Chapter XII: The Ten Religions and Christianity (3)

[133] So Mr. Emerson, in one of those observations which give us a system of philosophy in a sentence, says, "The soul knows no persons." Perhaps he should have said, "The Spirit."

[134] Islam is, in this sense, a moral religion, its root consisting in obedience to Allah and his prophet. Sufism, a Mohammedan mysticism, is a heresy.

[135] Vendidad, Farg. I. 3. "Therefore Angra-Mainyus, the death-dealing, created a mighty serpent and snow." The _serpent_ entering into the Iranic Eden is one of the curious coincidences of the Iranic and Hebrew traditions.

[136] Lyell, Principles of Geology (eighth edition), p. 77.

[137] Idem., p. 83. A similar change from a temperate climate to extreme cold has taken place in Greenland within five or six centuries.

[138] The Daêvas, or evil spirits of the Zend books, are the same as the Dêvas, or Gods of the Sanskrit religion.

[139] The Patets are formularies of confession. They are written in Pârsî, with occasional passages inserted in Zend.

[140] Zoroast. Stud. 1863.

[141] Vendidad, Fargard XIX. 33, 44, 55.

[142] The Albordj of the Zend books is doubtless the modern range of the Elbrooz. This mighty chain comes from the Caucasus into the northern frontier of Persia. See a description of this region in "Histoire des Perses, par le Comte de Gobineau. Paris, 1869."

[143] See Burnouf, Comment, sur le Yaçna, p. 528. Flotard, La Religion primitive des Indo-Européens. 1864.

[144] Vendidad, Fargard X. 17.

[145] See Spiegel's note to the tenth Fargard of the Vendidad.

[146] See Windischmann, "Ueber den Soma-Cultus der Arien."

[147] Perhaps one of the most widely diffused appellations is that of the divine being. We can trace this very word _divine_ back to the ancient root _Div_, meaning to shine. From this is derived the Sanskrit Devas, the Zend Daêva. the Latin Deus, the German Zio, the Greek Zeus, and also Jupiter (from Djaus-piter). See Spiegel, Zend Avesta, Einleitung, Cap. I.

[148] Spiegel, Vend. Farg. XIX. note.

[149] Vendidad, Farg. XVIII. 110. Farvardin-Yasht, XVI.

[150] Article in Revue des Deux Mondes, April, 1865.

[151] Article in Revue des Deux Mondes, April, 1865.

[152] Other Egyptologists would not agree to this antiquity.

[153] Revue des Deux Mondes, September 1, 1887.

[154] Revue des Deux Mondes, p. 195.

[155] Yet this very organic religion, "incorporate in blood and frame," was a preparation for Christianity; and Dr. Brugsch (Aus dem Orient, p. 73) remarks, that "exactly in Egypt did Christianity find most martyrs; and it is no accident, but a part of the Divine plan, that in the very region where the rock-cut temples and tombs are covered with memorials of the ancient gods and kings, there, by their side, other numerous rock-cut inscriptions tell of a yet more profound faith and devotion born of Christianity."

[156] It is yet marked in the almanacs as Candlemas Day, or the Purification of the Virgin Mary.

[157] De Rougé, Revue Archéologique, 1853.

[158] Ampère, Revue Arch. 1849, quoted by Döllinger.

[159] These designations are the Greek form of the official titles.

[160] I do not know if it has been noticed that the principle of Swedenborg's. heaven was anticipated by Milton (Paradise Lost, V. 573),--

"What surmounts the reach
Of human sense I shall delineate so
By likening spiritual to corporeal forms,
As may express them best; _though what if Earth
Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein.
Each to the other like, more than on earth is thought_."

[161] Bunsen, Egypt's Place, Vol. V. p. 129, _note_.

[162] This Museum also contains three large mummies of the sacred bull of Apis, a gold ring of Suphis, a gold necklace with the name of Menes, and many other remarkable antiquities.

[163] Book of Job, Chap. xxix.

[164] Brugsch, as above.

[165] Lenormant, Ancient History of the East, I. 234, in the English translation.

[166] Translated by De Rougé. See Revue Contemporaine, August, 1856.

[167] Egypt 3300 Years ago. By Lanoye.

[168] Beside the monuments and the papyri, we have as sources of information the remains of the Egyptian historians Manetho and Eratosthenes; the Greek accounts of Egypt by Herodotus, Plato, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, Jamblichus; and the modern researches of Heeren, Champollion, Rossalini, Young, Wilkinson. The more recent writers to be consulted are as follows:--

Bunsen's "Ægypten's Stelle in der Weltgeschichte. Hamburg." (First volume printed in 1845.) This great work was translated by C. C. Cottrel in five 8vo volumes, the last published in 1867, after the death of both author and translator. The fifth volume of the translation contains a full translation of the "Book of the Dead," by the learned Samuel Birch of the British Museum.

