Chapter III: The Age of Heroes and Gods (6)

Gradually, however, that which at first occurs only in occasional instances becomes more universal; the distinction in destinies comes to be regarded as applying generally. The earlier and exceptional cases of entrance into a world of the blessed or of particular punishments in Hades were connected with the favour or anger of the gods. Similarly, that which finally makes the distinction a universal one is religious cult. The object of cult is to propitiate the gods; their favour is to be won through petitions and magical acts. The gods are to grant not merely a happy lot in this world but also the assurance of permanent happiness in the next. Before this striving the shadows of the underworld give way. Though the underworld continues, on the whole, to remain a place of sorrow, it nevertheless comes to include a number of brighter regions in which the righteous may enjoy such happiness as they experienced in this world, without suffering its distresses and evil. It was this that early led to the formation of cult associations. Even during the transition of totemic tribal organization into States and deity cults, such religious associations sprang up out of the older totemic groups. During this period, the conditions of descent and of tribal segregation still imposed limitations upon the religious associations. These limitations, however, were transcended on the stage of deity cults, as appears primarily in the case of the Greek mysteries and of other secret cults of the Græco-Roman period, such as the mysteries of Mithra, Attis, Osiris, and Serapis. No doubt, the extreme forms of the cults prevalent in an age thoroughly conscious of a deep need for salvation were bound up with the specific cultural conditions of that age. And yet these cults but bring out in particularly sharp relief certain traits which, though they are not clearly apparent until later, are quite universally characteristic of the deity-worship of the heroic era. These cults arise only when the early heroic ideal, embodying certain external characteristics, has disappeared, having given way more and more to inner ideals, connected with religion and morality. This, however, occurs at the very time when minds are beginning to be more deeply troubled by the terrors of the underworld, and when, in contrast with this, the imagination creates glowing pictures of the future, for whose realization it turns to the gods. Thus arises the idea of a special region of the underworld, allotted to those cult-associates who have been particularly meritorious in the performance of religious duties. These will enter into Elysium, a vale of joy and splendour which, though a part of the underworld, is nevertheless remote from the regions of sorrow. Here the blessed will abide after death. This Elysium is no longer a distant island intended as a refuge for occasional individuals, but belongs to the established order of the underworld itself. In the sixth book of the Æneid, Virgil has sketched, with poetic embellishments, a graphic picture of this abode of the blessed as it was conceived, in his day, under the confluence of ancient mythical traditions and new religious impulses--a portrayal which forms perhaps the most valuable part of the whole poem. For, in it, the poet presents a living picture of what was believed and was striven for by many of his contemporaries.

In closest connection with this separation of realms in the underworld, is the introduction of judgeship. It devolves upon the judge of the underworld to determine whether the soul is to be admitted to the vale of joy or is to be banished into Orcus. It is significant that, in his picture of the underworld, Virgil entrusts this judgeship to the same Rhadamanthus with whom we are familiar from the Odyssey as the ruler of the distant island of the blessed. Obviously the poet himself recognized that these later conceptions developed from the earlier idea that salvation comes as a result of divine favour. After the separation of the region of the blessed from that of the outcasts, a further division is made; the two regions of the underworld are partitioned into subregions according to degrees of terror and torment, on the one hand, and of joy and blessedness, on the other. Gradations of terror are first instituted, those of blessedness following only later and in an incomplete form. The subjective factor, which precludes differences in degree when joy is at the maximum, is in constant rivalry with the objective consideration that the merits of the righteous may differ, and, therefore, also their worthiness to enjoy the presence of the deity. In contrast with this, is the much stronger influence exerted by the factor of punishment. The shadowy existence of souls in Homer's Hades is not regarded as a penalty, but merely as the inevitable result of departure from the circle of the living. Only when the hope of Elysium has become just as universal as the fear of Hades, does the latter become a place of punishment, and the former a region of rewards. Just as language itself is very much richer in words denoting forms of suffering than in those for joy, so also does the mythological imagination exhibit much greater fertility in the portrayal of the pains of the underworld than in the glorification of the Elysian fields. All the horrors that human cruelty can invent are carried over from the judicial administration of this world into that of the beyond. Gradations in the magnitude of punishments are reflected in the location of the regions appointed for them. The deepest region of the underworld is the most terrible. Above this, is the place where those sojourn who may enter Elysium at some future time, after successfully completing a period of probation.

