To Main Page
PAGAN & CHRISTIAN CREEDS: THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING
By EDWARD CARPENTER
"The different religions being lame attempts to represent under
various guises this one root-fact of the central universal life,
men have at all times clung to the religious creeds and rituals
and ceremonials as symbolising in some rude way the redemption
and fulfilment of their own most intimate natures--and this
whether consciously understanding the interpretations, or whether
(as most often) only doing so in an unconscious or quite
subconscious way."
The Drama of Love and Death, p. 96.
CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTORY
II. SOLAR MYTHS AND CHRISTIAN FESTIVALS
III. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC
IV. TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS
V. FOOD AND VEGETATION MAGIC
VI. MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS
VII. RITES OF EXPIATION AND REDEMPTION
VIII. PAGAN INITIATIONS AND THE SECOND BIRTH
IX. MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE
X. THE SAVIOUR-GOD AND THE VIRGIN-MOTHER
XI. RITUAL DANCING
XII. THE SEX-TABOO
XIII. THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY
XV. THE MEANING OF IT ALL
XV. THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES
XVI. THE EXODUS OF CHRISTIANITY
XVII. CONCLUSION
APPENDIX ON THE TEACHINGS OF THE UPANISHADS:
I. REST
II. THE NATURE OF THE SELF
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS: THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING
I. INTRODUCTORY
The subject of Religious Origins is a fascinating one, as
the great multitude of books upon it, published in late
years, tends to show. Indeed the great difficulty to-day
in dealing with the subject, lies in the very mass of the
material to hand--and that not only on account of the
labor involved in sorting the material, but because the
abundance itself of facts opens up temptation to a student
in this department of Anthropology (as happens also in
other branches of general Science) to rush in too hastily
with what seems a plausible theory. The more facts,
statistics, and so forth, there are available in any
investigation, the easier it is to pick out a considerable number
which will fit a given theory. The other facts being neglected
or ignored, the views put forward enjoy for a
time a great vogue. Then inevitably, and at a later time,
new or neglected facts alter the outlook, and a new perspective
is established.
There is also in these matters of Science (though many
scientific men would doubtless deny this) a great deal of
"Fashion". Such has been notoriously the case in Political
Economy, Medicine, Geology, and even in such definite
studies as Physics and Chemistry. In a comparatively recent
science, like that with which we are now concerned, one
would naturally expect variations. A hundred and fifty
years ago, and since the time of Rousseau, the "Noble
Savage" was extremely popular; and he lingers still in
the story books of our children. Then the reaction from
this extreme view set in, and of late years it has been
the popular cue (largely, it must be said, among "armchair"
travelers and explorers) to represent the religious
rites and customs of primitive folk as a senseless mass
of superstitions, and the early man as quite devoid of
decent feeling and intelligence. Again, when the study of
religious origins first began in modern times to be seriously
taken up--say in the earlier part of last century--
there was a great boom in Sungods. Every divinity in
the Pantheon was an impersonation of the Sun--unless
indeed (if feminine) of the Moon. Apollo was a sungod,
of course; Hercules was a sungod; Samson was a sungod;
Indra and Krishna, and even Christ, the same.
C. F. Dupuis in France (Origine de tous les Cultes, 1795),
F. Nork in Germany (Biblische Mythologie, 1842), Richard
Taylor in England (The Devil's Pulpit,[1] 1830), were among
the first in modern times to put forward this view. A little
later the PHALLIC explanation of everything came into
fashion. The deities were all polite names for the organs
and powers of procreation. R. P. Knight (Ancient Art
and Mythology, 1818) and Dr. Thomas Inman (Ancient
Faiths and Ancient Names, 1868) popularized this idea in
England; so did Nork in Germany. Then again there was
a period of what is sometimes called Euhemerism
--the theory that the gods and goddesses had actually once
been men and women, historical characters round whom
a halo of romance and remoteness had gathered. Later
still, a school has arisen which thinks little of sungods,
and pays more attention to Earth and Nature spirits,
to gnomes and demons and vegetation-sprites, and to the
processes of Magic by which these (so it was supposed)
could be enlisted in man's service if friendly, or exorcised
if hostile.
[1] This extraordinary book, though carelessly composed and
containing many unproven statements, was on the whole on the
right lines. But it raised a storm of opposition--the more so
because its author was a clergyman! He was ejected from the
ministry, of course, and was sent to prison twice.
It is easy to see of course that there is some truth in
ALL these explanations; but naturally each school for
the time being makes the most of its own contention. Mr.
J. M. Robertson (Pagan Christs and Christianity and
Mythology), who has done such fine work in this field,[1]
relies chiefly on the solar and astronomical origins, though
he does not altogether deny the others; Dr. Frazer, on
the other hand--whose great work, The Golden Bough, is
a monumental collection of primitive customs, and will
be an inexhaustible quarry for all future students--is
apparently very little concerned with theories about the Sun
and the stars, but concentrates his attention on the
collection of innumerable details[2] of rites, chiefly magical,
connected with food and vegetation. Still later writers, like
S. Reinach, Jane Harrison and E. A. Crowley, being mainly
occupied with customs of very primitive peoples, like
the Pelasgian Greeks or the Australian aborigines, have
confined themselves (necessarily) even more to Magic and
Witchcraft.
[1] If only he did not waste so much time, and so needlessly, in
slaughtering opponents!
[2] To such a degree, indeed, that sometimes the connecting clue
of the argument seems to be lost.
Meanwhile the Christian Church from these speculations
has kept itself severely apart--as of course representing a
unique and divine revelation little concerned or interested
in such heathenisms; and moreover (in this country
at any rate) has managed to persuade the general public
of its own divine uniqueness to such a degree that few
people, even nowadays, realize that it has sprung from just
the same root as Paganism, and that it shares by far the
most part of its doctrines and rites with the latter. Till
quite lately it was thought (in Britain) that only secularists
and unfashionable people took any interest in sungods; and
while it was true that learned professors might point to a
belief in Magic as one of the first sources of Religion, it
was easy in reply to say that this obviously had nothing to
do with Christianity! The Secularists, too, rather spoilt
their case by assuming, in their wrath against the Church,
that all priests since the beginning of the world have been
frauds and charlatans, and that all the rites of religion
were merely devil's devices invented by them for the
purpose of preying upon the superstitions of the ignorant,
to their own enrichment. They (the Secularists)
overleaped themselves by grossly exaggerating a thing that
no doubt is partially true.
Thus the subject of religious origins is somewhat complex,
and yields many aspects for consideration. It
is only, I think, by keeping a broad course and admitting
contributions to the truth from various sides, that valuable
results can be obtained. It is absurd to suppose
that in this or any other science neat systems can be found
which will cover all the facts. Nature and History do not
deal in such things, or supply them for a sop to Man's
vanity.
It is clear that there have been three main lines, so far,
along which human speculation and study have run. One
connecting religious rites and observations with the movements
of the Sun and the planets in the sky, and leading to
the invention of and belief in Olympian and remote gods
dwelling in heaven and ruling the Earth from a distance;
the second connecting religion with the changes
of the season, on the Earth and with such practical things
as the growth of vegetation and food, and leading to or
mingled with a vague belief in earth-spirits and magical
methods of influencing such spirits; and the third connecting
religion with man's own body and the tremendous force
of sex residing in it--emblem of undying life and all
fertility and power. It is clear also--and all investigation
confirms it--that the second-mentioned phase of religion
arose on the whole BEFORE the first-mentioned--that is,
that men naturally thought about the very practical questions
of food and vegetation, and the magical or other
methods of encouraging the same, before they worried themselves
about the heavenly bodies and the laws of THEIR
movements, or about the sinister or favorable influences the
stars might exert. And again it is extremely probable that
the third-mentioned aspect--that which connected religion
with the procreative desires and phenomena of human
physiology--really came FIRST. These desires and physiological
phenomena must have loomed large on the primitive
mind long before the changes of the seasons or of the sky
had been at all definitely observed or considered. Thus we
find it probable that, in order to understand the sequence of
the actual and historical phases of religious worship, we must
approximately reverse the order above-given in which they
have been STUDIED, and conclude that in general the
Phallic cults came first, the cult of Magic and the propitiation
of earth-divinities and spirits came second, and
only last came the belief in definite God-figures residing
in heaven.
At the base of the whole process by which divinities and
demons were created, and rites for their propitiation and
placation established, lay Fear--fear stimulating the
imagination to fantastic activity. Primus in orbe deos
fecit Timor. And fear, as we shall see, only became a mental
stimulus at the time of, or after, the evolution
of self-consciousness. Before that time, in the period of
SIMPLE consciousness, when the human mind resembled
that of the animals, fear indeed existed, but its nature was
more that of a mechanical protective instinct. There
being no figure or image of SELF in the animal mind, there
were correspondingly no figures or images of beings who
might threaten or destroy that self. So it was that the
imaginative power of fear began with Self-consciousness, and
from that imaginative power was unrolled the whole panorama
of the gods and rites and creeds of Religion down the
centuries.
The immense force and domination of Fear in the first
self-conscious stages of the human mind is a thing which
can hardly be exaggerated, and which is even difficult for
some of us moderns to realize. But naturally as soon
as Man began to think about himself--a frail phantom and
waif in the midst of tremendous forces of whose nature
and mode of operation he was entirely ignorant--he was
BESET with terrors; dangers loomed upon him on all sides.
Even to-day it is noticed by doctors that one of the chief
obstacles to the cure of illness among some black or native
races is sheer superstitious terror; and Thanatomania is the
recognized word for a state of mind ("obsession of
death") which will often cause a savage to perish from a
mere scratch hardly to be called a wound. The natural
defence against this state of mind was the creation of an
enormous number of taboos--such as we find among
all races and on every conceivable subject--and these taboos
constituted practically a great body of warnings which
regulated the lives and thoughts of the community, and
ultimately, after they had been weeded out and to some
degree simplified, hardened down into very stringent
Customs and Laws. Such taboos naturally in the beginning
tended to include the avoidance not only of acts which
might reasonably be considered dangerous, like touching a
corpse, but also things much more remote and fanciful
in their relation to danger, like merely looking at a mother-
in-law, or passing a lightning-struck tree; and (what is
especially to be noticed) they tended to include acts which
offered any special PLEASURE or temptation--like sex or
marriage or the enjoyment of a meal. Taboos surrounded
these things too, and the psychological connection is easy
to divine: but I shall deal with this general subject later.