Essays in the Revue Archéologique and other learned periodicals, by the Vicomte de Rougé, Professor of Egyptian Philology at Paris. Works by M. Chabas, M. Mariette, De Brugsch, "Aus dem Orient," etc., Samuel Sharpe, A. Maury, Lepsius, and others.

[169] The Egyptian doctrine of transmigration differed from that of the Hindoos in this respect, that no idea of retribution seems to be connected with it. According to Herodotus (II. 123), the soul must pass through all animals, fishes, insects, and birds; in short, must complete the whole circuit of animated existence, before it again enters the body of a man; "and this circuit of the soul," he adds, "is performed in three thousand years." According to him, it does not begin "until the body decays." This may give us one explanation of the system of embalming; for if the circuit of transmigration is limited to three thousand years, and the soul cannot leave the body till it decays (the words of Herodotus are, "the body decaying," τοῦ σώματος δὲ καταφθίνοντος), then if embalming delays decay for one thousand years, so much is taken off from the journey through animals. That the soul was believed to be kept with the body as long as it was undecayed is also expressly stated by Servius (Comm. on the Æneid of Virgil): "The learned Egyptians preserve the corpse from decay in tombs in order that its soul shall remain with it, and not quickly pass into other bodies."

Hence, too, the extraordinary pains taken in ornamenting the tombs, as the permanent homes of the dead during a long period. Diodorus says that they ornamented the tombs as the enduring residences of mankind.

Transmigration in India was retribution, but in Egypt it seems to have been a condition of progress. It was going back into the lower organizations, to gather up all their varied life, to add to our own. So Tennyson suggests,--

"If, through lower lives I came,
Though all experience past became
Consolidate in mind and frame," etc.

Beside the reason for embalming given above, there may have been the motive arising from the respect for bodily organization, so deeply rooted in the Egyptian mind.

[170] Animals and plants, more than anything else, and animals more than plants, are the types of variety; they embody that great law of differentiation, one of the main laws of the universe, the law which is opposed to that of unity, the law of centrifugal force, expressed in our humble proverb, "It takes all sorts of people to make a world."

[171] Maury, "Revue des Deux Mondes, 1867." "Man's Origin and Destiny, J. P. Lesley, 1868." "Recherches sur les Monumens, etc., par M. de Rougé, 1866."

[172] Article "Ægypten," in Schenkel's Bibel-Lexicon, 1869. Duncker, "Geschichte des Alterthums, Dritte Auflage, 1863."

[173] See Duncker, as above.

[174] Les Pasteurs en Egypt, par F. Chabas. Amsterdam, 1868.

[175] The "hornets," Ex. xxiii. 28, and Josh. xxiv. 11, 12, are not insects, but the Hyksôs, who, driven from Egypt were overrunning Syria. See New York Nation, article on the Hyksôs, May 13, 1869.

[176] Pap. Tallier (Bunsen IV. 671) as translated by De Rougé, Goodwin, &c.: "In the days when the land of Egypt was held by the invaders, King Apapi (at Avaris) set up Sutekh for his lord; he worshipped no other god in the whole land."

[177] I follow here De Rougé, Brugsch, and Duncker, rather than Bunsen.

[178] Athenæum Français, 1856.

[179] Lesley, Man's Origin and Destiny, p. 149. Brugsch, Aus dem Orient, p. 37.

[180] A common title on the monuments for the king is Per-aa, in the dialect of Upper Egypt, Pher-ao in that of Lower Egypt, meaning "The lofty house," equivalent to the modern Turkish title, "The Sublime Porte."

[181] "Ægypten und die Bücher Mosis, von Dr. Georg Ebers. Leipzig, 1868." "Bunsen, Bibel-Werk," Erster Theil, p. 63.

[182] Æschylus calls the Egyptian sailors μελάγχιμος. Lucian calls a young Egyptian "black-skinned," but Ammianus Marcellinus says, "Ægyptii plerique subfusculi sunt et atrati."

[183] "Ægypten und die Bücher Mosis, von Ebers, Vol. I. p. 43."

[184] "Th. Benfey, Ueber das verhältniss der ägyptîschen Sprache zum semitischen Sprachstamme, 1844."

[185] Ægypten, &c.

[186] "The skulls of the mummies agree with history in proving that Egypt was peopled with a variety of tribes; and physiologists, when speaking more exactly, have divided them into three classes. The first is the Egyptian proper, whose skull is shaped like the heads of the ancient Theban statues and the modern Nubians. The second is a race of men more like the Europeans, and these mummies become more common as we approach the Delta. These are perhaps the same as the modern Copts. The third is of an Arab race, and are like the heads of the laborers in the pictures."--Sharpe, Hist. of Egypt, I. 3. He refers to Morton's Crania Ægyptiaca for his authority.

