Chapter X: Social Development of Religion (3)

+1090+. Vows, blessings, and curses may be considered to belong to worship in the regard that they contain petitions to the deity; the curse or the blessing, however, sometimes rested on a baldly objective conception of the power of words, sometimes was held to be magical: once uttered, the word, beneficent or maleficent, went to its object, person or thing, did its work, and could not be recalled; its effect could be set aside only by an utterance in the opposite direction.[2007] A magician, by the power resident in him, could fix a curse or a blessing on man or thing. An exorcism, also, might be effected by magic or by invoking the aid of a deity; an evil spirit is a supernatural Power and has to be considered--one does not worship such a being, but one may employ religious means to circumvent him. Bad magic may be overcome by good magic, and a deity, hostile and maleficent under certain circumstances, may be placated by offerings. It is not always easy to draw the line between worship proper and modes of defense against injurious Powers. But in general true worship implies friendly relations between human and superhuman persons.

+1091+. _Idols._ From an early time men have desired to have visible representatives of the supernatural. So long as natural objects, trees, stones, mountains, were regarded as themselves divine or as the abodes of spirits, so long as a loose social organization and the absence of definite family life led men to spend their lives in the open air, there was no need of artificial forms of the Powers. Such a need arose inevitably, however, under more advanced social conditions. Exactly at what stage men began to make images it is hardly possible to say,--the process was begun at different stages in different regions,--but it appears that in general it was synchronous with some fairly good form of social organization. Yet, where such forms exist, there are differences in the use of images. These are found--to take the lower peoples--in Melanesia and the Northern Pacific Ocean, in the northern part of South America, in North America apparently only among the Eastern Redmen (as the Lenâpé or Delawares),[2008] and on the western coast of Africa (Ashanti, Dahomi, Yoruba). Where the cult of beasts (whether totemic or not) is a living one, idolatry does not find a place; it is only when communities have begun to be agricultural that they have artificial forms of gods; that is, idolatry comes in with the stage of culture connected with the agricultural life.[2009]

The development in the form of images is familiar. The rude and, to modern eyes, grotesque idols of the lower peoples gradually pass into the more finished forms of the civilized nations.[2010] Really artistic forms, however, were produced only by some Semites (Babylonians and Assyrians) and in the Hellenic and Græco-Roman worlds. In Central America, Mexico, and Peru images are anthropomorphic but lacking in symmetry and grace. Hindu idols are often composite and grotesque, sometimes (especially images of Buddha) highly impressive.

+1092+. The Hebrews appear to have had no anthropomorphic images of their national deity. Down to a late period there was a cult of household gods,[2011] and of these, probably, there were images in private houses and in shrines, whether anthropomorphic or not is uncertain. In Solomon's temple (and in Ezekiel's proposed plan) figures of cherubs (originally divine beings) stood on the walls of the main room and guarded the ark in the adytum; they were winged creatures, the forms derived immediately from Phoenicia, ultimately from Babylonia; they appear only in the great public cult, probably did not enter into the religious life of the people at large, and there is no evidence that they ever received divine worship.[2012] The Hebrews had no plastic art of their own, seem to have had small disposition in their earlier history to make images, and later such forms were excluded by the antagonism of the prophets to foreign cults and by refined ideas of the deity.[2013] The absence of images in the Zoroastrian cult may be accounted for in a similar way--from early lack of artistic impulse and later elevated conceptions. In China there are images in household worship, but none in the great imperial religious ceremonies.[2014] Though the Koran does not expressly forbid the cult of images, yet, as the old Arabian cults denounced by the prophet were all idolatrous, images were identified with false religion (polytheism) and have been avoided by the Moslems, whose strict monotheism left no place for them.

+1093+. Images were credited in half-civilized times with a certain personality, were flogged or destroyed when they failed to do what was expected of them, or were bound in order to prevent their going away.[2015] In such cases the conception of the power of these objects was probably a confused one; though they were known to be inanimate pieces of wood or stone or other material, it was believed that they were inhabited by spirits or deities, and it was held that in some undefined way the power of the divine agent was transferred to its physical incasement--the two were practically identified. This sort of conception soon passed away and was succeeded by a symbolical interpretation. Whatever the ultimate origin of the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Hindu divine and semi-divine forms (which are sometimes monstrous),[2016] it is probable that for the more thoughtful worshipers they represented divine powers and functions. Uncouth shapes may be softened or transformed by familiarity, and by association with higher ideas--things in themselves repulsive may become vehicles of devotion.[2017] In all religious worship objects associated with pious acts acquire sanctity and beauty.

+1094+. That idolatry in ancient times was not a wholly bad feature of worship is shown by the excellence of the great religions in which it was practiced. Its general function was to make the deity more real to the worshiper, to make the latter more sharply conscious of the divine presence, to fix the attention, and so far to further a real communion. On the other hand, it tended to produce a low physical conception of the divine person, and to distract the mind of the worshiper from the ethical side of worship. Its moral effect was dependent on the man's character and thought. When the image was regarded as the symbol of an ethically good Power, it was a reënforcement of pure religious feeling; when it was regarded as in itself a source of physical benefit, it was a degrading influence. This difference of effect exists in those Christian bodies that include images and pictures of the deity and of saints in their apparatus of worship.

