CHAPTER XXV: DEITIES.

§ 194. In the foregoing five chapters the genesis of deities has been so fully set forth by implication, that there seems no need for a chapter dealing directly with the subject. But though we have dealt with those classes of deities in which human personalities are greatly disguised, there remains to be dealt with the class of those deities which have arisen by simple idealization and expansion of human personalities. For while some men have, by misinterpretation of traditions, had their individualities merged in those of natural objects; the individualities of other men have survived with man-like attributes.

This last class, always co-existing with the other classes, eventually becomes predominant: probably, as before hinted, through the agency of proper names that are less and less connotative and more and more denotative. So long as men were named after objects around, they failed to survive in tradition under their human forms; and the worship of them as ancestors became the worship of the things they were nominally identified with. But when there arose such proper names as were not also borne by objects, men began to be preserved in story as men. It became possible for ghosts to retain their anthropomorphic individualities long after the deaths of contemporaries; and so an anthropomorphic pantheon resulted.

Already, in the chapter on “Ancestor-worship in General,” Edition: current; Page: [396] the initiation of this class of deities has been indicated; and now, having traced the evolution of the other classes, we must trace the evolution of this most important class.

§ 195. Like an animal, a savage fears whatever is strange in appearance or behaviour. Along with the unparalleled quality he sees, there is no knowing what other unparalleled qualities may go. He feels endangered by these capacities which transcend those he is familiar with; and behaves to the possessor of them in a way betraying his consciousness of danger. As we saw, he regards as supernatural whatever he cannot comprehend. His mental attitude is well illustrated by the two Bechuanas, who, when taken over a ship, said it “was for certain an uncreated thing—a thing come of itself, and never made by human hands.” This supposed supernaturalness of the unaccountable, holds alike of a remarkable object and of a remarkable man. If the North American Indians “do not understand anything, they immediately say it is a spirit;” and a man of special talent “is said to be a spirit.”

In various cases we find the native equivalent for god is thus indiscriminately applied to an incomprehensible object and to a person whose powers are incomprehensible. The Fijian name for a divine being, kalou, means also “anything great or marvellous.” And while, in pursuance of this conception, the Fijians declared a printing-press to be a god, they also applied the word to their European visitors: “You are a kalou,” “Your countrymen are gods.” So, too, it is with the Malagasy, who speak of their king as a god, and by whom whatever is new or useful or extraordinary is called a god. Silk, “rice, money, thunder and lightning, and earthquakes, are all called gods. Their ancestors and a deceased sovereign they designate in the same manner.” A book, too, is a god; and “velvet is called by the singular epithet—Son of God.” It is the same with the man-worshipping Todas. Respecting the meanings of Dêr, Swâmi (gods, Edition: current; Page: [397] lords), as used by them, Marshall says “there is a tendency for everything mysterious or unseen to ripen into Dêr; cattle, relics, priests, are . . . confused in the same category, until it would seem that Dêr, like Swâmi, is truly an adjective-noun of eminence.”

And now we shall no longer find it difficult to understand how the title god, is, in early stages of progress, given to men in ways which seem so monstrous. Not meaning by the title anything like what we mean, savages naturally use it for powerful persons, living and dead, of various kinds. Let us glance at the several classes of them.

§ 196. We may fitly begin with individuals whose superiorities are the least definite—individuals who are regarded by others, or by themselves, as better than the rest.

A typical case is furnished by the Todas above named. Col. Marshall, describing the palal, a holy milkman or priest among them, thus gives part of a conversation with one:—

And “the palal, being himself a God, may with propriety mention the names of his fellow-Gods, a licence which is permitted to no one else to do.” This elevation to godhood of a living member of the tribe, who has some undefined superiority, is again exemplified in Central America. Montgomery describes the Indians of Taltique as adoring such a god.

Clearly people who are so awe-struck by one of their number as to propitiate him in this way, probably under the belief that he can bring good or evil on them, may thus originate a deity. For if the ghost in general is feared, still more feared will be the ghost of a man distinguished during life. Probably there is no ancestor-worship but what shows this tendency to the evolution of a predominant ghost from a predominant human being. We have seen how, by the Amazulu, the remembered founder of the family is the one chiefly propitiated; and the implication is that this founder was in some way superior. We have seen, too, how among the Central Americans, Tamagastad and Cipattonal were the remotest ancestors known; and their doings were probably unusual enough to cause recollection of them. Here I may add, as obviously of kindred origin, the god of the Kamschadales. They “say that Kut, whom they sometimes call god and sometimes their first father, lived two years upon each river, and left the children that river on which they were born, for their proper inheritance.”

Such facts show us in the most general way, how the conception of a deity begins to diverge from the conception of a remarkable person; feared during his life and still more feared after his death. We will now pass to the special ways in which genesis of this conception is shown.

§ 197. If, at first, the superior and the divine are equivalent ideas, the chief or ruler will tend to become a deity during his life and a greater deity after his death. This inference is justified by facts.