Prichard (Nat. Hist. of Man and Researches, &c.), after a full examination of the question concerning the ethnical relations of the Egyptians, and of Morton's craniological researches, concludes in favor of an Asiatic origin of the Egyptians, connected with an amalgamation with the African autocthones.

[187] "Dieser Völkerschaften gehorten der kaukasischen Race an; ihre Sprachen waren dem Semitischen am nächsten Verwandt." G. des A. I. 11.

[188] Brugsch derives it from Ki-Ptah = worshippers of Ptah.

[189] Plato, Timæus. Herod. II. 59. Gutschmidt and others deny this etymologic relation of Neith to Athênê.

[190] "There is a profound consolation hidden in the old Egyptian inscribed rocks. They show us that the weird figures, half man and half beast, which we find carved and painted there, were not the true gods of Egypt, but politico-religious masks, concealing the true godhead. These rocks teach that the real object of worship was the one undivided Being, existing from the Beginning, Creator of all things, revealing himself to the illuminated soul as the Mosaic "I AM THE I AM." It is true that this pure doctrine was taught only to the initiated, and the stones forbid it to be published. 'This is a hidden mystery; tell it to no one; let it be seen by no eye, heard by no ear: only thou and thy teacher shall possess this knowledge.'" Brugsch, Aus dem Orient, p. 69.

May not one reason for concealing this doctrine of the unity and spirituality of God have been the stress of the African mind to variety and bodily form? The priests feared to encounter this great current of sentiment in the people, and so outwardly conformed to it.

[191] So says Wilkinson.

[192] The finger on the mouth symbolizes, not silence, but childhood.

[193] The name "Mut" was also given to Neith, Pacht, and Isis.

[194] Brugsch, Aus dem Orient, p. 48.

[195] See Merivale, Conversion of the Northern Nations, p. 187, note, where he gives examples of "the inveterate lingering of Pagan usages among the nominally converted." But many of these were sanctioned by the Catholic Church.

[196] Kenrick, I. 372 (American edition).

[197] See for proofs, Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christianity, by Samuel Sharpe, 1863.

[198] Sharpe, Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christianity.

[199] Sharpe, as above.

[200] The earliest form of the Christian doctrine of the atonement was that the Devil killed Jesus in ignorance of his divine nature. The Devil was thus deceived into doing what he had no right to do, consequently he was obliged to pay for this by giving up the souls of sinners to which he had a right. The Osiris myth of the death of a god, which deeply colored the mysteries of Adonis and Eleusis, took its last form im this peculiar doctrine of atonement.

[201] Hase, Kirchengeschichte, § 87.

[202] Which continues in Christianity, in spite of Paul's plain statement, "Thou sowest _not_ the body which shall be."

[203] Serapis was not a god of the Pharaonic times, but came into Egypt under the Ptolemies. But lately M. Mariette has shown that Serapis was the dead bull Apis = Osiris-Apis. (Ὀσοραπις.)

[204] Mr. Grote (Vol. II. p. 222, American edition) refers to Strabo's remark on the great superiority of Europe over Asia and Africa in regard to the intersection and interpenetration of the land by the sea. He also quotes Cicero, who says that all Greece is in close contact to the sea, and only two or three tribes separated from it, while the Greek islands swim among the waves with their customs and institutions. He says that the ancients remarked the greater activity, mutability, and variety in the life of maritime nations.

[205] Mr. Buckle is almost the only marked exception. He nowhere recognizes the doctrine of race.

[206] The ox is, in Sanskrit _go_ or _gaûs_, in Latin _bos_, in Greek βοῦς.

The horse is, in Sanskrit _açva_, in Zend _açpa_, in Greek ἵππος, in Latin _equus_.

The sheep is, in Sanskrit _avis_, in Latin _ovis_, in Greek ὄϊs.

The goose is, in Sanskrit _hansa_, in Latin _anser_, in Old German _kans_, in Greek χήν.

House is, in Sanskrit _dama_, in Latin _domus_, in Greek δόμος. Door is, in Sanskrit _dvâr_ or _duâra_, in Greek θύρα, in Irish _doras_.

Boat or ship is, in Sanskrit _naûs_, in Latin _navis_, in Greek ναύς. Oar is, in Sanskrit _aritram_, in Greek ἐρετμός in Latin _remus_.

The Greeks distinguished themselves from the Barbarians as a grain-eating race. Barbarians ate acorns.

[207] Herod., I. 56, 57, 146; II. 51, 171; IV. 145; V. 26; VI. 137; VII. 94; VIII. 44, 73.

