
 We know that the Aryan or Indo-European lan- 
 guages converge into one in the dim past, and 
 consequently we assume that the Aryan religions 
 flow from a common original spring. But so long 
 as no scholar has demonstrated that Greek or 
 Norse are originally the same language as Hebrew, 
 there is no good reason for assuming that Ask 
 and Embla are merely Norse names for Adam 
 and Eve. 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON. 143 
 
 On the other hand, just as we have many 
 Semitic words incorporated in the English tongue, 
 and just as Aryan words have found their way 
 into Hebrew, so Scandinavian Mythology has been 
 more or less influenced by Christian ideas after 
 the two systems of religion met and came in con- 
 tact with each other. And who denies that the 
 Christian Church has borrowed much from the 
 various mythologies of Europe? In the present 
 customs of the European peoples much of the 
 old heathenism is preserved. Nay, we might 
 almost say that the whole Odinic mythology still 
 exists, not as a faith and doctrine, but as a form 
 of worship adapted to Christianity. The old 
 great Scandinavian festivals with their various 
 ceremonies have simply been converted into Chris- 
 tian festivals. This is true of Christmas, which 
 the old Norseman called Yule ; and is not the 
 Christmas tree a survival of the ash-tree Ygdrasil ? 
 The festivals of Easter, of St. John, and of St. 
 Michael are old Scandinavian festivals Christia- 
 nised. In many instances, even the places of 
 worship were retained. Where a heathen divi- 
 nity had long been worshipped, the Christians 
 built a church and dedicated it to some saint or 
 other, to whom, henceforth, both the worship 
 and the myth were referred and became blended. 
 
144 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN EELIGION. 
 
 St. Michael took the place of Odin or Thor, and' 
 the Odin or Thor myths were henceforth told of 
 St. Michael. Where there was a tree sacred to 
 Odin, an image of St. Mary was hung up, but in 
 other respects the old form of worship was con- 
 tinued under the protection of the Church. Of 
 course the customs have taken a stronger hold 
 on the Catholic Church, while Protestants have 
 allowed many of them to pass into disuse. AYhat 
 we mean to emphasise is simply the fact that 
 while Scandinavian mythology doubtless borrowed 
 much from the Christian religion, and in turn 
 lent much to it, the two systems are essentially 
 different, and there is no evidence of a common 
 original source. 
 
 As already indicated, Scandinavian mythology 
 must look for its fundamental interpretation in 
 physical Nature. The divinities are the forces 
 and phenomena of Nature personified. The works 
 of the gods correspond faithfully to the events 
 and scenes of the outward world. But we must 
 not neglect to apply an ethical or spiritual ex- 
 planation as well. The spiritual and physical 
 interpretation must be combined. In other words, 
 we must regard the gods as as human as possible. 
 The phenomena and forces of nature were per- 
 sonified by the ancient Scandinavians into deities 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON. 145 
 
 and the myths were elaborated to suit the moral, 
 intellectual, and emotional nature — the inner life 
 of man. The deities were conceived in human 
 form, with human attributes and affections. The 
 ancient Scandinavians depicted themselves in their 
 gods, and so clothed them with their own facul- 
 ties of mind and body in respect to good and 
 evil, virtue and vice, right and wrong. Eead 
 what the great Norse scholar Kudolf Keyser has 
 said on this point : — 
 
 " The gods are the ordaining powers of Nature 
 clothed in personality. They direct the world 
 which they created ; but beside them stand the 
 mighty goddesses of fate and time, the great 
 norns, who sustain the world-structure, the all- 
 embracing tree of the world, that is Ygdrasil. 
 The life of the world is a struggle between the 
 good and the light gods on the one side, and the 
 offspring of chaotic matter, the giants. Nature's 
 disturbing forces, on the other. This struggle 
 extends also into man's being: the spirit pro- 
 ceeds from the gods, the body belongs to the 
 world of the giants. They struggle with each 
 other for the supremacy. If the spirit conquers 
 by virtue and bravery, man goes to heaven after 
 death to fight in concert with the gods against 
 the evil powers ; but if the body conquers and 
 
 K 
 
146 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN EELIGION. 
 
 links the spirit to itself by weakness and low 
 desires, then man sinks after death to the world 
 of the giants in the lower regions, and joins him- 
 self with the evil powers in the warfare against 
 the gods/' 
 
 Nature is the mother at whose breast we are 
 all nourished. In ancient times she was the 
 object of child-like contemplation and adoration. 
 The contemplation of the heavens produced the 
 myth about Odin, and the thunder-storm sug- 
 gested Thor, as in the Greek mythology Argos 
 with his hundred eyes represents the star-lit 
 heavens, and the wandering lo whom Hera had 
 set him to watch is the wandering moon. But 
 stopping here would be too prosaic. It would 
 be giving the empty shell and throwing away the 
 kernel. The old Frisians regarded the world as 
 a huge ship called Maningfual, a counterpart to 
 the Scandinavian ash Ygdrasil. The mountains 
 were its masts. The captain must go from one 
 place to another of the ship to give his orders 
 on horseback. The sailors go aloft as young men 
 to make sail, and when they arrive down again 
 their hair and beard are w^hite. Ay, are we not 
 all sailors on board this great ship, and have w^e 
 not all enough to do, each in his own w\ay, to 
 climb its ropes and ladders, and make and reef 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON. 147 
 
 its sails, and do not our hairs turn grey ere we 
 are aware of it? But take the human element 
 out of these myths, and what is there left of 
 them ? 
 
 The sources to be examined in reQ:ard to 
 Scandinavian mythology are many and varied. 
 Throughout the Scandinavian countries are found 
 monumental stones on which Kunic inscriptions 
 have been written in heathen times. Of these 
 *' Eunic Monuments," no less than three folio 
 volumes have been published by the great and 
 indefatigable scholar and runologist, Professor 
 George Stephens of Copenhagen. 
 
 From heathen Germany we have a few ancient 
 laws and a few glossaries containing mythological 
 words. The Lex Salica, of which we have a Latin 
 translation, was doubtless originally produced in 
 the German tons^ue. In the time of Chlodevio: 
 it was translated into Latin, and here and there 
 words from the original text were inserted paren- 
 thetically, to guarantee, as it were, the correctness 
 of the version. But in course of time these words 
 were either wholly omitted or greatly corrupted 
 by transcribers. Then there are formulae by which 
 the new converts to Christianity renounced the 
 old gods, and in which names of heathen divini- 
 ties therefore occur. But precious though it be, 
 
148 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 the amount of mytliological information to he 
 gathered from these and similar sources is very 
 small. A richer vein of information is the toler- 
 ably well represented collection of German heroic 
 poems, among which the most important are the 
 Niblung story and Gudrun. The Heliand pre- 
 serves a number of heathen phrases and figures 
 of speech. The Anglo-Saxon Beowulf poem would 
 be more valuable had not the Christian transcriber 
 conceived it to be his duty to omit the names of 
 the heatben gods occurring in the lay. 
 
 Iceland, that wonderful island of the cold and 
 boisterous North Sea, is the Mecca to which all 
 they must turn who would understand the Odinic 
 religion. Iceland is the Patmos wbere the Apoca- 
 lypse of the Teutonic race was recorded. Here 
 we find the well of Mimer and the fountain of Urd. 
 In Icelandic we find a whole library of mythological 
 literature, put in writing after the introduction of 
 Christianity (a.d. iooo), and after the people had 
 adopted the Eoman alphabet, but still written in 
 the spirit of the asafaith, " naught extenuating 
 and putting down naught in malice." The most 
 important of the Icelandic documents are the Elder 
 and the Younsfer Edda. The former is a collection 
 of mythic and heroic poems, undoubtedly fragments 
 of the songs that were preserved in the schools of 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON". 149 
 
 the priests of heathendom. And here it is proper 
 to suggest that the Celts described by Caesar in his 
 Commentaries on the Gallic War were not of the 
 same race as the present Irish, Welsh, &c., but a 
 Teutonic tribe. The present inhabitants of Bre- 
 tao^ne are not descendants of the ancient Gauls, 
 but are immigrants into France from Great Britain. 
 Csesar gives us a glimpse of the manner in which 
 mythological songs and epics were preserved in 
 ancient times in his description of the Druids. He 
 tells us that the literature in their keeping was so 
 extensive that it required twenty years to commit 
 it to memory ! This militates against the theory 
 that the Eddie poems were folk-songs, that is, 
 known by the whole people. That interesting 
 passage in Csesar describing the Druids opens to 
 us a world of information. It gives us in a few 
 striking sentences the key to the mystery in regard 
 to the preservation in oral form, through many 
 centuries, of the Vedas, the Iliad and Odyssey, the 
 Niblung story, Beowulf, &c., and the Elder Edda. 
 How and when the Elder Edda was recorded 
 with Roman characters is a subordinate question. 
 Whether it was gathered from the lips of persons 
 who yet remembered fragments of the old Druidic 
 songs of the north and put into a skin-book by the 
 priest Ssemund Sigfusson, who died in the year 
 
150 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 II 33, or by some other Icelaucler, is an interesting 
 but not important question. Even so great a 
 scholar as the Swede Erik Gustaf Geijer contends 
 that the Elder Edda existed in Eunic before it 
 appeared in Koman characters. Scarcely less im- 
 portant is the Younger Edda, said to be written 
 by Snorre Sturleson, the great author of Heim- 
 skringla, who died in 1241. This work gives in 
 prose form, with here and there a poetic quotation, 
 a succinct account of the Odinic religion from the 
 creation to the destruction and regeneration of the 
 world. Some of the stanzas quoted are not re- 
 corded in the Elder Edda. 
 
 The Heimskringla, completed by Snorre Sturle- 
 son about the year 1230, contains a vast amount 
 of information about Scandinavian heathendom, 
 for it Sfives an elaborate account of the introduc- 
 tion of Christianity in Norway, portraying the 
 conflict between the old and the new religion, 
 and begins with sketches of a number of kings, 
 who ruled Norway for one hundred and forty years 
 before the introduction of Christianity. Hence 
 valuable information may be found in that work, 
 not only of the rites and ceremonies prescribed by the 
 Odinic ritual, but also of the morals and habits in- 
 culcated and produced by the Odinic code. Several 
 Icelandic Sagas are also of value in this respect. 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON. 151 
 
 The value of Csesar has been indicated. With 
 him ranks Tacitus. In the other Roman and 
 Greek writers there is but little to be gleaned 
 in regard to Teutonic mythology. Next after 
 Caesar and Tacitus came the Christian writers 
 down through the foggy and dark Middle Ages, 
 who, instead of writing in German or English 
 (Anglo-Saxon) or other vernaculars, took to scrib- 
 bling in Latin; but the very small amount of 
 mythological information contained in their books 
 is due in part to their ignorance, but mainly to 
 their hostility to the heathen religion. Among 
 this class of writers the North presents a remark- 
 able exception in Saxo Grammaticus, who lived in 
 Denmark in the 12th century. He wrote a 
 Historia Danica and embodied it in an outline of 
 Scandinavian mythology based on old songs. But 
 he presents it as history, assuming Odin, Thor, 
 and the other deities to have been kino;s and 
 potentates in the North. The first eight books 
 of his history are exclusively mythological. He 
 has had a world of valuable light, thouo^h he him- 
 self saw nothing. 
 
 Finally the student of Scandinavian mythology 
 must look for fragments of Odinism in the cus- 
 toms, habits, speech, traditions, ballads, folk-lore 
 tales, and in the usages of the Christian Churches 
 
152 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 tbrouobout Teutondom. The folk-lore tales are 
 especially valuable, and during the last half cen- 
 tury they have found splendid collectors in Ger- 
 many (the brothers Grimm), in Norway (Asbjomsen 
 and Moe), and in Iceland (Jon Arnason). These 
 stories, like many of the ballads, are myths, in 
 which the names of the gods have been changed 
 or suppressed. The ballad and the folk-lore tale 
 are the resurrection of the buried myth. 
 
 Scandinavian mythology and its relation to 
 Biblical mythology is too vast a subject to be 
 exhaustively treated in a magazine article. We 
 shall simply give in the next article, a hrief 
 synopsis, condensed, as it were, under hydraulic 
 pressure, and in the course of the narrative dwell 
 more especially on those features tvhich have 
 counterparts in Biblical theology. 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT 
 SCANDINAVIANS. 
 
 X. 
 
 By the Hon. RASMUS B. ANDERSON". 
 
 TI7HERE the Scandinavian myth or doctrine ia 
 given, the reader must supply Biblical ver- 
 sion from his memory. 
 
 "It was Time's morning 
 When Ymer lived ; 
 There was no sand, no sea, 
 Nor cooling billows ; 
 Earth there was none, 
 No lofty heaven, 
 No spot of living green, 
 Only a deep profound." 
 
 Thus the Elder Edda. The beginning was this : 
 Many ages ere tbe earth was made there existed 
 two worlds. Far to the north was Niflheim (the 
 nebulous world), and far to the south was Mus- 
 pelheim (the fire world). Between them was 
 Ginungagap (the yawning gap). In the middle 
 
154 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN KELIGION. 
 
 of Niflheim lay the spring Hvergelmer, and from 
 it flowed twelve ice-cold streams called the Ell- 
 vogs, of which Gjol was situated nearest Hel's 
 gate. Muspelheim was so bright and hot that it 
 burned and blazed, and could not be entered by 
 those who did not have their home there. In 
 the midst of this intense lig;ht and burninfr heat 
 sat SuKT, guarding its borders with a flaming 
 sword in his hand. The Elivog-s rivers flowed far 
 from their spring-head in Hvergelmer into Ginun- 
 gagap, and the venom they carried with them 
 hardened, as does dross from a furnace, and be- 
 came ice. Vapours gathered and froze to rime, 
 and thus were formed in the yawning gap many 
 layers of congealed vapour. But the south side 
 of the abyss was lighted up by sparks from Mus- 
 pelheim. Thus, while freezing cold and gathering 
 gloom proceeded from Niflheim, the other side of 
 the gulf was exposed to the dazzling radiance and 
 scorching blasts of Muspelheim, and when the 
 heated blasts met the frozen vapours it melted 
 into drops, and hy the might of him, loho sent 
 the heat, these drops quickened into life and 
 took the form of a giant man. His name was 
 Ymer, and he became the progenitor of all the 
 race of giants. At the same time, and in the 
 same manner, sprang into life a cow, Audhumbla, 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON. 155 
 
 by whose milk Ymer was iiourislied. The cow 
 fed herself by licking the salt rime on the rocks, 
 and at the end of the first day she produced by 
 her licking the stones a man's hair, on the second 
 evening a head, and on the third evening a perfect 
 man. His name was Bnre. He was fair, great, 
 and mighty. He begat a son, by name Bor. Bor 
 married the giantess Bestla, daughter of Bol thorn, 
 and she bore him three sons, Odin, Vile, and Ve, 
 and Odin became the father of the gods who rule 
 Leaven and earth. The three brothers, Odin, Vile, 
 and Ve, slew the giant Ymer, and when he fell so 
 much blood flowed that all the race of giants was 
 drowned excepting Bergelmer and his wife, who 
 escaped in a boat (ark) and perpetuated their race. 
 The three sons of Bor dragged Ymer's body into 
 Ginungagap, and out of it they made the world : 
 of his flesh the land, of his blood the ocean, of his 
 bones the rocks, of his hair the forests, of his skull 
 the vaulted sky, which they decorated with red 
 hot flakes from Muspelheim to serve as sun, moon, 
 and stars. Ymer s brain they scattered in the air, 
 and made of them the melancholy clouds. Dwarfs 
 quickened like maggots in Ymer's flesh. But there 
 were yet no human beings. One day Odin, Hoener, 
 and Loder were walking by the sea and found two 
 trees,, an ash and an elm. They made of them the' 
 
156 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 first man and woman. Odin gave them life and 
 spirit, HcBner endowed them with reason and the 
 power of motion, and Loder gave them blood, hear- 
 ing, vision, and a fair complexion. The man they 
 called Ask, and the woman Embla, and from them 
 are descended the whole human family. 
 