The contrast which first appears in the form of a separation of the realms of torment and blessedness, of punishment and reward, is then carried to a further stage, again by the aid of ideas of a spacial gradation. No longer are all mortals compelled to enter the underworld; this not only loses its terrors for the blessed, but the righteous and beloved of the gods are not required to descend into it at all. Their souls ascend to heaven--a lot reserved in olden times exclusively for heroes who were exalted into gods. With this, the separation becomes complete: the souls of the righteous rise to the bright realms of heaven, those of the godless are cast into the depths. Among both the Semitic and the Indo-Germanic peoples, the antithesis of heaven and hell was established at a relatively late period. Its first clear development is probably to be found among the ancient Iranians, in connection with the early cosmogonic myths. Here the battle which the creation-myths of other cultural peoples represent as being fought between gods and demons is portrayed as the struggle of _two_ divine beings. One of these is thought to rule over the regions of light above the earth and the other over the subterranean darkness. True, this contrast is also brought out in the battles described by other peoples as between gods and demons, and this surely has been a factor leading to the incorporation of the Iranian myth into the ideas of the beyond elsewhere entertained. The distinctive feature of Iranian cosmogony and that which gave its dualism an unusual influence upon religion and cult is the fact that the original cosmic war was restricted to a single hostile pair of gods, Ormuzd (Ahuramazda) and Ahriman (Angramainju). Here also, however, Ahriman is the leader of a host of demons--a clear indication that the myth is based on the universal conception of a battle with demons. This similarity was doubtless all the more favourable to the influence of the Iranian dualism upon other religions, inasmuch as the separation of ideas of the beyond had obviously already quite generally taken place independently of such influence, having resulted from universal motives of cult. The fact, however, that the battle was not waged, as in other mythologies, between gods and demons, but between two divine personalities, led to a further essential change. The battle no longer takes place on the earth, as did that of Zeus and the Titans, but between a god of light, enthroned on high, and a dark god of the underworld. This spacial antithesis was probably connected by the ancient Iranians with that of the two ideas of the soul, the corporeal soul, fettered to earth, and the spiritual soul, the psyche, soaring on high. Herein may possibly lie the explanation of a curious custom which markedly distinguished the Iranians from other Indo-Germanic peoples. The former neither buried nor burned their dead, but exposed them on high scaffolds, as food for the birds. It almost seems as though the 'platform-disposal,' commonly practised in totemic times and mentioned above (p. 216), had here been taken over into later culture; the only change would appear to be that, in place of the low mound of earth upon which the corpse was left to decompose, there is substituted a high scaffolding, doubtless designed to facilitate the ascent of the soul to heaven. Furthermore, many passages in the older Avesta point out that the exposure of the corpse destroys the corporeal soul, rendering the spiritual soul all the freer to ascend to heaven. This is the same antithesis between corporeal soul and psyche that long continues to assert itself in later conceptions. Indeed, it also occurs, interwoven with specifically Christian conceptions, in many passages of the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, where the corporeal soul survives in the idea of the sinfulness of the flesh, and where, in the mortification of the flesh, we still have a faint echo of the Iranian customs connected with the dead.

Thus, the ideas of a twofold beyond and of a twofold soul mutually reinforce each other. Henceforth the heavenly realm is the abode of the pure and blessed spirits; the underworld, that of the wicked, who retain their sensuous natures even in the beyond, and who must, therefore, suffer physical pain and torment in a heightened degree. The thought of a spacial gradation corresponding with degrees of merit, though first developed in connection with the pains and punishments of the underworld, then comes to be applied also to the heavenly world. In this case, however, the power of the imagination seems scarcely adequate to the task of sufficiently magnifying the degrees of blessedness. Hence the imagination is forced; it becomes subservient to reflection, which engenders an accumulation of apocalyptic imagery that completely defies envisagement. In Jewish literature, one of the earliest examples of such apocalyptic accounts of the beyond is to be found in the Book of Enoch. The idea of a journey to the underworld, developed in ancient history, here apparently suggested a journey to heaven; as a result, the celestial realm was divided into various regions, graded according to height, as were those of the underworld according to depth, and leading to places of greater blessedness, as did those of the latter to increasing torment. We here have one of those dream-journeys to which dream association readily gives rise in the expectant and excited consciousness of the sleeper. Indeed, it is not improbable that the narrative is based on actual dream images. Had not the appearance of the dead in dreams already led to the belief in a shadow-soul, which now journeys to this distant world? The division of the celestial realms, in these mythical works, fluctuates between the numbers three and seven--the two numbers held sacred _par excellence_. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul tells of a dream-vision in which, years before, he was caught up to the 'third heaven' of paradise.

Under the influence of expiatory rites, which were zealously practised even by the ancient mystery cults, these two worlds, the subterranean hell and the celestial paradise, were supplemented by a _third_ region. This development was also apparently of Iranian origin. The region was held to be a place of purification, where the soul of the sinner might be prepared, through transitory punishments and primarily through lustrations, for entrance into the heavenly realm. Purgatorial lustration, after the pattern of terrestrial cult ceremonies, was believed to be effected by means of fire, this being regarded as the most potent lustrical agency, and as combining the function of punishment with that of purification. Dante's "Divine Comedy" presents a faithful portrayal of these conceptions as they were finally developed by the religious imagination of mediæval Christianity out of a mass of ideas which go back, in their beginnings, to a very ancient past, but which continually grew through immanent psychological necessity. Dante's account of the world beyond incorporates a further element. It tells of a _guide_, by whom those exceptional individuals who are privileged to visit these realms are led, and by whom the various souls are assigned to their future dwelling-places. The first of the visitors to Hades, Hercules, was accompanied by deities, by Athena and Hermes. Later it was one of the departed who served as guide. Thus, Virgil was conducted by his father, and Dante, in turn, was led by Virgil, though into the realms of blessedness, closed to the heathen poet, he was guided by the transfigured spirit of Beatrice. The rôle of general conductor of souls to the realms of the underworld, however, came to be given to Hermes, the psychopomp. Such is the capacity in which this deity appears in the Odyssey, in an exceedingly charming combination of later with very ancient soul-conceptions. After Odysseus has slain the suitors, Hermes, with staff in hand, leads the way to the underworld, followed by the souls of the suitors in the form of twittering birds.