[208] Maury, Histoire des Religions de la Grèce Antique, Chap. I. p. 5. He mentions several Pelasgic words which seem to be identical with old Italian or Etruscan names.

[209] Müller, Dorians, Introduction, § 10.

[210] Griechische Gotterlehre, Einleitung, § 6.

[211] See Müller, Dorians.

[212] Symbolik und Mythologie, Th. III., Heft 1, chap. 5, § 1.

[213] Herod. II. 50 _et seq_.

[214] Among the ancients Ονὸμα often had this force. It denoted personality. The meaning, therefore, of Herodotus is that the Egyptians taught the Greeks to give their deities proper names, instead of common names. A proper name is the sign of personality.

[215] Maury, Religions de la Grèce, III. 263.

[216] Diod. Sic., I. 92-96.

[217] Gerhard, Griechische Mythologie, § 50, Vol. 1.

[218] Mr. Grote (History of Greece, Part I. Chap. 1.) maintains that Heaven, Night, Sleep, and Dream "are Persons, just as much as Zeus and Apollo." I confess that I can hardly understand his meaning. The first have neither personal qualities, personal life, personal history, nor personal experience; they appear only as vast abstractions, and so disappear again.

[219] Keats, in his Hyperion, is the only modern poet who has caught the spirit of the mighty Titanic deities and is able to speak

"In the large utterance of the early gods."

[220] Pictet, Les Origines Indo-Européenes.

[221] B.C. 1104. Döllinger.

[222] Die Dorier, X. 9.

[223] Ottfried Müller, Die Dorier.

[224] Varro, quoted by Maury.

[225] Dione was the female Jupiter, her name meaning simply "the goddess," identical with the Italic "Juno," formed from Διος.

[226] But not the same character. At Dodona he was invoked as the Eternal. Pausanias (X. c. 12, § 5) says that the priestesses of that shrine used this formula in their prayer: "Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus shall be! O great Zeus!" On Olympus he was not conceived as eternal, but only as immortal.

[227] Rev. G. W. Cox (A Manual of Mythology, London, 1867. The Mythology of the Aryan Nations, London, 1870) has shown much ingenuity in his efforts to trace the myths and legends of the Greeks, Germans, etc., back to some original metaphors in the old Vedic speech, most of which relate to the movements of the sun, and the phenomena of the heavens. It seems probable that he carries this too far; for why cannot later ages originate myths as well as the earlier? The analogies by which he seeks to approximate Greek, Scandinavian, and Hindoo stories are often fanciful. And the sun plays so overwhelming a part in this drama, that it reminds one of the picture in "Hermann and Dorothea," of the traveller who looked at the sun till he could see nothing else.

"Schweben sichet ihr Bild, wohin er die Blicke nur wendet."

[228] See Le Sentiment Religieux en Grèce, d'Homère à Eschyle, par Jules Girard, Paris, 1869.

[229] Iliad, Book I. v. 600.

[230] Margaret Fuller used to distinguish Apollo and Bacchus as Genius and Geniality.

[231] Isthmian, VI.

[232] Pythian, II.

[233] Nemean, VI.

[234] God in History, IV. 10.

[235] "Atrocem animam Catonis."--Horace.

[236] Antigonê, 450.

[237] Yet, even in Euripides, we meet a strain like that (Hecuba, line 800), which we may render as follows:--

"For, though perhaps we may be helpless slaves,
Yet are the gods most strong, and over them
Sits LAW supreme. The gods are under law,--
So do we judge,--and therefore we can live
While right and wrong stand separate forever."

[238] See the original in Herder's Greek text, Hellenische Blumenlese, and in Cudworth's Intellectual System.

[239] Welcker, Grieschische Gotterlehre, § 25.

[240] Ottfried Müller, History of Greek Art, §§ 115, 347.

[241] Oxford Prize Poems, Poem for 1812.

[242] Ὁ μέν θεὸς εις· κοὗτος δὲ οὐκ, ὡς τινὲς ὑπονοῦσιν, ἐκτὸς τὰς διακοσμήσεας· ἀλλ ἐν αὐτᾷ, ὅλος ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ κύκλῳ, ἐπίσκοπος πάσας γενέσες και κράσεως τῶν ὅλων.--Clem. Alex. Cohort. ad gentes.

[243] Monotheism among the Greeks, translated in the Contemporary Review, March, 1867. Victor Cousin, Fragments de Philosophie Ancienne.

[244] Quotations from Aristotle, in Rixner, I. § 75.

[245] See Rixner, Zeller, and the poem of Empedocles on the Nature of Things (περὶ φάσεως), especially the commencement of the Third Book.