It may be guessed that so complex a system of regulations
made life anything but easy to early peoples; but,
preposterous and unreasonable as some of the taboos were,
they undoubtedly had the effect of compelling the growth
of self-control. Fear does not seem a very worthy motive,
but in the beginning it curbed the violence of the purely
animal passions, and introduced order and restraint among
them. Simultaneously it became itself, through the gradual
increase of knowledge and observation, transmuted and
etherealized into something more like wonder and awe
and (when the gods rose above the horizon) into reverence.
Anyhow we seem to perceive that from the early beginnings
(in the Stone Age) of self-consciousness in Man there has been a
gradual development--from crass superstition,
senseless and accidental, to rudimentary observation,
and so to belief in Magic; thence to Animism
and personification of nature-powers in more or less human
form, as earth-divinities or sky-gods or embodiments of
the tribe; and to placation of these powers by rites like
Sacrifice and the Eucharist, which in their turn became
the foundation of Morality. Graphic representations made
for the encouragement of fertility--as on the walls of Bushmen's
rock-dwellings or the ceilings of the caverns of Altamira--
became the nurse of pictorial Art; observations of
plants or of the weather or the stars, carried on by tribal
medicine-men for purposes of witchcraft or prophecy, supplied
some of the material of Science; and humanity emerged
by faltering and hesitating steps on the borderland of those
finer perceptions and reasonings which are supposed to be
characteristic of Civilization.
The process of the evolution of religious rites and ceremonies
has in its main outlines been the same all over the
world, as the reader will presently see--and this whether
in connection with the numerous creeds of Paganism
or the supposedly unique case of Christianity; and now
the continuity and close intermixture of these great
streams can no longer be denied--nor IS it indeed denied
by those who have really studied the subject. It is
seen that religious evolution through the ages has been
practically One thing--that there has been in fact a World-
religion, though with various phases and branches.
And so in the present day a new problem arises, namely
how to account for the appearance of this great Phenomenon,
with its orderly phases of evolution, and its own spontaneous[1]
growths in all corners of the globe--this phenomenon
which has had such a strange sway over the
hearts of men, which has attracted them with so weird
a charm, which has drawn out their devotion, love and
tenderness, which has consoled them in sorrow and affliction,
and yet which has stained their history with such horrible
sacrifices and persecutions and cruelties. What has
been the instigating cause of it?
[1] For the question of spontaneity see chap. x and elsewhere.
The answer which I propose to this question, and which
is developed to some extent in the following chapters, is
a psychological one. It is that the phenomenon proceeds
from, and is a necessary accompaniment of, the growth of
human Consciousness itself--its growth, namely, through
the three great stages of its unfoldment. These stages
are (1) that of the simple or animal consciousness, (2) that
of SELF-consciousness, and (3) that of a third stage of
consciousness which has not as yet been effectively named, but
whose indications and precursive signs we here and there
perceive in the rites and prophecies and mysteries of
the early religions, and in the poetry and art and literature
generally of the later civilizations. Though I do not
expect or wish to catch Nature and History in the careful
net of a phrase, yet I think that in the sequence from
the above-mentioned first stage to the second, and then
again in the sequence from the second to the third,
there will be found a helpful explanation of the rites and
aspirations of human religion. It is this idea, illustrated
by details of ceremonial and so forth, which forms the main
thesis of the present book. In this sequence of growth,
Christianity enters as an episode, but no more than an episode.
It does not amount to a disruption or dislocation of evolution.
If it did, or if it stood as an unique or unclassifiable
phenomenon (as some of its votaries contend), this would
seem to be a misfortune--as it would obviously rob us of
at any rate one promise of progress in the future. And
the promise of something better than Paganism and better
than Christianity is very precious. It is surely time
that it should be fulfilled.
The tracing, therefore, of the part that human self-
consciousness has played, psychologically, in the evolution
of religion, runs like a thread through the following chapters,
and seeks illustration in a variety of details. The idea
has been repeated under different aspects; sometimes,
possibly, it has been repeated too often; but different aspects
in such a case do help, as in a stereoscope, to give
solidity to the thing seen. Though the worship of Sun-gods
and divine figures in the sky came comparatively late
in religious evolution, 1 have put this subject early in
the book (chapters ii and iii), partly because (as I have
already explained) it was the phase first studied in modern
times, and therefore is the one most familiar to present-
day readers, and partly because its astronomical data
give great definiteness and "proveability" to it, in rebuttal
to the common accusation that the whole study of religious
origins is too vague and uncertain to have much value.
Going backwards in Time, the two next chapters (iv and v)
deal with Totem-sacraments and Magic, perhaps the earliest
forms of religion. And these four lead on (in chapters vi
to xi) to the consideration of rites and creeds common to
Paganism and Christianity. XII and xiii deal especially
with the evolution of Christianity itself; xiv and xv explain
the inner Meaning of the whole process from the beginning;
and xvi and xvii look to the Future.
The appendix on the doctrines of the Upanishads may,
I hope, serve to give an idea, intimate even though inadequate,
of the third Stage--that which follows on the
stage of self-consciousness; and to portray the mental attitudes
which are characteristic of that stage. Here in this
third stage, it would seem, one comes upon the real FACTS of
the inner life--in contradistinction to the fancies and figments
of the second stage; and so one reaches the final point
of conjunction between Science and Religion.
II. SOLAR MYTHS AND CHRISTIAN FESTIVALS
To the ordinary public--notwithstanding the immense amount
of work which has of late been done on this subject--
the connection between Paganism and Christianity still seems
rather remote. Indeed the common notion is that Christianity
was really a miraculous interposition into and
dislocation of the old order of the world; and that the pagan
gods (as in Milton's Hymn on the Nativity) fled away in
dismay before the sign of the Cross, and at the sound
of the name of Jesus. Doubtless this was a view much
encouraged by the early Church itself--if only to enhance
its own authority and importance; yet, as is well known
to every student, it is quite misleading and contrary to
fact. The main Christian doctrines and festivals, besides
a great mass of affiliated legend and ceremonial, are really
quite directly derived from, and related to, preceding Nature
worships; and it has only been by a good deal of deliberate
mystification and falsification that this derivation has been
kept out of sight.
In these Nature-worships there may be discerned three
fairly independent streams of religious or quasi-religious
enthusiasm: (1) that connected with the phenomena of the
heavens, the movements of the Sun, planets and stars, and
the awe and wonderment they excited; (2) that connected
with the seasons and the very important matter of the
growth of vegetation and food on the Earth; and (3)
that connected with the mysteries of Sex and reproduction.
It is obvious that these three streams would mingle and
interfuse with each other a good deal; but as far as
they were separable the first would tend to create Solar heroes
and Sun-myths; the second Vegetation-gods and personifications
of Nature and the earth-life; while the third
would throw its glamour over the other two and contribute
to the projection of deities or demons worshipped
with all sorts of sexual and phallic rites. All three systems
of course have their special rites and times and ceremonies;
but, as, I say, the rites and ceremonies of one
system would rarely be found pure and unmixed with
those. belonging to the two others. The whole subject
is a very large one; but for reasons given in the Introduction
I shall in this and the following chapter--while not
ignoring phases (2) and (3)--lay most stress on phase (1)
of the question before us.
At the time of the life or recorded appearance of Jesus
of Nazareth, and for some centuries before, the Mediterranean
and neighboring world had been the scene of a
vast number of pagan creeds and rituals. There were
Temples without end dedicated to gods like Apollo or Dionysus
among the Greeks, Hercules among the Romans,
Mithra among the Persians, Adonis and Attis in Syria and
Phrygia, Osiris and Isis and Horus in Egypt, Baal and
Astarte among the Babylonians and Carthaginians, and so
forth. Societies, large or small, united believers and the
devout in the service or ceremonials connected with their
respective deities, and in the creeds which they confessed
concerning these deities. And an extraordinarily
interesting fact, for us, is that notwithstanding great
geographical
distances and racial differences between the adherents
of these various cults, as well as differences in the
details of their services, the general outlines of their creeds
and ceremonials were--if not identical--so markedly similar
as we find them.
I cannot of course go at length into these different cults,
but I may say roughly that of all or nearly all the deities
above-mentioned it was said and believed that:
(1) They were born on or very near our Christmas Day.
(2) They were born of a Virgin-Mother.
(3) And in a Cave or Underground Chamber.
(4) They led a life of toil for Mankind.
(5) And were called by the names of Light-bringer,
Healer, Mediator, Savior, Deliverer.
(6) They were however vanquished by the Powers of
Darkness.
(7) And descended into Hell or the Underworld.
(8) They rose again from the dead, and became the
pioneers of mankind to the Heavenly world.
(9) They founded Communions of Saints, and Churches
into which disciples were received by Baptism.
(10) And they were commemorated by Eucharistic
meals.
Let me give a few brief examples.
Mithra was born in a cave, and on the 25th December.[1]
He was born of a Virgin.[2] He traveled far and wide as
a teacher and illuminator of men. He slew the Bull
(symbol of the gross Earth which the sunlight fructifies).
His great festivals were the winter solstice and the Spring
equinox (Christmas and Easter). He had twelve companions
or disciples (the twelve months). He was buried
in a tomb, from which however he rose again; and his
resurrection was celebrated yearly with great rejoicings. He
was called Savior and Mediator, and sometimes figured as
a Lamb; and sacramental feasts in remembrance of him were
held by his followers. This legend is apparently partly
astronomical and partly vegetational; and the same may be said
of the following about Osiris.
[1] The birthfeast of Mithra was held in Rome on the 8th day
before the Kalends of January, being also the day of the
Circassian games, which were sacred to the Sun. (See F. Nork, Der
Mystagog, Leipzig.)
[2] This at any rate was reported by his later disciples (see
Robertson's Pagan Christs, p. 338).