These external changes in the ideas of the beyond, leading to the separation of the two realms, heaven and hell, and finally to the conception of purgatory, an intermediate realm, are dependent also on the gradual development of the _idea of retribution_. This is not a primitive idea. It arises only in the course of the heroic age, as supplementary to the very ancient experiences associated with the fear of death and to the notions concerning the breath and shadow souls. Moreover, it is especially important to notice that at the outset the idea was not ethical in character, but _purely religious_--a striking proof that morality and religion were originally distinct. The transference of the idea from religion to morals represents the final stage of the development, and occurred long after other-world mythology had reached its zenith. The first traces of the retributive idea are to be found in connection with those unusual dispensations of favour by which a hero who has won the favour of the gods is either taken up into their midst or is granted admittance to some other region of blessedness; the conception may, however, also take the form of punishments attached to certain particular offences directed against the gods. These latter exceptions already form a prelude to the more general application of the retributive idea in later times. But, even at this stage, the idea did not at once include _all_ men within its scope, but found expression only in the desire to gain some exceptional escape from future suffering or some peculiar claim to eternal joy in the future. True, the natural impulse toward association, and the hope that united conjurations would force their way to the ears of the gods more surely than individual prayers could do, early led to cult alliances, whose object it was to minister to these other-worldly hopes. None of these alliances, however, was concerned with obtaining salvation for all; on the contrary, all of them sought to limit this salvation to a few, in the belief that by such limitation their aim would be more certain of realization. These cults, therefore, were shrouded in secrecy. This had a twofold purpose. On the one hand, it increased the assurance of the members in the success of their magical incantations--a natural result of the fact that these rites were unavailable to the masses; on the other hand, it augmented the magical power of the incantations, inasmuch as, according to an associative reaction widely prevalent in the field of magical ideas, the mysterious potency of magic led to a belief in the magical effect of secrecy. The influence of these ideas had manifested itself in much earlier times, giving rise, on the transitional stage between totemism and the deity cults, to the very numerous secret societies of cultural and semi-cultural peoples. At this period, these societies were probably always the outgrowth of the associations of medicine-men, but later they sometimes included larger circles of tribal members. As is evident particularly in the case of the North American Indians, such societies frequently constituted restricted religious groups within the clans--groups which appear to have taken the place of the earlier totemic associations. In harmony with this, and, perhaps, under the influence of the age-groups in the men's clubs, there was originally a gradation of the members, based on the degree of their sanctification and on the extent of their participation in the mystic ceremonies. In peculiar contradiction to the secrecy of such associations, membership in one of its classes was betrayed, during the festivals of the cult groups, by the most striking external signs possible, such as by the painting of the body or by other forms of decoration. Moreover, on the earlier stages of culture, the interest of all these secret societies was still centred mainly on things connected with this world, such as prosperity of crops, protection from sickness, and success in the chase. Nevertheless, there was also manifest a concern regarding a future life, especially wherever a pronounced ancestor worship or an incipient deity cult had been developed.

It is the idea of the beyond, however, that gradually crowds out all secondary motives and that gives to the mystery cults proper their characteristic stamp, bringing them into sharp contrast with the dominant ideas of the early heroic age. In the earlier period, the idea of the beyond had been enveloped in hopeless gloom; now, it fills the mystic with premonitions of eternal happiness. In striving for this experience, the mystic wishes for a bliss that is not granted to the majority of mortals. Once more all the magic arts of the past are called into play in order that the initiate may secure entrance into the portals of the yonder world; it is thither that he is transported in the ecstasy induced by these magical means. No longer is admiration bestowed upon the heroes of the mythical past, upon a Hercules and a Theseus, as it was in ancient times. The change came about slowly, and yet at the great turning-point of human history, marked by the Hellenistic age, it spread throughout the entire cultural world. Radiating far beyond the Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries, which these hopes of a yonder-world raised to new life, the same idea was appropriated by the cults of Osiris, Serapis, Attis, and Mithra. The _idea of redemption_, born of the longing to exchange this world, with its sufferings and wants, for a world of happiness in the beyond, took possession of the age. It is the negation of the heroic age, of the heroes which it prized, and of the gods which it revered. Along with this world, these cults of the beyond repudiate also the previously existent values of this world. The ideals of power and of property fade. Succeeding the hero ideal, as its abrogation and at the same time its consummation, is the ideal of humanity.

