CHAPTER VIII: ECCLESIASTICAL HIERARCHIES.

§ 616. The component institutions of each society habitually exhibit kindred traits of structure. Where the political organization is but little developed, there is but little development of the ecclesiastical organization; while along with a centralized coercive civil rule there goes a religious rule no less centralized and coercive. Qualifications of this statement required to meet changes caused in the one case by revolutions and in the other case by substitutions of creeds, do not seriously affect it. Along with the restoration of equilibrium the alliance begins again to assert itself.

Before contemplating ecclesiastical hierarchies considered in themselves, let us, then, note more specifically how these two organizations, originally identical, preserve for a long time a unity of nature consequent on their common origin.

§ 617. As above implied, this relation is primarily illustrated by the cases in which, along with unsettled civil institutions there go unsettled religious institutions. The accounts given of the Nagas by Stewart and by Butler, which are to the effect that they “have no kind of internal government,” and have apparently no priesthood, show also that along with their disregard of human authority, they show extremely little respect to such gods as they recognize after a fashion: dealing with beings in the spirit-world as defiantly as they do with living men. Of the Comanches, again, Schoolcraft, saying that “the authority of their chiefs Edition: current; Page: [82] is rather nominal than positive,” also says—“I perceived no order of priesthood . . . if they recognise any ecclesiastical authority whatever, it resides in their chiefs.” Evidently in the absence of established political headship, there cannot habitually arise recognition of a deceased political head; and there is consequently no place for an official propitiator.

With the rise of the patriarchal type of organization, both of these governmental agencies assume their initial forms. If, as in early stages, the father of a family, while domestic ruler, is also the one who makes offerings to the ancestral ghost—if the head of the clan, or chief of the village, while exercising political control also worships the spirit of the dead chief on behalf of others, as well as on his own behalf; it is clear that the ecclesiastical and political structures begin as one and the same: the co-existing medicine-man being, as already shown, not a priest properly so-called. When, for instance, we read of the Eastern Slavs that “it was customary among them for the head of the family or the tribe to offer sacrifices on behalf of all beneath a sacred tree,” we see that the civil and religious functions and their agents are at first undifferentiated. Even where something like priests have arisen, yet if there is an undeveloped ruling agency they are but little distinguished from others, and they have no exclusive powers: instance the Bodo and Dhimáls, whose village heads have “a general authority of voluntary rather than coercive origin,” and among whom elders “participate the functions of the priesthood.” Nomadic habits, while they hinder the development of a political organization, also hinder the development of a priesthood; even when priests are distinguishable as such. Tiele says of the primitive Arabs that “the sanctuaries of the various spirits and fetishes had their own hereditary ministers, who, however, formed no priestly caste.” So, too, such physical characters of a habitat, and such characters of its occupants as impede the massing of small groups into large ones, maintain simplicity of the ecclesiastical structure, as of the political. Witness the Edition: current; Page: [83] Greeks, of whom Mr. Gladstone, remarking that the priest was never “a significant personage in Greece,” adds “nor had the priest of any one place or deity, so far as we know, any organic connection with the priest of any other; so that if there were priests, yet there was not a priesthood.”

Conversely, along with that development of civil government which accompanies social integration, there usually goes a development of ecclesiastical government. From Polynesia we may take, as an instance, Tahiti. Here, along with the ranks of king, nobility, land-owners, and common people, there went such distinctions among the priests that each officiated in that rank only to which he belonged; and “the priests of the national temples were a distinct class.” In Dahomey and Ashantee, along with a despotic government and a civil organization having many grades, there go orders of priests and priestesses divided into several classes. The ancient American states, too, exhibited a like union of traits. Their centralized and graduated political systems were accompanied by ecclesiastical systems which were analogous in complexity and subordination. And that in more advanced societies there has been something approaching to parallelism between the developments of the agencies for civil rule and religious rule, needs not to be shown in detail.