Osiris was born (Plutarch tells us) on the 361st day of
the year, say the 27th December. He too, like Mithra and
Dionysus, was a great traveler. As King of Egypt he
taught men civil arts, and "tamed them by music and
gentleness, not by force of arms";[1] he was the discoverer
of corn and wine. But he was betrayed by Typhon, the
power of darkness, and slain and dismembered. "This happened,"
says Plutarch, "on the 17th of the month Athyr,
when the sun enters into the Scorpion" (the sign of the
Zodiac which indicates the oncoming of Winter). His body
was placed in a box, but afterwards, on the 19th, came again
to life, and, as in the cults of Mithra, Dionysus, Adonis and
others, so in the cult of Osiris, an image placed in a coffin
was brought out before the worshipers and saluted with
glad cries of "Osiris is risen."[1] "His sufferings, his death
and his resurrection were enacted year by year in a great
mystery-play at Abydos."[2]
[1] See Plutarch on Isis and Osiris.
[2] Ancient Art and Ritual, by Jane E. Harrison, chap. i.
The two following legends have more distinctly the character
of Vegetation myths.
Adonis or Tammuz, the Syrian god of vegetation, was
a very beautiful youth, born of a Virgin (Nature), and so
beautiful that Venus and Proserpine (the goddesses of the
Upper and Underworlds) both fell in love with him.
To reconcile their claims it was agreed that he should
spend half the year (summer) in the upper world, and the
winter half with Proserpine below. He was killed by a
boar (Typhon) in the autumn. And every year the maidens
"wept for Adonis" (see Ezekiel viii. 14). In the spring
a festival of his resurrection was held--the women set out
to seek him, and having found the supposed corpse
placed it (a wooden image) in a coffin or hollow tree, and
performed wild rites and lamentations, followed by even
wilder rejoicings over his supposed resurrection. At Aphaca
in the North of Syria, and halfway between Byblus and
Baalbec, there was a famous grove and temple of Astarte,
near which was a wild romantic gorge full of trees, the
birthplace of a certain river Adonis--the water rushing from
a Cavern, under lofty cliffs. Here (it was said) every year
the youth Adonis was again wounded to death, and the
river ran red with his blood,[1] while the scarlet anemone
bloomed among the cedars and walnuts.
[1] A discoloration caused by red earth washed by rain from the
mountains, and which has been observed by modern travelers. For
the whole story of Adonis and of Attis see Frazer's Golden Bough,
part iv.
The story of Attis is very similar. He was a fair young
shepherd or herdsman of Phrygia, beloved by Cybele (or
Demeter), the Mother of the gods. He was born of a Virgin
--Nana--who conceived by putting a ripe almond or
pomegranate in her bosom. He died, either killed by a
boar, the symbol of winter, like Adonis, or self-castrated
(like his own priests); and he bled to death at the foot of
a pine tree (the pine and pine-cone being symbols of fertility).
The sacrifice of his blood renewed the fertility of
the earth, and in the ritual celebration of his death and
resurrection his image was fastened to the trunk of a pine-
tree (compare the Crucifixion). But I shall return to this
legend presently. The worship of Attis became very widespread
and much honored, and was ultimately incorporated
with the established religion at Rome somewhere about the
commencement of our Era.
The following two legends (dealing with Hercules and
with Krishna) have rather more of the character of the
solar, and less of the vegetational myth about them. Both
heroes were regarded as great benefactors of humanity; but
the former more on the material plane, and the latter on the
spiritual.
Hercules or Heracles was, like other Sun-gods and benefactors of
mankind, a great Traveler. He was known in
many lands, and everywhere he was invoked as Saviour.
He was miraculously conceived from a divine Father; even
in the cradle he strangled two serpents sent to destroy him.
His many labors for the good of the world were ultimately
epitomized into twelve, symbolized by the signs of the Zodiac.
He slew the Nemxan Lion and the Hydra (offspring
of Typhon) and the Boar. He overcame the Cretan Bull,
and cleaned out the Stables of Augeas; he conquered Death
and, descending into Hades, brought Cerberus thence and
ascended into Heaven. On all sides he was followed by the
gratitude and the prayers of mortals.
As to Krishna, the Indian god, the points of agreement
with the general divine career indicated above are too salient
to be overlooked, and too numerous to be fully recorded.
He also was born of a Virgin (Devaki) and in a Cave,[1]
and his birth announced by a Star. It was sought to destroy
him, and for that purpose a massacre of infants was ordered.
Everywhere he performed miracles, raising the dead, healing
lepers, and the deaf and the blind, and championing the
poor and oppressed. He had a beloved disciple, Arjuna, (cf.
John) before whom he was transfigured.[2] His death is
differently related--as being shot by an arrow, or crucified on
a tree. He descended into hell; and rose again from the
dead, ascending into heaven in the sight of many people.
He will return at the last day to be the judge of the quick
and the dead.
[1] Cox's Myths of the Aryan Nations, p. 107.
[2] Bhagavat Gita, ch. xi.
Such are some of the legends concerning the pagan and
pre-Christian deities--only briefly sketched now, in order
that we may get something like a true perspective of the
whole subject; but to most of them, and more in detail,
I shall return as the argument proceeds.
What we chiefly notice so far are two points; on the
one hand the general similarity of these stories with that
of Jesus Christ; on the other their analogy with the yearly
phenomena of Nature as illustrated by the course of the
Sun in heaven and the changes of Vegetation on the earth.
(1) The similarity of these ancient pagan legends and
beliefs with Christian traditions was indeed so great that
it excited the attention and the undisguised wrath of the
early Christian fathers. They felt no doubt about the similarity,
but not knowing how to explain it fell back upon the
innocent theory that the Devil--in order to confound the
Christians--had, CENTURIES BEFORE, caused the pagans to
adopt certain beliefs and practices! (Very crafty, we
may say, of the Devil, but also very innocent of the
Fathers to believe it!) Justin Martyr for instance
describes[1] the institution of the Lord's Supper as narrated
in the Gospels, and then goes on to say: "Which the wicked
devils have IMITATED in the mysteries of Mithra, commanding
the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup
of water are placed with certain incantations in the
mystic rites of one who is being initiated you either know
or can learn." Tertullian also says[2] that "the devil by the
mysteries of his idols imitates even the main part of the
divine mysteries." . . . "He baptizes his worshippers in
water and makes them believe that this purifies them from
their crimes." . . . "Mithra sets his mark on the forehead
of his soldiers; he celebrates the oblation of bread;
he offers an image of the resurrection, and presents at once
the crown and the sword; he limits his chief priest to a
single marriage; he even has his virgins and ascetics."[3]
Cortez, too, it will be remembered complained that the Devil
had positively taught to the Mexicans the same things which
God had taught to Christendom.
[1] I Apol. c. 66.
[2] De Praescriptione Hereticorum, c. 40; De Bapt. c. 3; De
Corona, c. 15.
[3] For reference to both these examples see J. M. Robertson's
Pagan Christs, pp. 321, 322.
Justin Martyr again, in the Dialogue with Trypho says
that the Birth in the Stable was the prototype (!) of the
birth of Mithra in the Cave of Zoroastrianism; and boasts
that Christ was born when the Sun takes its birth in the
Augean Stable,[1] coming as a second Hercules to cleanse
a foul world; and St. Augustine says "we hold this
(Christmas) day holy, not like the pagans because of the
birth of the Sun, but because of the birth of him who made
it." There are plenty of other instances in the Early Fathers
of their indignant ascription of these similarities to the work
of devils; but we need not dwell over them. There is no
need for US to be indignant. On the contrary we can now
see that these animadversions of the Christian writers are
the evidence of how and to what extent in the spread of
Christianity over the world it had become fused with the
Pagan cults previously existing.
[1] The Zodiacal sign of Capricornus, iii.).
It was not till the year A.D. 530 or so--five centuries after
the supposed birth of Christ--that a Scythian Monk, Dionysius
Exiguus, an abbot and astronomer of Rome, was
commissioned to fix the day and the year of that birth.
A nice problem, considering the historical science of the
period! For year he assigned the date which we now adopt,[2]
and for day and month he adopted the 25th December
--a date which had been in popular use since about
350 B.C., and the very date, within a day or two, of the
supposed birth of the previous Sungods.[3] From that
fact alone we may fairly conclude that by the year 530
or earlier the existing Nature-worships had become largely
fused into Christianity. In fact the dates of the main
pagan religious festivals had by that time become so
popular that Christianity was OBLIGED to accommodate itself
to them.[1]
[1] As, for instance, the festival of John the Baptist in June
took the place of the pagan midsummer festival of water and
bathing; the Assumption of the Virgin in August the place of that
of Diana in the same month; and the festival of All Souls early
in November, that of the world-wide pagan feasts of the dead and
their ghosts at the same season.
[2] See Encycl. Brit. art. "Chronology."
[3] "There is however a difficulty in accepting the 25th December
as the real date of the Nativity, December being the height of
the rainy season in Judaea, when neither flocks nor shepherds
could have been at night in the fields of Bethlehem" (!). Encycl.
Brit. art. "Christmas Day." According to Hastings's
Encyclopaedia, art. "Christmas," "Usener says that the Feast of
the Nativity was held originally on the 6th January (the
Epiphany), but in 353-4 the Pope Liberius displaced
it to the 25th December . . . but there is no evidence of a
Feast of the Nativity taking place at all, before the fourth
century A.D." It was not till 534 A.D. that Christmas Day and
Epiphany were reckoned by the law-courts as dies non.
This brings us to the second point mentioned a few
pages back--the analogy between the Christian festivals
and the yearly phenomena of Nature in the Sun and the
Vegetation.
Let us take Christmas Day first. Mithra, as we have
seen, was reported to have been born on the 25th December
(which in the Julian Calendar was reckoned as the day
of the Winter Solstice AND of the Nativity of the Sun);
Plutarch says (Isis and Osiris, c. 12) that Osiris was born
on the 361st day of the year, when a Voice rang out proclaiming
the Lord of All. Horus, he says, was born on the
362nd day. Apollo on the same.