Already I have referred (§ 112) to the Maori chief who scornfully repudiated an earthly origin, and looked forward to re-joining his ancestors, the gods. It is thus elsewhere in Polynesia. “I am a god,” said Tuikilakila, the chief of Somosomo. And of these Fijians, Williams says:—

So, too, the Tahitians give indirect praises to the king quite as exalted as any used in worship of deities. The king’s—

The like holds in Africa. In Benin the king is not only the representative of god upon earth, but god himself; and is worshipped by his subjects in both natures. “The king of Loango is respected like a deity, being called Samba and Pongo, that is, God.” The people of Msambara say—“We are all slaves of the Zumbe [king] who is our Mulungu [god].” So was it with the ancient American races. In Peru Huayna Ccapac “was so feared and obeyed, that they almost looked upon him as their god, and his image was set up in many towns:” he “was worshipped of his subjects for a god, being yet alive.” And the statement of Garcilasso that out of various chiefs and petty kings, the good were worshipped, is confirmed by Balboa. Nor do only races of inferior types deify living men. Palgrave exemplifies deification of them among the Semites as follows:—

That Aryans have had like conceptions, we are reminded by such facts as that Greek kings of the East, besides altars erected to them, had θεός stamped on their coins, and that Roman emperors were worshipped when alive. Nay, cases occur even now. When the Prince of Wales was in India, Hindu poets “were apostrophizing him as an Avatâr, or Incarnation of the Deity.”

Of course, as above said, identification of the superior with the divine, which leads to propitiation of living chiefs and kings as gods, leads to more marked propitiation of them after death. In Peru a dead king was immediately regarded as a god, and had his sacrifices, statues, etc. Of the Yucatanese, Cogolludo, saying that Ytzamat was a great king, adds:—“This king died, and they raised altars to him, and it was an oracle which gave them answers.” In Mexico the people of Cholula considered Quetzalcoatl [feathered serpent] “to be the principal god,” and they “said that Quetzalcoatl, though he was a native of Tula, came from that place to people the provinces of Tlaxcala, Huexotzingo and Cholula.” Again, “Huitzilopochtli, [‘humming-bird, left’] afterwards a supreme deity of the Aztecs . . . was originally a man, whose apotheosis may be clearly traced.” Polynesia supplies kindred illustrations. The Sandwich Islanders regarded the spirit of one of their ancient kings as a tutelar deity. In Tonga they hold “that there are other Hotooas, or gods, viz., the souls of all deceased nobles and matabooles, who have a like power of dispensing good and evil, but in an inferior degree.” And “the New Zealanders believed that several high chiefs after death became deified, and that from them all punishments in this world for evil doings were sent.” In Africa it is the same. We have seen that among the Coast Negroes, king Adólee looks for aid to the ghost of his father, and Edition: current; Page: [401] that in Dahomey the living king sacrifices victims that they may carry to the late king in the other world, reports of what has been done. That is, these dead kings have become gods. In like manner the king of Shoa prays at his father’s shrine; and “in Yoruba, Shango, the god of thunder, is regarded as a cruel and mighty king who was raised to heaven.” Asia, too, furnishes examples. Drew names a temple erected to Golab Singh the conqueror.

Evidently, then, the apotheosis of deceased rulers among ancient historic races, was but the continuation of a primitive practice. When we learn that “Ramses Hek An (a name of Ramses III) means ‘engendered by Ra [Sun], prince of An (Heliopolis),’ ” and when, in the Harris papyrus, we find this Ramses III saying of his father, “the gods appointed their son arising from their limbs to (be) prince of the whole land in their seat;” we cannot but recognize a more developed form of those conceptions which savage and semi-civilized exhibit all over the world. When in the Babylonian legend of the flood, we, on the one hand, meet with the statements—“the gods feared the tempest and sought refuge,” “the gods like dogs fixed in droves prostrate” (implying that the gods differed little from men in their powers and feelings); and when, on the other hand, we find that the conquering Izdubar, the hero of the legend, afterwards becomes a god, and that Bel, who made the deluge, was “the warrior Bel;” we cannot doubt that the early Babylonians, too, worshipped chiefs who, gods while alive, became greater gods after death.*

§ 198. Power displayed by the political head of a tribe, and in higher stages of progress by a king, is not the only Edition: current; Page: [402] kind of power. Hence, if at first the divine means simply the superior, men otherwise distinguished than by chieftainship, will be regarded as gods. Evidence justifies this conclusion. Sorcerers, and also persons who show unparalleled skill, are deified.