To exclude misapprehension it may be as well to add that establishment of an ecclesiastical organization separate from the political organization, but akin to it in structure, appears to be largely determined by the rise of a decided distinction in thought between the affairs of this world and those of a supposed other world. Where the two are conceived as existing in continuity, or as intimately related, the organizations appropriate to their respective administrations remain either identical or imperfectly distinguished. In ancient Egypt, where the imagined ties between dead and living were very close, and where the union of civil and religious functions in the king remained a real union, “a chief priest, surrounded by a numerous priesthood, governed Edition: current; Page: [84] each city.” The Japanese, too, yield an instance. Along with the belief that Japan was “the land of spiritual beings or kingdom of spirits,” and along with the assumption by the Mikado of power to promote deceased persons to higher ranks in their second lives (§ 347), there went the trait that the Mikado’s court had six grades of ecclesiastical ranks, and in this chief centre of rule, sacred and secular functions were originally fused: “among the ancient Japanese, government and religion were the same.” Similarly in China, where the heavenly and the earthly are, as Huc points out, so little separated in conception, and where there is one authority common to the two, the functions of the established religion are discharged by men who are, at the same time, administrators of civil affairs. Not only is the emperor supreme priest, but the four prime ministers “are lords spiritual and temporal.” If, as Tiele says, “the Chinese are remarkable for the complete absence of a priestly caste,” it is because, along with their universal and active ancestor-worship, they have preserved that inclusion of the duties of priest in the duties of ruler, which ancestor-worship in its simple form shows us.

§ 618. Likeness between the ecclesiastical and political organizations where they have diverged, is largely due to their community of origin in the sentiment of reverence. Ready obedience to a terrestrial ruler is naturally accompanied by ready obedience to a supposed celestial ruler; and the nature which favours growth of an administration enforcing the one, favours growth of an administration enforcing the other.

This connexion was well illustrated by the ancient American societies. In Mexico, along with an “odious despotism” and extreme submissiveness of the people, making possible a governmental organization so ramified that there was a sub-sub-ruler for every twenty families, there went an immensely developed priesthood. Torquemada’s estimate of 40,000 temples is thought by Clavigero to be Edition: current; Page: [85] greatly under the mark; and Clavigero says—“I should not think it rash to affirm, that there could not be less than a million of priests throughout the empire:” an estimate made more credible by Herrera’s statement that “every great Man had a Priest, or Chaplain.” Similarly in Peru; where, with an unqualified absolutism of the Ynca, and a political officialism so vast and elaborate that one out of every ten men had command of the others, there was a religious officialism no less extensive. Says Arriaga—“If one counts all the higher and lower officers, there is generally a minister for ten Indians or less.” Obviously in the moral natures of the Mexicans and Peruvians, lies the explanation of these parallelisms. People so politically servile as those ruled over by Montezuma, who was “always carry’d on the Shoulders of Noblemen,” and whose order was that “no Commoner was to look him in the Face, and if he did, dy’d for it,” were naturally people content to furnish the numberless victims annually sacrificed to their gods, and ready continually to inflict on themselves propitiatory blood-lettings. And of course the social appliances for maintenance of terrestrial and celestial subordination developed among them with little resistance in corresponding degrees; as they have done, too, in Abyssinia. In the words of Bruce, “the kings of Abyssinia are above all laws;” and elsewhere he says “there is no country in the world in which there are so many churches as in Abyssinia.”

Proof of the converse relation need not detain us. It will suffice to indicate the contrast presented, both politically and ecclesiastically, between the Greek societies and contemporary societies, to suggest that a social character unfavourable to the growth of a large and consolidated regulative organization of the political kind, is also unfavourable to the growth of a large and consolidated regulative organization of the ecclesiastical kind.

§ 619. Along with increase of a priesthood in size, there habitually go those specializations which constitute it a Edition: current; Page: [86] hierarchy. Integration is accompanied by differentiation.

Let us first note how the simultaneous progress of the two is implied by the fact that while the ecclesiastical organization is at first less sharply marked off from the political than it afterwards becomes, its own structures are less definitely distinguished from one another. Says Tiele—

Again, we read that among the ancient Romans—

And though in the case of an adopted religion the circumstances are different, yet we see that in the development of an administrative organization the same essential principle displays itself. M. Guizot writes—

In which last facts, while we see the gradual establishment of an ecclesiastical structure, we also see how, in the Church as in the State, there went on the separation of the small Edition: current; Page: [87] ruling part from the greater part ruled, and a gradual loss of power by the latter.