[246] His famous doctrine, that "man is the measure of all things," meant that there is nothing true but that which appears to man to be so at any moment. He taught, as we should now say, the subjectivity of knowledge.

[247] Zeller, as before cited.

[248] Geschichte der Philosophie.

[249] The sentence which Plato wrote over his door, οὐδεις ἀγεωμέτρητος εἰσίτω, probably means, "Let no one enter who has not _definite_ thoughts." So Goethe declared that _outline_ went deepest into the mysteries of nature.

[250] For Proofs, see Ackermann, Cudworth, Tayler Lewis, and the New-Englander, October, 1869.

[251] Page 28, German edition.

[252] Laws, X. 893.

[253] Timæus, IX.

[254] Laws, IV. 715.

[255] Zeller, as above. Also Zeller, "Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics," translated by Reichel. London: Longmans, 1870.

[256] Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, p. 140.

[257] Mr. Fergusson thinks the peristyle not intended for an ambulatory, but is unable to assign any other satisfactory purpose.

[258] Illustrated Hand-Book of Architecture.

[259] Plutarch, quoted by Döllinger.

[260] Buckley's translation, in Bohn's Classical Library.

[261] Ibid.

[262] Republic, II. 17. See Döllinger's discussion of this subject, in "The Gentile and the Jew," English translation, Vol. I. p. 125.

[263] Advancement of Learning.

[264] Ottfried Müller has shown that some of these writings existed in the time of Euripides.

[265] Cudworth's Intellectual System, I. 403 (Am. ed.). Rixner, Handbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, Anhang, Vol. I.

[266] Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. IV. p. 71.

[267] Christianity and Greek Philosophy. By B. F. Cocker, D.D. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1870.

[268] See Neander, Church History, Vol I. p. 88, American edition.

[269] Hegel's Philosophic in Wörtlichen Ausüzgen. Berlin, 1843.

[270] Romische Geschichte, von Theodor Mommsen, Kap. XII.

[271] Janus, Picus, Faunus, Romulus, were _indigites_. Funke, Real Lexicon.

[272] See Niebuhr's Lectures on the History of Rome, for facts concerning the Siculi. The sound _el_ appears in Keltic, Gael, Welsch, Welsh, Belgians, Gauls, Galatians, etc. M. Grotefend (as quoted by Guigniaut, in his notes to Creuzer) accepts this Keltic origin of the Siculi, believing that they entered Italy from the northwest, and were gradually driven farther south till they reached Sicily. Those who expelled them were the Pelasgic races, who passed from Asia, south of the Caspian and Black Seas, through Asia Minor and Greece, preceding the Hellenic races. This accounts for the statement of Herodotus that the Pelasgi came from Lydia in Asia Minor, without our being obliged to assume that they came by sea,--a fact highly improbable. They were called Tyrrheanians, not from any city or king of Lydia, but, as M. Lepsius believes, from the Greek τύῤῥις (Latin, _turris_), a tower, because of their Cyclopean masonry. The Roman state, on this supposition, may have owed its origin to the union of the two great Aryan races, the Kelts and Pelasgi.

[273] Mythologie der Griechen und Romer, von Dr. M. W. Heffter. Leipzig, 1854.

[274] And so our word "janitor" comes to us from this very old Italian deity.

[275] Ampère, L'Histoire Romaine.

[276] This seems to us more probable than Buttman's opinion, that the temple of Janus was originally by the gate of the city, which gate was open in war and closed in peace. In practice, it would probably be different.

[277] "Quis ignorat vel dictum vel conditum a Jano Janiculum?" Solinus, II. 3, quoted by Ampère.

[278]

"Arx mea collis erat, quem cultrix nomine nostro
Nuncupat hæc ætas, Janiculumque vocat."--Fasti, I. 245.

[279] Mater Matuta ("matutina," matinal) was a Latin goddess of the dawn, who was absorbed into Juno, as often happened to the old Italian deities. Hartung says: "There was no limit to the superficial levity with which the Romans changed their worship."

[280] The Etruscans worshipped a goddess named Menerfa or Menfra.--Heffter.

[281] Heffter, p. 525. _Cloaca_ is derived from _cluere_, which means _to wash away._ Libertina or Libitina is the goddess of funerals.

[282] Republic, II. 19.

[283] Hartung.

[284] "Diis quos superiores et involutes vocant."--Seneca, Quæst. Nat., II. 41.

[285] "De re rustica"; quoted by Merivale in the Preface to The Conversion of the Roman Empire.

[286] From the same root come our words "fate," "fanatic," etc. "Fanaticum dicitur arbor fulmine icta."--Festus, 69.

[287] From "sacrare" or "consecrare." Hence sacrament and sacerdotal.