That medicine-men, whose predominance has no other origin than their craft, are treated as gods during their lives, we have but little direct evidence. Sometimes, where the medicine-man is also political head, he appears to be propitiated in both capacities; as in Loango, where the king is god, and where “they believe he can give rain when he has a mind. In December the people gather to beg it of him, every one bringing his present.” But we have proof that the medicine-man becomes a deity after death. Indeed, some facts raise the suspicion that his ghost is the one which first grows into predominance as a being to be feared. The Fuegians, to whom otherwise no definite religious ideas are ascribed, believe in “a great black man . . . wandering about the woods and mountains, . . . who influences the weather according to men’s conduct:” evidently a deceased weather-doctor. So, too, by the neighbouring Patagonians, wandering demons are believed to be “the souls of their wizards.” A god of the Chippewas, Manabosho, is represented as sounding his magic drum and rattles “to raise up supernatural powers to help him:” he uses in the other world those appliances which, as a sorcerer, he used in this. Again, the Cahrocs have “some conception of a great deity called Chareya, the Old Man Above: . . . he is described as wearing a close tunic, with a medicine-bag.” In Africa the Damaras furnish a definite instance. Galton says—“We passed the grave of the god Omakuru; the Damaras all threw stones on the cairn, . . . singing out, ‘Father Omakuru.’ ” “He gives and withholds rain.” The apotheosis of the medicine-man in Polynesia, is shown by the Sandwich Islanders, who have a tradition that a certain man, whom they deified after his death, obtained all their medicinal Edition: current; Page: [403] herbs from the gods. To this man the doctors address their prayers. So of the ancient Mexicans Mendieta writes—“Others said that only such men had been taken for gods who transformed themselves or . . . appeared in some other shape, and in it spoke or did something beyond human power.” And similarly in China, Taouism “deifies hermits and physicians, magicians, and seekers after the philosopher’s stone,” etc. But the best examples are furnished by our own Scandinavian kinsmen. As described in the Heimskringla,* Odin was manifestly a medicine-man. We read that “when Odin of Asaland came to the north, and the gods with him,” he “was the cleverest of all, and from him all the others learned their magic arts.” We read further that when the Vanaland people beheaded Memir, a man of great understanding, “Odin took the head, smeared it with herbs so that it should not rot, and sang incantations over it. Thereby he gave it the power that it spoke to him, and discovered to him many secrets.”

Niord of Noatun is also described as continuing the sacrifices after Odin; and the Swedes believed he “ruled over the growth of seasons.”

In these extracts there are various instructive implications. The dominant race, coming from the East, returned there at death. While living they were worshipped; as we see superior men are, and have been, elsewhere. Such among them as were accounted powerful magicians, were more especially worshipped. After death these gained the character of great gods in virtue of their repute as great medicine-men; and were propitiated for a continuance of their supernatural aid. Of course, with the mythologists these stories of the lives, deaths, and funeral rites, of reputed magicians, go for nothing. They think them products of the mythopœic tendency; and are not astonished at the correspondence between alleged fictions and the facts which existing savages show us. I suppose they are prepared similarly to dispose of the case of Æsculapius, which shows us so clearly an apotheosis of this kind. Referred to by Homer as a doctor (in early stages synonymous with medicine-man) and known at a later time as locally propitiated by a tribe the members of which counted their links of descent from him, he presently came to have songs and temples in his Edition: current; Page: [405] honour, and eventually developed into a great god worshipped throughout a wide region.

In presence of such evidence of the development of a doctor into a deity, harmonizing with that which existing savage races furnish of the derivation of deities from medicine-men, we may reasonably conclude that the stories concerning the early doings of the Scandinavian gods originated in distorted accounts of actual events—are not fictions due to the need for personalizing the powers of nature.

Between the medicine-man and the teacher of new arts, there is but a nominal distinction; for, as we have seen, the primitive man thinks that any ability beyond the ordinary is supernatural: even the blacksmith is a kind of magician to the African. Hence we may expect to find deifications of those whose superiority was shown by their greater knowledge or skill; and we find them in many places. The Brazilians “ascribe the origin of agriculture to their teacher Tupan, who seems to be identical with the founder . . . of the race, and with the Supreme Being, so far as they have any idea of such.” A Chinook tradition is that “a kind and powerful spirit called Ikánam, . . . taught them how to make canoes as well as all other implements and utensils; and he threw great rocks into the rivers and made falls, to obstruct the salmon in their ascent, so that they might be Edition: current; Page: [406] easily caught.” The Mexican god Quetzalcoatl was “a divinity who, during his residence on earth, instructed the natives in the use of metals, in agriculture, and in the arts of government.” Further, the Mexicans apotheosized Chicomecoatl as the first woman who made bread; Tzaputlatena as the inventress of the vxitl-resin; Opuchtli as the inventor of some fishing implements; Yiacatecutli as the originator of trade; and Napatecutli as the inventor of rush mats. The Central Americans, too, had their gods and goddesses Chac, Ixazalvoh, Itzamná, Ixchebelyax, who were the inventors of agriculture, of cotton-weaving, of letters, of painting. In the earliest records of historic peoples we meet with like facts. The Egyptian gods, Osiris, Ombte, Neph, and Thoth are said to have taught arts. The Babylonian god Oannes is similarly represented as having been an instructor. And it is needless to enumerate the Greek and Roman deities described as teachers of one or other new process, or inventors of this or that new appliance.

Still, then, we have the same truth under another aspect. Power exceeding previously-known powers, excites awe; and the possessor of it, feared during his life, is still more feared after his death.