At first it is only _religious_ ideals that manifest this shift in values. The enjoyment of the present gives way to hopes for the future, the portrayal of which welds religious feelings into a power that proves supreme over all other impulses. It is for this very reason that the future, which the mystic already enjoys in anticipation, comes to be exclusively the reward of the _devout_. It is not vouchsafed to the moral man who stands outside the pale of these religious associations, for his activity centres about this world. At a much earlier period, however, these ideas became combined with ethical motives of retribution. If, accordingly, the two motives again become entirely distinct at this decisive turning-point of religious development, this only signifies that, in themselves, they are of different origin, and not that from early times forward there were no forces making for their union. These forces, however, were not so much internal as external in character. They did not spring from the religious experiences themselves, nor, least of all, from the ideas of the beyond. Their source is to be found primarily in a transference of the relations of the earthly State to the divine State, as a result of which the ruler of the latter was exalted to the position of lawgiver in the kingdom of men no less than in that of the gods. Proofs of this transference are to be found in the most ancient customs and legal enactments of all regions. Either the ethical and religious commandments are, both alike, supposed to be the very utterances of the deity, as in the case of the Mosaic decalogue, or, as is illustrated by the Babylonian code of Hammurabi, an earthly ruler expressly promulgates his law in the name of the deity, even though this law is essentially restricted to legal and ethical norms. Thus it came about that every ethical transgression acquired also a religious significance. The ethical norm was not, at the outset, religious in sanction, as is usually believed; it acquired this character only through the medium of the world-ruling divine personality. Nevertheless, the union of the ethical and the religious gradually caused the idea of retribution, which originally had no ethical significance whatsoever, to force its way into the conceptions of the beyond. It was essentially in this way that ethical transgressions came to be also religious offences, whereas, on the other hand, the rewards of the other-world continued to be restricted to the devout, or were granted to the moral man only on condition that he be devout as well as moral.

In conclusion, we must consider an offshoot of other-world ideas--the belief in the _transmigration of souls_. This belief is ultimately grounded in the more general ideas of soul-belief, even though its developed form appears only as a product of philosophical speculation, and has, therefore, found only a limited acceptance. In its motives, the belief most closely resembles the conception of purgatory, in so far as the latter involves the notion that the occupation of animal bodies is a means, partly of transitory punishment, and partly of purification. The idea of lustration, however, is not involved in that of metempsychosis. In its place, there is a new and unique element. It consists in the thought, expressed in Plato's "Republic," that it is proper that man should retain after death the character manifested during life, and that he should therefore assume the form of the animal which exhibits this character. There is thus manifested the idea of a relationship between man and the animal. In the distant past this idea gave rise to the animal totem; in this last form of the animal myth, it leads to the conception of the transmigration of souls. Thus, a complete inversion of values has here taken place. The significance of the totem as an ancestral animal and as an object of cult caused it to be regarded as superior to man. The animal myth, on the other hand, represents transformation into an animal as degrading, even as a severe punishment. It is precisely this difference which makes it probable that the idea of transmigration was not a free creation of Hindoo philosophers--for it was they who apparently first developed it, and from whom it passed over to the Pythagorean school and thence to Plato--but that it, also, was connected with the general development of totemic conceptions. Of course, it is not possible to trace a direct transition of the totem animal into the animal which receives the soul of a human being who is expiating sins that he has committed. It is not probable, moreover, that such a transition occurred. Doubtless, however, the idea of transmigration is connected with the fact that, beginning with the totemic age and extending far down into the period of deity beliefs, the value placed on animals underwent a change. For the Australian, the animal is an object of cult, and the totem animal is frequently also regarded as the incarnation of an ancestor or of some magical being of antiquity; the American Indian calls the animals his elder brothers; Hercules, the hero of the heroic age, is honoured because, among other things, he was instrumental in exterminating wild animals. This change, moreover, is reflected in animal myths even more than in these general evaluations. Indeed, transformation into animals is a dominant characteristic of these myths. Tracing the conception of this magical process, however, we find, step by step, a progressive degradation of the animal. In Australian legends, animal and man are either absolute equals or the animal is the superior, being endowed with special magical powers. In American märchen-myths also, we still frequently find the same conception, although transformation into an animal is here sometimes regarded as a disgrace. Finally, in many African myths, and, particularly, in those of the cultural peoples of the ancient world, such a transformation is regarded either as a serious injury resulting from evil magic or as a punishment for some crime. We may well suppose, therefore, that the Brahmans, who first incorporated this idea into the religious conceptions of retribution, were influenced by the ideas current in popular belief, which, on their part, represented the last development of earlier totem conceptions. These ideas may also have been reinforced by the belief (not even yet entirely extinct) in soul animals, into which the psyche disappears at the moment of death. Whether the Brahmans had as yet come to the notion that transformation into an animal is a simpler and more natural way of conceiving the future of the soul than ideas of a supermundane and a subterranean beyond, need not concern us. In any event, it is noteworthy that, after science had closed the path to heaven as well as that to Hades, Lessing and, in a broader sense, taking into account nature as a whole, Goethe himself, regarded metempsychosis as the most probable hypothesis concerning the way in which the desire for an endless survival of the soul will be satisfied.