 The counterparts of this story in Genesis need 
 only to be mentioned. As a proof of the thorough- 
 ness, depth, and comprehensiveness of the old Scan- 
 dinavian mind, the reader will note the fact that 
 instead of making the world pass simply from 
 chaos to cosmos, the old Scandinavians took a 
 step farther back into primeval time, and con- 
 ceived a pre-chaotic state (Muspelheim, Niflheim, 
 and Ginungagap), then a chaotic epoch (Ymer, 
 Audhumbla, Bure, Bor, Bestla, Bolthorn, Odin, 
 Vile, and Ye), and finally cosmos made from the 
 slain Ymer. The gods belonging to the Asgard 
 Pantheon and also giants came into being in the 
 middle or chaotic epoch. Odin was born in chaos. 
 But the Scandinavian conceived living and life- 
 giving beings in the pre-chaotic age. Surt guarded 
 Muspelheim before any creation or birth has taken 
 place. Is not he the unknown god who is from 
 everlastin^: to everlasting:? Surt is also the last 
 figure who appears in Eagnarok, the destruction 
 of the world. He flin^rs fire and flame over the 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON. 157 
 
 world, and is the last one who appears in that 
 terrible act of the drama. Elsewhere it is stated 
 that Nidhug, a terrible serpent, dwells in Hvergel- 
 mer, in Niflheim. Venom flowed with the Elivogs 
 rivers out of Hvergelmer. This points to an evil 
 being in Niflheim, that is from everlasting, but 
 after Eagnarok he sinks into the unfathomable abyss 
 never to rise again, and thus he is not to everlast- 
 ing. This dualism in the pre-chaotic epoch is a 
 very interesting point in Scandinavian religion. 
 
 The Odinic pantheon has twelve gods to whom 
 Divine worship is due, and there are twenty-six 
 goddesses. The gods dwell in Asgard, but nearly 
 every god has a separate dwelling. Thus Odin's 
 high seat is Hlidsbjalf, whence he looks out upon 
 all the nine worlds. He also has a large hall, the 
 famous Yalhal, whither he invites all men fallen in 
 battle. Thor lives in Thrudvang, Balder in Brieda- 
 blik, &c. Concerning the difl'erent gods, and par- 
 ticularly about Thor, Odin, Balder, and Frey, there 
 are a number of beautiful myths, but it is not 
 within the scope of this article to produce them 
 here. 
 
 At once the most poetical and significant, the 
 most lofty, beautiful, and impressive myth, is that 
 of the great world tree, the ash Ygdrasil, the very 
 name of which has its boughs laden with thought. 
 
158 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN EELIGION. 
 
 It is the tree of existence, the tree of life and 
 knowledge, the tree of grief and fate, the tree of 
 time and space ; it is the tree of the universe. 
 This tree has three roots, extending into the three 
 principal worlds. The lowest strikes. down into 
 Nifiheim, into the well Hvergelmer, where it is 
 gnawed by the ancient dragon Nidhug, and all 
 his reptile brood. The second root stretches into 
 Jotunheim to the fountain of Mimer, where wisdom 
 and wit lie hidden, and of whose waters Odin once 
 purchased a draught, leaving one of his eyes as a 
 pledge with Mimer. The third root is found in 
 Asgard among the gods, near the sacred fountain 
 of Urd, the norn of the past, where the gods sit 
 in judgment, riding thither daily over the Bifrost 
 bridge, that is the rainbow. At this fountain dwell 
 the three norns, or fates, Urd (the Past), Verdande 
 (the Present), and Skuld (the Future), and dispense 
 the desjbinies of men. They do not spin the thread 
 but weave the web of men's lives. They w^eave a 
 web of golden thread from East to West, from the 
 radiant dawn to the s^lowinc^ sunset of man's hori- 
 zon. The woof of this web is fixed in the dark 
 North, but the web woven by Urd and Verdande 
 is torn into pieces every evening by Skukl. The 
 branches of Ygdrasil spread over the whole workl, 
 and aspire above heaven itself. An eagle is perched 
 
THE HON. EASMUS B. ANDERSON. 159 
 
 on the topmoist bough, and between his eyes a 
 hawk. A squirrel called Eatatosk runs up and 
 down the tree, seeking to cause strife between the 
 eagle and Nidhug. Four stags leap beneath its 
 branches and feed on its buds. Five swans swim 
 in the Urd fountain, and everything placed therein 
 becomes as white as the film of an egg-shell. The 
 norns draw water from this spring, and with it 
 they sprinkle Ygdrasil in order that the boughs 
 may continue green in spite of the destructive 
 agencies that constantly assail it. Honey-dew 
 falls from Ygdrasil, and is food for the bees. Odin 
 hung nine nights on this tree, and ofiered himself 
 to himself. Ygdrasil is a grand myth, and grand 
 things have been said of it by Thomas Carlyle and 
 Karl Blind, to whose descriptions the reader is 
 referred. 
 
 It may be worth while to notice in passing the 
 frequent recurrence of the number three in Scandi- 
 navian mythology. There were originally three 
 worlds, Niflheim, Muspelheim, and Ginnngagap ; 
 there were three stages of development, the pre- 
 chaotic, chaotic, and cosmos. Three gods, Odin, 
 Vile, and Ye, created the world out of Ymei-'s 
 body. Three gods, Odin, Hoener, and Loder, 
 created the first human pair. Ygdrasil has three 
 roots, stretching into three worlds, and these three 
 
160 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 worlds are each divided into three subdivisions or 
 sub-worlds, that is nine, which is three times three. 
 There are three nonn^y three fountains, Hvergelmers, 
 Urd's, and Mimer's, and Odin hung three times 
 three nights on the ash Ygdrasil, and several other 
 recurrences of this sacred number might still be 
 added before the list is complete. In the Bible we 
 have the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, while Odin, 
 Vile, and Ye mean Spirit, Will, and Sanctity. Ye 
 will readily be recognised as related to the German 
 Wei in Weinacht (Christmas). 
 
 The development of the evil principle in Scandi- 
 navian mythology is scarcely less elaborately treated 
 than in Biblical theology. How the dragon Nid- 
 huor and his brood orio;inated in Hvero^elmer that 
 fountain Niflheim, and the probability that he 
 existed from the time when primeval evolution 
 took its beginning, has already been stated. The 
 giant descendants of Ymer were evil, and they did 
 not all perish in his blood-deluge, for Bergelmer 
 and his household escaped like Noah of old, and 
 like him produced a numerous offspring, with whom 
 Thor and the other gods carried on constant war. 
 But the great type or representation of evil is 
 Loke. He is, indeed, the instigator of all the mis- 
 fortunes that have happened both to gods and to 
 men. He is of giant race, but was adopted by the 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON. 161 
 
 gods, and was already in the dawn of time a foster- 
 Lrotlier of Odin. He may not improperly be styled 
 a fallen ang^el. The countenance of Loke is fair, 
 but his disposition is thoroughly bad. It is an 
 interesting ftict that the Scandinavian mythology 
 makes the devil good-looking and attractive in- 
 stead of ugly-looking and repulsive. Why Chris- 
 tianity should represent the devil as the ugliest- 
 lookinsr beinir, and at the same time ascribe so 
 much influence to him, is a mystery to say the 
 least. Loke frequently accompanies the gods, and 
 they make use of his strength and cunning, but 
 when out of sight he usually plots with the giants 
 for the purpose of bricging ruin upon the gods. 
 He became the father of three terrible children in 
 Jotunheim, that is to say, in the home of the giants. 
 These are (i) the Fenriswolf, (2) the Midgard-ser- 
 pent, also called Jormundgand, and (3) Hel, the 
 goddess of death. The gods knew that these chil- 
 dren of Loke were growing up and would some 
 day cause them great mischief. Therefore they 
 bound the Fenriswolf on a barren island and put 
 a sword in his open stretched mouth, but for this 
 the god Tyr had to sacrifice his right hand. They 
 cast the Midgard-serpent into the deep sea, where 
 he encircles the whole world and bites his own tail. 
 Thor was at one time out fishing with the giant 
 
162 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 Hymer. He caught the Midgard-serpeiit on his 
 hook baited with a giant bull's head, and would 
 have slain it with his hammer Mjohier, had it not 
 been for the giant Hymer who got frightened and 
 cut the fishing-line just at the moment when Thor 
 had his hammer raised to strike. The third child 
 of Loke, Hel, goddess of death, was thrown into 
 Niflheim, and Odin commanded that all who died 
 of sickness or old age should go to her ; while 
 warriors slain in battle were borne on valkyrian 
 arms to Yalhal. Hel's dwelling: is called Helheim, 
 and is large and terrible. Indeed her realm in the 
 lower world is divided into nine regions one below 
 the other, and it is in the lowest of these that her 
 palace is called Anguish, her table Famine, the 
 waiters Slowness and Delay, the threshold Preci- 
 pice, and the bed Care. The English word hell is, 
 of course, intimately connected with her name. 
 
 Loke caused the greatest sorrow to gods and 
 men, when by his cunning he brought about the 
 death of Balder. Balder is the most Christlike 
 character in the Scandinavian mythology, and the 
 account of his death has a strange similarity to 
 that of the crucifixion of Christ. Balder was the 
 favourite of all nature, of all the gods, and of men. 
 He was the son of Odin and Frigg, and the Edda 
 says that it may be truly said of him that he is 
 
THE HON. EASMUS B. ANDERSON. 163 
 
 tlie best god, and that all mankind are loud in Lis 
 praise. So fair and dazzling is he in form and 
 features that rays of light seem to issue from him, 
 and we may form some idea of the beauty of his 
 bair when we know that the whitest of all flowers 
 is called Balder's brow. Balder is the mildest, the 
 wisest, and the most eloquent of the gods, yet such 
 is his nature that the judgment he has pronounced 
 can never be altered. He dwells in the heavenly 
 mansion called Breidablik (that is, broad-shining 
 splendour) into which nothing unclean can enter. 
 
 Balder was tormented by terrible dreams indicat- 
 ing that his life was in dano;er. He communicated 
 his dreams to his fellow-gods, who resolved to con- 
 jure all things animate and inanimate not to harm 
 him, and accordingly Odin's wife Frigg, took an 
 oath from all things that they would do Balder no 
 harm. But still Odin felt anxious, and saddling 
 his eight-footed horse Sleipner, he rode down to 
 Niflheim, where he waked the vala or seeress, and 
 compelled her to give him information about the 
 fate of Balder. When it had been made known 
 that all things had taken a solemn oath not to hurt 
 Balder, it became a favourite pastime of the gods at 
 their meetings to put him up as a mark and shoot 
 at him. But it sorely vexed Loke to see that 
 Balder was not hurt. So he took on the g-uise of 
 
164 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 an old woman, went to Frigg and asked her if all 
 things had promised to spare Balder. From Frigg 
 he lenrned that on account of its insignificance she 
 had neo'lected to exact an oath from the mistletoe. 
 So he straightway went and pulled this up, repaired 
 to the place where the gods were assembled, and 
 induced the blind god Hoder to throw the mistletoe 
 at his brother and do him honour as did the other 
 gods. Loke himself guided Hoder's hand. The 
 twio^ did not miss its shinino; mark and Balder fell 
 dead. The gods were struck speechless with terror. 
 When they had had time to recover their senses, 
 Frigg sent Heimod to the goddess Hel to ask her 
 to permit Balder to return to Asgard. Hel said 
 she would release Balder if it was true that he was 
 so universally beloved, and this she would test by 
 observing if all things would weep for him. Mes- 
 sengers were despatched throughout all the world 
 to beseech all things to weep Balder out from Hel's 
 domain. And all things did so with alacrity, men, 
 animals, the earth, stones, trees, and metals, just as 
 w^e see things weep when they come out of the frost 
 into the warm air (a beautiful evidence that Balder 
 is the sun or summer). The messengers were re- 
 turnino; confident that their mission had been sue- 
 cessful, but on their way home they found a hag 
 crouching on the ground. She called herself 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON. 165 
 
 Tliokk, but slie ^Yas none else than Loke in dis- 
 guise. Thokk said that she could not weep other 
 than dry tears, and so Hel kept her prey. Now 
 as Loke is physical heat and fire, Thokk's dry 
 tears are the sparks that fly from the burning 
 wood. 
 
 Soon afterwards Loke was captured and bound 
 with strong cords to the points of rocks in a 
 cavern. A serpent was suspended over him in 
 such a manner that the venom fell into Loke's 
 face drop by drop. But Sigyn, Loke's wife, took 
 pity on him. She stands by him and receives the 
 drops as they fall in a cup, which she empties as 
 often as it is filled. But while she is emptying it, 
 venom falls upon Loke's face, which makes him 
 shriek with horror, and twist his body about so 
 violently that the whole earth quakes, and thus 
 earthquakes are produced. The relation of Loke to 
 the devil, or Satan, in Biblical theology needs not 
 to be pointed out. 
 
 But when Balder, the bright and good, had 
 passed from the happy family circle of the gods, 
 to the cold and gloomy abodes of Hel, the awful 
 day of doom was impending. It was a fatal thing 
 for the gods, and for the world, that they united 
 themselves with the giant race. Adam and Eve 
 should not have held intercourse with the wily 
 
166 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 serpent in the garden of Eden. The Norse gods 
 should not have admitted Loke into Asgard. 
 Christ's and Balder's death was the result, and 
 this hastened the day when the whole world shall 
 be destroyed, when gods, and men, and giants, 
 shall perish in Eagnarok, the twilight of the gods. 
 Increasing corruption and strife in the world are 
 the signs that this great and awful event is im- 
 pending. Continuous winters rage without any 
 intervening summers now that Balder has been 
 slain ; the air is filled with violent storms, snow 
 and darkness, and these are the signs that Eagnarok 
 is at hand. The sun and moon are swallowed by 
 giants who pursue them in the guise of wolves, 
 and the heavens are stained with blood. The 
 bright stars vanish, the earth trembles in the 
 throes of the earthquake, and the mountains topple 
 down with a tremendous crash. Then all chains 
 and fetters are severed and the terrible Fenriswolf 
 gets loose. The Midgard-serpent writhes in his 
 giant rage and seeks land upon the tumultuous 
 waves. Is not the reader forcibly reminded of 
 passages in the New Testament, telling of the 
 things that are to happen before the day of judg- 
 ment ? And does not this description suggest the 
 fall of Troy ? But what a serpent is this Scan- 
 dinavian Jormungand, as compared with the two 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON. 167 
 
 serpents that appeared before the burning of Troy, 
 issuing from the sea, and casting their slimy coils 
 around Laocoon and his two sons, and causing their 
 death ! But how much grander throughout, is not 
 this Scandinavian Eagnarok than any other day of 
 judgment ever conceived ! Tiie ship Naglfar, which 
 has been built of the nail-parings of dead men, 
 floats upon the vfaters carrying the army of frost- 
 giants over the sea, and having the mighty giant 
 Hrym as its helmsman. Loke, too, is now freed 
 from his dark cave and strong chains, and comes 
 to the scene as the leader of the hosts of Hel. 
 The Fenriswolf advances and opens his enormous 
 mouth. His lower jaw rests on the earth, and the 
 upper touches the sky. It is only for want of 
 room that he does not open his mouth still wider. 
 Fire flashes from his mouth and nostrils. The 
 Midgard-serpent placing himself by the side of the 
 Fenriswolf vomits forth floods of venom that fill 
 the air and the waters. In the midst of this 
 confusion, crashing, and devastation, the heavens 
 are rent in twain, and the sons of Muspel come 
 riding down through the opening in brilliant battle 
 array. 
 