CHURCHES

+1095+. The history of the social organization of religion is the history of the growth of churches--voluntary associations for worship; it is toward the Church that society has hitherto moved.[2018] Every ancient community may be said to be an incipient church in the sense that it contains the germs of the later ecclesiastical development. But this later form exists in such communities only in germ--the most ancient worship was communal, an affair of clan, tribe, or State. Men were born into their religious faith and could no more change it, or think of changing it, than they could change, or think of changing, their language or any other inheritance. It was inevitable, however, that there should be a growth of individualism--instinct impelled men to think for themselves in religion as in all other things. Religion was a part of the general social movement, affected by all other parts of that movement. Independence of thought led to social aggregations, the members of which were drawn together by similarity of ideas and aspirations. This is the familiar history of social movements, and that in religion such movements have been continuous will be evident from a brief statement of the historical facts.

+1096+. _Savage secret societies._ These societies are referred to above;[2019] here we have only to notice their germinal ecclesiastical character. They represent a partial break-up of tribal communal worship by assigning special duties and granting special privileges to certain initiated persons. Totemic groups are sometimes (as in Central Australia) charged with specific functions in the tribal life; but membership in such groups is a matter of birth, and they everywhere tend to give way to secret societies. These latter often have charge of certain religious rites, and from their secret proceedings and from a knowledge of their secret lore the rest of the tribe are excluded.

The extent to which religious organization and influence have been carried is illustrated by the history of the Polynesian Areoi, the most remarkable of such fraternities.[2020] The Areoi created 'mysteries,' with an elaborate ritual whose effectiveness was dependent on absolute accuracy in words; its members were chosen without regard to tribal position and entered of their own free will; it was a voluntary association and made its own religious laws. It was restricted (as all such associations are) by the necessity of paying regard to existing customs, but within such limits it was independent of the tribe, and its members were held to be entitled to special honors and enjoyments in this life and the next (a crude conception of salvation). It was essentially a church, and other societies, in Polynesia, Africa, and North America, approached this position more or less nearly. They all tended to become tyrannical--their social influence enabled them to impose their authority on the tribe, and they did not hesitate to employ violence in asserting their rights.[2021] To foreign influence they were naturally hostile, since this generally diminished their power. Founded as they are on savage ideas they have disappeared, or are disappearing, before foreign civilizations. In their best form they doubtless gave a certain unity to communities and were thus an element of order.

+1097+. _Greek mysteries._ In Greece dissatisfaction with the current cults expressed itself in various ways, largely through poets and philosophers, who asserted themselves, indeed, individually, but showed no power of organization. The task of organizing religious opinion fell to that new direction of thought (vaguely called "Orphic"[2022]) which, while it gave prominence to spiritual ideas and moral ideals, introduced a lively emotional element into worship. In the Eleusinian and other mysteries this element was both external (dramatic representations, songs, processions, ceremonies of initiation) and internal (the hope of salvation). Without breaking with the popular religious forms the mysteries constructed their own forms, chose their members, and created a religious _imperium in imperio_. They were voluntary associations for worship, ignored distinctions of social rank, had great ideas and impressive rituals--apparently all the elements necessary to the establishment of churches or of a national church. Yet they faded gradually away, and perished finally without leaving any definite impression, as it seemed, on Greece or the world without.[2023]

+1098+. The reasons of their failure are not far to seek. They did not reach the Hellenic mind for the reason that they were of foreign origin and much in them was opposed to the genius of the Hellenic religion. Even the Pythagorean reform movement of Southern Italy, with its strenuous moral culture of the individual, seems to have had a foreign (Asiatic) coloring. It was, indeed, at one with the better Greek thought of the time (sixth century B.C. and later) in its elevated conception of the deity and of worship, but with this it combined ascetic observances and, apparently, mystical ideas; it established what may be called a church, which had a great vogue in Southern Italy for several centuries but did not, as an organization, penetrate into Greece. It attracted some thoughtful men, but was too calm and restrained for the masses.[2024]

+1099+. It was different with the Dionysiac cult, whose wildness made it popular; of foreign origin, it was in time partly Hellenized and in Athens took its place in the regular national worship; some of its foreign features were taken up in the mysteries. These latter, with their enthusiasm and their half-barbaric ceremonies, excited the contempt of most of the educated class.[2025] These cults were Asiatic--not Semitic--but probably a product of a non-Hellenic population of Asia Minor (Phrygia and other regions), developed during a period the history of which is obscure.

+1100+. The Semites seem to have produced no mysteries--there is no record of such cults in Babylonia, Syria, Phoenicia, the Hebrew territory, or Arabia; Semitic religion was objective, simple, nonmystical.[2026] The Syrian cult of Tammuz (Adonis), which was adopted by Hebrews in the sixth century B.C. (Ezek. viii, 14), was an old folk-ceremony, not a mystery; it is allied to the Attis ceremonies of Asia Minor and to the mourning ceremony mentioned in Judges xi, 40 (mourning for a dead deity, but there referred to Jephthah's daughter).