15. THE ORIGIN OF DEITY CULTS.

Psychologically, myth and cult are closely interrelated. The _myth_ is a species of _idea_. It consists of ideas of an imaginary and an essentially supersensuous world that constitutes a background for the phenomena of sensuous reality. This supersensuous world is created by the imagination exclusively from sensuous materials. It finds portrayal throughout the various stages of myth development, first in the märchen-myth, then in the heroic saga, and finally in the deity saga. In the latter, there are interwoven ideas of the origin and destruction of things, and of the life of the soul after death. _Cult_, on the other hand, comprises only _actions_. These relate to the demons or the gods whose lives and deeds are depicted by mythology, at first only in fragmentary sketches, but later, especially in the deity saga, after the pattern of human life. Now, inasmuch as action is always the result of feeling and emotion, it is these subjective elements of consciousness that are dominant in cult, whereas cognition plays its rôle in connection with myth. This contrast is important because of its close bearing on the development of myth as well as on that of religion, and on the essential differentiæ of the two. Not every myth has a religious content. In fact, the majority of the myths prevalent, or once prevalent, in the world, have absolutely no connection with religion, if we give to the latter any sharply defined meaning at all. At the setting of the sun, a flaming hero is swallowed by a dusky demon--this conception of nature mythology may possibly be incorporated in religious conceptions, but, in itself, it possesses no religious significance whatsoever, any more than does the idea that the clouds are demons who send rain to the fields, or that a cord wound about a tree may magically transfer a sickness to it. These are all mythological ideas, yet to call them religious would obviously leave one with a most vague conception of religion. Similarly, moreover, not every cult relating to things beyond immediate reality is a religious cult. Winding a cord about a tree, for example, might constitute part of a magic cult which aims at certain beneficent or pernicious results through the aid of demons of some sort. There is no ground, however, for identifying these cult activities with deity cult. From the very beginning, of course, every cult is magical. But there are important differences with respect to the objects upon which the magic is exercised. The same is true with respect to the significance of the cult action within the circle of possible magic actions and of the derivatives which gradually displace the latter. In view of this, it is undeniable that, in _deity cult_, the cult activity, in part, assumes new forms, and, in part, and primarily, gains a new content. Prior to the belief in gods, there were numerous demon cults, as well, particularly, as single, fragmentary cult practices presupposing demoniacal powers. Moreover, these demon cults and the various activities to which they gave rise, passed down into the very heart of deity cult. The question therefore arises, What marks shall determine whether a deity cult is _religious_ in character? These marks, of course, may be ascertained only by reference to that which the general consensus of opinion unites in calling religious from the standpoint of the forms of religious belief prevalent to-day. From this point of view, a religious significance may be conceded to a deity conception if, in the first place, it possesses by its very nature--that is, objectively--an _ideal_ worth, and, since the ideal transcends reality, a _supersensuous_ character; in the second place, it must satisfy the subjective need of man for an ideal purpose of life. To one outside of the particular cult community, the value of this ideal may be but slight; to the community, however, at the time when it is engaged in the cult practices, the ideal is of highest worth. As the embodiments of the ideals just mentioned, the gods are always pictured by the mythological imagination in human form, since it is only his own characteristics that man can conceive as magnified into the highest values in so absolute a sense. Where the deity does not reach this stage, or where, at the very least, he does not possess this ideal value during the progress of the cult activities, the cult is not religious in nature, but prereligious or subreligious. Thus, while myth and cult date back to the beginnings of human development, they acquire a religious character only at a specific time, which comes earlier in the case of cult than in that of the myth. The gods are created by the religious emotion which finds expression in cult, and myth gives them the character of ideal personalities, after the pattern of the heroic figures of actual life. The entire life of man, with all its changes of destiny, is placed in their hands. Their cult, therefore, is no longer associated merely with special circumstances or various recurrent events, as were primitive magic and the conjuration of demons, but is concerned with the whole of life, which is now subordinated to a divine legal order fashioned after the political government. Thus, the god is soon succeeded by the _divine State_, and by the cult festivals dedicated to the latter. As an idealized counterpart of the human institution peculiarly characteristic of the heroic era, religious cult appears, from this point of view also, as the most distinctive creation of the age of heroes and gods.