§ 199. In treating of those who, within the tribe, as medicine-men, or men of unusual ability, have acquired repute leading to deification, I have unawares entered on the next class of facts—facts showing us that the immigrant member of a superior race becomes a god among an inferior race.

At the present time it occasionally happens that Europeans, such as shipwrecked sailors or escaped convicts, thrown among savage peoples, gain ascendency over them by the knowledge and skill they display; and when we remember that after the deaths of such men, their powers, exalted in legend, are sure to make their ghosts feared more than ordinary ghosts, we shall recognize another source from Edition: current; Page: [407] which deities arise. That men of low type even now class strangers of high type as gods, we have abundant proofs. It is said by the Bushmen—“Those white men are children of God; they know everything.” The East Africans exclaim to Europeans—“Truly ye are gods;” and Europeans are thus spoken of in Congo. A chief on the Niger, seeing whites for the first time, thought them “children of heaven.” When Thompson and Moffat wished to see a religious ceremony peculiar to the Bechuana women, the women said—“These are gods, let them walk in.” Even among so superior an African race as the Fulahs, some villages, says Barth, “went so far as to do me the honour . . . of identifying me with their god ‘Féte,’ who, they thought, might have come to spend a day with them” (staying to dinner, like Zeus with the Ethiopians). Other races furnish kindred instances. Some Khond women said of Campbell’s tent—“It is the house of a god.” The “Nicobarians have such a high idea of the power of Europeans, that to them they attribute the creation of their islands, and they think it depends on them to give fine weather.”* Remarking of the Fijians that “there appears to be no certain line of demarcation between gods and living men,” Erskine tells us that one of the chiefs said to Mr. Hunt—“If you die first, I shall make you my god.” Mr. Alfred Wallace, who has had extensive opportunities of studying primitive men, says of the Arru Islanders—

And then, lastly, we have the fact that an apotheosis like that which Mr. Wallace anticipates, has already occurred in a neighbouring island. The Dyaks attribute supernatural power to Rajah Brooke: he is invoked along with the other gods.

With such abundant proofs that the genesis of gods out of superior strangers is now going on, we cannot, without perversity, regard as fictions those stories found in many countries, which represent certain gods as having brought knowledge and arts from elsewhere. The Mexican god, Quetzalcoatl, who came from the west, was “a tall white man, with broad forehead, large eyes, long black hair, and great round beard,” who, having instructed them and reformed their manners, departed by the way he came. So, too, the great god of the Chibchas, Bochica, was a white man with a beard, who gave them laws and institutions, and who disappeared after having long lived at Sogamoso. In South America it is the same. Humboldt tells us that “Amalivaca, the father of the Tamanacs, that is, the creator of the human race (for every nation regards itself as the root of all other nations) arrived in a bark.” He afterwards re-embarked.

In some cases the remarkable strangers who thus become a people’s gods, are regarded as the returned ghosts of their own remarkable men. Ghosts and gods being originally undifferentiated in thought; and neither of them being always distinguishable from living persons; it happens, as was shown in § 92, that the whites are, by Australians, Polynesians, and Africans, held to be the doubles of their own dead. When we read that among the Wanikas, “Mulungu,” the word applied like the Kaffir “Uhlunga” to the Supreme God, also denotes any good or evil revenant; we see how it happens that Europeans are called indiscriminately ghosts and gods. Hence the naturalness of the fact that in the Sandwich Islands, when “Captain Cook arrived, it was supposed, and reported, that the good Rono was returned, Edition: current; Page: [409] hence the people prostrated themselves before him.” Hence, too, the idea implied by Camargo’s account of the Mexicans, that, “as soon as the Spaniards had disembarked, news came to the very smallest villages that the gods had arrived:” the belief being “that their god Quetzalcoatl had come” back with his companions. And hence, again, the reason that the Chibchas at Turmequé “showed to the Spaniards the veneration and worship they showed to the gods, making incense to them.”

Thus we find re-illustrated under other conditions, the same general truth that the primitive god is the superior man, either indigenous or foreign; propitiated during his life and still more after his death.

§ 200. From this deification of single men of higer races, there is a natural transition to the deification of conquering races, not individually but bodily. The expression “gods and men,” occurring in the traditions of various peoples, is made readily interpretable.

We assume that, as a matter of course, every tribe of savages has a word meaning a human being, applicable equally to members of their own tribe and to members of other tribes; but, as usual, we are misled by assimilating their thoughts and language to ours. Often their name for men is their tribal name. Already we have seen that in South America, among the Guaranis, the same word means man and Guarani. The North American people who call themselves Thlinkeets, have no word but this to signify human beings; and an adjacent people, the Tinneh, furnish a parallel case. Pim and Seemann tell us that—

Similarly in Africa, the native name for the Kaffir tribes is Abantu, Bantu (plural of ntu, a man); and for the Hottentot tribes the designation is Koi-koin (i. e., “men of men,” from koi, a man). In Asia it is thus with the Karens: “a few of the tribes only have distinctive names for themselves, and all, when speaking of each other, use the word for man to designate themselves.” The Kamschadales, again, “have no designation either for themselves or their country. They called themselves simply men, as considering themselves either the only inhabitants of the earth, or so far surpassing all others as to be alone worthy of this title.” Indeed, Nilsson, generalizing such facts, says that “all rude nations apply the designation ‘men’ to themselves only, all others being differently designated.”