 And now Surt, the same being that sent the 
 heated blasts from Muspelheim into Ginungagap in 
 the pre- chaotic world and by whose might the drops 
 
168 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 of venom sent by Niclliug in Niflbeim quickened 
 into the giant Ymer, lie who is from everhisting to 
 everlasting, this "unknown god" appears upon the 
 scene, wrapped in flames of fire. His flaming sword 
 outshines the sun himself. All the hosts here de- 
 scribed come riding over the Bifrost bridge, that is 
 the rainbow, which breaks beneath so great a weight. 
 All this vast and glittering army direct their course 
 to the great battle-field called Yigrid, and thus 
 the giants on their part are ready for the final 
 struggle. 
 
 Meanwhile Heimdal, on the part of the gods, 
 blows his Gjallarborn to arouse the gods, who 
 assemble without delay. In his embarrassment 
 Odin now, for the third time in his history, goes to 
 the older race, that is, the giants, to seek advice. 
 He rides to Mimer's fountain, where he in his youth 
 liad pawned his eye for knowledge, to consult 
 Mimer as to how he and his warriors are to enter 
 into action. The answer he received is nowhere 
 recorded ; but meanwhile the great ash Ygdrasil 
 begins to quake and quiver, nor is there anything 
 in heaven or on earth that does not fear and tremble 
 in that awful hour. The gods and all the einherjes 
 {i.e., those men fallen in battle and brought to 
 Valbal), don their armour, arm themselves, and 
 speedily sally forth to the field of battle, led by 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON. 169 
 
 Odin, wlio is easily recognised by his golden helmet, 
 resplendent cuirass, and his flashing spear Gungner. 
 Odin places himself against the Fenriswolf as the 
 foe most worthy of his steel. Thor stands by 
 Odin's side, but can give him no assistance, as he 
 must himself contend with the Midgard-serpent — 
 and well matched they are. Frey encounters the 
 mighty Surt himself, but though terrible blows are 
 exchanged, Frey falls, and the Edda says he owes 
 his defeat to the fact that he did not have that 
 trusty sword which in his passion for a giantess he 
 gave to his servant Skirner, when he sent him to 
 ask the hand of the charming giantess Gerd. Thus 
 it appears again and again that if the gods had not 
 allowed themselves intercourse with the giants, they 
 would not have come to this sad plight. In the 
 last hour the dog Garm, w^hich for ages had been 
 chained in the Gnipa-cave, also breaks loose. He 
 is the most terrible monster of all, and he attacks 
 the one-handed Tyr, who had sacrificed his right 
 hand in order to get the Fenriswolf bound. Garm 
 and Tyr kill each other. Thor gains great renown 
 by dealing the death-blow to the Midgard-serpent 
 with his mighty hammer Mjolner, but he retreats 
 only nine paces before he too falls dead, sufi'ocated 
 by the floods of venom which the expiring serpent 
 vomits forth upon him. The Fenriswolf, with his 
 
170 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 enormous and wide-open mouth, swallows Odiny 
 but Vidar, Odin's son, immediately advances to 
 avenge liis father. He places his foot upon the 
 wolf's lower jaw, the other he seizes with his hand 
 and thus tears and rends him till he dies. Vidar 
 is able to do this, for he wears a shoe, for which 
 materials have been gathered through all ages. It 
 is made of scraps of leather cut off from the toes 
 and heels in making patterns for shoes. Hence, 
 says the Edda, shoemakers should throw away such 
 pieces, if they desire to render assistance to the 
 gods in the final conflict. Loke and Heimdal meet 
 in duel and become each other's slayers. The con- 
 flict is still raging with unabated fury, when Surt, 
 who is immortal, flings fire and flames over the 
 world. Smoke wreathes up around the universal 
 ash-tree Ygdrasil ; the high flames play against the 
 lurid heavens and the earth consumed sinks down 
 beneath the watery w^aste. It is of course possible 
 that this Edda account of Kasfnarok contains 
 elements borrowed from Biblical theology, but the 
 fundamental elements are no doubt original, inas- 
 much as it is in perfect harmony with the Scandi- 
 navian system of mythology taken as a whole. 
 
 After Ragnarok comes a new world. The earth 
 rises a second lime from the sea, and is completely 
 clothed in green. Sparkling cascades fall, over- 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON. l7l 
 
 arched by rainbows glistening in the sunbeams. 
 The eagle soars on lofty pinions in pursuit of his 
 prey. The gods risen from the dead assemble on 
 the Ida plains and talk about the strange things 
 that have happened in the past, about the Fenris- 
 wolf, about the Midgard-serpent, about Loke, and 
 about the ancient runes of the mighty Odin. The 
 fields unsown yield their bountiful harvests, all ills 
 cease and the gods live in peace. A new sun, 
 brighter and more resplendent than the former one, 
 appears, and there is naught but beauty, plenty, 
 and happiness. This pertains, however, only to the 
 condition of the gods after Eagnarok; but what 
 ideas did the ancient Scandinavians have of the 
 future life of man ? They had two heavens and 
 two hells for humanity, a heaven and hell before 
 Eagnarok and a heaven and hell after Eagnarok, 
 the hell before Eagnarok corresponding somewhat 
 to the doctrine of purgatory in the Eoman Church. 
 Before Eagnarok, those fallen by the sword or in 
 battle went to Yalhal to Odin, became einlierjes 
 w^ho took part with Odin in the first conflict on 
 the plain of Yigrid. Those who died a straw-death, 
 that is to say, who did not fall in combat, went 
 after death to the domain of Hel, and though the 
 Edda is silent on the subject, they probably fought 
 on the side of Loke in Eagnarok. 
 
172 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 But after the twilight of the gods there is a 
 heaven nnmed Gimle and a hell called Nastrand. 
 Gimle is a hall more radiant than the sun; it is 
 the uppermost realm, and in it the virtuous shall 
 dwell for ever and enjoy delights without end. 
 Its description is brief but complete. Nastrand is 
 the place set apart for the wicked. The word 
 means strand of corpses. It is situated far from 
 the sun, in the lowest region of the universe, is a 
 large and terrible cave, the doors of which open 
 only to the north. This cave is built of serpents 
 wattled together, and the fanged heads of all the 
 serpents turn into the cave, filling it with streams 
 of venom in which perjurers, murderers, and adul- 
 terers have to wade. The suffering is more terrible 
 than tongue can tell. Bloody hearts hang outside 
 of the breasts of the damned; their faces are dyed 
 in gore. Strong envenomed serpent fangs fiercely 
 pierce their hearts ; their hands are riveted together 
 with red-hot stones. Their clothes though wrapped 
 in flames are not consumed, and remorseless ravens 
 keep tearing their eyes from their heads. From 
 this terrible cave the damned are, to increase their 
 anguish, washed by the venomous floods into Hver- 
 gelmer, that fearful well in Niflheim, where their 
 souls and bodies are subjected to even more terrible 
 pains and woes, torn by countless clusters of ser- 
 
THE HON. EASMUS B. ANDEESON. 173 
 
 pents, and borne from agony to agony on the whiz- 
 zing plumage of the primeval Niclhug, the dragon 
 of the uttermost darkness. The old Scandinavians 
 did not believe in eternal punishment. There are 
 passages in the Elder Edda that point to a final 
 reconciliation between light and darkness, Balder 
 and Hoder, between good and evil. There comes 
 a mighty one to the great judgment and makes the 
 dragon Nidhug sink. The vala or prophetess in 
 her last vision in Yoluspa points to a time when all 
 that is evil shall be dissolved and washed away by 
 the eternal streams of goodness. This is the last 
 vision of the vala : 
 
 " There comes the dark 
 Dragon flying, 
 The shining serpent 
 From the Nida mountains 
 In the deep. 
 Over the plain he flies ; 
 Dead bodies he drags 
 In his whizzing plumage. 
 ^ow must Nidhug sink." 
 
 There is an intermediate state, a transition, a 
 purification, a purgatory in Hel's domain, and this 
 object must sooner or later be accomplished, and 
 the day of the great judgment, when Nidhug must 
 sink and never more lift his wintrs loaded with 
 suffering humanity, must come. The same idea is 
 
174 AKCIE^'T SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 elaborated in Zendavesta. The Edda has it con- 
 densed in a single line, and does not Biblical theo- 
 logy tell us how great joy there is in heaven over 
 a converted signer ? The Scandinavian like the 
 Christian God is a God of mercy, who does not 
 desire the eternal ruin of a sino^le sinner but that 
 he shall repent and live, and he is a god of omni- 
 potence, who is able to press the tears of repentance 
 from the heart thouo;h it be hard as adamant. 
 He can dissolve all darkness and gild the world 
 with the shining light of heaven. That Scandi- 
 navian mythology teaches an eternal reward is 
 certain, and the view in regard to punishment as 
 7iot being eternal is maintained by Scandinavia's 
 greatest mythological student, the late learned 
 N. M. Petersen. 
 
 And now a few words in partial recapitulation 
 of the preceding pages. 
 
 1. There is a pre -chaotic w^orld, in the south part 
 of which, Muspelheim, Surt (the swarthy, dark, un- 
 known) reigns with flaming sword, and in the north 
 part of which Niflbeim issues forth the venom- 
 rivers, the Elivogs, indicating that Nidhug, the 
 drairon in Hversfelmer, is co-eternal with Surt ; 
 that is, the good and the evil existed from ever- 
 lasting. 
 
 2. Chaotic Ymer is produced by the blending 
 
THE HON. PvASMUS B. ANDERSON. 175 
 
 of cold and heat, fire and venom, sent forth into 
 Ginungagap by Surt and Nidhug. Odin and the 
 gods are the beneficent forces and elements in 
 Nature. They separate themselves from the giants, 
 which are the evil and destructive elements, and 
 conquer them by their divine power. 
 
 3. Then comes Cosmos. Odin, Vile, and Ye 
 create the present world from the body of the 
 slain Ymer. 
 
 4. The government of the world is in the power 
 of the Asgard gods, while they are more or less 
 subject to the decrees of the mighty norns, the 
 weird sisters, dispensers of time and fate. All 
 that is good, beautiful, and true comes from the 
 gods, but the giants also manifest their power in 
 all the evil, disturbing, and destructive elements 
 of Nature. The gods circumscribe but do not 
 destroy the power of the giants. The world-life 
 is a ceaseless struggle between these opposite 
 forces. The gods strive to defend what advan- 
 tage they have, but the giants are continually 
 seeking to defeat them and bring ruin upon them. 
 The gods frequently employ the giants to elevate 
 and fortify themselves, but this is a mistake on 
 their part, and they thereby only in the end weaken 
 their own power. The cunning giant-god Loke, 
 the devil or Mephistophiles of Scandinavian pagan- 
 
176 ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. 
 
 ism whom the gods have adopted and taken into 
 Asgard, deceives and destroys them. The power 
 of the giants keeps increasing and grows more and 
 more threatening: to the ^ods and to the whole 
 world. 
 
 5. In harmony with the doctrine of some Chris- 
 tian Churches, that wickedness is to increase until 
 the last trumpet sounds, so in the Scandinavian 
 religion the world grows worse and worse. It 
 finally comes first to the death of Balder and then 
 to the great struggle in Eagnarok, where both 
 parties summon all their strength for a decisive 
 battle, and where gods and giants mutually slay 
 each other. In this internecine feud the world 
 and the noble ash Ygdrasil are consumed with 
 flames hurled by the mysterious Surt, that is, by 
 the same original power whence came the first 
 sparks of life in the pre-chaotic world. 
 
 6. The world is destroyed only to rise again in 
 a more glorious condition. In the reconstruction 
 and reo-cneration of the world the victory of the 
 gods over the giants is complete. After Eagnarok, 
 Odin, Thor, Frey, &c., are no more as individual 
 divinities, but they are all united in that supreme 
 being, that one who is greater than Odin, the one 
 whom Hyndla's lay in the Elder Edda dare not 
 name, and whom few look far enough to see — that 
 
THE HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON". l77 
 
 god wlio is dimly discerned in the primeval be- 
 ginning, who remains victorious in Eagnarok, and 
 who is from everlastino^ to everlasting^. When that 
 mighty one comes to the great judgment, then the 
 cursed Nidhug, the gnawer in the dark, who has so 
 long tormented the souls of the wicked, sinks, to- 
 gether with death and all pain and evil, into the 
 unfathomable abyss never to rise again. Such was 
 in brief the religion that fostered the enterprising 
 spirit of the grand Viking age in the North. It is 
 not unworthy of a modest place beside the other 
 systems of heathen religions. It certainly inspired 
 the ancient Scandinavians to live an upright and 
 brave life. It has many "broken lights" of Chris- 
 tianity in it. The similarity in many parts only 
 makes us wonder how it grew. Anyhow it saves 
 us from having a low idea of the character of our 
 rude ancestors. 
 
 M 
 
POSITIVISM AS A RELIGION, 
 
 XI. 
 
 By THE Rev. Professor J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A., 
 New College, London. 
 
 npHEEE is a curious irony in the fact, which will 
 be for ever memorable, that the man who was 
 the very incarnation of the scientific and secular 
 spirit of the nineteenth century is yet the inven- 
 tor of the only new religion to which (with the odd 
 exception of Mormonism) this century has given 
 birth. M. Comte was the author of Positivism, 
 which is the doctrine that we have to do only with 
 facts coming under exact observation, and with 
 generalisations from those facts, i.e., with physical 
 **laws" deriving their authority from experience. 
 Such facts and generalisations constitute, according 
 to Comtism — which in this simply fixes and formu- 
 lates a tendency of our times — the sum of human 
 knowledge. Evidently the natural and proper 
 outcome of Positivism is the negation of religion. 
 
J. EADFORD THOMSON, M.A. 179 
 
 for the doctrines of religion and its practices relate 
 to the supersensible, the spiritual, the Divine. 
 
 Yet there is a Positivist religion, the *' Religion 
 of Humanity," with a creed, a church, a priesthood, 
 a ritual, more or less developed and concrete. How 
 can we account for a religion being tacked on to 
 a scientific doctrine which seems to preclude its 
 possibility? or illogically evolved out of such a 
 doctrine ? There is a general answer, viz., that 
 men must and will have a religion, that it is not in 
 human nature to be satisfied without a religion. 
 And there is a special answer, viz., that the 
 founder of Positivism became himself dissatisfied 
 with his own secularism. 
 