[288] The word "calendar" is itself derived from the Roman "Kalends," the first day of the month.

[289] See Merivale, The Conversion of the Roman Empire, Lect. IV. p. 74.

[290] Döllinger, Gentile and Jew. Funke, Real Lexicon. Festus.

[291] Book I. 592.

[292] IV. 593.

[293] De Divinatione, II. 12, etc.

[294] A Greek epigram, recently translated, alludes to the same fact:--

"Honey and milk are sacrifice to thee,
Kind Hermes, inexpensive deity.
But Hercules demands a lamb each day,
For keeping, so he says, the wolves away.
Imports it much, meek browsers of the sod,
Whether a wolf devour you, or a god?"

[295] Gibbon, Decline and Fall, Chap. II.

[296] Conversion of the Roman Empire, Note A.

[297] "Expedit civitates falli in religione," said Varro.

[298] "Philosophia sapientiæ amor est." "Nec philosophia sine virtute, nec sine philosophia virtus." Epist. XCI. 5.

[299] "Physica non faciunt bonos, sed doctos." Epist. CVI. 11.

[300] "Bonum est, quod ad se impetum animi secundum naturam movet." Epist. CXVIII. 9.

[301] "Universa ex materia et Deo constant." Epist. LXV. 24.

[302] "Socii Dei sumus et membra. Prope a te Deus est, tecum est, intus est. Sacer intra nos Spiritus sedet, malorum bonorumque nostrorum observator et custos. Deus ad homines venit; immo, in homines." Epist. XCII. 41, 73.

[303] Arrian's "Discourses of Epictetus," III. 24.

[304] Lectures on the History of Rome, III. 247.

[305] Monolog., X. 14.

[306] Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, p. 150.

[307] Quoted by Neander, Church History, I. 10 (Am. ed.).

[308] Gott in der Geschichte, Zweiter Theil, Seite 387.

[309] Tacitus, History, I. 3.

[310] Ibid., Annals, IV. 20.

[311] Ibid., Annals, VI. 22.

[312] Ibid., Agricola, 46.

[313] The Greek and the Jew, Vol. II. p. 147.

[314] Epistle to the Romans, xv. 13.

[315] "The legislation of Justinian, as far as it was original, in his Code, Pandects, and Institutes, was still almost exclusively Roman. It might seem that Christianity could hardly penetrate into the solid and well-compacted body of Roman law; or rather the immutable principles of justice had been so clearly discerned by the inflexible rectitude of the Roman mind, and so sagaciously applied by the wisdom of her great lawyers, that Christianity was content to acquiesce in these statutes, which she might despair, except in some respects, of rendering more equitable."--Milman, Latin Christianity, Vol. II. p. 11.

[316] See Ranke, History of the Popes, Chap. I., where he says that the Roman Empire gave its outward form to Christianity (meaning _Latin_ Christianity), and that the constitution of the hierarchy was necessarily modelled on that of the Empire.

[317] History of Latin Christianity, Vol. II. p. 100.

[318] Maine, Ancient Law, Chap. IX.

[319] "Non aliud peccare quam Deo non reddere debitum."

[320] Cæsar, Bell. Gall., I. 36, 39, 48, 50; VI. 21, 22, 23.

[321] "Præliis ambiguus, bello non victus."--Annals, II. 88.

[322] Tacitus, Germania, §§ 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9.

[323] "Illud ex libertate vitium, quod non simul, nec ut jussi, conveniunt."--Germania, § 11.

[324] Esprit des Loix.

[325] See, for the history and religion of the Teutonic and Scandinavian race, Cæsar; Tacitus; Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie; Geschichte und System der Altdeutschen Religion, von Wilhelm Muller; Northern Mythology, by Benjamin Thorpe; The Sea-Kings of Norway, by S. Laing; Manual of Scandinavian Mythology, by G. Pigott; Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, by William and Mary Hewitt; Die Edda, von Karl Simrock; Aryan Mythology, by George W. Cox; Norse Tales, by Dasent, etc. But one of the best as well as the most accessible summaries in English of this mythology is Mallet's Northern Antiquities, in Bohn's Antiquarian Library. This edition is edited by Mr. Blackwell with great judgment and learning.

[326] See Die Edda, von Karl Simrock. Stuttgart, 1855. Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, by William and Mary Howitt. London, 1852. Geschichte und System der Altdeutschen Religion, von Withelm Muller. Gottingen, 1844. Mallet's Northern Antiquities, edited by Blackwell, in Bohn's Antiquarian Library.

[327] Hitopadesá; or, Salutary Counsels of Vishnu Sarman. Translated fiom the Sanskrit by Francis Johnson. London and Hertford, 1848.

[328] See Memoir of Snorro Sturleson, in Laing's Sea-Kings of Norway.