Why was all this? Why did the Druids at Yule Tide
light roaring fires? Why was the cock supposed to crow all
Christmas Eve ("The bird of dawning singeth all night
long")? Why was Apollo born with only one hair (the
young Sun with only one feeble ray)? Why did Samson
(name derived from Shemesh, the sun) lose all his strength
when he lost his hair? Why were so many of these gods
--Mithra, Apollo, Krishna, Jesus, and others, born in
caves or underground chambers?[1] Why, at the Easter
Eve festival of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem is a light
brought from the grave and communicated to the candles
of thousands who wait outside, and who rush forth rejoicing
to carry the new glory over the world?[2] Why indeed?
except that older than all history and all written records
has been the fear and wonderment of the children of men
over the failure of the Sun's strength in Autumn--the decay
of their God; and the anxiety lest by any means he should
not revive or reappear?
[1] This same legend of gods (or idols) being born in caves has,
curiously enough, been reported from Mexico, Guatemala, the
Antilles, and other places in Central America. See C. F. P. von
Martius, Etknographie Amerika, etc. (Leipzig, 1867), vol. i, p.
758.
[2] Compare the Aztec ceremonial of lighting a holy fire and
communicating it to the multitude from the wounded breast of a
human victim, celebrated every 52 years at the end of one cycle
and the beginning of another--the constellation of the Pleiades
being in the Zenith (Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, Bk. I, ch.
4).
Think for a moment of a time far back when there were
absolutely NO Almanacs or Calendars, either nicely printed
or otherwise, when all that timid mortals could see was that
their great source of Light and Warmth was daily failing,
daily sinking lower in the sky. As everyone now knows
there are about three weeks at the fag end of the
year when the days are at their shortest and there is very
little change. What was happening? Evidently the god
had fallen upon evil times. Typhon, the prince of darkness,
had betrayed him; Delilah, the queen of Night, had
shorn his hair; the dreadful Boar had wounded him;
Hercules was struggling with Death itself; he had fallen
under the influence of those malign constellations--the
Serpent and the Scorpion. Would the god grow weaker
and weaker, and finally succumb, or would he conquer after
all? We can imagine the anxiety with which those early
men and women watched for the first indication of a lengthening
day; and the universal joy when the Priest (the representative
of primitive science) having made some simple
observations, announced from the Temple steps that the
day WAS lengthening--that the Sun was really born again
to a new and glorious career.[1]
[1] It was such things as these which doubtless gave the
Priesthood
its power.
Let us look at the elementary science of those days a
little closer. How without Almanacs or Calendars could
the day, or probable day, of the Sun's rebirth be fixed?
Go out next Christmas Evening, and at midnight you will
see the brightest of the fixed stars, Sirius, blazing in the
southern sky--not however due south from you, but somewhat
to the left of the Meridian line. Some three thousand
years ago (owing to the Precession of the Equinoxes) that
star at the winter solstice did not stand at midnight where
you now see it, but almost exactly ON the meridian line.
The coming of Sirius therefore to the meridian at midnight
became the sign and assurance of the Sun having reached
the very lowest point of his course, and therefore of having
arrived at the moment of his re-birth. Where then was
the Sun at that moment? Obviously in the underworld
beneath our feet. Whatever views the ancients may have
had about the shape of the earth, it was evident to the
mass of people that the Sungod, after illuminating the
world during the day, plunged down in the West, and
remained there during the hours of darkness in some cavern
under the earth. Here he rested and after bathing in the
great ocean renewed his garments before reappearing in the
East next morning.
But in this long night of his greatest winter weakness,
when all the world was hoping and praying for the renewal
of his strength, it is evident that the new birth would come
--if it came at all--at midnight. This then was the sacred
hour when in the underworld (the Stable or the Cave or
whatever it might be called) the child was born who was
destined to be the Savior of men. At that moment Sirius
stood on the southern meridian (and in more southern lands
than ours this would be more nearly overhead); and that
star--there is little doubt--is the Star in the East mentioned
in the Gospels.
To the right, as the supposed observer looks at Sirius on
the midnight of Christmas Eve, stands the magnificent
Orion, the mighty hunter. There are three stars in his belt
which, as is well known, lie in a straight line pointing to
Sirius. They are not so bright as Sirius, but they are
sufficiently bright to attract attention. A long tradition
gives them the name of the Three Kings. Dupuis[1] says:
"Orion a trois belles etoiles vers le milieu, qui sont de
seconde grandeur et posees en ligne droite, l'une pres de
l'autre, le peuple les appelle les trois rois. On donne aux
trois rois Magis les noms de Magalat, Galgalat, Saraim;
et Athos, Satos, Paratoras. Les Catholiques les appellent
Gaspard, Melchior, et Balthasar." The last-mentioned
group of names comes in the Catholic Calendar in connection
with the feast of the Epiphany (6th January); and
the name "Trois Rois" is commonly to-day given to these
stars by the French and Swiss peasants.
[1] Charles F. Dupuis (Origine de Tous les Cultes, Paris, 1822)
was one of the earliest modern writers on these subjects.
Immediately after Midnight then, on the 25th December,
the Beloved Son (or Sun-god) is born. If we go back in
thought to the period, some three thousand years ago, when
at that moment of the heavenly birth Sirius, coming from
the East, did actually stand on the Meridian, we shall
come into touch with another curious astronomical coincidence.
For at the same moment we shall see the Zodiacal
constellation of the Virgin in the act of rising, and becoming
visible in the East divided through the middle by the line
of the horizon.
The constellation Virgo is a Y-shaped group, of which ,
the star at the foot, is the well-known Spica, a star of
the first magnitude. The other principal stars, at the
centre, and and at the extremities, are of the
second magnitude. The whole resembles more a cup than the human
figure; but when we remember the symbolic meaning
of the cup, that seems to be an obvious explanation of
the name Virgo, which the constellation has borne since
the earliest times. [The three stars , and ,
lie very nearly on the Ecliptic, that is, the Sun's path--a fact
to which we shall return presently.]
At the moment then when Sirius, the star from the East,
by coming to the Meridian at midnight signalled the Sun's
new birth, the Virgin was seen just rising on the Eastern
sky--the horizon line passing through her centre. And
many people think that this astronomical fact is the explanation
of the very widespread legend of the Virgin-birth. I
do not think that it is the sole explanation--for indeed in
all or nearly all these cases the acceptance of a myth seems
to depend not upon a single argument but upon the convergence
of a number of meanings and reasons in the same
symbol. But certainly the fact mentioned above is curious,
and its importance is accentuated by the following
considerations.
In the Temple of Denderah in Egypt, and on the inside
of the dome, there is or WAS an elaborate circular representation
of the Northern hemisphere of the sky and the
Zodiac.[1] Here Virgo the constellation is represented, as
in our star-maps, by a woman with a spike of corn in her
hand (Spica). But on the margin close by there is an annotating
and explicatory figure--a figure of Isis with
the infant Horus in her arms, and quite resembling in style
the Christian Madonna and Child, except that she is
sitting and the child is on her knee. This seems to show
that--whatever other nations may have done in associating
Virgo with Demeter, Ceres, Diana[2] etc.--the Egyptians
made no doubt of the constellation's connection with Isis
and Horus. But it is well known as a matter of history
that the worship of Isis and Horus descended in the early
Christian centuries to Alexandria, where it took the form
of the worship of the Virgin Mary and the infant Savior,
and so passed into the European ceremonial. We have
therefore the Virgin Mary connected by linear succession and
descent with that remote Zodiacal cluster in the sky! Also
it may be mentioned that on the Arabian and Persian globes
of Abenezra and Abuazar a Virgin and Child are figured in
connection with the same constellation.[3]
[1] Carefully described and mapped by Dupuis, see op. cit.
[2] For the harvest-festival of Diana, the Virgin, and her
parallelism
with the Virgin Mary, see The Golden Bough, vol. i, 14 and ii,
121.
[3] See F. Nork, Der Mystagog (Leipzig, 1838).
A curious confirmation of the same astronomical connection
is afforded by the Roman Catholic Calendar. For if this be
consulted it will be found that the festival of the
Assumption of the Virgin is placed on the 15th August, while the
festival of the Birth of the Virgin is dated the 8th September. I
have already pointed out that the stars, , and of Virgo are almost exactly on the Ecliptic, or
Sun's path through the sky; and a brief reference to the
Zodiacal signs and the star-maps will show that the Sun
each year enters the sign of Virgo about the first-mentioned
date, and leaves it about the second date. At the present
day the Zodiacal signs (owing to precession) have shifted
some distance from the constellations of the same name.
But at the time when the Zodiac was constituted and
these names were given, the first date obviously would
signalize the actual disappearance of the cluster Virgo
in the Sun's rays--i. e. the Assumption of the Virgin into
the glory of the God--while the second date would signalize
the reappearance of the constellation or the Birth of the
Virgin. The Church of Notre Dame at Paris is supposed
to be on the original site of a Temple of Isis; and it is said
(but I have not been able to verify this myself) that one of
the side entrances--that, namely, on the left in entering
from the North (cloister) side--is figured with the signs of
the Zodiac EXCEPT that the sign Virgo is replaced by the
figure of the Madonna and Child.
So strange is the scripture of the sky! Innumerable
legends and customs connect the rebirth of the Sun with
a Virgin parturition. Dr. J. G. Frazer in his Part IV of
The Golden Bough[1] says: "If we may trust the evidence
of an obscure scholiast the Greeks [in the worship of
Mithras at Rome] used to celebrate the birth of the luminary
by a midnight service, coming out of the inner
shrines and crying, 'The Virgin has brought forth! The light
is waxing!' (.)" In
Elie Reclus' little book Primitive Folk[2] it is said of the
Esquimaux that "On the longest night of the year two
angakout (priests), of whom one is disguised as a WOMAN,
go from hut to hut extinguishing all the lights, rekindling
them from a vestal flame, and crying out, 'From the new sun
cometh a new light!' "
[1] Book II, ch. vi.
[2] In the Contemporary Science Series, I. 92.