 Comte must have imposed upon himself when he 
 referred to his own exjperience the saying of Alfred 
 de Vigny — " Qu'est ce qu'une grande vie 1 Une 
 pensee de la jeunesse realisee par I'age." (What is 
 a great life 1 A thought of youth, realised, made 
 actual, in after-life.) No man's life was ever more 
 clearly cleft into two distinct and antagonistic por- 
 tions than was that of Comte. M. Littre was the 
 most illustrious disciple of the great Positivist in 
 his first and scientific stage — in that stage when 
 metaphysics and theology were repudiated. But 
 Littre broke off from the master when he publicly 
 approved and advocated political absolutism, wheu 
 
180 POSITIVISM AS A EELIGION. 
 
 he tauo;ht a fanciful doctrine of the Trinitv, when 
 he practised and sanctioned prayer. Many of 
 Comte's followers " walked no more with him " 
 when he became dissatisfied with those secular 
 and negative doctrines which were so specially 
 distinctive of the earlier part of his philosophic 
 career. Thus we have two distinct parties, giving 
 two distinct representations of Comte's personal 
 history, two distinct views of the '' chief end of 
 man : " both parties, however, claiming to be ex- 
 positors of Positivism. The reader of Kobinet has 
 quite a different impression of the master from that 
 received by the reader of Littre. The former 
 glorifies Comte as the founder of the true reli- 
 gion, and exalts " Ste. Clotilde" to highest honour, 
 whilst painting the conduct of Madame Comte and 
 of M. Littre in the darkest colours. To the great 
 lexicographer, on the other hand, the later years of 
 Comte seem to have been blighted by an irrational 
 and infatuated forsaking of true science for false 
 religion. "M. Comte," says Littre, '^at a given 
 moment, believing that he was simply developing 
 the Positive philosophy, changed his method. The 
 two sections of his teaching were manifestly two 
 distinct doctrines, having different and irrecon- 
 cilable points of departure. He exchanged the 
 objective for the subjective method." Mysticism, 
 
J. RADFOKD THOMSON, M.A. 181 
 
 in Littre's judgment, became the dominant in- 
 fluence, as his career approached its close. Amongst 
 other poiuts of divergence, Littre lays stress upon 
 Comte's contention that the intellect ought to be 
 subject to the heart, and that feeling. Sec, should 
 be attributed to the material world — a doo-ma which 
 is naturally deemed a return from the Positive to 
 the Theological stage of belief. 
 
 The best known Euglish Positivists are warmly 
 in sympathy with Comte's religious teachiug. Thus 
 Mr. F. Harrison claims that Positivism " belongfs in 
 the true sense of that word to the spiritual, and not 
 to the materialistic philosophy," and even holds 
 that "the scope, function, and parts of religion 
 have never been completely examined until this 
 was done by the founder of Positivism." 
 
 There can be no question that in his later years 
 Comte insisted with reiteration and with earnest- 
 ness that religion was the crown of his philosophic 
 edifice. From his " Eight Circulars " we quote the 
 following sentences in confirmation of this state- 
 ment : — " Having devoted the whole of my life to 
 the task of basing sound philosophy, and, as a con- 
 sequence, true religion, upon the whole body of the 
 sciences," &c. " Positive philosophy originates in 
 real science, only that it may end in true religion." 
 " It is in the Positive religion alone that resides 
 
182 POSITIVISM AS A KELIGION. 
 
 the systematic force wbicli can keep in clieqk, 
 not only the retrograde inclinations of the various 
 governments, but the anarchical tendencies of their 
 populations, prescribing simultaneously order in 
 the name of progress, and progress in the name 
 of order." 
 
 It is not always understood that Positivism, in 
 its full development, is far more than a scientific 
 method : it is a Keligion and a Church. When Mr. 
 E. Congreve, on the 19th of January 1859, in- 
 auorurated in London an ecclesiastical oro^anisation 
 he expressly affirmed : — " We are not a philoso- 
 phical school, but a Church. . . . We worship 
 humanity in and through her noblest servant and 
 organ, Auguste Comte." It is very noticeable 
 that both master and disciples have been anxious 
 to maintain a kind of continuity with the Christian 
 Church in its highly organised mediaeval form. 
 The system is designated Human Catholicism in 
 contrast with Roman Catholicism. It is main- 
 tained that the future of relisfion lies between 
 Romanism and Positivism. " The religion of the 
 past is our real competitor. Beside it there is 
 nothing in the field." Positivism has its Trinity 
 — Humanity, the AVorld, Space ! The Comtist 
 idea of religion is a combination of the Christian 
 and the scientific. Thus Mr. F. Harrison says : — 
 
J. RADFOED THOMSON, M.A. 183 
 
 *'We acknowledge a religion, of which the creed 
 shall be science, of which the Faith, Hope, Charity, 
 shall be real, not transcendental; earthly, not 
 heavenly — a religion, in a word, which is en- 
 tirely human, in its evidences, in its purposes, in 
 its sanctions and appeals." 
 
 In many particulars the system of Comte is 
 copied from the old Catholicism. It has its Calen- 
 dar, Festivals, and Saints' Days ; its Sacraments 
 and Priesthood. The intention of the founder was 
 that his religion should penetrate the social life 
 of mankind, meeting men, as Catholicism aims 
 at doing, at every point. Little has been done 
 towards realising these plans ; the temples, which 
 are to be turned, not towards the East, but to- 
 wards Paris, have yet to be built, the elaborate 
 order of priests has yet to be instituted, the Pan- 
 theon has yet to be founded. 
 
 It is true that some distiuguished men who 
 have come under Comte's influence as a scientific 
 thinker have refused to accept his religious teach- 
 ing. M. Littre in Frauce, and Mr. J. S. Mill and 
 Mr. G. H. Lewes in England, may be mentioned 
 as occupying this position. Those who take this 
 position have Positivist tendencies, but reject the 
 master's later and cherished doctrines ; for them 
 Comte is an authority in scientific method, but a 
 
 / 
 
184 POSITIVISM AS A RELIGION. 
 
 fanatic in religion; they will follow his philosophy, 
 but will have nothing to do with his Church. On 
 the other hand, Dr. Bridges " accepts the conception 
 of an organised Spiritual power, of a Positivist 
 Church." He explains: — "For us the religion of 
 humanity means something that will bind together 
 all ages, all classes, and all nations, in a common 
 faith and a common worship. We recognise the 
 need, too, of something analogous to the spiritual 
 authority which has directed the faith and the 
 worship of all previous religions ; and which, often 
 as it has abused its power, has far more often used 
 it beneficially and nobly." 
 
 Dismissing from our attention the one-sided 
 Comtists, let ns consider the beliefs and practices 
 inculcated by Comte himself, and acknowledged 
 by his thorough-going disciples to be authorita- 
 tively binding upon themselves. The religion pre- 
 scribed by Comte is the religion of humanity ; it 
 substitutes for a Supreme Creator and Euler the 
 human race, or rather those members of the human 
 race who by their character and services have de- 
 served general esteem. The great and good of 
 past generations are regarded by the Positivists 
 with relioious reverence, and are exalted to the 
 position rather of deities than of saints. 
 
 In place of the " lords many and gods many " 
 
J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A. 185 
 
 who have so long usurped the throne of the human 
 heart — in pLace of the Living and Eterual Supreme 
 Himself — the prophet of the new religion bids us 
 adore humanity as the sovereign and only deity. 
 
 Extinctis Diis, Deoque, successit Humanitas. 
 By humanity, according to Comte's final definition, 
 we are to understand " the unbroken whole of con- 
 verging beings " (rensemble continu des dtres con- 
 vergents). And as the majority of the human 
 race, and almost all who have made a reputation 
 for great services, are numbered among the hosts 
 of the departed, we must form our conception of 
 humanity by studying the character of those who 
 have gone before us. " The fundamental principle 
 of human order is this : — the living are essentially 
 and increasingly governed by the dead." 
 
 It is not an easy thing to grasp clearly the 
 Comtist conception of humanity as the deity whom 
 we are called upon to worship. There is vague- 
 ness about Comte's own language : — " Towards 
 humanity, who is for us the only true great being, 
 we, the conscious elements of whom she is com- 
 posed, shall henceforth direct every aspect of our 
 life, individual or collective. Our thouofhts will 
 be devoted to the knowledge of humanity, our 
 affections to her love, our actions to her service." 
 Nor do we gain much in clearness by pondering 
 
186 POSITIVISM AS A RELIGION. 
 
 the language of Comte's English disciple, Mr. F., 
 Harrison : — '' The entire system of Positive belief 
 points to the existence of a single dominant 
 power, whose real and incontestable attributes 
 appeal directly to the affections in no less measure 
 than they appeal directly to the intellect." 
 
 Such, however, is the Positivist object of adora- 
 tion. "Under the permanent inspiration of uni- 
 versal love, the business of doctrine, worship, and 
 discipline is to study, to honour, and to serve 
 the Great Being, the crown of all human exist- 
 ence." To make the w^orship more real and 
 profitable, the faithful are encouraged to personify 
 humanity. Especially in private worship, woman 
 is to be adored. A man should offer worship 
 to his mother, his wife, his daughter. Comte 
 himself adored as personifications of humanity 
 his mother, his friend Clotilde de Vaux, and his 
 estimable female housekeeper. An English Posi- 
 tivist asks : — " What is the most universal con- 
 stituent of this composite spirituality ? The 
 answer is clear. It is in woman that wx find it; 
 and therefore it is that, as the most universal 
 and the most powerful of all modifying agents, 
 woman is, in our religion, the representative of 
 humanity." 
 
 Comte was in the habit of writing in the most 
 
J. RADFOKD THOMSON, M.A. 187 
 
 extravagant terms of tlie person to wliose influence 
 he attributed his ''moral regeneration." Thus, 
 after the death of Clotilde de Vaux, he referred 
 in one of his circulars to his place of abode in 
 the following language: — ''Especially sacred did 
 this dwelling become to me . . . as the scene of 
 the moral regeneration I experienced during one 
 unparalleled year under the angelic impulse which 
 will preside over the whole of my second life. . . . 
 These holy walls, on which is imprinted for ever 
 the image I adore, have helped me in my daily 
 development of the private worship of the best 
 personification of the true Great Being." 
 
 And in the dedication to Clotilde's memory of 
 his Positive Polity, Comte confesses : — " As has 
 ever been the case where affection has been well 
 bestowed, your strengthening influence has spon- 
 taneously made me more affectionate to my friends, 
 more indulgent to my enemies, more gentle to my 
 inferiors, more submissive to those above me." 
 Such language is by no means unreasonable ; but 
 Comte attributed to Clotilde's influence far more 
 than moral improvement. He traced to this source 
 the final development, which was indeed almost a 
 reversal, of his whole system : — " Through you 
 alone it is that I have been able to stir that re- 
 action of the heart upon the intellect without 
 
188 POSITIVISM AS A RELIGION. 
 
 which my mission would have failed. But for, 
 your gentle influence my long philosophic train- 
 ing, even though seconded by aesthetic pursuits, 
 could not have enabled me to realise the true 
 systematic preponderance of universal love, the 
 principal and final characteristic of Positivism, 
 and which more than any other will ensure its 
 general acceptance." 
 
 As to what constitutes worship, we find a diver- 
 gence of opinion prevalent among adherents of the 
 Positivist faith. We do not find complete har- 
 mony between some of the fervid exhortations of 
 Mr. Congreve and some of the commonplace, every- 
 day sentiments expressed by Mr. Harrison. Ac- 
 cording to the latter, *' Cult does not mean worship, 
 but whatever stimulates the sense of duty and 
 quickens the noblest emotions." Upon this show- 
 ing, the Positivist Opi^a-Keia takes the form of com- 
 memoration of great musicians, as Mozart and 
 Beethoven, or of " the noble and healthful mediaeval 
 practice of pilgrimages or visits to the graves of 
 distinguished men," such as Bacon, Harvey, Milton, 
 Hampden, Cromwell, and William of Orange. One 
 is reminded of the famous passage in the Apo- 
 crypha commencing with the sonorous invitation, 
 *^ Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers 
 which besrat us ! " 
 
J. RADFOKD THOMSON, M.A. 189 
 
 Comte felt the necessity of embodying the new 
 faith in a living and social form, of investing it 
 with the permanent attraction of ritual, sacraments, 
 and various prescribed observances. Thus in the 
 preface to the Positive Polity he contends : — " By 
 this series of institutions {i.e.^ the worship of 
 guardian angels, and the sacraments), Proved 
 religion shows itself capable of superseding Ee- 
 vealed religion at all points, depriving the latter 
 of its claims to moral no less than to political 
 superiority." 
 
 Eeligion, however, is not only a worship, it is a 
 moral power exercised over human life. The best 
 moral characteristic of the Positivist religion is that 
 unselfishness and devotedness to human welfare 
 which it has borrowed from Christianity. One of 
 its advocates professes : — " In the principle of all 
 action for the disciples of our religion — sacrifice of 
 self for the good of others, embodied in the great 
 formula of Positive morality, Live for others — I 
 find the one all-powerful compensation, at once for 
 the evils of our condition and for the hopes we 
 renounce." The followers of Comte are in the 
 habit of pronouncing Christian morality especially 
 selfish, of representing Christians as seeking their 
 own good as the chief aim ; and they contrast with 
 this self-seeking the disinterestedness of their faith 
 
190 POSITIVISM AS A RELIGION. 
 
 and prayers. But a little reflection will show that 
 the Christian precept, " Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
 bour as thyself" is a wiser, juster, and more efi'ec- 
 tive rule. 
 
 There is incongruity between the confident and 
 almost boastful claims of the Positivists and the 
 actual progress which the sect has made after so 
 many years of promulgation. They speak in 
 sonorous language of " the majestic march of our 
 religion," and of the " rapidity with which humanity 
 is movino- on her course towards her visible instal- 
 lation." Yet, although Mr. Congreve used this 
 language at the opening of the year 1881, we find 
 him on the following New Year's Day noticing the 
 disappearance of one of the two Positivist centres 
 in Paris, and that the one with which he was most 
 in sympathy ; and recording that tivo sacraments 
 had been celebrated in London in the course of 
 1 88 1, viz., one of initiation, and one of marriage ! 
 It has been admitted that outside of France and 
 Britain the adherents of the Positivist religion can 
 be reckoned only by units. 
 
 It is a pleasure to acknowledge what of good 
 there is in the religion of humanity. No Christian 
 can regard this singular development of the spirit 
 of our aire with unkindness or bitterness. In 
 Comte himself there was so much of egotism, 
 
J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A. 191 
 
 conceit, and bigotry, that it is not easy to do 
 justice to his enthusiasm and benevolence. In 
 theory he professed universal love and goodwill, 
 and certainly in his later years he aimed at cherish- 
 ing- such ajBPections and desires as are an ornament 
 and glory of human nature. And one cannot but 
 sympathise with his desire to elevate the higher 
 affections of men to a just position, in his religion 
 and in the daily practice of Posit ivists. The best 
 known English Positivists command our respect, 
 both by their protest against materialism in belief 
 and secularism in practice, and also b}^ their bold 
 and constant advocacy of righteous, peaceful, and 
 unselfish policy in the relations of civil and national 
 life. 
 
 But our admiration of much in the teachinof and 
 the practical life of our Positivist neighbours does 
 not blind us to the fact that what of orood there is 
 in them is owing almost entirely to the religion of 
 Christ, which has entered into the structure of the 
 society of which they form a part, nor does it blind 
 us to the fact that the peculiarities of Positivist 
 doctrine are in themselves indefensible and mis- 
 leadingr. 
 
 In criticising the ** Religion of Humanity" we 
 encounter the difficulty arising from the origin of 
 the system as a supplement to scientific Positivism. 
 
192 rOSITIVISM AS a KELIGIOxV. 
 
 It seems to us most unreasonable to exclude from 
 religion the supramundane and omnipresent Power. 
 Comte himself tells us that "Eeligion has not 
 to do with that order which is higher and more 
 comprehensive than humanity, and which science 
 forbids us to personify." Heie is a fundamental 
 metaphysical difference between the Positivist and 
 the Theist. The former admits that humanity does 
 not account for the universe, or even for itself. 
 And yet he will only look around upon the living, 
 and hack upon the dead, instead of looking up to 
 the Almighty and Omniscient Being who is the 
 source and reason of all existence. The religion 
 of humanity goes too far for the scientist, who 
 acknowledges only the phenomenal and experi- 
 ential ; it does not go far enough for the spiritual 
 philosopher, not to say the Christian. 
 