+1101+. The Greek mysteries, then, derived their orgiastic side partly from Thrace, partly from Asia Minor. They chiefly attracted the lower classes and particularly slaves, for they offered individual independence in religion, freedom from the sense of social inferiority, and hope for the life to come. Thus they did not appeal to the Hellenic spirit, and did not, as organizations, survive the political decadence of the Greek States. But it is probable that their effects survived in the recognition of the possibility of religious worship apart from the traditional cults, and, more generally, in contributing to the establishment of the principle of individualism in religion. An historical connection between the Greek mysteries and the later individualistic cults is, indeed, not probable. Cumont believes that Mithraism did not imitate the organization of the Greek secret societies.[2027] The New Testament use of the term 'mystery' in the sense of 'esoteric doctrine'[2028] may have come from the Asian cult; the Mithraic worship was practiced in Tarsus, the native city of the Apostle Paul, in the first century of our era. However this may be, it seems probable that the conception of a church existed in the Græco-Roman world before the beginning of our era, and that its existence was due in part to the Greek mysteries, whose members were scattered throughout the empire of Alexander.

+1102+. The _philosophical systems_ that arose in Asia and Europe concurrently with the Greek mysteries did not found ecclesiastical organizations. The disciples of philosophers formed schools, and the adherents of each school constituted a group the members of which were united one with another by the bond of a common intellectual aim and a common conception of life and of the world; and there was also a scientific union between the various groups, the fundamental methods of investigation and lines of thought being the same everywhere. But the object of thought was the discovery of truth by human reason, not the quest of salvation by worship of the divine. The emotional element essential to the formation of a church was wanting, and where philosophical systems adopted devotional forms these were not the creation of philosophy but were borrowed from current cults. They sought happiness, but not through religious ritual. They did not always formally discard or condemn existing cults, but they ignored them as means of salvation; they sometimes recognized traditional gods and forms of worship, but interpreted them in accordance with their own ideas.

+1103+. In India the Upanishads practically abolished the national pantheon and the old Brahmanic ritual--knowledge, they taught, was the key to bliss, and the knowledge was not that of the Veda, it came by reflection; emancipation from earthly bonds, absorption into the Infinite, was the goal of effort, but the effort was individualistic and led to no devotional organization. Ascetic observances, as a means of attaining perfection, were an inheritance from popular Brahmanism.[2029] In China Taoism, originally a system of thought (based on the conception of all-controlling order) that appealed only to a certain class of philosophic minds, became a religion by borrowing crude ideas and sensational methods from a debased form of Buddhism and other sources.[2030] Confucius steadily declined to teach anything about divine worship; Confucianism remained merely an ethical system, dealing only with the present life, until its founder, with disregard of his teaching, was divinized.

+1104+. Many of the Greek philosophers, from Socrates and Plato on, were definitely (some of them warmly) religious, but their religion was chiefly valued as an aid to ethical life, and it did not respond to the demand for communal worship. The Platonic and Stoic conceptions of the deity were pure, but they remained individualistic--salvation was the creation of the man himself. The noble hymn of Cleanthes to Zeus[2031] and the fine religious morality of Marcus Aurelius led to no church organization. The attempted combination of Platonism and Judaism by Philo was equally resultless. Neo-Platonism also, though it had enthusiasm and some sense of brotherhood, showed itself unable to produce a church. Plotinus, indeed, proposed to the Emperor Gallienus the establishment in Campania of a city of philosophers, a Platonopolis, in which the ideal life should be lived, but the proposal came to nothing.[2032] The Neo-Platonic union with the deity was too vague a conception to bring about communal worship, and the deity had no definite rôle in securing the salvation of men.

+1105+. Thus, in the period beginning about the sixth century B.C. and extending into the Christian era, all over the civilized world attempts were being made to reconstruct life by ethical and philosophical systems, by ascetic observances, and by mysteries. These attempts bear witness to the prevailing sense of the insufficiency of current schemes of life. They differ according to differences of place and time, but agree in the search after something better; this better thing was always ethical and in most cases religious. Their failure to construct effective organizations was due to the deficiencies pointed out above.

+1106+. _Buddhism and Jainism._ The first churches produced by civilized men arose in India in the sixth century B.C. out of the bosom of Brahmanism, whose failure to establish a church was due in part to its dependence on philosophical speculation. Of the protests against the Brahmanic orthodoxy the most important were Buddhism and Jainism.[2033] Buddhism discarded philosophy and asceticism, and came forward with a plan of salvation that was intelligible to all.[2034] Disciples gathered about the Master and he became the object of enthusiastic devotion. All complete churches have owed their origin each to a single founder; this is due to the fact that the insight and constructive genius of the founder have chosen out of the mass of the existing thought those broad principles that the times demanded and have presented them in incisive form and with freshness and enthusiasm.[2035] Buddha's followers quickly formed themselves into associations, the entrance into which was by free choice. As his doctrine of salvation was nontheistic, so his church was nontheistic, but not therefore nonreligious. The ecclesiastical organization was simple, but effective. The original Buddhism has been degraded, especially in Tibet, China, and Korea, but the church form remains everywhere more or less recognizable.[2036]

+1107+. Jainism, while differing from its contemporary, Buddhism, in its metaphysical dualism and its asceticism, agreed with it practically in its method of salvation from the ills of life. It established a nontheistic church which has had experiences (polytheistic and other) like those of Buddhism. Historically it is less important than the latter; it still has a considerable following, but it has never passed out of India. Apparently its local features, metaphysical and ascetic, have impeded its progress--it lacks the simplicity of Buddhism.