If a conception proves to be too narrow to cover all the phenomena which fall within its sphere, it is legitimate, of course, to broaden it, to a certain extent, to suit our needs. Nevertheless, once we admit that not every mythological conception or magical practice is religious in character, we can no longer doubt that there was never a more significant change in the development of these phenomena than occurred in the case of the myths and cults directly connected with the heroic age. Primarily, therefore, it was the cults of the Babylonians, Egyptians, Israelites, and also those of the Greeks, Romans, Aryans, and Germans, that were religious in the full sense of the word. In the Old World, the Semitic and Indo-Germanic peoples must be regarded, to say the least, as the most important representatives of religious ideals; in the New World, prior to the coming of the Europeans, this distinction belongs to the cultural peoples of the Andes, the Mexicans and the Peruvians. Though the religion of these latter races, no less than the other phases of their culture, was of a cruder sort than that of the former peoples, it frequently throws a remarkable light upon the initial stages of many forms of cult. Of course, there is never a sharp separation of periods; intermediate stages are always to be found. The latter result, particularly, from two conditions. On the one hand, a deity cult may be inaugurated by the introduction of elements of a celestial mythology into the still dominant magical cults. In this case, it is important to note, deity myth is usually far in advance of deity cult. This is exemplified in Polynesia, where we find a rich theogony alongside of cults that have not advanced essentially beyond the stage of totemic magic beliefs. On the other hand, however, a people whose civilization is still, on the whole, totemic, may be influenced by the deity cults of neighbouring cultural peoples, and, as a result, fusions of various sorts may occur. Of this, also, the New World affords instructive examples, namely, the Pueblo peoples of New Mexico and Arizona, who were influenced by Mexican culture.

In the soul-life of the individual, _action_, together with the feelings and emotions fundamental to it, have the primacy over ideation. The same psychological fact universally accounts for the superior importance of deity cult over deity myth. It is action that constantly influences ideas, changing and strengthening them, and thus arousing new emotions which stimulate to further activities. Thus, the elevation of the gods into ideal beings must be ascribed, in great part, to religious cult, for it came about as a result of the influence which the emotions associated with cult exercised upon the ideas of the gods. Even less than the mythological thought from which it develops does religious reflection consist simply of ideas. The mythical tales and legends into which ideas are woven excite primarily the feelings and emotions. These it is that cause the exaltation of the religious consciousness, giving rise to action, which, in turn, enhances the emotions. If anywhere, therefore, it is in the psychology of religion that intellectualism is doomed to failure. The intellectualist is unable to explain even the fact of cult, to say nothing of those effects upon religion by virtue of which cult becomes religion's creative force. While, therefore, there are cults--namely, those of magic and demons--which, for specific reasons, we may call prereligious, there is no religion without some form of cult, even though, in the course of religious development, the external phases of cult may diminish in significance. In so far, cult is to be regarded as _moulding_, rather than as permanently expressing religious emotions; and it is not merely an effect, but also a source of religious ideas. It is in cult that deity ideas first attain their full significance. By giving expression to his desires in prayer and sacrifice, man enjoys a foretaste of their satisfaction, and this, in reaction, enhances not only the desires but also the mythological conceptions fundamental to them. It is precisely this relationship of myth to cult that extends far back into the totemic age and that causes the dominant magic cults of this period to be displaced by deity cults as soon as gods have arisen through a synthesis of heroes and demons. This accounts for the fact that, in the beginnings of religion, the worship of gods always contained elements that derived from the age of demons. But even the demon cults frequently exhibit one feature, particularly, that remains characteristic also of religion: in the cult the individual feels himself one with the object of worship. This is clearly shown in the case of primitive vegetation festivals. Those who execute the orgiastic cult dances regard themselves as one with the spirits of vegetation, whom they wish to assist, by their actions, in increasing the productive forces of nature. Such vegetation festivals have already been described in our account of totemic cults. Inasmuch, however, as they represent not only the highest of the totemic cults but even partake, in part, of the character of deity cults, it was necessary to refer to them again at this point. Vegetation festivals still prevail in richly developed forms among some of the tribes of North and Central America. It is clear that they represent primarily a transitional stage, for, in addition to totemic ideas, demon and ancestor beliefs are everywhere mingled with elements of a celestial mythology. Spirits of ancestors are thought to be seated behind the clouds, urging the rain demons to activity. Above them, however, are celestial deities, whose abode is in the heavens, and to whom is attributed the supreme control over destiny.

Even these relatively primitive vegetation cults manifest still another trait, which later comes more and more to characterize all cult, namely, the _union of many cult motives_. The great vegetation festivals of Central America attract not only those in health but also the sick. The latter are in search of healing. Hence there come to be special cults alongside of those that serve more universal needs. Moreover, the initiation of youths into manhood is also celebrated during these great festivals. Finally, the individual seeks to expiate some sin which he has committed in the past. Thus, numerous supplementary and subsidiary cults cluster about the great cult festivals. This was true even of the cults that reach far back into the age of magic and demon beliefs, when gods still played a secondary rôle, and conditions remained the same up to the time of the highest forms of deity cult. Furthermore, the incentive, or impelling motive, which originally brought cult members together for these comprehensive festivals seems everywhere to have been the same. The aim in view was to secure the prosperity of the crops, for, on the threshold of this higher civilization, these formed man's chief food-supply. The prominence of this motive in the earliest deity cults, moreover, indicates that the latter were genuine products of the general culture of this period. The roving hunter and nomad were giving place to the settled tiller of the soil, who utilized the animal for the services of man, and thus engaged more systematically in the breeding of domestic animals, though also perfecting, in addition to the arts of peace, the agencies of war. The motives that gradually elevated vegetation cults to a higher plane consisted in every case of those that at the outset found expression in the subsidiary cults. The concern for the _spiritual welfare_ of mankind finally supplanted materialistic purposes. This is clearly shown by the history of the Greek mystery cults. These, however, were obviously influenced, particularly at a later time, by the similar cults of the Egyptians, as well as by the Babylonians and other peoples of western Asia. Among all these peoples, the chief cults were vegetation cults, and, as such, they occurred at stated seasons. In the Orient, particularly, the festivals were held at the solstices. Surviving remnants of seedtime and harvest festivals--which were solstice festivals and were prevalent throughout the entire Oriental world--allow us to conclude, even with respect to many regions in which a complete historical tradition is lacking, that agricultural festivals probably represent the earliest deity cults. Hence it is that these remnants still contain so many elements characteristic of demon beliefs.