[329] It would appear from this legend that the gods are idealizations of human will set over against the powers of nature. The battle of the gods and giants represents the struggles of the soul against the inexorable laws of nature, freedom against fate, the spirit with the flesh, mind with matter, human hope with change, disappointment, loss; "the emergency of the case with the despotism of the rule."

[330] Physical circumstances produced alterations in the mythologies, whose origin was the same. Thus, Loki, the god of fire, belongs to the Æsir, because fire is hostile to frost, but represents the treacherous and evil subterranean fires, which in Iceland destroyed with lava, sand, and boiling water more than was injured by cold.

[331] Northern Mythology, by Benjamin Thorpe.

[332] Gibbon, Chap. LVI.

[333] Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. Neander, Church History, Vol. II. Appendix.

[334] See, for the conversion of the German races, Gibbon; Guizot, History of Civilization; Merivale, Conversion of the German Nations; Milman, Latin Christianity; Neander, History of the Christian Church; Hegel; Lecky, History of European Morals.

[335] Latin Christianity, Book III. Chap. II.

[336] Palaztu, on the Western Sea. Rawlinson's Herodotus, Vol. I., p. 487.

[337] The word has been deciphered "Pulusater." Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Palestine.

[338] Ibid.

[339] Palestine, and the Sinaitic Peninsula. By Carl Ritter. Translated by William L. Gage. New York. 1866.

[340] Ritter's Palestine, Vol. II. p. 315.

[341] Lynch makes it thirteen hundred feet below the surface of the Mediterranean. See Ritter.

[342] History of Israel, translated by Russell Martineau, Vol. I. p. 231.

[343] New American Cyclopædia, art. Semitic Race.

[344] Quoted by Le Normant, Manual of Ancient History of the East, Vol. I. p. 71.

[345] Remarks on the Phoenician Inscription of Sidon, by Professor William W. Turner, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. VII. No. 1.

[346] Poenulus, Act V. Sc. 1.

[347] See his Essay on the People of Israel, in Studies of Religious History and Criticism, translated by O. B. Frothingham.

[348] Except the proselytes, who are adopted children.

[349] History of the Jewish Church, Lect. I.

[350] See, for these marvellous stories, Weil, Legends of the Mussulmans.

[351] See my sermon on "Melchisedek and his Moral," in "The Hour that Cometh," second edition.

[352] Strabo, who probably wrote in the reign of Tiberius, thus describes Moses:--

"Moses, an Egyptian priest, who possessed a considerable tract of Lower
Egypt, unable any longer to bear with what existed there, departed
thence to Syria, and with him went out many who honored the Divine
Being. For Moses taught that the Egyptians were not right in likening
the nature of God to beasts and cattle, nor yet the Africans or even
the Greeks, in fashioning their gods in the form of men. He held that
this only was God,--that which encompasses all of us, earth and sea,
that which we call heaven, the order of the world, and the nature of
things. Of this, who that had any sense would venture to invent an
image like to anything which exists among ourselves? Far better to
abandon all statuary and sculpture, all setting apart of sacred
precincts and shrines, and to pay reverence without any image whatever.
The course prescribed was that those who have the gift of divination
for themselves or others should compose themselves to sleep within the
Temple, and those who live temperately and justly mjiy expect to
receive lome good gift from God."

[353] "Esteeming the reproach of the Christ" (that is, of the anointed, or, the anointed people) "greater riches than the treasures of Egypt."

[354] See this well explained in The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation, by James B. Walker.

[355] "'Behold, when I shall come to the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THE I AM..... Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you!'

"It has been observed that the great epochs of the history of the Chosen People are marked by the several names, by which in each the Divine Nature is indicated. In the patriarchal age we have already seen that the oldest Hebrew form by which the most general idea of Divinity is expressed is 'El-Elohim,' 'The Strong One,' 'The Strong Ones,' 'The Strong,' 'Beth-El,' 'Peni-El,' remained even to the latest times memorials of this primitive mode of address and worship. But now a new name, and with it a new truth, was introduced. I am Jehovah; I appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by the name of El-Shaddai (God Almighty); but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them. The only certain use of it before the time of Moses is in the name of 'Jochebed,' borne by his own mother. It was the declaration of the simplicity, the unity, the self-existence of the Divine Nature, the exact opposite to all the multiplied forms of idolatry, human, animal, and celestial, that prevailed, as far as we know, everywhere else."--Stanley's Jewish Church.

[356] A man became a prophet only by his powers of insight and foresight; until that was certified to the people, he was no prophet to them. When it was, it was because he _convinced_ them by his manifestation of the truth; consequently any revision of the law by a prophet was a constitutional amendment by the people themselves.