+1108+. _Judaism._ Judaism stands on the border line--it was a cult that approached the position of a church, yet failed to reach it. Its line of movement differed _in toto_ from those described above. It had no philosophy, no asceticism, no secret societies, and it did not rely on its ethical code. It was essentially religious, in theory a theocracy, in form a national cult. The steps by which the old polytheistic Israelite nation passed into the monotheistic Judaism can be traced historically, but the impulse to the movement was a part of the genius of the people and cannot be further explained. The leaders of the small body of people that gathered at Jerusalem in the sixth century, after the break-up of the year 586, were animated by a patriotic devotion to the national deity; without political autonomy, merely a province of the Persian empire, the sole interests possible for the people were racial and religious, and these isolated them from the neighboring peoples. Those who remained in Babylonia (where they were prosperous and comfortable) were similarly isolated, devoted themselves to their own development, and their religious attitude was the same as that of the Palestinian community. Distance from the temple led to gatherings in various places for worship (synagogues).

The Jews thus became a nation organized under religious law, with an institution devoted to voluntary communal worship, and offering salvation, at first for this life only, but later (from the second century B.C. onward) for the future life also--these were elements of a church. But in two points this cult fell short of the complete church idea: the business of a church is wholly and solely religious, and the Jewish nation was organized not only for religion, but also for commerce, politics, and war;[2037] and the synagogue and the temple-service were not free to all the world--only Jews and proselytes[2038] might take part in them. Any religious body, it is true, may properly define the conditions of entrance into it; but here the restriction was national--the synagogal cult, individualistic and simply devotional as it purported to be, was a part of the national system, and its membership depended almost exclusively on the accident of birth. Proselytes, indeed, formed an exception--they came in of their own choice--but they were numerically not important and did not affect the general character of the cult.[2039] The Jews came as near the ideal of a voluntary religious association as was then possible under the hampering conditions of a racial organization and peculiar national customs. Their genius for the organization of public religion appears in the fact that the form of communal worship devised by them was adopted by Christianity and Islam, and in its general outline still exists in the Christian and Moslem worlds.

+1109+. _Zoroastrianism_ resembled Judaism in its later practical monotheism and its elaborate ritual, but was more isolated and less advanced in the formation of assemblies for voluntary worship. Its pre-Sassanian period produced no church, only a national cult, which was adopted by the Parthians and others in debased form, but otherwise did not attract outsiders. On a sect that arose in Persia in Sassanian times see below.[2040]

+1110+. _Christianity._ The teaching of Jesus was directed toward a purification of the existing cult, the elimination of mechanical views, and the emphasizing of spiritual and ethical ideals.[2041] There is no indication that he purposed founding a separate organization.[2042] But, after his death, his disciples were drawn together by their relation to him, particularly when the new congregation became predominantly Græco-Roman. For its administration the synagogue was the model--from it were taken the titles and functions of some of its officers and the method of conducting public service.[2043] But the new ekklesia, the church, followed its own lines and speedily created a new cult. Its fundamental conception was salvation in the future through Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. In the beginning it was thoroughly individualistic and voluntary. It had no connection with the State, was not a _religio licita_; its adherents joined it solely out of preference for its doctrines; its activity was wholly religious. But this ideal constitution of a church was not long maintained. The introduction of infant baptism (toward the end of the second century) and the adoption of Christianity as the religion of the State by Constantine went far to make membership in the Church an accident of birth or of political position; in this regard Imperial and Medieval Christianity did not differ from the old national religions--it was a religion but not a church. At the present day in the greater part of Christendom one's ecclesiastical position is inherited precisely as the ancient clansman inherited his special cult.[2044] The word "church" has largely lost its early signification of voluntary religious association, and has come to mean any Christian organization, or, by further extension, any religious body.

+1111+. The secularization of the Church, the failure to discriminate between its function and that of the State, is an inheritance from Roman Imperialism, which in its turn was derived from the primitive clan constitution of society in which the individual had no standing apart from the community. From the Roman Empire it passed to Medieval Europe, and it has survived in the Christian world by force of inertia. It is, however, not universal in Christendom (there are religious bodies in which individual freedom of choice is fully recognized), and in some cases where it exists formally or theoretically it is practically ignored. Notwithstanding departures from the ideal the services of the Church often represent voluntary worship; such worship, however, has been the rule in all religions from the earliest times to the present day and does not in itself distinguish Christianity from any other religion.

+1112+. The word "church" meant at first a local Christian congregation, but was enlarged so as to designate the whole body of Christians. In this body various tendencies of thought showed themselves from time to time, and new organizations were formed that constituted new churches in the sense that they had their own theological dogmas, ritual, and conditions of membership. Most of them had brief careers and offer nothing of interest for the history of the development of the church-idea. Gnosticism was a serious and noteworthy attempt to bridge over the gap between a good supreme God and an evil world, and was in form a church, but its philosophical and mystical sides had so much that was fanciful and grotesque or ethically dangerous that it did not commend itself to the mass, and soon ceased to exist as a separate organization, though its echoes long continued to be heard in certain Christian groups.[2045]

+1113+. _Cults of Mithra and Isis._ The Mithraic communities were wholly voluntary associations, without distinctions of birth or social position, were recognized by the State, but received no pecuniary aid from it and had no official connection with it. Perhaps this independence helped to nourish the enthusiasm that carried Mithraism from one end of the Roman Empire to the other; a church appears to flourish most on the religious side when it confines itself to religion. A more important fact was that Mithraism was a religion of redemption. It does not appear that there was any general organization of the Mithraic associations; each of these was local, probably small, had its own set of officers, and managed its own affairs.[2046] It was thus free from some of the perils that beset Christianity. It is not improbable that some of its liturgical forms were adopted by the Christian Church, but it seems itself not to have borrowed from the latter. Its weakness was its semibarbarous ritual and its polytheism; it yielded of necessity to the simpler and loftier forms of Christianity.