What will happen when savages who call themselves “men” are conquered by savages otherwise called, but proved by the conquest to have that superiority which in the primitive mind is equivalent to divinity? Clearly, the names of conquering and conquered will become equivalent in their meanings to “gods and men.” In some cases, indeed, the name by which the conquerors call themselves will necessitate this. We read of the Tupis that “Tupa is their word for father, for the Supreme Being, and for thunder; it passed by an easy process from the first of these meanings to the last, and the barbarous vanity of some tribes compounded from it a name for themselves.” So that if these children of Tupa, which means “children of God,” subjugate a people whose name is equivalent to “men,” the distinction of the two as “gods and men” becomes inevitable.

With such evidence before us, what shall we think about the “gods and men” who figure in the legends of higher races? On learning from Nilsson that in Scandinavia there are distinct traces of the antagonism of aboriginal races to colonists, as early as the stone and bronze periods; and on then reading in Scandinavian traditions about Odin, Freyr, Edition: current; Page: [411] Niord, and the rest, coming from Godheim (god’s-home or land) to Menheim (men’s-home or land); ruling there and being worshipped; dying there believing that they were going back to Godheim, just as barbarous peoples everywhere believe that they return after death to fatherland; we shall conclude that these “gods and men” were simply conquering and conquered races: all mythological interpretations notwithstanding. When we find that, as given by Pausanias, a popular legend among the Greeks was that the ancient Arcadians “were guests and table-companions of the gods,” we shall not set this down as a fiction devised after the gods had been created by personalizing the powers of nature; but shall infer that the tradition had its root in those conquests of earlier races by later implied in Hesiod—conquests such as must certainly have been going on, and must certainly have left exaggerated narratives. So, too, when “the sons of god saw the daughters of men” in Hebrew story. If we recall the reprobation which has everywhere been visited on the intermarriage of a conquering caste and a subject caste—if we remember that in Greek belief it was a transgression for the race of gods to fall in love with the race of men—if we add the fact that in our own feudal times union of nobles with serfs was a crime; we shall have little difficulty in seeing how there originated the story of the fall of the angels.

Any one who, after considering this evidence, remembers that from the names and natures ascribed by existing savage peoples to Europeans, legends of “gods and men” are even now arising, will, I think, scarcely hesitate. Remaining doubt will disappear on reading the legend of the Quichés, which gives, with sufficient clearness, the story of invaders who, seizing an elevated region, and holding in terror the natives of the lower lands, became the deities of the surrounding country, and their mountain residence the local Olympus. (See Appendix A.)

§ 201. This brings us once more to the Aryan gods, as seen from another point of view. That we may judge which hypothesis best fits the facts, let us observe how the early Greeks actually conceived their gods: ignoring the question how they got their conceptions. And let us compare their pantheon with the pantheon of another race—say that of the Fijians. Any one who objects to the comparison as insulting, needs only to be reminded that cannibalism was ascribed to some of their deities by the Greeks; and that human sacrifices to Zeus were continued down to late times.