 Accordingly, the Positivist deity is an abstrac- 
 tion, towards which we cannot feel those sentiments 
 which go out towards a living, conscious, personal 
 beino:. And when the Positivist undertakes, for 
 practical purposes, to personify his humanity, he 
 necessarily selects types characterised by human 
 imperfection. It needs an overpowering imagina- 
 tion, nay, it needs the abnegation of reason, to 
 render religious homao^e to the illustrious dead 
 whose memory we revere, to the living women 
 
J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A. 193 
 
 wliose virtues we prize, but with whose infirmities 
 we are familiar. 
 
 Only a Supreme and Perfect Object of worship 
 can issue a law which deserves universal and un- 
 hesitating obedience, or can promulgate a gospel 
 which shall bring joy and hope to all human 
 hearts. The collective goodness and imperfections, 
 wisdom and folly, of the past cannot furnish us 
 with an authoritative rule of conduct, or with 
 sufficient moral sanctions to secure obedience. 
 And judging from the tone of such Positivist 
 writers and moralists as George Eliot, there is 
 oflfered by this earth-born creed no pardon for the 
 past, no peace for the conscience, and therefore 
 little inspiration for future self-denial and devotion, 
 for the benefit of the poor, sinful, and sorrowful 
 sons of men. 
 
 And as Positivism limits our survey within the 
 contracted horizon of humanity, so does it fail to 
 lift the veil from the future and the unseen. It 
 yields one hope — the hope that every good man's 
 work may be serviceable to the coming generations. 
 But upon the destiny of the individual and of the 
 race, it is dumb. Christianity, on the other hand, 
 allows and encourages the inspiring hope that a 
 good man's life shall be the seed of spiritual pro- 
 gress and happiness on earth. And it adds to this 
 
194 POSITIVISM AS A EELIGION. 
 
 hope the glorious revelation of a "new heaven and 
 a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness," and 
 lends to this glowing prospect the added cbarm 
 which is connected with an assured, a conscious, 
 a personal immortality. 
 
THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 T 
 
 XII. 
 By THE Key. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 
 
 HE following thoughts are submitted as bearing 
 upon the great religious questions of the 
 present time ; more particularly in relation to the 
 rationalistic assumption, that all the religions rest 
 on ideutical foundations, or grow out of the same 
 root-principles of human nature. Hence, though 
 some of the religions may appear nobler than the 
 others, yet this is only in outward semblance or 
 appearance, as all alike are developments on a 
 purely natural basis of the religious principles, 
 which, original or derived, are to be found in 
 humanity. This position the writer of the follow- 
 ing chapters entirely denies. This denial is based 
 on the fact, that the Eeligions of Humanity belong 
 to very diverse stages in the history of manhind, 
 and their worth and value in relation to humanity 
 
196 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 depend essentially upon the stage to which they 
 belono:. 
 
 Three such stages are clearly inevitable, and will 
 be readily recognised as actually existing platforms 
 or planes in the life of mankind. Auguste Comte 
 has told us about his religious, his metaphysical, 
 and his positive stages ; but these are manifestly 
 artificial, and like other French theories, are too 
 obviously made for the convenience of the writer. 
 But that there is a natural, savage, purely animal, 
 or elementary stage in the history of humanity is 
 surely obvious enough. In it man is to be found 
 before he arrives at the second, or moral stage, in 
 which there grows out of the interaction of the 
 moral relations of man to man, a moral platform or 
 plane, in which men substantially civilised are 
 bound together by a network of moral relations 
 w^hich they conform to, not compulsorily, but by 
 the force of habit and the internal sense of moral 
 obliixation revealed in human nature. No doubt 
 this moral plane, in actually existing communities, 
 is rather in a state of growth or becoming than 
 fully realised and perfect. We see this in the 
 existence, in all communities, of a number of 
 human beings who are held in subordination by 
 external compulsion, or by physical restraint, 
 whose obedience to moral law is consequently 
 
THE EEV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 197 
 
 only partial and compulsory. And so long as 
 this state of things exists — and it does exist even 
 amongst tlie peoples most advanced in civilisation 
 — we mark the imperfection of this moral plat- 
 form of humanity, and are reminded of what Locke 
 says, somewhat cynically, in his tractate on the 
 " Conduct of the Understanding," that " man 
 is capable of becoming a reasonable creature." 
 Kant, the thinker of Konigsberg, has done most, 
 more especially in his ethical works, to glorify 
 this phase of human nature as the highest mani- 
 festation of humanity. Yet no one has done more 
 to reveal its imperfection, to show its essential 
 earthliness of condition ; that unless man can 
 hope to raise himself above this moral plane and 
 attain nearer to that ideal towards which it points ; 
 but to which on this side of time it can never reach, 
 his position is a hopeless one, and the thinkers 
 working on such premises have no alternative but 
 to fall back on the pessimism of Schopenhauer and 
 Hartmann. 
 
 The moral plane, however, we hold, necessarily 
 implies a higher. The thinker to whom we have 
 referred as doing so much to exalt the moral plane 
 of humanity, has shown that we are justified in 
 inferring from the facts of man's moral nature the 
 existence of God and the immortality of the soul ; 
 
198 THE ONE PURELY MOEAL EELIGION. 
 
 the former as the only means of uniting and re- 
 conciling man's striving to obey the inward law of 
 duty with the external order of nature and her on- 
 goings according to the law of cause and effect ; 
 the latter as postulating the continued existence of 
 man's moral being, as the only guarantee of his 
 being able to reach forward to the real aim and 
 ideal of that being and the fulfilment of the law 
 of duty. 
 
 But surely we cannot stop at these bare and 
 vao^ue abstractions. We are, as Kant has shown 
 us, on the basis of real moral life and action in 
 making these inferences, and on this basis we must 
 go further and postulate the practicability of reach- 
 ing the Chief Good — the aim and ideal of man's 
 nature, both individually and socially. But if the 
 individual aim be union with the Divine Nature 
 (2 Peter i. 4), the social aim is nothing less than 
 that Civitas Dei — the City of God which floated 
 before the mind of Augustine and other great 
 Christian thinkers. Now this reaching forward 
 to become "partakers of the Divine Nature," to 
 become " members of the general assembly and 
 Church of the first-born," is a state of things which 
 may be anticipated here, as the lives of multitudes 
 of the best of men have shown ; though it may only 
 be perfected when we reach the Golden City in 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 199 
 
 very deed and truth. This, then, is that third and 
 highest plane of which we are in search — the plane 
 of the spiritual, Man may not only be bound by 
 a network of moral relationships to his fellow-men, 
 and live from inward principle, apart from external 
 compulsion, in obedience to the moral law written 
 on the heart ; but he may also rise to communion 
 with the unseen ; live now as realising the actual 
 presence of God, and thus "look" not at the things 
 which are seen, but at the things which are " not 
 seen." And it is precisely this wonderful appre- 
 hension of the " powers of the world to come," 
 which constitutes the spirituality of earth, and 
 enables man to look forward to a still higher 
 spiritual condition in the future. 
 
 The Apostle in Hebrews xii. anticipates such a 
 lofty sociological development when he says (verse 
 22) — " Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the 
 city of the living God," &c. &c. ; and we contend 
 that he here describes the spiritual stage or plane 
 as reached 7iow, in anticipation ; though it will only 
 be fully attained in the spiritual life-relations of 
 the future. 
 
 Now the reliQ:ions of the world connect them- 
 selves with, and belong to, these successive stages 
 or planes in the life and history of humanity. All 
 the religions, save Christianity and the religion of 
 
200 THE ONE PUEELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 Israel, belong to the natural stage. They do 30 
 from their polytheistic character, and from their 
 manifold contradictions to the higher moral rela- 
 tions of humanity. The religion of Israel is the 
 only religion which closely approximates in its 
 principles and relations to the moral plane. As a 
 religion, it is fully in harmony with this plane. 
 
 It is not maintained that the moral relations of 
 humanity depend upon religion, though naturally 
 they are closely connected with it, and the religion 
 may raise or degrade man ethically. Morality is 
 inseparable from humanity, and inevitably emerges 
 in a more or less perfect state from the relations of 
 man to man as a social beinsf. We believe that 
 revealed ethics is as inconsequent as revealed logic, 
 and that morality is not a religious product ; 
 although, as we have said, it is greatly affected by 
 the character of the religion accepted by the com- 
 munity, whose morality is under consideration. 
 Man, intellectual, moral, and religious, is no doubt 
 an inseparable unity; but the moral and intellectual 
 developments of his nature are not an outcome of 
 the religious ; auy more than the religious man is 
 derived from the intellectual or moral man. All three 
 are original developments of humanity, and do not 
 necessarily depend the one upon the other, although, 
 as has been said, there is abundant interaction be- 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 201 
 
 tween these great original principles of human 
 nature. 
 
 I. In nature-religions there is, first, identification 
 with nature. Her impulses are in man's blood. 
 He feels himself at one with nature. His appetites, 
 passions, and desires are implanted by nature, and 
 the gratification of them is natural. Heuce while 
 he feels the presence of Divine power, and the 
 instinct of worship reveals itself in the depths of 
 his spirit, he deifies the whole of nature around 
 him, and mixes tog^ether the lowest and the his^hest. 
 Such states of religious feeling, as we have seen, 
 must needs rest upon a Pantheistic basis — viz., 
 that the all by which he is surrounded is Divine, 
 in all its varied forms and impulses. Hence the 
 worship of Pan and Bacchus amongst the Greeks, 
 and the surrender to wild and sensuous impulses 
 as the outcome of the inspiration of the god. But 
 in a second stas^e, the all resolves itself into a 
 variety of tendencies and impulses. The thought- 
 ful and rational elements took form under Pallas 
 Athene ; the gross and sensual impulses were under 
 the patronage of Bacchus and Venus, and the wor- 
 shipper could pass from the service of the one to 
 that of the other without feeling much the presence 
 of moral opposites, or realising the contradiction 
 that was inherent in his life. But as man ad- 
 
202 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 vanced in moral culture, these contradictions beofan 
 to emerge, and endeavours were made to solve or 
 remove them. This was partly attained in the Greek 
 religion by the Monotheistic tendency, in which Zeus 
 became the father of gods and men, by the expul- 
 sion of the immoral elements from his character, the 
 reconciliation of the warring inhabitants of Olym- 
 pus through his control and mediation, and thus a 
 solution of the contradiction was in some measure 
 reached. But still in all the heathen relictions this 
 reconciliation was far from complete. The dark 
 shadow of arbitrary mindless Fate rested over the 
 gods, as it rests in the form of an inevitable neces- 
 sity over the naturalistic schemes of modern times. 
 Presently, moreover, the childish character of the 
 popular mythology became apparent, and it lost its 
 hold over men's minds ; while we see how in Kome the 
 darker and gloomier systems of the East took hold 
 of the human spirit. Man shrinks from the absolute 
 emptiness of unbelief just as in the case of the 
 scientific spiritists of our own time. Accordingly 
 the asceticism of the East, the Mithras' mysteries, 
 &c., were accepted, in the hope that they w^ould 
 afford some remedy for the darkness and emptiness 
 within. In these circumstances, the nature-wor- 
 ship of former times fell into disrepute, and 
 educated by philosophy and art, the ancients 
 
THE HEV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 203 
 
 began, so far at least as the more cultured were 
 concerned, to reject the nature- worship of their 
 ancestors. The consolidation of the moral plane, 
 through the ordered law and social order of 
 Greek and Eoman life, doubtless did much to con- 
 tribute towards this. Men felt their religions to 
 be beneath them, while they ought to be above 
 them. Socrates did much, reasonino^ on the founda- 
 tions of the moral plane, to determine what the 
 characteristics of a moral religion must be. Especi- 
 ally do we see it in such dialogues as the Euthy- 
 phro, where Socrates analyses the popular ideas of 
 morality to show their fallacy. The sacred is 
 shown to be that which is sacred in itself; what is 
 founded ia right and justice, and it is shown that 
 this must be agreeable to the gods because of its 
 essential character. In the Apology again he ap- 
 peals to conscience as the arbiter of right and wrong, 
 and not to the gods. The heroism of morality 
 is urged in the Crito and the Phdedo, in the asser- 
 tion by Socrates of the duty of following conscience 
 at all hazards, even to the death. In the Gorgias 
 the pursuit of the chief good — the summum hoiium 
 is brought before us. It is not too much to say 
 that the moral dialogues of Plato are specially 
 directed to the confirmation, completion, and estab- 
 lishment of that which we have named the moral 
 
204 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 plane — the moral ties and principles by which man-' 
 kind are bound together. 
 
 II. A moral religion, therefore, of the character- 
 istics of which we are now in search, must be a 
 religion wholly in harmony with the moral plane. 
 The elements of a moral belief are unfolded to us 
 with marvellous acuteness in these dialoo^ues to which 
 we have just adverted. But what is the leading 
 principle of these elements as set forth by Socrates ? 
 Undoubtedly that which he nicknamed his demon 
 ■ — the power within which taught him how to live. 
 This is no other than the voice of conscience — the 
 moral law within unconditionally commanding, — 
 " the superior principle of reflection or conscience 
 in every man," as Bishop Butler names it in his 
 first sermon on Human Nature. Whatever de- 
 ficiencies may exist in the Kantean ethics, there 
 can be little doubt that their strong point 
 lies in the vindication of the authority of con- 
 science and its identification with the individual ; 
 his acceptance, so to speak, of the moral law as a 
 datum of the consciousness, as the law of his own 
 being unconditionally commanding, or what he other- 
 wise expressed under the crabbed form of the cate- 
 gorical imperative. In this he agrees with our own 
 great moralist, Bishop Butler, to whose expressions, 
 indicative of the authority of conscience, we have 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 205 
 
 just referred. Corresponding to this principle, tlie 
 high place of power in a moral religion is the "Lord 
 of the conscience." This has been called the ''vice- 
 gerent," the " witness for God in man," and the 
 expressions are not at all too strong. In this lies 
 the burning point of the moral argument for the 
 existence of God. It must be taken for wanted, 
 that the Creator and Disposer of the universe is 
 also the '* Lord of the conscience," and thus only are 
 the ''chief good" and the "chief end" of man attain- 
 able. With this is closely connected the argument 
 for the immortality of the soul, on the ground that 
 man's moral action is not an absurdity ; but that a 
 holy life — a life in harmony with the dictates of 
 morality — is practicable, and not a self-evident 
 absurdity. The service of the Good will not be 
 eno;ao;ed in, if the aims and ends it brinos before 
 men are unattainable. Moreover, in the unity we 
 have referred to, which we are bound to postulate 
 between the Creator and Preserver and the " Lord 
 of the conscience," we have another principle of a 
 religion occupying the basis of the moral, viz., God 
 is One. Subsequently, when we come to examine 
 the spiritual plane, we shall see how the Trinity 
 in the Godhead has to do with, and is equally 
 natural to, the spiritual plane ; as the assertion 
 of the Divine Unity is essential to the moral 
 
206 THE ONE PURELY MOEAL RELIGION. 
 
 platform. The moral, as we have seen, cannot 
 rise from earth. It points doubtless to heaven, 
 it lifts up the ^'Lord of the conscience" as the 
 '' God who made the heavens and the earth," 
 but it has no means within itself of establishing^ 
 such doctrines ; they are postulates, or necessary 
 inferences. 
 