+1114+. The cult of Isis, in spite of its ethically high character and its impressive ceremonies of initiation (as described by Apuleius[2047]), did not give rise to associations like the Mithraic. It belongs to the mysteries, but had not their organization of meetings and ritual, had no brotherhoods (except those whose bond of union was devotion to this cult) and no general organization embracing the Empire. The reason for its failure in this regard appears to lie in its lack of definiteness in certain important points: it was in a sense monotheistic, since the goddess was called the supreme controller of the world of external nature and of men, but its monotheism was clouded by its connection with the old national cults and by current theological speculations--for Apuleius, it would seem, Isis was rather a name for a vague Power in nature than for a well-defined divine person, and particularly it offered no clear picture of the future and no clear hope of moral redemption, two things that were then necessary to the success of any system that aspired to supplant the popular faiths.[2048] Such lacks as these appear in the cult of Sarapis also, which never developed the characteristics of a church.

+1115+. _Manichæism._ Of the religious movements that sprang from the contact of Christianity with the East Manichæism was the most important on account of its great vitality. It possessed all the elements of a church, voluntary membership, independence of the State (it was always persecuted by the State), and the claim to a divine revelation of salvation. Like Buddhism, Jainism, and Christianity, it owed its origin to a single founder. Its plan of organization and its ethical standards were good. Like Mithraism its basis was Persian (its rise was synchronous with the Sassanian revival of Mazdaism), but the two went different ways: the former laid stress on mystical ceremonies, the latter on moral and theological conceptions. The vogue that Manichæism enjoyed was due, apparently, to its eclectic character: adopting the Persian dualism, it modified and expounded this by a Gnostic doctrine of æons, which was intended to harmonize the goodness of God and the existence of evil, and it added the figure of the highest æon, Christ, the savior of men. On the other hand, its involved and fantastic machinery led to its downfall.

+1116+. Two theocratic bodies that failed to reach the full church form are _Islam_ and the _Peruvian cult of the sun_. The Islamic constitution is based on a sacred book, its theology and its form of public worship are borrowed from Christianity and Judaism, its private worship is individualistic, and it offers paradise to the faithful. But Islam is in essence a State religion rather than a church. Its populations belong to it by descent; its head is the Calif (now the Sultan of Turkey). Its diffusion, though due in certain cases to the superiority of its ideas and the simplicity of its customs,[2049] has yet come largely (as in Egypt, Syria and Palestine, Persia, and North Africa) from social and political pressure--in some cases it has been adopted by whole nations at a blow; Mohammed forced all the people of Arabia to accept it. Individual choice recedes into the background, except (as in Judaism) in the case of proselytes. Its conception of sin and salvation are largely external. It bears a great resemblance to the Judaism of the Hasmonean dynasty, a national cult with a priest-sovereign at its head.

Within Islam there have arisen organizations that imitate the form of a church in certain respects; such were the Morabits (Almoravides) and the Mohads (Almohades),[2050] whose bond of union was in part theological, and such are the great fraternities in Africa and Asia, which are devoted, among other things, to religious work, and have elaborate organizations and ceremonies of reception.[2051] But these are all largely political and military. The Ismalic movement (from ca. 900 A.D. on), the central doctrine of which was the incarnation of God in certain men and finally in the Mahdi, was not Islamic and not Semitic; with a nominal acceptance of the Koran, it was in fact a mixture of Persian and Buddhistic ideas; from it came the Fatimide califate of Egypt, and from this (ca. 1000 A.D.) the Druse sect, which began as a church, but has become merely a local religion.[2052]

+1117+. It was in Peru that the most thoroughgoing identification of religion with the State was effected.[2053] In the old national religions the individual followed the custom of his country; in Peru the State, in the person of the Inca, determined every person's religious position and duties. If Islam resembles Maccabean Judaism, the Peruvian organization resembled some forms of Medieval Christianity. The Inca was a Pope, only with more power than the Christian Pope, since he acted on every individual. The general ethical standard was good, in spite of some survivals of savagery, but there was a complete negation of individual freedom in religion.[2054]

+1118+. _Modern Hindu sects._ The vast multiplication of sects in India is an indication of activity of religious thought;[2055] the movement has been in general toward the formation of voluntary associations, though with many variations and modifications. The reform sects, while they may be considered as developments out of the old systems, Vedic, Çivaic, Vishnuic (Krishnaic), have been affected by foreign influence, Mohammedan or Christian. Of the organizations influenced by Islam (followers of Kabir and Dadu) several have produced societies that for a time had the form of a church, with voluntary membership and a plan of salvation; but it has been hard for them to overcome the national tendencies to idolatry and to deification of founder or teacher. The Sikhs, beginning (in the fifteenth century) as a purely religious body, became, by the eighteenth century, a powerful political and military organization. Along with theological reform these sects have been constantly in danger of reverting more or less closely to the old national type, and their church form has been only feebly effective.