It is the contrast of spring, of newly awakened Nature and its sprouting and growing crops, with winter and its dying vegetation, that first finds expression in the deity myths which inspire the vegetation festivals. The more permanent significance of these cults, however, is due to the fact that the gods of vegetation gain an increasing sphere of influence. The reason for this is obviously to be found in the fact that subsidiary motives come to be incorporated into the main cults of the earliest cultural peoples. _One_ factor is of particular importance. Though inconspicuous in the earliest of these cults, it becomes increasingly prominent as the cults become more highly developed. I refer to _hopes of a beyond_. Of course, many phases of the cult remain hidden to us. Due to the combinations already mentioned and to the incorporation, in this case, of magical and mystical elements, these cults acquired a secret nature in proportion as they concerned themselves with the riddle of the beyond. The more carefully the individual cult member guarded the secrets of the group, the richer the blessings that he might hope to receive. Nevertheless, the general psychological motives underlying this development enable us to supplement the historical tradition. In this way it is possible to gain a fairly positive knowledge of the process by which, with an apparently almost universal uniformity, vegetation cults came to combine with soul cults. The ideas of changing seasons, of summer and winter, of the budding and the withering of grain, are naturally associated with those of life and death. Winter and bleak nature resemble death; and, just as lifeless nature is again resuscitated in the spring, so also will the soul awaken to a bright and joyous existence in the future. The connection is so obvious that poetry and even myth itself everywhere refer to it. Hence also it could not have been overlooked by the mythologists. Generally, however, this has been regarded as an ingenious allegory by means of which man sought to gain a vivid realization of the resurrection of the soul. In fact, such allegorical reinterpretations occur in later cult legend itself. Particularly characteristic of this is the legend of the Eleusinian mysteries. Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, goddess of the crops, is stolen by Pluto, ruler of the underworld, and the goddess-mother wanders about on the earth seeking her child. Resentfully she withdraws from the heavens and avoids the assemblages of the gods. During this period of mourning, however, she devotes all of her care to mankind. She protects not only the vegetation but also the germinating human life, the child. Thus she becomes a benefactress upon earth. The gods, however, mourn her absence, and Zeus makes a compact with the lord of the underworld. Persephone is to remain in the underworld with her husband, Pluto, during only one-half of the year; during the other half she is to return to her mother. Appeased, Demeter herself returns to the heavens. The allegorical significance of this legend cannot fail to be recognized, nor the fact that it was probably only as a result of a poetical elaboration of the mythological material that this allegorical character was acquired. The same is true of all other similar cult legends, from the descent into hell of the Babylonian Ishtar down to the legends of Dionysos and Osiris, and other vegetation legends of the Hellenistic period. In the form in which these have come down to us, they are all products of priestly invention, replete with a conscious symbolism such as cannot be ascribed to the original mythical material upon which they were based. Nevertheless, it is customary not only to regard all of this original content as allegorical, but also to surpass even the traditional legend itself, if possible, in allegorical interpretation. In the legend of Demeter, for example, Demeter is supposed to be the mother earth, and Persephone the seed that is thrown into the earth to grow up and blossom. Analogously, he who participates in the cult hopes that, while his soul, similarly, is at first buried in the earth with his body, it will later ascend to heaven as did Demeter. Back of the myth, therefore, there is supposed to be a symbolical allegory, and to this is attributed the original union of the soul cult with the vegetation festival. When, then, the former lost its influence, the symbolism it thought to have remained as the chief content of the mystery. No original cult, however, shows the least sign of connection with such subtle allegories. On the other hand, there are many indications that the vegetation cults developed into these higher forms of soul cults in an entirely different way. Soul cults of a lower order had, of course, long been prevalent. But these were absolutely distinct from any vegetation myths that may have existed. They pictured souls as demons, against whom it was necessary to be on one's guard, or, at a later stage, as beings whom one might conciliate and win over as helpful spirits. Now, the cults of Demeter practised in Eleusis had as their aim, not only an increased productiveness of the soil, but also success in the interests and activities of this world. Since they related to happiness in general, it was but natural that, as soon as the ideas of a beyond reached a point of development at which the yonder-world became the focus of desires and hopes, the cults also should necessarily concern themselves with happiness in a life after death. Thus, interest in the beyond came to be one of the further cult motives that linked themselves to the dominant vegetation cults. The latter, however, held the primacy, as is still clearly apparent by reference to the vegetation festivals of the semi-cultural peoples of America. It is only natural that this should have been the case. When agriculture was in its beginnings, the most pressing need of life was that of daily bread. For the tiller of the soil, moreover, the changes of seasons marked by seedtime and harvest, represent sharply defined periods, suitable above all others for the festivals to which tribal associates assemble from near and far. The later allegories connected with these cults had nothing to do with their transition into soul cults, but, as their whole character indicates, were creations of the priestly imagination. As a result of the reaction of cult activities upon the emotions, however, concern for the future happiness of the soul finally came more and more to overshadow the desires connected with this world. Thus, the cults of Demeter eventually passed over, in all essentials, into cults of the beyond. The same is true of the Dionysos cults of the Greeks, of the Egyptian worship of Isis and Osiris, of the Persian Mithra cult, and of many other mystery cults of Oriental origin. All of these express the same passion for a future bliss that shall begin at the close of earthly life and endure endlessly.