 A third principle, in addition to the attributing 
 to God of moral attributes, is that in a moral 
 relisfion the service must also be moral. It can 
 tolerate no outrages upon human or paternal feel- 
 ing as, for example, the sacrifice of Iphigenia. It 
 must also present none of those orgies or cor- 
 ruptions which we have seen to belong to the 
 heathen religions. But, furthermore, the very aim 
 and end of such a religion will be moral. It will 
 seek the perfection of man according to moral prin- 
 ciples, or in other words, as it has a conception of 
 what men ought to be and ought to do, it can never 
 rest satisfied until the ideal thus raised be fully 
 realised. 
 
 III. Closely connected with each other, though 
 apparently indeed in polar antagonism, are the 
 twin conceptions of Law and Freedom. It is 
 not too much to say that without these con- 
 ceptions, morality, in what we have called the 
 human sense of the term, could not exist. It 
 
THE EEV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 207 
 
 might exist without doubt in the Spencerian sense 
 of the term ; for in that sense there is only to be 
 considered the welfare of the animal, as individual 
 and one of a herd ; the practical rules for which 
 in man and brute — if there be any difference be- 
 tween man and brute — are deductions from their 
 natural history. In such a thoroughly external 
 view it is more than doubtful whether the ques- 
 tion of freedom can be raised in the case of man 
 any more than in that of the brute — and the out- 
 come must be a pure Necessitarianism. Law is 
 an external thing, derived from the persistence 
 of force, which, as we have seen, is all in all. 
 Out of force, as a mere brute necessity — and the 
 evolutionist first principle goes no further — it does 
 not appear how we can reach either God or religion, 
 in the sense in which they have been hitherto 
 understood. But if we take the humanistic view, 
 with which we were occupied, the case is dijQferent ; 
 moral liberty and law in close relation, but yet in 
 polar opposition to each other, presently emerge. 
 Law — the sense of obligation, the consciousness of 
 duty — is the primary and central fact of the moral 
 consciousness. 
 
 But closely allied to this, is the conception of 
 moral liberty, without which also morality, in the 
 human sense of the term, could not exist. There 
 
208 THE ONE PURELY MOEAL RELIGION. 
 
 lies, however, at the bottom of tliis conception 
 another, with which we shall ag^ain have occasion 
 to (leal. This is the conception, that man as a 
 moral creature is not under a brute necessity ; but 
 an independent, self-responsible, moral being. He 
 is not independent, of course, of the '^ Lord of the 
 conscience," of the Being or Power who has consti- 
 tuted liim what he is ; but in connection with this 
 principle of freedom, he has been constituted a re- 
 sponsible creature, and within the latitude of that 
 responsibility, he is a morally independent being. 
 He recognises the moral law as the root-principle 
 of his own being, adopts it as the maxim of his 
 life, and postulates conformity to it, as possible 
 and practicable. This last is the Kantean concep- 
 tion of freedom as connected with the autonomous 
 or self-lawxd character of the will — the autonomy 
 of the will, as the philosopher names it. In this 
 sense there is a social as well as an individual auto- 
 nomy ; as when a free people through their chosen 
 representatives, constitute the laws which are to 
 rule the national life. Freedom has, however, been 
 understood in another or Pelagian sense as the power 
 'to conform to the law of one's being, or to violate 
 that law. There can be no doubt but that such a 
 power exists in a moral being, but whether this 
 view is to be designated freedom is more than 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 209 
 
 doubtful. If we take the power to do what we 
 will as equivalent to freedom — and this has been 
 done by Jonathan Edwards and others — then in 
 that sense a man is free to leap over a precipice. 
 But such an act speedily ends his freedom as a 
 living being. In like manner, it may be said 
 that a man is free to violate the moral law — to 
 go against the sense of obligation of which he is 
 conscious. But in that case he adopts as a maxim 
 a principle contrary to the law of his being, i.e., 
 the law of conscience, which is the authoritative 
 guide of his life ; delivers himself up to the do- 
 minion of his brute appetites and propensities, and 
 thus destroys, so far as that act or series of acts is 
 concerned, the various foundations of his own moral 
 nature. He becomes, in Scriptural parlance, the 
 bondman of sin, the slave of his propensities. 
 
 ly. Eeturuing, however, to the central line of 
 our discussion — the characteristics of a moral reli- 
 gion — the points which have just been elicited in 
 reference to the opposite but related principles of 
 liberty and law, will be seen to throw considerable 
 light upon what these characteristics must be. We 
 have seen that in a religion on the purely moral 
 plane, there can only be one God — the Lord of the 
 conscience. If man's moral action as a concrete 
 fact, or series of facts, be rational, its aims attain- 
 
 
 
210 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 able, and man's life be not a stark, staring absurdity, 
 it postulates or takes for granted that the Lord of 
 the conscience is He who made and rules the 
 heaveus and the earth ; furthermore, that the con- 
 tinuation of existence necessary for the accom- 
 plishment of the aims of the moral law is a fact ; 
 in other words, that the soul is immortal. 
 
 Aofain, the reverence due to the Lord of the 
 conscience, aud the adoration or worship due to 
 Him as the embodiment or expression of this 
 reverence, are also fully in harmony with the 
 moral plane which is the foundation of the kind 
 of relio'ion which we are considering^. But we 
 have further elicited, in connection with the con- 
 ception of law and freedom, that a moral being, 
 though a creature — that is, not the lord of the 
 moral realm, but a subject within the same — is 
 yet a moral being gifted with large powers of in- 
 dependent action ; the law he obeys is made his 
 own law, the fundamental principle of his being — 
 self-responsible, that is, accountable to the tribunal 
 of conscience within. Such a being cannot morally 
 be coerced by a law of necessity or com23ulsion. He 
 is subject to the power of duty, it is true ; but this 
 is not natural but moral compulsion ; otherwise, 
 what we call ohligation. Hence while there may 
 be rewards and punishments in such a state, these 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 211 
 
 rather contemplate the raising of the moral beings 
 
 within the moral realm to the full realisation of their 
 
 position than constitute legitimate motives. They 
 
 are disciplinary and preparatory rather than ultimate 
 
 and final. They aim at raising the individual to his 
 
 full dignity as a moral being, rather than as things 
 
 to be sought or avoided in themselves. The only 
 
 truly valid motive in a moral creature is conformity 
 
 to the moral law as revealed in the conscience. 
 
 Hence the relation of the Lord of the conscience, 
 
 or the Supreme, in the realm of moral intelligents 
 
 to the subjects of this realm is, and must remain, a 
 
 moral relation ; not a relation of force, compulsion, 
 
 or despotic rule. By their adoption of the moral 
 
 law as the maxim of their actions, they enter into 
 
 a pact, as it were, the pact which binds together 
 
 the whole realm of moral intelligents, and thus they 
 
 approach the moral Kuler as a moral Being, though 
 
 infinitely exalted above them, and He deals with 
 
 them as beings who are, in some sense, kindred to 
 
 Himself — constituted after His image. His whole 
 
 relation to them is thus a moral relation. He 
 
 deals with them as beings under moral law, in 
 
 and for behoof of the full realisation of the aims 
 
 of the moral law; and they reverence and 
 
 worship Him under the same limitation, that 
 
 the grand aim of a realm of moral intelligents 
 
212 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 may be fully realised — a kiDgdom of God esta-. 
 blished. 
 
 V. But we must not forget a peculiarity of the 
 moral plane or platform — that it is an earthly con- 
 dition. It points to a state beyond, as necessarily 
 connected with the realisation of the moral law, 
 but it does not follow that it can know much of 
 that ultimate state ; nor is it necessary, as we saw 
 in regard to rewards and punishments, that the 
 nature of this ultimate state of being should be 
 very fully revealed. Enough, that the moral law 
 in its majesty, is revealed as the supreme rule of 
 life ; enough, that it is embodied in the Sovereign 
 of moral intelligents ; enough, that we should be 
 fully assured that the ultimate aim and end of the 
 moral law will and must be attained. 
 
 VI. Finally, we add a corollary which arises out 
 of what has been said on the whole. We have not 
 said that the moral plane is an inference or deduc- 
 tion from the supposition of a Supreme Euler of 
 the conscience, or of the moral realm, and the life 
 and worship in relation to Him which necessarily 
 follows. No ; on the contrary, the constitution of 
 such a moral plane in which man is related to man 
 as moral beings, may be said to be, as w^e have seen 
 in the previous part of our discussion, a natural 
 necessity ; the forces of man's life conspire to- 
 
THE EEV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 213 
 
 gether to its evolution or establishment; when 
 established, the constitution of a moral religion 
 with the characteristics we have been discussiDg, 
 arises as a necessity of reason. 
 
 VII. We shall indeed see, as this earth can- 
 not be our final home, that the moral implies a 
 stage or plane beyond itself, in which its aims are 
 fully attained, and in which the kingdom of God 
 which morality can only proclaim as '' at hand" is 
 fully realised ; " where the tabernacle of God shall 
 be with men, and He will dwell with them, and 
 they shall be His people, and God Himself shall 
 be with them, and be their God" (Revelation 
 xxi. 3, 4). 
 
THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION {conti?iued). 
 
 XIII. 
 By the Eev. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 
 
 rPHE utterance of our Lord, "'H a-MTfjpla eV toov 
 ^lovSalcov eVrfV" (John iv. 22), spoken to the 
 woman of Samaria, has a deep religious significance. 
 It does not proclaim that religion is of the Jews, 
 but that salvation [n o-oorrjpia) is of the Jews. The 
 nature-religions were not unknown to our Lord. 
 In Galilee, where He spent His youth, there was 
 much of the old Syrian nature- worship extant; 
 while the Greek and Eoman cults had found some 
 acceptance, which they could not receive amongst 
 the stricter and better-taught people of Judsea. 
 There was thus, apart from that divine penetration 
 which belonged to our Lord, the possibility of His 
 having had some experience as to the relative posi- 
 tion of the religion of Israel when compared with 
 the heathen religions. The result of this was 
 expressed in the sentence at the head of this 
 
THE EEV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 215 
 
 Chapter — "Salvation is of the Jews." Let us 
 endeavour to consider what the meaning of this 
 may be. 
 
 (2.) The reference can be only to one thing, the 
 salvation to accomplish which Jesus Christ had come 
 into the world. He came " to seek and to save the 
 lost." That salvation which Jesus came to work 
 out was life. " Strait is the gate, and narrow is the 
 way," says our Lord elsewhere, '^ which leadeth 
 unto lifeJ' The kingdom of God which He came 
 to set up, which He already realised in His own 
 consciousness, was therefore a kingdom of life. But 
 was this life already revealed in the religion of 
 Israel, so that when our Lord declared, that " sal- 
 vation was of the Jews," it implied that they 
 already possessed this life which was the substance 
 of the salvation ? This last question we must 
 answer in the negative, for the Master says else- 
 where, " I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life ;" 
 but if the life were already revealed, how could 
 Jesus reveal it ? yea, he it in His own person ? To 
 answer adequately this question we must remember 
 the character of the religion of Israel, as repeated 
 in its whole history. It was a religion of promise, 
 which grew clearer and brighter as the ages rolled 
 onward. To Abraham it was a promise that in 
 his seed all the nations of the earth were to be 
 
216 THE ONE PUEELY MORAL EELIGION. 
 
 blessed ; to David, that of his seed One would 
 appear who should sit eternally on His throne. To 
 prophet after prophet came the message of life 
 or salvation through a deliverer. In the sublime 
 language of Isaiah : " Incline your ear, and come 
 unto Me : hear, and your soul shall live ; and I 
 will make an everlasting covenant with you, even 
 the sure mercies of David." The religion of Israel 
 was completely foreshadowed by the life of its first 
 founder, the Father of the faithful and the friend 
 of God. He came out of his own country, led by 
 promise, the promise of the inheritance, which was, 
 moreover, a promise not only for himself, but for his 
 posterity. The patriarch entered into a covenant 
 with God of future blessing to be realised by his 
 descendants. And as age after age passed away, 
 that history was but a history of decline from, and 
 repeated renewal of this covenant of future blessing 
 to be bestowed by God. 
 
 (3.) Now this covenanted character of the reli- 
 gion of Israel has very much to do with the spe- 
 cially moral or ethical character which as a religion 
 we have attributed to it. Kant, the philosopher, 
 to whom on a variety of occasions we have referred, 
 speaks somewhat contemptuously of the religion of 
 Israel (see Religion innerhalh der Grenzen der 
 hlossen Vernunft, HI Stiick^ Zweite Ahtheilung), 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 217 
 
 But this only proves tliat the philosopher, like 
 Homer, sometimes nodded; and his English trans- 
 lator, noticing his agreement with Bishop War- 
 burton, remarks, in reference to the philosopher's 
 observations as to the absence from the religion of 
 Israel of the sanctions of a state of future retribu- 
 tion, that here he not only contradicts Warburton 
 but himself. His latest German editor and com- 
 mentator, Herr Kirchmann, calls this part of his 
 work durftig, that is to say, 'poor, and w^e fear that 
 it fully deserves the designation. He has some 
 remarks about the impotence of compulsory laws 
 as influencing the conscience, which are true, but 
 have been carefully ignored by the Government 
 of his own country, who have all but extirpated^ 
 the Christian religion, by putting it under the 
 management and direction of the police. 
 
 But it is surely curious, when we find the fol- 
 lowiug observations from the philosopher, " Da nun 
 ohne Glauben an ein kiinftiges Leben gar keine 
 Religion gedacht werden kann, so entlialt das Juden- 
 thum, als ein solches in seiner Reinigkeit genom- 
 men, gar keinen Religiousglauben," — " Since with- 
 
 1 This language may be regarded as too strong by some of our 
 readers ; but we submit, when the church attendance in a great 
 capital falls to 1 per cent, and a fraction, as admitted in a paper 
 recently read before the Evangelical Alliance, the Christian religion 
 is certainly in a fair way towards extirpation. 
 