The Greek god is everywhere presented to us under the guise of a powerful man; as is the Fijian. Among the Fijians, “gods sometimes assume the human form, and are thus seen by men;” and how common was a like theophany among the Greeks, the Iliad shows us page after page. So like a man was the Greek god, that special insight, supernaturally given, was required to distinguish him; and, as we have seen, it is difficult to find what is the difference between a god and a chief among the Fijians. In the Fijian pantheon there are grades and divided functions—a chief god, mediating gods, gods over different things and places: thus paralleling the Greek pantheon, which was a hierarchy with a distribution of ranks and duties. Fijian deities may be classed into gods proper and deified mortals—some whose apotheosis has dropped out of memory and some whose apotheosis is remembered; and there were apotheosized mortals, too, among the Greek deities. A descriptive title of one of the Fijian gods is “the Adulterer”—a title applicable to sundry Greek gods. Another name is “the Woman-stealer”—a name not undeserved by Zeus. Yet a further sobriquet borne by a Fijian god is “Fresh-from-the-slaughter;” which would answer for Ares, who is called “the Blood-stainer.” The Fijian gods love and hate, are proud and revengeful, and make war, and kill and eat one another; and if we include the earlier generations of Greek gods, kindred atrocities are told of them. Though fighting does not Edition: current; Page: [413] remain conspicuous, still there is the conspiracy from which Zeus was saved by Thetis; and there is perpetual squabbling and vituperation: even Zeus being vilified by his daughter Athene, as well as by the divine shrew Here. The Fijian gods play one another tricks, as did also the gods of the Greeks. Sometimes the Fijians “get angry with their deities and abuse and even challenge them to fight;” and among the Greeks, too, there was abuse of the gods even to their faces, as of Aphrodite by Helen, and if there was not challenging to fight, still there was fighting with, and even victory over, gods, as of Diomede over Ares, and there was threatening of gods, as when Laomedon refusing to pay Poseidon his wages, said he would cut off his ears. The Fijians have a story of a god who tumbled out of a canoe, and, being picked up by a woman, was taken to a chief’s house to dry himself—a story against which we may set that of Dionysus, who, frightened by the Thracian Lycurgus, took refuge in the sea, and who when seized by pirates was carried bound on board their vessel. Though Dionysus unbound himself, we are reminded that in other cases gods remained subject to men; as was Proteus, and as was even Ares, when Otus and Ephialtes kept him in prison thirteen months, and as was Apollo when a slave to Laomedon. Thus, however material and human are the Fijian gods, living, eating, acting as men do; the gods of the Greeks are represented as no less material and human. They talk, and banquet, and drink, and amuse themselves during the day, and go to bed at sunset: “the Olympian thunderer, Zeus, went to his couch” and slept. They are pierced by men’s weapons. Ares’ wound is healed by a “pain-assuaging plaster;” and Aphrodite, after some loss of blood and being distracted with pain, borrows her brother’s chariot and drives off to Olympus to be similarly doctored. All their attributes and acts are in keeping with this conception. In battle Here simulates Stentor in appearance and voice; Apollo shouts from Pergamus to exhort the Trojans: Iris Edition: current; Page: [414] comes “running down from Olympus;” and the celestial chariots, made in earthly fashion of earthly materials, are drawn by steeds that are lashed and goaded, through the gates of Heaven which creak. The single fact that Zeus is on visiting terms with “the milk-fed men of Thrace,” suffices of itself to show how little the divine was distinguished from the human, and how essentially parallel were the Greek conceptions to the conceptions which the Fijians now show us.

Here, then, is the question. Similar as these conceptions are, were they similarly generated? Beyond all doubt the Fijian pantheon has arisen by that apotheosis of men which was still going on when travellers went among them; and if we say that by the Greeks, who also apotheosized men, a pantheon was generated in like manner, the interpretation is consistent. We are forbidden to suppose this, however. These Greek gods, with their human structures, dispositions, acts, histories, resulted from the personalization of natural objects and powers. So that, marvellous to relate, identical conceptions have been produced by diametrically opposite processes! Here we see an ascending growth of men into gods; there we see a descending condensation of natural powers into gods; and the two sets of gods, created by these two contrary methods, are substantially the same!

Even in the absence of all the foregoing chapters, those who are not wedded to an hypothesis will, I think, say that evidence widely different in amount and quality from that which the mythologists offer, is required to demonstrate so astonishing a coincidence.

§ 202. Must we recognize a single exception to the general truth thus far verified everywhere? While among all races in all regions the conceptions of deities have been naturally evolved in the way shown; must we conclude that a small clan of the Semitic race had given to it supernaturally, Edition: current; Page: [415] a conception which, though superficially like the rest, was in substance absolutely unlike them?

Education, the social sanction, and an authority possessed of imposing credentials, lead nearly all to assume that the genesis of their own idea of deity differs fundamentally from the genesis of every other idea. So unhesitatingly, indeed, do they assume this, that they think it impious to ask whether any parallelism exists. In the case of another creed they can see the mischief which arises from refusal to examine. The saying of Euripides that “in things which touch the gods it is not good to suffer captious reason to intrude,” will readily draw from them the remark that a faith profound enough to negative criticism, fosters superstition. Still more on finding that the cannibal Fijians, accepting humbly the established dogmas respecting their bloodthirsty deities, assert that “punishment is sure to overtake the sceptic;” they can see clearly enough how vile may be the belief which defends itself by interdicting inquiry, but, looking at the outsides of other creeds, antagonistically, and at their own creed from within, sympathetically, they cannot think possible that in their case a kindred mischief may result from a kindred cause. On reading that when the Spaniards arrived in Mexico, the natives, thinking them gods, offered up human beings to them, it is allowable to ask whether the ideas and motives of these people were analogous to those of the Scandinavian king On, when he immolated his son to Odin; but it is not allowable to ask whether like ideas and motives prompted Abraham’s intention to sacrifice Isaac. The above-cited fact that Barth was taken by the Fulahs for their god, Féte, may properly raise the question whether, if there had arisen a quarrel between his party and the Fulahs in which he was worsted by one of their chiefs, there might not have grown up a legend akin to that which tells how the god Ares was worsted by Diomede; but it is highly improper to raise the question whether the story of Jacob’s struggle with the Lord had an origin of allied kind. Edition: current; Page: [416] Here, however, pursuing the methods of science, and disregarding foregone conclusions, we must deal with the Hebrew conception in the same manner as with all others; and must ask whether it had not a kindred genesis.

What the primitive Semitic notion of a deity was, we may prepare ourselves to see by contemplating the notion of a deity which is entertained by wandering Semites at the present time. Already I have quoted from Mr. Palgrave one illustration of it, and here is another.