In the ecclesiastical body as in the political body, several causes, acting separately or jointly, work out the establishment of graduated authorities. Even in a cluster of small societies held together by kinship only, there tends, where priests exist, to arise differences among their amounts of influence: resulting in some subordination when they have to co-operate. Thus we read of the priests among the Bodo and Dhimáls, that “over a small circle of villages one Dhámi presides and possesses a vaguely defined but universally recognised control over the Déóshis of his district.” Still more when small societies have been consolidated into a larger one by war, is the political supremacy of the conquering chief usually accompanied by ecclesiastical supremacy of the head priest of the conquering society. The tendency to this is shown even where the respective cults of the united societies remain intact. Thus it appears that “the high-priests of Mexico were the heads of their religion only among the Mexicans, and not with respect to the other conquered nations;” but we also read that the priesthood of Huitzilopochtli was that of the ruling tribe, and had, accordingly, great political influence. The Mexicatlteohuatzin had authority over other priesthoods than his own. Still more in ancient Peru, where the subjugation of the united peoples by the conquering people was absolute, a graduated priesthood of the conqueror’s religion was supreme over the priesthoods of the religions professed by the conquered. After an account of the priesthood of the Sun in Cuzco, we read that—

And then we are told by another writer that—

In short the ancient Peruvian priesthood consisted of a major hierarchy posed on many minor hierarchies.

But besides these subordinations of one sacerdotal system to another caused by conquest, there are, as implied in the cases given, subordinations which arise within the organization of each cult. Such differences of rank and function existed in Egypt. Besides the high priests there were the prophetæ, the justophori, the stolistes, the hierogrammateis, and some others. Similarly among the Accadians. “On comptait à Babylone,” says Maury, “divers ordres de prêtres ou interprètes sacrés, les hakimim ou savants, peut être les médecins; les khartumim, ou magiciens, les asaphim, ou théologiens; et enfin les kasdim et les gazrim. c’est-à-dire les Chaldéens, les astrologues proprement dits.” Rome, too, “had a very rich and complicated religious establishment” (1) the Pontiffs, Augurs, etc.; (2) the Rex Sacrificulus, the Sacrificers, and the Vestal Virgins; (3) Salii and Fetiales; (4) Curiones; (5) Brotherhoods. And it was so with the Mexican priests. “Some were the sacrificers, others the diviners; some were the composers of hymns, others those who sung. . . . Some priests had the charge of keeping the temple clean, some took care of the ornaments of the altars; to others belonged the instructing of youth, the correcting of the calendar, the ordering of festivals, and the care of mythological paintings.”

Where, instead of coexisting religions with their priesthoods which we find in most compound societies produced by war in early stages, we have an invading religion which, monotheistic in theory, cannot recognize or tolerate other religions, there still, as it spreads, arises an organization similar in its centralization and specialization to those just contemplated. Describing the development of Church-government in Europe, M. Guizot says:—

Fully to understand this development of ecclesiastical organization, it is needful to glance at the process by which it was effected, and to observe how the increasing integration necessitated the increasing differentiation.

To complete the conception it needs only to add that, while there was going on this centralization of the higher offices, there was going on a minuter differentiation of the lower. Says Lingard, speaking of the Anglo-Saxon clergy—

§ 620. Among leading traits in the development of ecclesiastical institutions, have to be added the rise and establishment of monasticism.

For the origin of ascetic practices, we must once more go back to the ghost-theory, and to certain resulting ideas and acts common among the uncivilized (§§ 103 and 140). There are the mutilations and blood-lettings at funerals; there are the fastings consequent on sacrifices of animals and food at the grave; and in some cases there are the deficiencies of clothing which follow the leaving of dresses (always of the best) for the departed. Pleasing the dead is therefore inevitably associated in thought with pain borne by the living. This connexion of ideas grows most marked where the ghost to be propitiated is that of some ruling man, notorious for his greediness, his love of bloodshed, and, in many cases, his appetite for human flesh. To such a ruling man, gaining power by conquest, and becoming a much-feared god after his decease, there arise propitiatory ceremonies which entail severe sufferings. Hence where, as in Edition: current; Page: [91] ancient Mexico, we find cannibal deities to whom multitudes of human victims were sacrificed; we also find that there were, among priests and others, self-mutilations of serious kinds, frequent self-bleedings, self-whippings, prolonged fasts, etc. The incidental but conspicuous trait of such actions, usurped in men’s minds the place of the essential but less obtrusive trait. Sufferings having been the concomitants of sacrifices made to ghosts and gods, there grew up the notion that submission to these concomitant sufferings was itself pleasing to ghosts and gods; and eventually, that the bearing of gratuitous sufferings was pleasing. All over the world, ascetic practices have thus originated.