218 THE ONE PURELY MOEAL RELIGION. 
 
 out faith in a future life no relio^ion can be thouo-ht 
 to exist, and since Judaism as a religion strictly 
 considered does not contain such, it cannot be con- 
 sidered as a religious faith." We know of another 
 religion, viz., the religion within the bounds of 
 reason, excogitated by a certain philosopher, to 
 which the same objection applies. But he adds 
 further : ''It is scarcely to be doubted that the 
 Jews, like others, even the rudest of peoples, must 
 have had not only faith in a future life, but also, 
 of course, as a heaven and a hell ; for this faith, 
 in virtue of the universal moral constitution of 
 human nature, comes to every one as a necessary 
 thing.'' Most true, Mr. Philosopher, but there are 
 reasons for everything ; and just as there are reasons 
 for the very feeble mention of a future life in your 
 religion within the bounds of bare reasou, so there 
 are better reasons still for its seeminof omission in 
 the religion of Israel. But before coming to this 
 point, it is desirable to notice more fully how im- 
 portant the covenanted character of the religion 
 of Israel is, as bearing upon what we have said 
 respecting it, as the only religion on the moral 
 plane, or on the ground of the moral, which has ever 
 existed. We have already noticed, as brought up 
 by the German philosopher, the danger of making 
 religion a thing of the police. 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 219 
 
 But the pliilosoplier has failed to notice, that 
 while in some sense the religion of Israel was, as 
 an external polity, and bound up with national law, 
 necessarily a compulsory religion, there was an- 
 other sense, and a higher one, in which it was not 
 compulsory at all. This was in its relation to God. 
 The heathen religions set forth gods, whose hateful 
 tyranny was in violent contradiction to the highest 
 parts of our common nature. It is in relation to 
 this that De Quincey has said, that the Roman 
 must have had, on occasions, a strong desire to kick 
 Jupiter, his supreme god. We know, moreover, 
 that savage peoples are addicted to chastising their 
 gods. But this was just because their gods were 
 no gods in accordance with the moral sense of 
 humanity, but deifications, in virtue of the instinct 
 of worship, of the arbitrary forces of nature. But 
 morally, as we have seen, the case must staud 
 otherwise. We have remarked -(p. 208), ^^He — 
 i.e., the worshipper on the basis of morality — 
 is not independent of the " Lord of the conscience," 
 of the Beinof or Power who has constituted him 
 what he is ; but in connection with the principle 
 of freedom, he has been constituted a responsible 
 creature, and within the latitude of that respon- 
 sibility he is a morally independent being. He 
 recognises the moral law as the root principle of his 
 
220 THE ONE PUEELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 own nature, adopts it as the maxim of his life, and 
 postulates conformity to it as both possible and 
 practicable." We saw, further, how under moral 
 law, and on the moral plaue, the Lord of the con- 
 science, whom we are compelled to regard as the 
 God who " made the heavens and the earth," and 
 sustains them, places man in regard to Himself on 
 purely moral relations. Now this is entirely the 
 case with the religion of Israel. Jehovah, the cove- 
 nant God, places Abraham and his descendants on 
 purely moral grounds and relations in regard to 
 Himself. He binds Himself by the same law under 
 which He places them ; He is bound entirely by 
 the terms of the covenant as much as they are,. 
 yea, in a far higher and deeper sense, for as a per- 
 fectly holy Being He cannot deny Himself, but is 
 bound by His own covenant, whether the other 
 party to it adheres to its terms or not. Do the 
 severe judgments of Jehovah in dealing with His 
 people in regard to their lapses from the covenant 
 in any way invalidate this ? No doubt, as we have 
 seen, the grand legitimate motive on the moral 
 plane, is reverence of and obedience to the moral 
 law, as commanding unconditionally. But still a 
 state of preparation, as in the family, and discipline 
 so as to raise those under the law to the full under- 
 standing of it and its requirements, may be recog- 
 
THE EEV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 221 
 
 nised. The religion of Israel was full of injunctions 
 as to this in struct ory process in regard to the 
 families of Israel ; and the rewards and judgments 
 which were offered to Israel, whom Jehovah names 
 His son, may be regarded, and are commonly 
 regarded, as a disciplinary process to raise him fully 
 up to the requirements of the moral law. The 
 rewards are subsidiary motives, appealing to man's 
 desire for happiness, as are also the punishments 
 inflicted for violation of the law. These rewards 
 and punishments do not destroy Israel's freedom, 
 do not violate in any way his position as morally 
 related to Jehovah, nor does Jehovah step out of 
 the moral character which belongs to Him in inflict- 
 ing them. 
 
 (4.) The ceremonial law is to be regarded in 
 like manner as a disciplinary process, having the 
 same end in view as the rewards and punishments 
 of which we have just spoken. Israel was to be 
 like his God — '' Be ye holy, for I am holy ; " and 
 the ceremonial law was an elaborate teaching by 
 facts and symbols of the necessity of holiness. 
 Even the cleanliness and purity which were en- 
 joined, were calculated to impress upon Israel the 
 supreme importance of purity of life and heart. 
 The religion of Israel has been accused of exter- 
 nalism, and no doubt it is in some degree open to 
 
222 THE ONE PURELY MOEAL EELIGION. 
 
 the reproacli ; but we see how, in the last of the 
 TEN WORDS or commands, the law points to the 
 lust conceived within as the source of the outward 
 transgression, and seeks to confront and check evil 
 in its first inception in the heart. But this was 
 more fully provided for, in the personal relation of 
 the individual Israelite to his God. He was more 
 than the gods of the heathen, which stood in a 
 general or collective relation only to the whole 
 people, but had less to do with the individual. 
 It was not so with the God of Israel. As ^' search- 
 ing the heart and trying the reins of the children 
 of men" (Jer. xvii. lo), He stood in closest per- 
 sonal relation to the individual Israelite, and He 
 invited not only the fear, but the love of His 
 people, though as founded upon law, as pre- 
 eminently a moral system, fear seems to prepon- 
 derate over love. " The fear of the Lord is the 
 beo^innine^ of wisdom." If the Israelite turned to 
 the earliest records of his people, he could read the 
 familiar and even tender relations in which the 
 first founder of his people stood to Jehovah. 
 Abraham was the friend of God, admitted to a 
 tender and gracious intimacy ; and the same was 
 true of Isaac and Jacob, of Moses, and others of 
 the patriarchs. This warm and close relation of 
 affection and reverence, in which the Israelite was 
 
THE EEV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 223 
 
 invited to come in regard to Jehovah, must bring 
 out streams of spiritual life, and we have only to 
 turn to the Psalms and Prophets to see how fully 
 and splendidly this was verified. What deep 
 breathings of upward aspiration ! "As the hart 
 panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul 
 after Thee, God. My soul thirsteth for God, for 
 the living God : when shall I come and appear 
 before God ? " (Psalm xlii.) And what religion, 
 save the unique spiritual religion of the world — 
 Christianity — can parallel the tender joy and con- 
 fidence of the twenty-third Psalm — " The Lord is 
 my Shepherd ; I shall not want. He maketh me 
 to lie down in green pastures : He leadeth me 
 beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul : He 
 leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His 
 name's sake. Yea, thouo^h I walk throuo-h the 
 valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil : 
 for Thou art with me ; Thy rod and Thy stafi" they 
 comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me 
 in the presence of mine enemies : Thou anointest 
 my head with oil ; my cup runneth over. Surely 
 goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days 
 of my life : and I will dwell in the house of the 
 Lord for ever." There was thus abundant prepa- 
 ration and means for the cultivation of personal 
 religion in the religion of Israel ; and personal 
 
224 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 relio-ion must be ever a thino^ of the heart ,and 
 hfe. It was indeed here that the religion of Israel 
 rose above its natural level and anticipated Chris- 
 tianity. Here the Israelitish religion was not only 
 a moral, but became by anticipation a spiritual 
 religion, just as the child is the father of the man ; 
 and we may perceive the lower level of develop- 
 ment foreshadowing the higher. 
 
 (5.) For while there was in Israel those streams 
 of spiritual life still preserved to us in the Prophets 
 and Psalms, yet Israel, nevertheless, as a people, 
 remained essentially on the moral basis. The law 
 was its watchword, and even their piety and re- 
 ligious life were restricted and confined by the law. 
 And this not merely the law as an external, objec- 
 tive thing, but mainly by the law given withiu, 
 the law of the mind w^arring against the appetites 
 and passions, — the law of sin in the members, yet 
 often succumbing to them, and having abundant 
 reason to cry out, as the apostle does — " Oh, 
 wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me 
 from the body of this death ? " The basis of the 
 moral plane is the sense of obligation, the moral 
 law o^iven as a datum of the consciousness. The 
 law of conscience is the centre of man's moral 
 being, but still it is a law, an abstraction, which 
 presses on the man. with unyielding power, and 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 225 
 
 commands unconditionally, no doubt, but has in 
 the reverence which it awakens in the heart only 
 an imperfect spring of obedience. The conflict 
 arises within the personality which the apostle 
 has so graphically described in the seventh of 
 Eomans, with the sad result, that the ^'law which 
 was ordained to life, is found to be unto death" 
 (Kom. vii. 10). 
 
 The externally given law, written not on the 
 fleshy tables of the heart, but on tables of stone, 
 only intensified the struggle. It was the reflex of 
 the law written on the heart, graven, as it were, on 
 the rock, and holding up objectively the law of 
 conscience in defiance of all attempts to tamper 
 with, or warp, or silence the inward voice within. 
 And the result both as described by the apostle in 
 the chapter just referred to, as obtaining in the 
 heart of the individual, and as exemplified in a 
 larger scale in the history of the Israelitish people, 
 was to show how imperfect and insuflicient the 
 purely moral basis is in itself In regard to Chris- 
 tianity — the temptation under which is to fall back 
 on the moral basis, as the temptation of Israel was 
 to fall back on the natural basis and the nature- 
 religions — there is good reason for the prejudice of 
 the pious mind against what it describes as mere 
 "cold" morality. No doubt there may be perver- 
 
22 G THE ONE PUEELY MOEAL RELIGION. 
 
 sions of spirituality, as there are perversions of 
 morality. But the prejudice referred to is well 
 founded, because it recognises the essentially 
 earthly and in sufficing character of the purely 
 moral stage. We have already pointed to these 
 in dealing with the view which regards morality 
 as a humanistic and self-sufficins^ thins:. We saw 
 how this view was especially represented in the 
 ethical doctrines of Kant, and how the tendency was 
 to evaporate what seemed the sound and stable 
 foundations of the edifice into mere abstract notions 
 or ideas. The lord of the conscience need only be 
 an idea. As a critic justly remarks of the rela- 
 tions of religion to this view of morality, that she, 
 i.e.y Religion, " was merely called in to be a sort of 
 dry-nurse to morality, for she must do duty gene- 
 rally for this when in a weakly condition ; but so 
 soon as morality gets a little stronger upon her legs, 
 she shows religion to the door ! " ^ But while the 
 recognition of morality as all-sufficient leads to this, 
 we see it also exemplified in the history of Israel, 
 whose religion, ultimately at least, occupied a purely 
 moral basis. The law was its watchword, and the 
 result was, as we have seen, alike unsatisfactory in 
 the individual and in the nation. The final result 
 
 1 0. Pfleiderer's Die Religion^ ihr Wesen und Hire Geschichte, vol. i. 
 p. 16. 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 227 
 
 in the history of Israel was the creation of the 
 Pharisee. Now what is the Pharisee ? Not merely 
 the name applied to a canting, hypocritical reli- 
 gionist, for it would be calumny to say that the 
 Pharisees were all such ; the Pharisee is one who 
 consciously and with full purpose sets about mak- 
 ing himself better, and who, while ignorant of the 
 deepest evils of his own heart, is consciously grow- 
 ing in self-esteem and self-satisfaction through his 
 supposed victorious advance in truth and righteous- 
 ness. Says Bunyan, as he passed through this 
 stage : " And for a whole year I thought I pleased 
 God as well as any man in England." Israel occu- 
 pied essentially the moral stage ; the law of God to 
 be wrought out and exemplified in its minutest 
 details, its " mint and its cumin," was her boast 
 and her constant aim ; while in victorious advance- 
 ment in self-conscious external, and especially cere- 
 monial morality, and holding the law as a national 
 badge, she at the same time forgot the inward 
 principles of truth and righteousness. 
 
 (6.) We shall see that the supposed hiatus in the 
 relisfion of Israel, as to the doctrine of the future 
 life, arose from the very circumstances on which we 
 have been treating, viz., that Israel's religion, as a 
 people, was on the purely moral basis. Systems of 
 ethics have, as a rule, little to say about a future 
 
228 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 life ; tliey occupy themselves in developing the 
 moral relations between man and man as denizens 
 of earth, and although they may rise to the recog- 
 nition of a Supreme Being, they can only speak of 
 man's relations to Him as a creature, and under 
 moral government here on earth. Such was also 
 the case with Israel. Eecoo^nisino^ Jehovah as the 
 national God, the Euler of Israel, in covenanted 
 relations with whom as a people they " lived, moved, 
 and had their being," from whom they had received 
 the promise of " life, breath, and all things," it was 
 not surprising that they found this to be final and 
 sufficing. The ancients were as yet destitute of 
 that conception with which we are so familiar — the 
 conception of eternity, duration unregulated by that 
 conception of time which, together with space, is 
 said necessarily to form part of the furniture of our 
 perceiving faculty. In the Psalms the devout 
 Israelite felt himself in the hand of that God who 
 was so near to him, who " had been the dwellins:- 
 place of his fathers in all generations," and he was 
 content to leave himself in His hands wdthout 
 straining his eyes to catch some glimpses of the 
 world beyond the grave. In the twenty-third 
 Psalm, while he rejoices in the sense of Jehovah's 
 nearness, goodness, and mercy, he says — '' Good- 
 ness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my 
 
THE EEV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 229 
 
 life ; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for 
 length of days," as the concluding words of the 
 psalm are translated in the margin of our Eng- 
 lish Bible. The pious Israelite felt so joyful and 
 blessed and safe in the hand of Jehovah, that 
 he was content not to be too curious about the 
 future. The mystery of life and death presses most 
 heavily upon the speculative, the sceptical, and the 
 unhappy. The soul who can trust God with its 
 future is less anxious about it. 
 
 (7.) But finally, a comparative inquiry as to the 
 position of the religion of Israel in this respect, as 
 compared with the highest of the nature-religions, 
 or even with Islam, which has been classed with 
 the religion of Israel, as occupying with it the same 
 moral platform. We have ventured to say that the 
 religion of Israel is the only purely moral religion 
 extant, as Christianity is the only spiritual : let us 
 now endeavour to make good this position as re- 
 gards the first of these. Our would-be advanced 
 thinkers look down from their lofty critical stand- 
 point and speak of '* the religions," as they pass 
 them in review, as if they all occupied the same 
 place and had the same relations to the human con- 
 sciousness. We affirm, on the contrary, that there 
 is in reality no comparison, for in the whole course 
 of the world's history only one purely moral religion 
 
230 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 has appeared — the religion of Israel ; and at the 
 fulness of the time only one spiritual religion — 
 the religion of Jesus Christ. 
 
 (8.) We have seen what the characteristics of a 
 moral religion must be. They are, that God is the 
 Lord of the conscience, that He is necessarily one, 
 and that His worship and service must be, in har- 
 mony with His position as the Lord of the con- 
 science, entirely moral in their character. But 
 furthermore, morality implies freedom ; that man's 
 obedience to the law should be a free aud not a 
 compulsory, slavish obedience. As an external 
 national polity, there were some aspects of the 
 religion of Israel in which it was necessarily com- 
 pulsory, but in the highest of all aspects it was 
 free. Jehovah had entered into covenant relations 
 with His people, and w^as as much, nay, truly more 
 fully bound by the terms of the covenant than 
 Israel itself. We saw, further, how the externalism 
 of the Israelitish religion was corrected by the 
 tender and intimate relations to God into which 
 the devout Israelite might enter, the result of 
 which is the living fountains of spiritual life which 
 we find in the Prophets and Psalms. 
 
 Finally, in the fact that Israel was, at least in the 
 first ages of his national existence, so satisfied with 
 his trust and confidence in Jehovah as the national 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 231 
 
 God, which it was his privilege to exercise, that 
 there was seemingly little or no inquiry about the 
 future life, which Kant takes to be a necessary 
 article in any true aud genuine religion. In the 
 first place, time, future time, was only thought of 
 indefinitely as secula seculorum, to use the Koman 
 expression ; and secondly, as we have seen, the 
 pious Israelite was brought so near to his God, was 
 able so to confide all into His hands, that in the 
 sense of the presence of Jehovah, and in the enjoy- 
 ment of the blessings granted to him, he was con- 
 tented to trust Him as to his future. No doubt, 
 in the great calamities which clouded the fall of 
 Israel, the future life and the doctrine of the resur- 
 rection began to occupy a more prominent place, 
 but not till then. Here, then, we have all the marks 
 of a genuine moral religion — in its necessarily 
 strict monotheism, and in the moral character of 
 its worship, which the recognised system of rewards 
 and punishments, and the observation of the cere- 
 monial law shows to be imperfect, indeed, but not 
 self-contradictory. How, for example, does the 
 Iranian or Persian religion, which otherwise bears 
 so noble a character, stand in comparison with the 
 Israelitish ? How does the religion of Buddha or 
 Sakya Muni ? These religions are below the moral 
 level — the religion of Zarathrustra, because, not to 
 
232 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 speak of its dualism, and the high place given to 
 Ahriman, it recognises other gods besides Ahura- 
 mazda. He as supreme god recognises Mithra as 
 so high, that it was said he himself brought sacri- 
 fices to him. Besides Mithra, whose mysteries came 
 into vogue in the later days of Rome, we read of 
 the god Craosha, the companion of Mithra, and 
 indeed the whole of the circle of the ancient Per- 
 sian gods was strangely taken up and accommo- 
 dated to his system by Zarathrustra — a strange 
 contrast to the inward worship and the means of 
 attaining to virtue, of '' the pure sentiment, the 
 true word, and the good act." 
 