All this above-written on the Solar or Astronomical origins
of the myths does not of course imply that the Vegetational
origins must be denied or ignored. These latter
were doubtless the earliest, but there is no reason--
as said in the Introduction (ch. i)--why the two elements
should not to some extent have run side by side, or been
fused with each other. In fact it is quite clear that they
must have done so; and to separate them out too rigidly,
or treat them as antagonistic, is a mistake. The Cave or
Underworld in which the New Year is born is not only
the place of the Sun's winter retirement, but also the hidden
chamber beneath the Earth to which the dying Vegetation
goes, and from which it re-arises in Spring. The amours
of Adonis with Venus and Proserpine, the lovely goddesses
of the upper and under worlds, or of Attis with Cybele, the
blooming Earth-mother, are obvious vegetation-symbols; but
they do not exclude the interpretation that Adonis
(Adonai) may also figure as a Sun-god. The Zodiacal
constellations of Aries and Taurus (to which I shall return
presently) rule in heaven just when the Lamb and the Bull
are in evidence on the earth; and the yearly sacrifice of
those two animals and of the growing Corn for the good
of mankind runs parallel with the drama of the sky, as it
affects not only the said constellations but also Virgo (the
Earth-mother who bears the sheaf of corn in her hand).
I shall therefore continue (in the next chapter) to point
out these astronomical references--which are full of
significance and poetry; but with a recommendation at the
same time to the reader not to forget the poetry and significance
of the terrestrial interpretations.
Between Christmas Day and Easter there are several minor
festivals or holy days--such as the 28th December (the
Massacre of the Innocents), the 6th January (the
Epiphany), the 2nd February (Candlemas[1] Day), the
period of Lent (German Lenz, the Spring), the Annunciation of the
Blessed Virgin, and so forth--which have been
commonly celebrated in the pagan cults before Christianity,
and in which elements of Star and Nature worship
can be traced; but to dwell on all these would take too
long; so let us pass at once to the period of Easter itself.
[1] This festival of the Purification of the Virgin corresponds
with the old Roman festival of Juno Februata (i. e. purified)
which was held in the last month (February) of the Roman year,
and which included a candle procession of Ceres, searching for
Proserpine. (F. Nork, Der Mystagog.)
III. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC
The Vernal Equinox has all over the ancient world, and
from the earliest times, been a period of rejoicing and of
festivals in honor of the Sungod. It is needless to labor
a point which is so well known. Everyone understands
and appreciates the joy of finding that the long darkness
is giving way, that the Sun is growing in strength, and
that the days are winning a victory over the nights. The
birds and flowers reappear, and the promise of Spring is
in the air. But it may be worth while to give an elementary
explanation of the ASTRONOMICAL meaning of this period,
because this is not always understood, and yet it is very
important in its bearing on the rites and creeds of the early
religions. The priests who were, as I have said, the early
students and inquirers, had worked out this astronomical
side, and in that way were able to fix dates and
to frame for the benefit of the populace myths and legends,
which were in a certain sense explanations of the order of
Nature, and a kind of "popular science."
The Equator, as everyone knows, is an imaginary line
or circle girdling the Earth half-way between the North
and South poles. If you imagine a transparent Earth with
a light at its very centre, and also imagine the SHADOW
of this equatorial line to be thrown on the vast concave
of the Sky, this shadow would in astronomical parlance
coincide with the Equator of the Sky--forming an imaginary
circle half-way between the North and South celestial poles.
The Equator, then, may be pictured as cutting across the
sky either by day or by night, and always at the same
elevation--that is, as seen from any one place. But the
Ecliptic (the other important great circle of the heavens)
can only be thought of as a line traversing the constellations
as they are seen at NIGHT. It is in fact the Sun's path
among the fixed stars. For (really owing to the Earth's
motion in its orbit) the Sun appears to move round
the heavens once a year--travelling, always to the left,
from constellation to constellation. The exact path of
the sun is called the Ecliptic; and the band of sky on either
side of the Ecliptic which may be supposed to include
the said constellations is called the Zodiac. How then--
it will of course be asked--seeing that the Sun and the Stars
can never be seen together--were the Priests ABLE to map
out the path of the former among the latter? Into that
question we need not go. Sufficient to say that they succeeded;
and their success--even with the very primitive instruments
they had--shows that their astronomical knowledge
and acuteness of reasoning were of no mean order.
To return to our Vernal Equinox. Let us suppose that
the Equator and Ecliptic of the sky, at the Spring season,
are represented by two lines Eq. and Ecl. crossing each
other at the point P. The Sun, represented by the small
circle, is moving slowly and in its annual course along the
Ecliptic to the left. When it reaches the point P (the
dotted circle) it stands on the Equator of the sky, and then
for a day or two, being neither North nor South, it
shines on the two terrestrial hemispheres alike, and day and
night are equal. BEFORE that time, when the sun is low
down in the heavens, night has the advantage, and the
days are short; AFTERWARDS, when the Sun has travelled more
to the left, the days triumph over the nights. It will be seen
then that this point P where the Sun's path crosses the Equator
is a very critical point. It is the astronomical location
of the triumph of the Sungod and of the arrival of Spring.
How was this location defined? Among what stars was
the Sun moving at that critical moment? (For of course
it was understood, or supposed, that the Sun was deeply
influenced by the constellation through which it was, or
appeared to be, moving.) It seems then that at the
period when these questions were occupying men's minds
--say about three thousand years ago--the point where
the Ecliptic crossed the Equator was, as a matter of
fact, in the region of the constellation Aries or the he-
Lamb. The triumph of the Sungod was therefore, and quite
naturally, ascribed to the influence of Aries. THE LAMB
BECAME THE SYMBOL OF THE RISEN SAVIOR, AND OF HIS PASSAGE
FROM THE UNDERWORLD INTO THE HEIGHT OF HEAVEN. At first such
an explanation sounds hazardous; but a thousand texts and
references confirm it; and it is only by the accumulation
of evidence in these cases that the student becomes convinced
of a theory's correctness. It must also be remembered
(what I have mentioned before) that these myths and legends
were commonly adopted not only for one strict reason but
because they represented in a general way the convergence of
various symbols and inferences.
Let me enumerate a few points with regard to the Vernal
Equinox. In the Bible the festival is called the Passover,
and its supposed institution by Moses is related in Exodus,
ch. xii. In every house a he-lamb was to be slain,
and its blood to be sprinkled on the doorposts of the
house. Then the Lord would pass over and not smite that
house. The Hebrew word is pasach, to pass.[1] The lamb
slain was called the Paschal Lamb. But what was that
lamb? Evidently not an earthly lamb--(though certainly
the earthly lambs on the hillsides WERE just then ready
to be killed and eaten)--but the heavenly Lamb, which
was slain or sacrificed when the Lord "passed over" the
equator and obliterated the constellation Aries. This was
the Lamb of God which was slain each year, and "Slain
since the foundation of the world." This period of the
Passover (about the 25th March) was to be[2] the beginning
of a new year. The sacrifice of the Lamb, and its blood,
were to be the promise of redemption. The door-frames of the
houses--symbols of the entrance into a new life--were
to be sprinkled with blood.[3] Later, the imagery of the
saving power of the blood of the Lamb became more
popular, more highly colored. (See St. Paul's epistles, and
the early Fathers.) And we have the expression "washed
in the blood of the Lamb" adopted into the Christian
Church.
[1] It is said that pasach sometimes means not so much to pass
over, as to hover over and so protect. Possibly both meanings
enter in here. See Isaiah xxxi. 5.
[2] See Exodus xii. i.
[3] It is even said (see The Golden Bough, vol. iii, 185) that
the doorways of houses and temples in Peru were at the Spring
festival daubed with blood of the first-born children--commuted
afterwards to the blood of the sacred animal, the Llama. And as
to Mexico, Sahagun, the great Spanish missionary, tells us that
it was a custom of the people there to "smear the outside of
their houses and doors with blood drawn from their own ears and
ankles, in order to propitiate the god of Harvest"
(Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities, vol. vi, p. 235).
In order fully to understand this extraordinary expression
and its origin we must turn for a moment to the worship
both of Mithra, the Persian Sungod, and of Attis the Syrian
god, as throwing great light on the Christian cult and
ceremonies. It must be remembered that in the early centuries
of our era the Mithra-cult was spread over the whole Western
world. It has left many monuments of itself here
in Britain. At Rome the worship was extremely popular,
and it may almost be said to have been a matter
of chance whether Mithraism should overwhelm Christianity,
or whether the younger religion by adopting many of the
rites of the older one should establish itself (as it did) in
the face of the latter.
Now we have already mentioned that in the Mithra
cult the slaying of a Bull by the Sungod occupies the same
sort of place as the slaving of the Lamb in the Christian
cult. It took place at the Vernal Equinox and the blood
of the Bull acquired in men's minds a magic virtue.
Mithraism was a greatly older religion than Christianity;
but its genesis was similar. In fact, owing to the Precession
of the Equinoxes, the crossing-place of the Ecliptic and
Equator was different at the time of the establishment
of Mithra-worship from what it was in the Christian period;
and the Sun instead of standing in the He-lamb, or Aries,
at the Vernal Equinox stood, about two thousand years
earlier (as indicated by the dotted line in the diagram), in this
very constellation of the Bull.[1] The bull
therefore became the symbol of the triumphant God, and the
sacrifice of the bull a holy mystery. (Nor must we
overlook here the agricultural appropriateness of the bull as
the emblem of Spring-plowings and of service to man.)
[1] With regard to this point, see an article in the Nineteenth
Century for September 1900, by E. W. Maunder of the Greenwich
Observatory on "The Oldest Picture Book" (the Zodiac). Mr.
Maunder calculates that the Vernal Equinox was in the centre of
the Sign of the Bull 5,000 years ago. [It would therefore be in
the centre of Aries 2,845 years ago--allowing 2,155 years for the
time occupied in passing from one Sign to another.] At the
earlier period the Summer solstice was in the centre of Leo, the
Autumnal equinox in the centre of Scorpio, and the Winter
solstice in the centre of Aquarius--corresponding
roughly, Mr. Maunder points out, to the positions of the
four "Royal Stars," Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut.
The sacrifice of the Bull became the image of redemption.