Clearly, then, the existing Semitic idea of deity, is no higher than that which other races have shown us; and the question is, whether the ancient Semites had an idea not only absolutely unlike that of all other races but absolutely unlike that of their modern kindred.

To find a clear answer in traditions recorded by different writers at different dates—traditions with which are incorporated stories and conceptions derived from adjacent more civilized peoples; is of course difficult. The difficulty is increased by the established habit of carrying back developed ideas to the interpretation of early statements; as by commentators who explain away certain highly concrete descriptions of divine actions as “anthropomorphic language suited to the teaching of man in a state of simple and partial civilization.” If, however, we reject non-natural interpretations, and infer, as analogy warrants, that the most crudely anthropomorphic descriptions are the original ones, we shall find the difficulty less.

Abraham is described as doing that which primitive men, and especially nomads, are often compelled to do by Edition: current; Page: [417] increase of numbers—leaving his kindred and migrating to a new dwelling-place: separating, as he afterwards separated from Lot, to get pasturage. That he thinks himself supernaturally prompted, apparently by a vision, recalls the ideas of kindred Semites now existing, of whom Baker tells us that “if in a dream a particular course of action is suggested, the Arab believes that God has spoken and directed him.” The new territory he migrates to, the story represents as made over to him; and the question is—Was Abraham dealing with a terrestrial potentate, or with the Power by which planets gravitate and stars shine?

The words applied to this giver of the territory are expressive simply of superiority. Elohim, in some cases translated gods, is applied also to kings, judges, powerful persons, and to other things great or high. So, too, Adonai is indiscriminately used (as “Lord” is among ourselves), to a being regarded as supernatural and to a living man. Kuenen says the meaning of Shaddai is “ ‘the mighty one,’ or perhaps still more exactly, ‘the violent one:’ ” a title harmonizing with the titles of Assyrian kings, who delight in comparing themselves to whirlwinds and floods. Even the more exalted names find their parallels in those of neighbouring rulers. When, in the cuneiform inscriptions, we find Tiglath-pileser called “king of kings, lord of lords,” we see that there is nothing exceptional in the title “god of gods, and lord of lords, a great god, a mighty and terrible:” a description implying that the Hebrew god is one of many, distinguished by his supremacy.

By this being who bears titles such as are borne by terrestrial potentates, Abraham is promised certain benefits to be given in return for homage. When he complains that the promise has not been fulfilled, he is pacified by renewed promises. Finally, a covenant is made—Abraham is to have “all the land of Canaan,” while the giver is “to be a god unto” him. The supposition that such an agreement was entered into between the First Cause of things and a shepherd Edition: current; Page: [418] chief, would be an astounding one were it admissible; but it is excluded by the words used. The expression “a god” negatives the conception on either side of a supreme universal power. If, however, instead of supposing that “a god” is here used to mean a supernatural being, we suppose that it is used, as by the existing Arab, to mean a powerful ruler, the statement becomes consistent.

Still more clearly have we the same implications in the ceremony by which the covenant is established. Abraham, and each of his male descendants, and each of his male slaves, is circumcised. The mark of the covenant, observe, is to be borne not only by Abraham and those of his blood, but also by those of other blood whom he has bought. The mark is a strange one, and the extension of it is a strange one, if we assume it to be imposed by the Creator of the Universe, on a favoured man and his descendants; and on this assumption it is no less strange that the one transgression for which every “soul shall be cut off,” is not any crime, but is the neglect of this rite. Such a ceremony, however, insisted on by a living potentate under penalty of death, is not strange; for, as we shall hereafter see, circumcision is one of various mutilations imposed as marks on subject persons by terrestrial superiors.

And now, passing from collateral to direct evidence, observe the idea which Abraham is himself represented as forming of this being with whom he has covenanted. While he sat at his tent door, “three men stood by him.” Nothing implies that they were unlike other men or much unlike one another. He “bowed himself toward the ground,” and addressed one of them “my lord.” Asking them to rest and to wash their feet, he said he would “fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts.” So that, regarding them as tired, travel-stained, and hungry travellers, Abraham treats these “three men” according to those rites of hospitality still observed by the Arabs. There is no indication that Abraham suspects supernaturalness in any of the three; nor, Edition: current; Page: [419] when Sarah laughs at the promise that she shall have a son, does it seem that she, either, imagines she is in the presence of anything more than a human being. It is true that Abraham, addressing this visitor with the title given to superior persons, believes him able to do things we class as supernatural—ascribes to him the character common to primitive potentates, who are frequently magicians as well as rulers, like Solomon—ascribes to him powers such as savages now think are possessed by Europeans. But though, while showing him the road to Sodom, Abraham talks in a way implying this belief, he implies no more. The question, mark, is not that which theologians raise—Who actually were these “three men?” was the chief of them Jehovah? or his angel? or the Son? The question is what Abraham thought; or is described as thinking by those who preserved the tradition. Either alternative has the same ultimate implication. If this person to whom Abraham salaams as his lord, with whom he has made the covenant, is a terrestrial ruler, as implied by the indirect evidence, the conclusion is reached that the ancient Semitic idea of a deity was like the modern Semitic idea cited above. And if, otherwise, Abraham conceives this person not as a local ruler but as the Maker of All Things, then he believes the Earth and the Heavens are produced by one who eats and drinks and feels weary after walking: his conception of a deity still remains identical with that of his modern representative, and with that of the uncivilized in general.