+1119+. The case has been different with the movements induced by contact with Christian forms of belief. The organizations founded or carried on by Rammohun Roy[2056] (early part of the eighteenth century) and later by Chunder Sen,[2057] Mozoomdar, and others are churches in the full sense of the word, and, notwithstanding occasional individual lapses into old Hindu ideas, have so far maintained this character; but they are not wholly native creations, and it remains to be seen what their outcome will be.[2058]

+1120+. _Babism and Bahaism_,[2059] the transformation of Babism effected by Baháu'llah, is a church in all essential points, though its organization consists merely in the devotion of its adherents to the teaching and the person of its founder; it has no clergy, no religious ceremonial, no public prayers, no connection with any civil government, but its dogma is well-defined and it offers eternal salvation to its adherents. Its chief source of inspiration is the belief that its founder was an incarnation of God, the Manifestation of God announced by his forerunner, the Bab (the "Gate" to God and truth). That its lack of official ministers and public communal religious services is no bar to its effectiveness is shown by the favor it has met with not only in Persia and other parts of Asia but also in Europe and America. Possibly its success is due in part to its eclectic character and its claim to universality (it seeks to embrace and unite Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity) as well as to the simplicity of its dogma (theism and immortality) and its admirable humanitarian spirit.[2060]

MONACHISM

+1121+. An effective outgrowth from the church is the monastic system, which is an _ecclesia in ecclesia_, emphasizing and extending certain features of the parent organization.[2061] It sprang from a dualistic conception, the assumption of a relation of incompatibility or antagonism between God and the world--a feeling whose germ appears in savage life (in taboos and other forms). It has assumed definite shape only in the higher religions and not in all of these--it is foreign to Semitic, Persian, Chinese, and Greek[2062] peoples. Austerity there has been and abstention from certain things but not with the aim of ministering to spiritual life.[2063]

+1122+. The birthplace of monachism proper was India. In the Brahmanic scheme the highest sanctity and the most brilliant prospects attached to the man who forsook the life of men and devoted himself to solitary meditation in the forest.[2064] The seclusion was individual--the man was an eremite. The organization into communities was made by Buddha[2065] and, apparently contemporaneously, by Mahavira, the founder of Jainism. It is this organization that has made the institution a power in religious history. Buddha's associations were open to all, without distinction of social position or sex. From India monachism passed into all the lands that were occupied by Buddhism.

+1123+. In Egypt under the Ptolemies there arose a sort of monastic life: after the cult of Sarapis was established men wishing to devote themselves to religious meditation would go to the Sarapeum and shut themselves up in cells.[2066] It is, however, not clear that there was an organization or any sort of communal life in connection with these gatherings. There is no evidence of foreign influence beyond a possible suggestion from the fact that Sarapis was a foreign deity and his cult may have imported foreign ideas into Egypt; but he was completely domiciled in his new abode, was identified by the Greeks with their Zeus and by the Egyptians (by a popular etymology) with their Osir-Apis; there was nothing foreign in his cult, and the claim, sometimes made, for Buddhistic influence (through embassies sent by Asoka to Greek kings) has no definite historical foundation.[2067] Possibly Greek (Pythagorean) influence is to be recognized,[2068] but it cannot be considered strange that a practice of this sort should arise independently in Egypt at a time when a practical monolatry with a good ethical conception of the deity might dispose some men to solitary reflection.

+1124+. The Egyptian Therapeutae, the "Servants" of God, described by Philo,[2069] resemble these Sarapis monks in certain respects, particularly in their habit of contemplation. Their kernel, however, was Jewish--they had the Jewish Scriptures and observed the seventh day of the week. On this Jewish substratum was imposed Greek thought; they adopted the Alexandrian allegorizing interpretation of the Scriptures, and Philo includes them in that group of persons who found it desirable to withdraw from the common life of men in order to cultivate philosophical and ethical thought. Six days they lived each by himself; on the seventh day they came together for a religious service. Women as well as men were admitted into the association, but the place of general meeting had two divisions, one for men, the other for women. The date of the rise of the sect is uncertain, but it must probably be put in the Ptolemaic period. Their monastic organization must be referred to some current practice, Greek or Egyptian, or to a blending of various lines; the details of their history are too sparse to build on with definiteness.

+1125+. The similar sect of the Essenes, or Essaei, which was confined to Palestine, is better known.[2070] The Jewish features in their system are: acceptance of the Jewish Scriptures, observance of the Sabbath, recognition of the temple by sending unbloody offerings, regard for ceremonial purity. Non-Jewish features are: rejection of marriage, trade and (according to Philo) animal sacrifice, turning to the sun in prayer (or, according to Josephus, praying to the sun), the teaching that the soul, when set free from the body, passes, if good, to a delightful region across the ocean, and, if bad, to a dark den of ceaseless punishment. Foreign influence in these latter practices and beliefs is obvious, but its precise source is uncertain. There are suggestions of Pythagoreanism and possibly of Zoroastrianism;[2071] it can only be said that various ideas were in the air of Palestine, and that the Essene formulation was effected under conditions and at a time not known to us.[2072] The monastic constitution was clearly of foreign (non-Jewish) origin. Essenism seems not to have affected the Jewish religious ideas of the time. Jesus, though he may have taken from it the prohibition of swearing and possibly one or two other points, was in the main and on all important points (except ethical teaching, which was largely common property) the reverse of what Essenism stood for.