In a certain well-known Mithra-sculpture or group, the Sungod
is represented as plunging his dagger into a bull, while
a scorpion, a serpent, and other animals are sucking the
latter's blood. From one point of view this may be taken as
symbolic of the Sun fertilizing the gross Earth by plunging
his rays into it and so drawing forth its blood for the
sustenance of all creatures; while from another more astronomical
aspect it symbolizes the conquest of the Sun over winter
in the moment of "passing over" the sign of the Bull, and the
depletion of the generative power of the Bull by the Scorpion
--which of course is the autumnal sign of the Zodiac and
herald of winter. One such Mithraic group was found at
Ostia, where there was a large subterranean Temple "to the
invincible god Mithras."
In the worship of Attis there were (as I have already indicated)
many points of resemblance to the Christian
cult. On the 22nd March (the Vernal Equinox) a pinetree
was cut in the woods and brought into the Temple of
Cybele. It was treated almost as a divinity, was decked
with violets, and the effigy of a young man tied to the stem
(cf. the Crucifixion). The 24th was called the "Day of
Blood"; the High Priest first drew blood from his own
arms; and then the others gashed and slashed themselves,
and spattered the altar and the sacred tree with blood; while
novices made themselves eunuchs "for the kingdom of
heaven's sake." The effigy was afterwards laid in a tomb.
But when night fell, says Dr. Frazer,[1] sorrow was turned to
joy. A light was brought, and the tomb was found to
be empty. The next day, the 25th, was the festival of
the Resurrection; and ended in carnival and license (the
Hilaria). Further, says Dr. Frazer, these mysteries "seem
to have included a sacramental meal and a baptism of
blood."
[1] See Adonis, Attis and Osiris, Part IV of The Golden Bough, by
J. G. Frazer, p. 229.
"In the baptism the devotee, crowned with gold and
wreathed with fillets, descended into a pit, the mouth of
which was covered with a wooden grating. A bull, adorned
with garlands of flowers, its forehead glittering with gold
leaf, was then driven on to the grating and there stabbed
to death with a consecrated spear. Its hot reeking blood
poured in torrents through the apertures, and was received
with devout eagerness by the worshiper on every part of
his person and garments, till he emerged from the pit,
drenched, dripping, and scarlet from head to foot, to
receive the homage, nay the adoration, of his fellows--as
one who had been born again to eternal life and had washed
away his sins in the blood of the bull."[1] And Frazer continuing
says: "That the bath of blood derived from slaughter
of the bull (tauro-bolium) was believed to regenerate
the devotee for eternity is proved by an inscription
found at Rome, which records that a certain Sextilius
Agesilaus Aedesius, who dedicated an altar to Attis and
the mother of the gods (Cybele) was taurobolio criobolio que
in aeternum renatus."[2] "In the procedure of the Taurobolia
and Criobolia," says Mr. J. M. Robertson,[3] "which
grew very popular in the Roman world, we have the literal
and original meaning of the phrase 'washed in the blood of
the lamb'[4]; the doctrine being that resurrection and eternal
life were secured by drenching or sprinkling with the
actual blood of a sacrificial bull or ram."[5] For the
POPULARITY of the rite we may quote Franz Cumont, who
says:--"Cette douche sacree (taurobolium) pareit avoir ete
administree en Cappadoce dans un grand nombre de sanctuaires, et
en particulier dans ceux de Ma la grande divinite
indigene, et dans ceux: de Anahita."
[1] See vol. i, pp. 334 ff.
[2] Adonis, Attis and Osiris, p. 229. References to Prudentius,
and to Firmicus Maternus, De errore 28. 8.
[3] That is, "By the slaughter of the bull and the slaughter of
the ram born again into eternity."
[4] Pagan Christs, p. 315.
[5] Mysteres de Mithra, Bruxelles, 1902, p. 153.
Whether Mr. Robertson is right in ascribing to the priests
(as he appears to do) so materialistic a view of the
potency of the actual blood is, I should say, doubtful. I
do not myself see that there is any reason for supposing that
the priests of Mithra or Attis regarded baptism by
blood very differently from the way in which the Christian
Church has generally regarded baptism by water--namely,
as a SYMBOL of some inner regeneration. There may certainly
have been a little more of the MAGICAL view and a little
less of the symbolic, in the older religions; but the
difference was probably on the whole more one of degree
than of essential disparity. But however that may be,
we cannot but be struck by the extraordinary analogy
between the tombstone inscriptions of that period "born
again into eternity by the blood of the Bull or the Ram,"
and the corresponding texts in our graveyards to-day.
F. Cumont in his elaborate work, Textes et Monuments relatifs
aux Mysteres de Mithra (2 vols., Brussels, 1899) gives
a great number of texts and epitaphs of the same character
as that above-quoted, and they are well worth studying
by those interested in the subject. Cumont, it may be
noted (vol. i, p. 305), thinks that the story of Mithra and
the slaying of the Bull must have originated among some
pastoral people to whom the bull was the source of all life.
The Bull in heaven--the symbol of the triumphant Sungod--
and the earthly bull, sacrificed for the good of humanity
were one and the same; the god, in fact, SACRIFICED HIMSELF
OR HIS REPRESENTATIVE. And Mithra was the hero who first
won this conception of divinity for mankind--though of
course it is in essence quite similar to the conception put
forward by the Christian Church.
As illustrating the belief that the Baptism by Blood was
accompanied by a real regeneration of the devotee, Frazer
quotes an ancient writer[1] who says that for some time after
the ceremony the fiction of a new birth was kept up
by dieting the devotee on MILK, like a new-born babe.
And it is interesting in that connection to find that even in
the present day a diet of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT MILK for
six or eight weeks is by many doctors recommended as
the only means of getting rid of deep-seated illnesses
and enabling a patient's organism to make a completely new
start in life.
[1] Sallustius philosophus. See Adonis, Attis and Osiris, note,
p. 229.
"At Rome," he further says (p. 230), "the new birth and
the remission of sins by the shedding of bull's blood appear
to have been carried out above all at the sanctuary of the
Phrygian Goddess (Cybele) on the Vatican Hill, at or near
the spot where the great basilica of St. Peter's now stands;
for many inscriptions relating to the rites were found when
the church was being enlarged in 1608 or 1609. From
the Vatican as a centre," he continues, "this barbarous system
of superstition seems to have spread to other parts of
the Roman empire. Inscriptions found in Gaul and Germany
prove that provincial sanctuaries modelled their ritual on that
of the Vatican."
It would appear then that at Rome in the quiet early
days of the Christian Church, the rites and ceremonials
of Mithra and Cybele, probably much intermingled and
blended, were exceedingly popular. Both religions had been
recognized by the Roman State, and the Christians, persecuted
and despised as they were, found it hard to make any
headway against them--the more so perhaps because the
Christian doctrines appeared in many respects to be merely
faint replicas and copies of the older creeds. Robertson
maintains[1] that a he-lamb was sacrificed in the
Mithraic mysteries, and he quotes Porphyry as saying[2]
that "a place near the equinoctial circle was assigned to
Mithra as an appropriate seat; and on this account he
bears the sword of the Ram [Aries] which is a sign of Mars
[Ares]." Similarly among the early Christians, it is said,
a ram or lamb was sacrificed in the Paschal mystery.
[1] Pagan Christs, p. 336.
[2] De Antro, xxiv.
Many people think that the association of the Lamb-god
with the Cross arose from the fact that the constellation
Aries at that time WAS on the heavenly cross (the
crossways of the Ecliptic and Equator-see diagram, ch.
iii), and in the very place through which the Sungod
had to pass just before his final triumph. And it is
curious to find that Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho[1]
(a Jew) alludes to an old Jewish practice of roasting a Lamb on
spits arranged in the form of a Cross. "The lamb,"
he says, meaning apparently the Paschal lamb, "is roasted
and dressed up in the form of a cross. For one spit is transfixed
right through the lower parts up to the head, and one
across the back, to which are attached the legs [forelegs] of
the lamb."
[1] Ch. xl.
To-day in Morocco at the festival of Eid-el-Kebir, corresponding
to the Christian Easter, the Mohammedans sacrifice
a young ram and hurry it still bleeding to the precincts
of the Mosque, while at the same time every household slays
a lamb, as in the Biblical institution, for its family feast.
But it will perhaps be said, "You are going too fast and
proving too much. In the anxiety to show that the
Lamb-god and the sacrifice of the Lamb were honored
by the devotees of Mithra and Cybele in the Rome of the
Christian era, you are forgetting that the sacrifice of the
Bull and the baptism in bull's blood were the salient
features of the Persian and Phrygian ceremonials, some centuries
earlier. How can you reconcile the existence side
by side of divinities belonging to such different periods, or
ascribe them both to an astronomical origin?" The answer
is simple enough. As I have explained before, the Precession of
the Equinoxes caused the Sun, at its moment
of triumph over the powers of darkness, to stand at one period
in the constellation of the Bull, and at a period some
two thousand years later in the constellation of the Ram.
It was perfectly natural therefore that a change in the
sacred symbols should, in the course of time, take place;
yet perfectly natural also that these symbols, having once
been consecrated and adopted, should continue to be
honored and clung to long after the time of their astronomical
appropriateness had passed, and so to be found side by
side in later centuries. The devotee of Mithra or Attis
on the Vatican Hill at Rome in the year 200 A.D. probably
had as little notion or comprehension of the real origin of
the sacred Bull or Ram which he adored, as the Christian in
St. Peter's to-day has of the origin of the Lamb-god whose
vicegerent on earth is the Pope.
It is indeed easy to imagine that the change from the
worship of the Bull to the worship of the Lamb which
undoubtedly took place among various peoples as time
went on, was only a ritual change initiated by the priests
in order to put on record and harmonize with the astronomical
alteration. Anyhow it is curious that while Mithra
in the early times was specially associated with the bull,
his association with the lamb belonged more to the Roman
period. Somewhat the same happened in the case of Attis.
In the Bible we read of the indignation of Moses at the
setting up by the Israelites of a Golden Calf, AFTER the
sacrifice of the ram-lamb had been instituted--as if indeed
the rebellious people were returning to the earlier
cult of Apis which they ought to have left behind them in
Egypt. In Egypt itself, too, we find the worship of
Apis, as time went on, yielding place to that of the Ram-
headed god Amun, or Jupiter Ammon.[1] So that both
from the Bible and from Egyptian history we may conclude
that the worship of the Lamb or Ram succeeded to
the worship of the Bull.