§ 203. And so the universality of anthropomorphism has the sufficient cause that the divine man as conceived, had everywhere for antecedent a powerful man as perceived. The abundant evidence above given that the primitive mind frames the notion in this way, may be enforced by facts showing that it fails to frame any other notion.

When Burton, encamped among the Eesa, heard an old woman with the toothache exclaiming, “O Allah, may thy Edition: current; Page: [420] teeth ache like mine”—when he tells us that the wilder Bedouins ask where Allah is to be found that they may spear him, “because he lays waste their homes and kills their cattle”—when, according to Moffat, the Hottentots, notwithstanding missionary instruction, regard the Christian god as “a notable warrior of great physical strength”—when, as Hunter narrates, a Santal, responding to a missionary’s account of God’s omnipotence, said, “and what if that Strong One should eat me;” we are not only taught that the undeveloped mind conceives God as a powerful man, but that it is incapable of any higher conception. Even a people so cultured as the ancient Egyptians failed to conceive of gods as differing fundamentally from men. Says Renouf—“All the gods are liable to be forced to grant the prayers of men, through fear of threats which it is inconceivable to us that any intelligence but that of idiots should have believed.”

A like implication everywhere meets us in the aboriginal belief that gods are mortal. In a Quiché legend, given by Bancroft, we read—“so they died like gods; and each left to the sad and wondering men who were his servants, his garments for a memorial.” The writers of the Vedic hymns, says Muir, “looked upon the gods” as “confessedly mere created beings;” and they, like men, were made immortal by drinking soma. In the legend of Buddha it is stated that the prince, inquiring about a corpse, was told by his guide—“This is the final destiny of all flesh: gods and men, rich and poor, alike must die.” We saw that the Scandinavian gods died and were burnt—returning thereafter to Asgard. So, too, the Egyptian gods lived and died: there are frescoes at Philæ and at Abydos showing the burial of Osiris. And though in the Greek pantheon, the death of gods is exemplified only in the case of Pan, yet their original mortality is implied by the legends; for how could Apollo have been a slave to Laomedon, if he then had that power of assuming and throwing-off the material form at will, which is Edition: current; Page: [421] possessed in common by the Greek god and the primitive ghost?

How deeply rooted are these ideas of deities, is further shown by the slowness with which culture changes them. Down to civilized times the Greeks thought of their gods as material persons. About 550 bc they believed in a living woman palmed upon them as Athene; and in 490 bc, to Phidippides on his way from Athens to Sparta, Pan, meeting him, complains of neglect. Mahomet had to forbid the adoration which certain of his followers offered him; and about ad 1000 the Caliph Hakem was worshipped while living, and is still worshipped by the Druses. Paul and Barnabas were treated as gods by the priest and people of Lystra. And the sculpture, painting, and literature of mediæval Europe, show how grossly anthropomorphic was the conception of deity which prevailed down to recent centuries. Only alluding to the familiar evidence furnished by the mystery-plays, it will suffice if I instance the Old-French verses which describe God’s illness as cured by laughter at a dancing rhymer (see Appendix A). Nor among some Catholic peoples are things much better now. Just as the existing savage beats his idol if his hopes are not fulfilled—just as the ancient Arcadian was apt “to scourge and prick Pan if he came back empty-handed from the chase;” so, an Italian peasant or artizan will occasionally vent his anger by thrashing a statue of the Madonna: as in Milan in Sept., 1873, and as at Rome not long before. Instead of its being true that ideas of deity such as are entertained by cultivated people, are innate; it is, contrariwise, true that they arise only at a comparatively advanced stage, as results of accumulated knowledge, greater intellectual grasp, and higher sentiment.

§ 204. Behind the supernatural being of this order, as behind supernatural beings of all other orders, we thus find that there has in every case been a human personality.

Anything which transcends the ordinary, a savage thinks of as supernatural or divine: the remarkable man among the rest. This remarkable man may be simply the remotest ancestor remembered as the founder of the tribe; he may be a chief famed for strength and bravery; he may be a medicine-man of great repute; he may be an inventor of something new. And then, instead of being a member of the tribe, he may be a superior stranger bringing arts and knowledge; or he may be one of a superior race predominating by conquest. Being at first one or other of these, regarded with awe during his life, he is regarded with increased awe after his death; and the propitiation of his ghost, becoming greater than the propitiation of ghosts which are less feared, develops into an established worship.

There is no exception then. Using the phrase ancestor-worship in its broadest sense as comprehending all worship of the dead, be they of the same blood or not, we conclude that ancestor-worship is the root of every religion.*