[357] Hitzig, Urgeschichte und Mythologie der Philister. Tacitus probably referred to the Cretan origin of the Philistines, when he says that the Jews were originally natives of the island of Crete. See his account of Moses and his institutions, Historia, V. 1-6.

[358]

"Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,--
The canticles of love and woe."

Emerson, _The Problem_.

[359] See this point fully discussed in Ritter, Palestine (Am. ed.), Vol. I. pp. 81-151.

[360] See Weil, Biblical Legends, for the Mohammedan traditions concerning Solomon.

[361] For he perceives the idea, but not its application to himself.

[362] Neither of them perceives that he is the object of the injury.

[363] Eccles. i. 2-11.

[364] Ibid. i. 12; ii. 11.

[365] Ibid. ii. 12-20.

[366] Ibid. ii. 24.

[367] Ibid. iii. 1-11.

[368] Ibid. iii. 18-21.

[369] Ibid. iv. 1-3.

[370] Ibid. iv. 9-12.

[371] Ibid. v. 1-7, 18.

[372] Ibid. vi.

[373] Eccles. vii. 2, 10, 15, 16.

[374] Ibid. vii. 26-28.

[375] Ibid. viii. 2, 3, 4, 11, 14(ix. 2, 3), 15, 17.

[376] Ibid. xi. 1, 2, 6.

[377] Ibid. xii. 1-8, 9, 12, 13.

[378] Döllinger, The Gentile and the Jew.

[379] See article on the Talmud, Quarterly Review, 1867.

[380] An anecdote was recently related of a little girl, five years old, who was seen walking along the road, looking up into the trees. Being asked what she was seeking, she replied: "Mamma told me God was everywhere, but I cannot see him in that tree." The faith of the patriarchs was like that of this child,--not false, but unenlightened.

[381] "And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth and do so."

[382] See Greg, The Creed of Christendom, Chap. V. Also, The Spirit of the Bible, by Edward Higginson.

[383] Mohammed der Prophet, sein Leben und seine Lehre. Stuttgart, 1843.

[384] Essai sur l'histoire des Arabes, avant l'Islamisme, pendant l'époque de Mahomet, et jusqu'à la réduction de toutes les tribus sous la loi mussulmane. Paris. 3 vols. 8vo. 1847-48.

[385] Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammed, etc. Von A. Sprenger. Berlin, 1861.

[386] Sprenger, Vorrede, p. xii.

[387] The Life of Mahomet and History of Islam. By William Muir, Esq. London, 1858.

[388] A Series of Essays on the Life of Mohammed, and Subjects subsidiary thereto. By Syed Ahmed Khan Bahador. London: Trabner & Co. 1870.

[389]

"Quo fit ut omnis
Votiva pateat velut descripta tabella
Vita senis."

HORACE.

[390] The same remark will apply to Cromwell.

[391] "Mohammed once asked Hassan if he had made any poetry about Abu Bakr, and the poet repeated these lines; whereupon Mohammed laughed so heartily as to show his back teeth, and said, 'Thou hast spoken truly, O Hassan! It is just as thou hast said.'"--Muir, Vol. II. p. 256.

[392] Muir, Vol. II. p. 128.

[393] Koran, Sura 80.

[394] Mahomet and the Origin of Islam. Studies of Religious History. Translated by O. B. Frothingham.

[395] Lewes, Life of Goethe, Vol. I. p. 207.

[396] Mahomet et le Coran, par J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, Paris, 1865, p. 114.

[397] Les Religions et les Philosophies dans L'Asíe Centrale. Par M. le Comte Gobineau. Paris.

[398] A Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia. By William Gifford Palgrave. Third edition. 1866. London.

[399] Article in Revue des Deux Mondes, January 15, 1868.

[400] Studies in Religious History and Criticism. The Future of Religion in Modem Society.

[401] Ibid., "The Part of the Semitic People in the History of Civilization."

[402] Ibid. The Future of Religion in Modern Society, The Origins of Islamism.

[403] The Sympathy of Religions, an Address by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Boston, 1871.

[404] Job i. 6, 12; ii. 1; Zech. iii. 1; 1 Chron. xxi. 1.

[405] In the passages where Satan or the Devil is mentioned, the truth taught is the same, and the moral result the same, whether we interpret the phrase as meaning a personal being, or the principle of evil. In many of these passages a personal being cannot be meant: for example, John vi. 70; Matt. xvi. 23; Mark viii. 33; 1 Cor. v. 5; 2 Cor. xii. 7; 1 Thess. ii. 18; 1 Tim. i. 20; Heb. ii. 14.

[406] Exodus vi. 2.

[407] Exodus iii. 14.

End of Project Gutenberg's Ten Great Religions, by James Freeman Clarke