+1126+. Christian monachism, which appeared first in eremitic form (second century) and later in organized communal form, may have been an independent creation of Christian piety; but it is also possible that it was suggested by the traditions of its birthplace, Egypt;[2073] definite data on this point are lacking. Whatever its origin, it speedily overran the Christian world, in which it has maintained itself up to the present day.[2074]

+1127+. Monachism has rendered valuable aid to Buddhism and Christianity by training men and women, laity and clergy, who were devoted to the forms of religion represented by these organizations. It has done a higher service by establishing communities that have often been beacon lights, representing, particularly in times of popular ignorance, ideals of conduct. Such communities have often been homes of beneficence and learning. They have, on the other hand, injured religion by severing it from ordinary life. By assuming that the secluded life was holier than that of the world they have tended to put a stigma of unholiness on the latter. Buddhism taught that only the monk could attain the highest sanctity and receive the highest reward, and such has generally been the teaching in those forms of Christianity in which monachism exists. Monasteries and convents, further, have in many cases become rich in this world's goods--a favorite form of devotion has been to build and endow or aid such communities (often with the belief that this atoned for sin); with wealth has come worldlymindedness and corruption of morals. Numerous examples of such decadence occur in Buddhistic and Christian history. There are, however, many examples of holy monastic living. It is true in general of these institutions, as of all others, that when moral supervision of them is exercised by society the possibilities of moral decline are greatly diminished; in an enlightened age they may be assumed to be generally exemplary. Their specifically useful rôle in the development of religion, as refuges in times of turbulence and centers of charity and thought, belongs to an imperfectly organized form of society; with the growth of enlightenment they tend to disappear.

SACRED BOOKS

+1128+. All churches and all bodies approaching nearly the church-form have writings that embody their beliefs and are regarded as sacred. Such sacred Scriptures necessarily grow up with the organizations to which they belong, since these latter originate in literary periods and claim divine authorship. Great religious communities naturally produce a large number of such books, and at some time it becomes necessary (from the growth of heresies or rivals) to sift the whole mass and decide which works are to be considered to have permanent divine authority; the process of sifting is performed in each case by its community under the guidance of leading men, and the result is a canon of sacred Scriptures. Such canons are found in Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam, and in minor bodies like the Essenes, Mormons, and others, but not among the Chinese, Greeks, and Romans; Brahmanism occupies a middle ground--it regards the Veda and the accessory books as entitled to great reverence, but has never drawn the line between sacred and nonsacred writings so sharply as has been done in the group named above.

+1129+. While the general method of fixing the canons has been the same everywhere, the details of the process have differed in different lands. In India the canon of Southern Buddhism (acknowledged formerly in India and now in Ceylon, Burma, and Siam) was settled in a series of councils coming down to the middle of the third century B.C. or later (several centuries after the death of Buddha), the object being to define the faith against heresies; probably the reports of the Master's discourses (he left no writings) were examined, and those declared authentic were brought together, but the date of the final settlement of the canon is not certain, and the sacred books were not reduced to writing till the first century B.C. The canon of Northern Buddhism (accepted in Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, China, Japan) is less definite and was fixed later.[2075]

+1130+. The development of the Jewish canon extended over a long period, and its history in outline is well known. While the discourses of the prophets were regarded with respect as giving divine revelations, there is no record of the recognition of an authoritative book before the fifth century B.C., when a sacred law was proclaimed by Nehemiah and Ezra.[2076] Even then there seems to have been no definite collection of writings. The Law was the national religious constitution, and in process of time prophetic books and others came to be regarded with reverence. The translator of Ben-Sira (Ecclesiasticus) into Greek (132 B.C.) mentions three groups of national books (the law, the prophets, and "other writings"), but does not speak of them as divinely inspired. But the intimate contact with the Greek world, and especially the Maccabean struggle, deepened the Palestinian Jewish reverence for the national literature. A process of sifting and defining, at first unofficial, began, and this work naturally passed, with the growth of legal learning, into the hands of leading doctors of law. Early in the first century of our era public opinion in Palestine had taken shape; the standard established was a local national one--books illustrating the national history and teachings, and written in Hebrew, were accepted (so, for example, the book of Esther, which is nonreligious but national), others (as the Wisdom of Solomon) were rejected. For various reasons certain books (Ezekiel, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs) remained doubtful. After the destruction of Jerusalem the increasing literary feeling, the establishment of rabbinical schools, and the necessity of defining the Jewish position against growing Christianity and other heresies led to definite action[2077]--in the Synod of Jamnia (about 100 A.D.) the Palestinian canon, after hot debates, was finally settled in the form in which the Hebrew Old Testament now appears. Alexandrian Judaism had a different standard and accepted, in addition to the Palestinian collection, a group of books (the Apocrypha) that the Palestinians rejected. Certain other books (as the various Enoch apocalypses) were not accepted by either Jewish body, though they were highly esteemed. Both canons were slow growths of national feeling--books were chosen that accorded with prevailing ideas; but it is now impossible to recover all the critical views that determined the results.[2078]