[1] Tacitus (Hist. v. 4) speaks of ram-sacrifice by the Jews in
honor of Jupiter Ammon. See also Herodotus (ii. 42) on the same
in Egypt.
Finally it has been pointed out, and there may be some
real connection in the coincidence, that in the quite early
years of Christianity the FISH came in as an accepted symbol
of Jesus Christ. Considering that after the domination
of Taurus and Aries, the Fish (Pisces) comes next in succession
as the Zodiacal sign for the Vernal Equinox, and
is now the constellation in which the Sun stands at that
period, it seems not impossible that the astronomical change
has been the cause of the adoption of this new symbol.
Anyhow, and allowing for possible errors or exaggerations,
it becomes clear that the travels of the Sun through
the belt of constellations which forms the Zodiac must
have had, from earliest times, a profound influence on
the generation of religious myths and legends. To say
that it was the only influence would certainly be a mistake.
Other causes undoubtedly contributed. But it was a main
and important influence. The origins of the Zodiac are
obscure; we do not know with any certainty the reasons
why the various names were given to its component sections,
nor can we measure the exact antiquity of these names; but
--pre-supposing the names of the signs as once given--it
is not difficult to imagine the growth of legends connected
with the Sun's course among them.
Of all the ancient divinities perhaps Hercules is the one
whose role as a Sungod is most generally admitted. The
helper of gods and men, a mighty Traveller, and invoked
everywhere as the Saviour, his labors for the good of the
world became ultimately defined and systematized as
twelve and corresponding in number to the signs of the
Zodiac. It is true that this systematization only took place
at a late period, probably in Alexandria; also that the
identification of some of the Labors with the actual
signs as we have them at present is not always clear. But
considering the wide prevalence of the Hercules myth over
the ancient world and the very various astronomical systems
it must have been connected with in its origin, this lack of
exact correspondence is hardly to be wondered at.
The Labors of Hercules which chiefly interest us are:
(1) The capture of the Bull, (2) the slaughter of the Lion,
(3) the destruction of the Hydra, (4) of the Boar, (5) the
cleansing of the stables of Augeas, (6) the descent into
Hades and the taming of Cerberus. The first of these is
in line with the Mithraic conquest of the Bull; the Lion is
of course one of the most prominent constellations of the
Zodiac, and its conquest is obviously the work of a Saviour
of mankind; while the last four labors connect themselves
very naturally with the Solar conflict in winter against
the powers of darkness. The Boar (4) we have seen
already as the image of Typhon, the prince of darkness;
the Hydra (3) was said to be the offspring of Typhon;
the descent into Hades (6)--generally associated with
Hercules' struggle with and victory over Death--links
on to the descent of the Sun into the underworld, and its
long and doubtful strife with the forces of winter; and
the cleansing of the stables of Augeas (5) has the same
signification. It appears in fact that the stables of Augeas
was another name for the sign of Capricorn through which
the Sun passes at the Winter solstice[1]--the stable of course
being an underground chamber--and the myth was that
there, in this lowest tract and backwater of the Ecliptic
all the malarious and evil influences of the sky were collected,
and the Sungod came to wash them away (December was the
height of the rainy season in Judaea) and cleanse the year
towards its rebirth.
[1] See diagram of Zodiac.
It should not be forgotten too that even as a child in the
cradle Hercules slew two serpents sent for his destruction--
the serpent and the scorpion as autumnal constellations
figuring always as enemies of the Sungod--to which
may be compared the power given to his disciples by Jesus[1]
"to tread on serpents and scorpions." Hercules also as
a Sungod compares curiously with Samson (mentioned
above, ii), but we need not dwell on all the
elaborate analogies that have been traced[2] between these two
heroes.
[1] Luke x. 19.
[2] See Doane's Bible Myths, ch. viii, (New York, 1882.)
The Jesus-story, it will now be seen, has a great number
of correspondences with the stories of former Sungods and
with the actual career of the Sun through the heavens--so
many indeed that they cannot well be attributed to
mere coincidence or even to the blasphemous wiles of the
Devil! Let us enumerate some of these. There are (1)
the birth from a Virgin mother; (2) the birth in a stable
(cave or underground chamber); and (3) on the 25th December
(just after the winter solstice). There is (4) the
Star in the East (Sirius) and (5) the arrival of the Magi
(the "Three Kings"); there is (6) the threatened Massacre
of the Innocents, and the consequent flight into a distant
country (told also of Krishna and other Sungods). There
are the Church festivals of (7) Candlemas (2nd February),
with processions of candles to symbolize the growing
light; of (8) Lent, or the arrival of Spring; of (9) Easter
Day (normally on the 25th March) to celebrate the crossing
of the Equator by the Sun; and (10) simultaneously the
outburst of lights at the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. There
is (11) the Crucifixion and death of the Lamb-God, on Good
Friday, three days before Easter; there are (12) the
nailing to a tree, (13) the empty grave, (14) the glad
Resurrection (as in the cases of Osiris, Attis and others);
there are (15) the twelve disciples (the Zodiacal signs);
and (16) the betrayal by one of the twelve. Then later
there is (17) Midsummer Day, the 24th June, dedicated to
the Nativity of John the Baptist, and corresponding
to Christmas Day; there are the festivals of (18) the
Assumption of the Virgin (15th August) and of (19) the
Nativity of the Virgin (8th September), corresponding
to the movement of the god through Virgo; there is the conflict
of Christ and his disciples with the autumnal asterisms,
(20) the Serpent and the Scorpion; and finally
there is the curious fact that the Church (21) dedicates the
very day of the winter solstice (when any one may very
naturally doubt the rebirth of the Sun) to St. Thomas, who
doubted the truth of the Resurrection!
These are some of, and by no means all, the coincidences
in question. But they are sufficient, I think, to prove--
even allowing for possible margins of error--the truth
of our general contention. To go into the parallelism
of the careers of Krishna, the Indian Sungod, and Jesus
would take too long; because indeed the correspondence
is so extraordinarily close and elaborate.[1] I propose, however,
at the close of this chapter, to dwell now for a
moment on the Christian festival of the Eucharist, partly
on account of its connection with the derivation from
the astronomical rites and Nature-celebrations already
alluded to, and partly on account of the light which the festival
generally, whether Christian or Pagan, throws on the
origins of Religious Magic--a subject I shall have to deal
with in the next chapter.
[1] See Robertson's Christianity and Mythology, Part II, pp.
129-302; also Doane's Bible Myths, ch. xxviii, p. 278.
I have already (Ch. II) mentioned the Eucharistic
rite held in commemoration of Mithra, and the indignant
ascription of this by Justin Martyr to the wiles of the Devil.
Justin Martyr clearly had no doubt about the resemblance
of the Mithraic to the Christian ceremony. A Sacramental
meal, as mentioned a few pages back, seems
to have been held by the worshipers of Attis[1] in
commemoration of their god; and the 'mysteries' of the
Pagan cults generally appear to have included rites--
sometimes half-savage, sometimes more aesthetic--in which
a dismembered animal was eaten, or bread and wine (the
spirits of the Corn and the Vine) were consumed, as
representing the body of the god whom his devotees desired
to honor. But the best example of this practice is
afforded by the rites of Dionysus, to which I will devote
a few lines. Dionysus, like other Sun or Nature deities,
was born of a Virgin (Semele or Demeter) untainted by any
earthly husband; and born on the 25th. December. He was
nurtured in a Cave, and even at that early age was
identified with the Ram or Lamb, into whose form he was
for the time being changed. At times also he was worshiped
in the form of a Bull.[2] He travelled far and
wide; and brought the great gift of wine to mankind.[3]
He was called Liberator, and Saviour. His grave "was
shown at Delphi in the inmost shrine of the temple of Apollo.
Secret offerings were brought thither, while the women
who were celebrating the feast woke up the new-born
god. . . . Festivals of this kind in celebration of the
extinction and resurrection of the deity were held (by
women and girls only) amid the mountains at night,
every third year, about the time of the shortest day. The
rites, intended to express the excess of grief and joy at the
death and reappearance of the god, were wild even
to savagery, and the women who performed them were
hence known by the expressive names of Bacchae, Maenads,
and Thyiades. They wandered through woods and mountains,
their flying locks crowned with ivy or snakes, brandishing
wands and torches, to the hollow sounds of the drum,
or the shrill notes of the flute, with wild dances and
insane cries and jubilation.
[1] See Frazer's Golden Bough, Part IV, p. 229.
[2] The Golden Bough, Part II, Book II, p. 164.
[3] "I am the TRUE Vine," says the Jesus of the fourth gospel,
perhaps with an implicit and hostile reference to the cult of
Dionysus--in which Robertson suggests (Christianity and
Mythology, p. 357) there was a ritual miracle of turning water
into wine.
Oxen, goats, even fawns and roes from the forest were killed,
torn to pieces, and eaten raw. This in imitation of the
treatment of Dionysus by the Titans"[1]--who it was supposed
had torn the god in pieces when a child.
[1] See art. Dionysus. Dictionary of Classical Antiquities,
Nettleship and Sandys 3rd edn., London, 1898).
Dupuis, one of the earliest writers (at the beginning of
last century) on this subject, says, describing the mystic
rites of Dionysus[1]: "The sacred doors of the Temple in which
the initiation took place were opened only once a year, and
no stranger might ever enter. Night lent to these august
mysteries a veil which was forbidden to be drawn aside
--for whoever it might be.[2] It was the sole occasion
for the representation of the passion of Bacchus [Dionysus]
dead, descended into hell, and rearisen--in imitation
of the representation of the sufferings of Osiris which,
according to Herodotus, were commemorated at Sais in
Egypt. It was in that place that the partition took
place of the body of the god,[3] which was then eaten--
the ceremony, in fact, of which our Eucharist is only a
reflection; whereas in the mysteries of Bacchus actual raw
flesh was distributed, which each of those present had
to consume in commemoration of the death of Bacchus
dismembered by the Titans, and whose passion, in Chios
and Tenedos, was renewed each year by the sacrifice of a man
who represented the god.[4] Possibly it is this last fact which
made people believe that the Christians (whose hoc est corpus
meum and sharing of an Eucharistic meal were no more than
a shadow of a more ancient rite) did really sacrifice a child
and devour its limbs."