The character of these cults is shaped, in a decisive measure, by other influences, whose source is to be found in the hopes of a beyond. Even in the vegetation festivals of the semi-cultural peoples of America, with their elements of totemism and ancestor worship, an important place is occupied by _ecstatic_ features--by the orgiastic dance, and by the ecstasy that results from sexual excitement and from narcotic poisons, such as tobacco. Conjurations, prayer, sacrifice, and other cult ceremonies aid in stirring the emotions. Doubtless it was due to these ecstatic elements that the cult of Dionysos gained supremacy over the older cults of Demeter in the Greek mysteries, and that Dionysos himself was eventually given a place in the Demeter cult. For is he not the god of wine, the most potent of all the means for creating a condition of bliss that elevates above all earthly cares? In the mystery cults, however, the central feature of the cult activity was the vision experienced in the ecstasy. The mysterious equipment of the place, the preliminary ascetic practices, the liturgic conjurations and sacrifices, the wine, which originally took the place of the blood sacrifice, and, among the Hindoos, the soma, which was itself deified--all of these served to transport consciousness to another world, so that the cult became increasingly concerned with the world beyond, and finally devoted itself exclusively to this interest. As a result of this change, the hopes centring about the beyond forced their way overpoweringly into cult, whereas the cult, in turn, reacted in an important measure to enhance these hopes.

Over against the tendency toward unification inherent in vegetation cults and in the other-world cults which sprang from them, the increasing diversity of needs and interests now introduces influences toward a progressive differentiation of cults. Separate deity cults come to be fostered by the various social groups and classes, just as had occurred in the case of the totem cults of the preceding age, which differed according as they were practised by the tribe, the sex, or the individual. The desire for protection against dangers and for security in undertakings gives rise to guardian gods no less than it did to guardian demons. Since, however, this more general desire branches out into a considerable number of special desires, advancing culture results in a progressive differentiation of cults. The foundation of cities and the separation into classes and occupations lead to special cults for each of these divisions of society. The personal characteristics of the gods and the purposes of the cult come to be affected, each by the other. Each specific cult chooses from among the members of the pantheon that god who best suits its purpose, and it then modifies his character according to its needs. The characteristics of the gods thus undergo a change of significance analogous to that of the forms of speech and custom. This change, however, is due mainly to cult, and to the fact that the human beings who practise the cult have need of protection and aid. The influence of saga and poetry is only secondary, being, at best, mediated through cult.

In addition to the increasing diversity of human interests, and interplaying with it in various ways, are two further factors that tend toward the differentiation of cult. In the first place, divine personality as such awakens man to the necessity of establishing a cult. As a personal being who transcends human stature, the god calls for adoration by his very nature, even apart from the special motives which are involved in the specific deity cults and which, in the further course of development, give to the latter their dominant tone. Pure deity cults, thus, are the highest forms of cult, and give best expression to ideal needs. Outstanding examples of this are the Jahve cult of the Israelites, and the cults of Christ and Buddha. The latter, in particular, show the great assimilative power of cults that centre about an objective ideal, in contrast with those that are subjective in nature, springing entirely from human desires and hopes, and especially with that most subjective of all cults, the cult of the beyond. Moreover, this idealizing impulse may also create new cults, by deifying heroes who were originally conceived as human. Besides the ancient hero cults, the most prominent examples of such cults are again those of Christ and of Buddha. For there can be no doubt that Christ and Buddha alike existed as human beings and that originally they were also regarded as such. The fact that their heroic character consists entirely in the spiritual qualities of their personalities does not preclude them from consideration in this connection. These qualities proved all the more effective in bringing about the exaltation of the human into the divine. Thus, they enable us to understand how it was possible for the cult of the original deities to be crowded into the background by that of those who later came to be gods. This is emphatically brought out in the Buddha legends, many of which represent the ancient Hindoo gods of the Veda as the servants of the divine Buddha.