This, however, is not the sole origin of ascetic practices. They have been by all peoples adopted for the purpose of bringing on those abnormal mental states which are supposed to imply either possession by spirits, or communion with spirits. Savages fast that they may have dreams, and obtain the supernatural guidance which they think dreams give to them; and especially among medicine-men, and those in training to become such, there is abstinence and submission to various privations, with the view of producing the maniacal excitement which they, and those around, mistake for inspiration. Thus arises the belief that by persistent self-mortifications, there may be obtained an indwelling divine spirit; and the ascetic consequently comes to be regarded as a holy man.*

Led into his mode of life by the two-fold belief that voluntary submission to pain pleases God, and that mortifications of the flesh bring inspiration, the ascetic makes his appearance among the devotees of every religion which reaches any considerable development. Though there is little reference to permanent anchorites in ancient American societies, we are told of temporary religious retirements; Edition: current; Page: [92] as in Guatemala, where the high-priest, who was in some cases the king, fasted “four, or even eight, months in seclusion;” and as in Peru, where the Yncas occasionally lived in solitude and fasted. Among the religions of the old world, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammetanism, have all furnished numerous examples. Biblical history shows that “in times anterior to the Gospel, prophets and martyrs ‘in sheepskins and goatskins,’ wandered over mountains and deserts, and dwelt in caves.” This discipline of separateness and abstinence, indicated as early as the days of Moses in the “vow of a Nazarite,” and shown by the Essenes to be still existing in later times, reappeared in the discipline of the Christian hermits, who were the first monks or solitaries: the two words being originally equivalent. These grew numerous during the persecutions of the third century, when their retreats became refuges.

Or, as Lingard describes the process:—

Thus, beginning as usual in a dispersed unorganized form, and progressing to small clusters such as those of the Cœnobites in Egypt, severally governed by a superior with a steward, monastic bodies, growing common, at the same time acquired definite organizations; and by-and-by, as in the case of the Benedictines, came to have a common rule or mode of government and life. Though in their early days monks were regarded as men more holy than the clergy, they did not exercise clerical functions; but in the fifth and sixth centuries they acquired some of these, and in Edition: current; Page: [93] so doing became subject to bishops: the result being a long struggle to maintain independence on the one side and to enforce authority on the other, which ended in practical incorporation with the Church.

Of course there thus arose a further complication of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which it will be sufficient just to note without describing in detail.

§ 621. For present purposes, indeed, no further account of ecclesiastical hierarchies is needed. We are here concerned only with the general aspects of their evolution.

Examination discloses a relation between ecclesiastical and political governments in respect of degree. Where there is but little of the one there is but little of the other; and in societies which have developed a highly coercive secular rule there habitually exists a highly coercive religious rule.

It has been shown that growing from a common root, and having their structures slightly differentiated in early societies, the political and ecclesiastical organizations long continue to be distinguished very imperfectly.

This intimate relationship between the two forms of regulation, alike in their instrumentalities and in their extents, has a moral origin. Extreme submissiveness of nature fosters an extreme development of both the political and religious controls. Contrariwise the growth of the agencies effecting such controls, is kept in check by the sentiment of independence; which while it resists the despotism of living rulers is unfavourable to extreme self-abasement in propitiation of deities.

While the body which maintains the observances of a cult grows in mass, it also increases in structure; and whether the cult is an indigenous or an invading one, there hence results a hierarchy of sacerdotal functionaries analogous in its general principles of organization to the graduated system of political functionaries. In the one case as in the other the differentiation, setting out from a state in which Edition: current; Page: [94] power is distributed with approximate uniformity, advances to a state in which, while the mass becomes entirely subordinate, the controlling agency displays within itself a subordination of the many to the few and to the one.