+1131+. Young Christianity, at first a Jewish body, naturally adopted the Jewish canons, but in the course of a century produced a considerable normative literature of its own. The Christian canon was settled much in the same way as the Jewish. There was doubt about certain books, there were differences of opinion in different quarters, the growth of heresies called for the establishment of a definite standard, and a final decision was reached in the West and announced toward the end of the fifth century by Pope Gelasius; in the East the action was less definite, but the conclusion was about the same. The books of the Alexandrian canon that were rejected by the Palestinians were largely used by early Christian writers, by whom some of them are constantly cited as sacred Scripture, for they were found in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint), which was the Old Testament text used by Christians. So great was their popularity that Jerome was led, against his judgment, to include them in his translation (the Latin Vulgate), and by the Council of Trent (1546) they were indorsed as deuterocanonical, and are still so regarded in the Roman Church. In the Greek Church they were accepted as canonical in the beginning and up to the early part of the nineteenth century, but are now, it would seem, looked on only as useful for the instruction of catechumens.[2079] By Protestants their canonical authority is generally denied, though up to the early part of the nineteenth century they were commonly printed in editions of the Bible; the Articles of the Church of England characterize them as instructive but not of authority for doctrine, and lessons from them now appear in the Lectionary of the Church.[2080]

+1132+. The history of the collection of the Zoroastrian sacred books is involved in obscurity. A late tradition was that many such writings were destroyed by Alexander. This points to a belief that the existing writings were later than the fall of the old Persian empire. When a beginning was made of committing Zoroastrian material to writing is uncertain. In the first century of our era Pliny had heard of verses ascribed to Zoroaster,[2081] and, as Mazdean books were in existence at the rise of the Sassanian dynasty, the probability seems to be that the reduction to writing had then been going on for a considerable time--how long it is impossible to say. The material grew with the development of the people and was ascribed to Zoroaster[2082] (as the Jews ascribed their legal material to Moses). An official collection of sacred writings was made in the fourth century of our era--the exact extent of this collection and the principle that governed its formation are not clear. It may be surmised that the appearance of strange teachings, such as that of Mani, and the spread of Christianity eastward, forced on the leaders the task of defining the orthodox faith.[2083] In making their collection they would naturally take only such writings as were in accord with the spirit of the religion of their time. Thus they established (in the fourth century) a body of sacred writings; it does not follow that no additions were later made to the canon--how far it is represented in the present Avesta it may be difficult to say.

+1133+. The history of the Islamic canon is simple. The Koran enjoys the distinction of being the only sacred canon produced by one man. There never was any question of its sacredness, and there has been hardly any question of its content. Mohammed's discourses were taken down by his followers in his lifetime, were put into shape just after his death, the collection was revised a few years later (under the Calif Othman), has since been universally accepted in the Moslem world as the authoritative divinely given standard of religious truth, and there is no reason to doubt that it contains substantially all the teaching of the Prophet and only his teaching. The scribe Zayd, who acted as editor, may have altered or inserted a word here and there, but he would not have dared to change the thought. The traditions of extra-Koranic sayings ascribed to Mohammed (the _hadith_), so far as they may be supposed to be genuine utterances of his (most of them are spurious), do not add anything to his doctrine.[2084]

+1134+. As to the influence of sacred books on religion, it is obvious, in the first place, that they are always formulations of the ideas of the places and times in which they originate, and that they vary in tone and in importance accordingly. It is true, however, that the canonical collections of the great religions, having arisen in enlightened circles, all have, along with local (social, mythological, eschatological) features, generally high ethical and spiritually religious standards. For this reason they have always been, as religious and ethical guides and sources of inspiration, important factors in the development of civilization as well as in the life of the churches. Their teachings, generally representing the ideas of gifted men formulated under the pressure of great religious enthusiasm, have perpetuated high standards, holding them up in times of decadence and corruption and clouded moral vision.

+1135+. A specially noteworthy point in their influence is their rôle of household monitors and comforters. As religious manuals, invested with divine authority, they have found their way into families and other small and intimate circles, have been children's textbooks and parents' guides, and thus have entered in an extraordinary way into individual life. They have reached wider circles through expositions and discourses held in connection with stated religious services. They have been used as textbooks in schools, and in general have been the most widely read books in the world. They have thus been unifying forces, each in its special community.

Their influence, further, has not been confined to purely religious life. Being regarded as containing the final truth, they have been objects of study and occasions of the development of learning. The necessity of explaining their use of words and grammatical constructions, their historical and geographical statements and views, their pictures and theories of social life, their psychology and philosophy, their theistic and eschatological ideas, have led to investigations of all these subjects. Early Moslem science sprang from the study of the Koran, and the later Moslem discussions of free-will, immortality and other points were called forth by Koranic statements. The philosophical writings of Maimonides, produced under Greek influence (through Moslem translations of Aristotle), were directed to the elucidation of Old Testament ideas. The contributions of modern Christians, Jews, Moslems, and Parsis to knowledge, sacred books being the occasions, are numerous and important.