 Buddhism, with much to recommend it to the 
 acceptance of men, especially in that Indian world 
 where it found its home, occupies morally even a 
 less honourable position than the religion of Zara- 
 thrustra. It is defiled by taking up the whole 
 Indian Pantheon into its heaven, though it subjects 
 them to Buddha, or the wise man. This, however, 
 as has been shown, is not absolutely new ; for in 
 Brahmanism the wise man, in virtue of his prayers, 
 may become the master of the gods, and use 
 them as the puppets of his pleasure. Again, the 
 essence of evil in Buddhism is nothino; else than 
 existence itself, the destruction of which under the 
 torments of the endless transformations of the 
 
THE EEV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 233 
 
 metempsjcliosis is the very corner-stone of the 
 system. Some have admired the moral precepts 
 which are to be found in Buddhism ; but more or 
 less of morality is associated with all forms of reli- 
 gion. The truth is, God has written the moral law 
 so deeply on the heart of man, that even when called 
 in question by the pantheist, or denied by the 
 atheist, it still vindicates its authority and power. 
 It was thus, as the Apostle Paul tells us, that the 
 Gentiles '^ did by nature the things contained in 
 the law ; " thus showing the '' work of the law to be 
 written on their hearts." And hence, the presence 
 of morality under the sway of a certain religion is 
 no indication of the moral tendency of the religion 
 itself. There is morality in all religions. As we 
 have "already seen, nature, if we may so speak, con- 
 spires to moralise mankind, and to render complete 
 and stable that moral plane or platform to whose 
 existence we have drawn attention. We have but to 
 remember how, under the Greek and Roman mytho- 
 logies, with their fairy-like Olympus, through the 
 corrective influence of a settled order and civilisa- 
 tion, such a high moral condition was reached, that 
 the Greek and Roman philosophers could discuss 
 most of those questions and moral problems which 
 we sum together under the name of ethics ; and in 
 considering this state of things, we perceive that 
 
234 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 men may advance in the practice and theory of 
 virtue, not because of, but in spite of their religion. 
 Still there can be no doubt that a religion in the 
 course of centuries greatly modifies and raises or 
 degrades the character, morally, of the people who 
 profess it. Now, if we apply this to the religions 
 under discussiou, we shall sec how they operate in 
 their influence upon the character of the people who 
 professed them. We have already dwelt upon some 
 of the defects of the religion of Israel, defects aris- 
 ing from its being a preparatory rather than a final 
 religion, and arisiug also from the fact that it rose 
 but little above the moral plane, and partook con- 
 sequently of the defects of morality, as a merely 
 earthly, iuchoative, and imperfect system. The 
 defects culmiuated in its latter days in Pharisaism, 
 or an intensely self-conscious, self-exalting, and at 
 the same time barren legalism ; into Saduceeism, 
 or the scepticism and infidelity of the privileged 
 classes, w^hose business it was, as classes, to admi- 
 nister the religion ; and finally into monasticism in 
 the religion of the Essenes, who, as in the case of 
 all monastics, give up the struggle with the world 
 for the establishment of the kingdom of God, and 
 fleeing to the desert or the monastery, seek to save 
 themselves from the common destruction ! These 
 evils arose, however, in the last days of the religion 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 235 
 
 of Israel, not because there was any contradiction 
 or inconsistency in the religion of Israel as regards 
 the principles of morality ; but because the Jewish 
 people, instead of cultivating the spiritual element 
 which was inherent in their religion, and which was 
 developed to great fulness in the spiritual life of the 
 devouter part of the nation, the expression of which 
 we have preserved in the prophetic and poetic books 
 of the Old Testament scriptures, adhered but too 
 rigidly to the purely moral basis, and thus sank into 
 a barren legalism and formalism, in which the Jew 
 rests to the present day. 
 
 (9.) When, however, we turn to Buddhism, the 
 case is different. There are grave inconsistencies 
 and contradictions in the system in relation to the 
 moral plane of the life of humanity. First of all, 
 a truly moral religion can only recognise one God. 
 Buddhism took up the whole Hindoo pantheon, 
 though it placed its gods in a powerless condition in 
 relation to Buddha. " My power is great," Brahma, 
 the supreme Indian god, is made to say in a Bud- 
 dhistic legend ; *' but what can I do against a priest 
 of Buddha ? '' Again, morality is human ; it seeks 
 to perfect human life, not to destroy it. But the 
 Buddhistic morality, with all the commendable 
 things in it, has this defect, that it seeks not to 
 develop and perfect, but to destroy. This is seen 
 
236 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 in its monasticism, with its nihilistic and pessir 
 mistic character, its endeavours to destroy and not 
 to perfect humanity. No doubt the Buddhistic 
 system has ejffectually tamed the rude Mongols, but 
 its results are everywhere negative rather than 
 positive. It seeks to tame, to empty^ yea, in truth 
 to annihilate humanity. And these passive, self- 
 emptying virtues are only practised on the lower 
 levels of the system ; when we come to the higher, 
 then its negative and nihilistic phases become all 
 too apparent. They aim them not only at taming 
 the passions and subduing the lusts, but at the 
 destruction of self-conscious existence, the quench- 
 ing and extinction of the human spirit. It speaks 
 of love of being, and establishes hospitals for vermin; 
 it esteems life so sacred that it will not kill the 
 vermin on its own body ; but, as Max Duncker, the 
 historian of antiquity, remarks — "Love in the 
 system of Buddha is not as in Christianity, the 
 highest commandment for its own sake, not, as 
 in this, a liberating, active, and creative ethical 
 power, which not only negatively seeks to uproot 
 selfishness, but strives also to cause the natural 
 man to be born again into the moral ^ condition ; 
 the love of Buddhism, on the contrary, lamenting 
 the universal lot of conscious being, seeks to render 
 
 1 More properly the spiritual. 
 
THE EEV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 237 
 
 the community of life a little more endurable. 
 Love is thus to the Buddhist essentially only a 
 means to soften and diminish the universal sufier- 
 ing of living beings." And, as we have seen, this 
 ceases in the higher stages of the system ; the self- 
 regarding quietism which then sets in, regards only 
 self, sinks into self-contemplation, or more properly, 
 endeavour after self-annihilation. True morality 
 has ever an ideal, both ethical and practical, in the 
 lord of the conscience and the kingdom of God ; 
 Buddhism knows neither of the two — its ideals are 
 only earthly Buddhas, its practical aim self-extinc- 
 tion. One who has lately written on the state of 
 the Mongols, amongst whom this religion is all-pre- 
 valent, remarks on the helpless, hopeless condition 
 to which their religion has reduced them — their 
 willing submission to the most grinding despotism, 
 their apathy in the path of improvement, and their 
 dependence for the arts of life on their Chinese 
 master.^ 
 
 (10.) But finally, we have the Buddhistic para- 
 dise, the state called Nirvana. This has awakened 
 much controversy, and has been variously considered 
 in Europe of late, and, indeed, in the systems of 
 Schopenhauer and Hartmann we have a kind of 
 intellectual Buddhism, arising and becoming the 
 
 1 See Gilmour's " Among the Mongols," chap, xviii. pp. 210-243. 
 
238 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 most popular pliilosophy of the time, in the midst 
 of the culture and enlio^htenment of the Fatherland. 
 In our own country, the charms and glories of 
 Buddhism has kindled the muse of Mr. Edwin Arnold 
 in his " Lio[ht of Asia." But what is Nirvana ? The 
 blackness of annihilation has been covered with 
 poetical images, as flowers and wreaths are cast on 
 the tomb, and men are made to believe that — 
 
 " Only wlien all the dross of sin is quit, 
 Only when life dies like a white flame spent, 
 Death dies along with it," 
 
 as if there were in some sort a life in death in the 
 midst of the blank darkness of the Buddhist Nir- 
 vana. It is doubtless true, and for good reason, 
 that Sakya Muni refused to pronounce that Nirvana 
 was extinction, as he also refused to afiirm that it 
 was life. This was probably a prudent reserve. 
 Even the votary who would flee the endless wan- 
 derings of the metempsychosis might still shudder 
 at the blankness of annihilation ! 
 
 " Sad care ! for who would lose, 
 Though full of pain, this intellectual being ! 
 These thoughts that wander through eternity." ^ 
 
 But that Nirvana is annihilation, blank extinctioD, 
 no one can doubt who studies the whole tendency 
 of the system ? Existence itself is evil, and this, 
 
 1 See Milton's " Paradise Lost," Book 11. 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 239 
 
 according to Sakya Muni, must be destroyed. 
 Passion, feeling, desire, every movement of the 
 spirit must cease, and absolute rest from tbe evils 
 of existence must be obtained. But is the lonpfino* 
 after immortality still to remain ? There is to be 
 absolute cessation from all aspiration, yearning, 
 longing of every kind, and yet the longing after 
 immortality in the blank darkness of Nirvana is 
 still to remain? This is flat contradiction, and 
 therefore we hold that Herr Oldenberg, in his lately 
 published able work on Buddhism, has shown the 
 fallacy of Professor Max Muller's reasoning when 
 he would, mainly on abstract grounds, convert the 
 nothingness of Buddhism into a positive state of 
 eternal felicity 1 ** If we follow," says Herr Olden- 
 berg, ** the dialectical consequence, there can no- 
 thing be looked for than a blank vacuum." And 
 identifying, further, ''Ego," ^' Self," and "Person'' 
 the Buddhistic texts, be remarks : " It seems clear in 
 enough that both words are different names for the 
 same concept, and that he who denies the existence 
 of ' Person ' cannot maintain the existence of the 
 * Ego ' as more than a mere possibility."^ 
 
 Such is Buddhism, with its existence — a hell to 
 be cooled in some measure by the mutual aid of the 
 unhappy victims ; its highest life, the extinction of 
 
 1 See Oldenberg's "Buddha," ss. 273 ff. 
 
240 THE ONE PURELY MORAL RELIGION. 
 
 all feeling and thought ; its paradise, annihilation ; 
 its final result, a blank atheism. 
 
 (11.) There remains yet that we should look 
 briefly at the pretensions of Islam as a moral reli- 
 gion. Much of it, no doubt, is a syncretism drawn 
 from Christian and Jewish sources. The most 
 emphatic doctrine of Islam is the affirmation of the 
 unity of God, aud here its superiority over the cor- 
 rupt forces of Christianity and the heathen Arab 
 superstitions it supplanted cannot be doubted. In 
 this respect it rises superior to the popular forms 
 of Eastern Christianity to the present day, whose 
 image and picture worship amount, in the case of 
 the common people, to actual idolatry, the images 
 being named gods. In this respect the appearance 
 of Islam has been a powerful protest for the unity 
 of the Godhead. But side by side with this we 
 have the doctrine of kismet, or fate, which has 
 exercised, and continues to exercise, such an evil 
 effect upon the Mohammedan nations to the pre- 
 sent day. This is not the doctrine of predestina- 
 tion, such as is to be found amongst Christians, but 
 the ancient doctrine of an irresponsible fate made 
 a part of the Mohammedan religion. The sensu- 
 ality and fleshly lust which Islam allows, nay, takes 
 up into its paradise, are in conflict with the laws 
 of morality ; so much so, that the Mohammedan 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 241 
 
 mystics are themselves ashamed of them, and endea- 
 vour to explain them away. The Mohammedan 
 paradise with its houris ; its polygamy ; its rooted 
 sanction of slavery ; its approval of war even for 
 missionary purposes, are all in conflict with an 
 enlightened morality, and amount in many cases 
 to a degradation of humanity. Especially is this 
 marked in the universal degradation of the female 
 part of humanity, and the consequent corruption of 
 the family, and the evil results to education and 
 the advancement of the race. 
 
 Amongst Christian nations war is waged in de- 
 spite of Christianity, — it is taken up and adopted 
 as part and parcel of Islam. Finally, the institution 
 of slavery as sanctioned by Mohammedanism is a 
 degradation of humanity. No doubt polygamy and 
 slavery were permitted also in Israel, but they were 
 limited by such restraints, that they were almost 
 extruded from the national life, and certainly never 
 had those evil influences they have had upon the 
 Mohammedan nations. 
 
 (12.) The final conclusion to which we come is, 
 then, that although the religion of Israel was pro- 
 visional, and, moreover, the religion of a people in 
 a rude state of society, and exposed to the constant 
 inroads of foreign foes, yet it is by far the highest 
 of all the religions of the ancient or modern worlds, 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE ONE PURELY MOEAL EELIGION. 
 
 always excepting Christianity, of which it may be 
 regarded as the precursor. We have insisted upon 
 its coincidence with the moral level of humanity, 
 its full acceptance and development of moral free- 
 dom, its strict monotheism, and the principle of 
 life and growth in it arising from its close and gra- 
 cious relation to Jehovah, out of which grew and 
 were nourished the noblest men and women of the 
 nation. 
 
 In relation to Jehovah, women were placed upon 
 an equality with the rougher sex, and were often 
 the vehicles of the revelations of the Divine will, 
 as we see in the case of Deborah the prophetess 
 and others. That in some points Israel fell below 
 the moral level, with which it was generally coin- 
 cident, is explained by our Lord as arising from 
 the imperfect and rude state of the Israelites, as in 
 a state of religious growth and progressive advance- 
 ment. But the moral stage, as we have seen, is 
 only itself an imperfect state. The Eeligion of Israel 
 was not and could not be final, for the kingdom 
 of God, which it presupposed, and which formed 
 its ultimate aim, with its higher level of spirituality, 
 was destined to supersede it. Our final conclusion 
 is, that this religion was the only one that has closely 
 approximated to the moral plane of humanity. 
 
 A w^ord in conclusion as to the higher level taken 
 
THE REV. W. NICOLSON, M.A. 243 
 
 by Christianity — as the unique spiritual religion. 
 This lay in the actual coming of the kingdom of 
 God. That kinordom was first embodied in Jesus 
 Christ, as the second Adam ; whose pure conscious- 
 ness reflected back and was in entire harmony 
 with the divine life of the Father ; and His life was 
 to illuminate " every man coming into the world." 
 The organon of this higher plane is not the sense 
 of moral obligation as on the lower planes, but 
 faith, as the vision of '' things not seen " and " the 
 foundation of things hoped for." The subjects 
 of this kingdom are no longer servants, as under 
 the ancient covenant, but children, " heirs of God 
 and joint heirs with Christ." In them, Humanity, 
 newly created and joined to its Head, is to partake 
 of, and to be raised, in ever approximating union, 
 to the Divine Nature, to the throne of God.^ 
 
 1 2 Peter i. 4 ; 1 John iii. 2 ; Rev. iii. 21. 
 
 PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND Ctt. 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 
 
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