[1] See Charles F. Dupuis, "Traite des Mysteres," ch. i.
[2] Pausan, Corinth, ch. 37.
[3] Clem, Prot. Eur. Bacch.
[4] See Porphyry, De Abstinentia, lii, Section 56.
That Eucharistic rites were very very ancient is plain
from the Totem-sacraments of savages; and to this subject
we shall now turn.
IV. TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS
Much has been written on the origin of the Totem-system
--the system, that is, of naming a tribe or a portion of a
tribe (say a CLAN) after some ANIMAL--or sometimes--also
after some plant or tree or Nature-element, like fire or
rain or thunder; but at best the subject is a difficult one
for us moderns to understand. A careful study has been
made of it by Salamon Reinach in his Cultes, Mythes et
Religions,[1] where he formulates his conclusions in twelve
statements or definitions; but even so--though his suggestions
are helpful--he throws very little light on the real
origin of the system.[2]
[1] See English translation of certain chapters (published by
David Nutt in 1912) entitled Cults, Myths and Religions, pp.
1-25. The French original is in three large volumes.
[2] The same may be said of the formulated statement of the
subject in Morris Jastrow's Handbooks of the History of Religion,
vol. iv.
There are three main difficulties. The first is to understand
why primitive Man should name his Tribe after an
animal or object of nature at all; the second, to understand
on what principle he selected the particular name (a lion, a
crocodile, a lady bird, a certain tree); the third, why he should
make of the said totem a divinity, and pay honor and worship
to it. It may be worth while to pause for a moment
over these.
(1) The fact that the Tribe was one of the early things
for which Man found it necessary to have a name is interesting,
because it shows how early the solidarity and psychological
actuality of the tribe was recognized; and as to the
selection of a name from some animal or concrete object of
Nature, that was inevitable, for the simple reason that there
was nothing else for the savage to choose from. Plainly to
call his tribe "The Wayfarers" or "The Pioneers" or the
"Pacifists" or the "Invincibles," or by any of the thousand
and one names which modern associations adopt,
would have been impossible, since such abstract terms had
little or no existence in his mind. And again to name it
after an animal was the most obvious thing to do, simply
because the animals were by far the most important
features or accompaniments of his own life. As I am
dealing in this book largely with certain psychological
conditions of human evolution, it has to be pointed out that
to primitive man the animal was the nearest and most closely
related of all objects. Being of the same order of consciousness
as himself, the animal appealed to him very
closely as his mate and equal. He made with regard
to it little or no distinction from himself. We see this very
clearly in the case of children, who of course represent the
savage mind, and who regard animals simply as their mates
and equals, and come quickly into rapport with them, not
differentiating themselves from them.
(2) As to the particular animal or other object selected
in order to give a name to the Tribe, this would no doubt
be largely accidental. Any unusual incident might superstitiously
precipitate a name. We can hardly imagine
the Tribe scratching its congregated head in the deliberate
effort to think out a suitable emblem for itself. That is
not the way in which nicknames are invented in a school
or anywhere else to-day. At the same time the heraldic
appeal of a certain object of nature, animate or inanimate,
would be deeply and widely felt. The strength of the lion,
the fleetness of the deer, the food-value of a bear, the
flight of a bird, the awful jaws of a crocodile, might easily
mesmerize a whole tribe. Reinach points out, with great
justice, that many tribes placed themselves under the
protection of animals which were supposed (rightly or
wrongly) to act as guides and augurs, foretelling the future.
"Diodorus," he says, "distinctly states that the hawk,
in Egypt, was venerated because it foretold the future."
[Birds generally act as weather-prophets.] "In Australia
and Samoa the kangaroo, the crow and the owl premonish
their fellow clansmen of events to come. At one time the
Samoan warriors went so far as to rear owls for their
prophetic qualities in war." [The jackal, or 'pathfinder'
--whose tracks sometimes lead to the remains of a food-
animal slain by a lion, and many birds and insects, have
a value of this kind.] "The use of animal totems for
purposes of augury is, in all likelihood, of great antiquity.
Men must soon have realized that the senses of animals
were acuter than their own; nor is it surprising that
they should have expected their totems--that is to say, their
natural allies--to forewarn them both of unsuspected
dangers and of those provisions of nature, WELLS especially,
which animals seem to scent by instinct."[1] And again,
beyond all this, I have little doubt that there are subconscious
affinities which unite certain tribes to certain animals
or plants, affinities whose origin we cannot now trace, though
they are very real--the same affinities that we recognize
as existing between individual PERSONS and certain
objects of nature. W. H. Hudson--himself in many
respects having this deep and primitive relation to nature--
speaks in a very interesting and autobiographical
volume[2] of the extraordinary fascination exercised upon
him as a boy, not only by a snake, but by certain trees,
and especially by a particular flowering-plant "not more
than a foot in height, with downy soft pale green leaves,
and clusters of reddish blossoms, something like valerian."
. . . "One of my sacred flowers," he calls it, and insists on
the "inexplicable attraction" which it had for him. In
various ways of this kind one can perceive how particular
totems came to be selected by particular peoples.
[1] See Reinach, Eng. trans., op. cit., pp. 20, 21.
[2] Far away and Long ago (1918) chs. xvi and xvii.
(3) As to the tendency to divinize these totems, this arises
no doubt partly out of question (2). The animal or
other object admired on account of its strength or swiftness,
or adopted as guardian of the tribe because of its keen
sight or prophetic quality, or infinitely prized on account
of its food-value, or felt for any other reason to have
a peculiar relation and affinity to the tribe, is by that
fact SET APART. It becomes taboo. It must not be
killed--except under necessity and by sanction of the whole
tribe--nor injured; and all dealings with it must be
fenced round with regulations. It is out of this taboo
or system of taboos that, according to Reinach, religion
arose. "I propose (he says) to define religion as: A
SUM OF SCRUPLES (TABOOS) WHICH IMPEDE THE FREE EXERCISE OF
OUR FACULTIES."[1] Obviously this definition is gravely
deficient, simply because it is purely negative, and leaves
out of account the positive aspect of the subject. In
Man, the positive content of religion is the instinctive
sense--whether conscious or subconscious--of an inner unity
and continuity with the world around. This is the stuff
out of which religion is made. The scruples or taboos
which "impede the freedom" of this relation are the
negative forces which give outline and form to the relation.
These are the things which generate the RITES AND CEREMONIALS
of religion; and as far as Reinach means by religion MERELY
rites and ceremonies he is correct; but clearly he only covers
half the subject. The tendency to divinize the totem
is at least as much dependent on the positive sense
of unity with it, as on the negative scruples which limit
the relation in each particular case. But I shall return to
this subject presently, and more than once, with the view of
clarifying it. Just now it will be best to illustrate the nature
of Totems generally, and in some detail.
[1] See Orpheus by S. Reinach, p. 3.
As would be gathered from what I have just said, there
is found among all the more primitive peoples, and in all
parts of the world, an immense variety of totem-names.
The Dinkas, for instance, are a rather intelligent well-grown
people inhabiting the upper reaches of the Nile in the
vicinity of the great swamps. According to Dr. Seligman
their clans have for totems the lion, the elephant,
the crocodile, the hippopotamus, the fox, and the hyena,
as well as certain birds which infest and damage the
corn, some plants and trees, and such things as rain,
fire, etc. "Each clan speaks of its totem as its ancestor,
and refrains [as a rule] from injuring or eating it."[1] The
members of the Crocodile clan call themselves "brothers of
the crocodile." The tribes of Bechuana-land have a very
similar list of totem-names--the buffalo, the fish, the
porcupine, the wild vine, etc. They too have a Crocodile
clan, but they call the crocodile their FATHER! The
tribes of Australia much the same again, with the differences
suitable to their country; and the Red Indians of
North America the same. Garcilasso, della Vega, the
Spanish historian, son of an Inca princess by one of the
Spanish conquerors of Peru and author of the well-known
book Commentarias Reales, says in that book (i, 57), speaking
of the pre-Inca period, "An Indian (of Peru) was not
considered honorable unless he was descended from a fountain,
river or lake, or even from the sea, or from a wild
animal, as a bear, lion, tiger, eagle, or the bird they call
cuntur (condor), or some other bird of prey."[2] According
to Lewis Morgan, the North American Indians of various
tribes had for totems the wolf, bear, beaver, turtle, deer,
snipe, heron, hawk, crane, loon, turkey, muskrat; pike, catfish,
carp; buffalo, elk, reindeer, eagle, hare, rabbit, snake;
reed-grass, sand, rock, and tobacco-plant.
[1] See The Golden Bough, vol. iv, p. 31.
[2] See Andrew Lang, Custom and Myth, p. 104, also Myth, Ritual
and Religion, vol. i, pp. 71, 76, etc.
So we might go on rather indefinitely. I need hardly
say that in more modern and civilized life, relics of the totem
system are still to be found in the forms of the heraldic
creatures adopted for their crests by different families,
and in the bears, lions, eagles, the sun, moon and stars
and so forth, which still adorn the flags and are flaunted
as the insignia of the various nations. The names may
not have been ORIGINALLY adopted from any definite belief
in blood-relationship with the animal or other object
in question; but when, as Robertson says (Pagan Christs,
p. 104), a "savage learned that he was 'a Bear' and that
his father and grandfather and forefathers were so before
him, it was really impossible, after ages in which totem-
names thus passed current, that he should fail to assume that
his folk were DESCENDED from a bear."
As a rule, as may be imagined, the savage tribesman
will on no account EAT his tribal totem-animal. Such
would naturally be deemed a kind of sacrilege. Also it
must be remarked that some totems are hardly suitable for
eating. Yet it is important to observe that occasionally,
and guarding the ceremony with great precautions, it
has been an almost universal custom for the tribal elders
to call a feast at which an animal (either the totem or
some other) IS killed and commonly eaten--and this in order
that the tribesmen may absorb some virtue belonging to
it, and may confirm their identity with the tribe and with
each other. The eating of the bear or other animal, the
sprinkling with its blood, and the general ritual in which
the participants shared its flesh, or dressed and disguised
themselves in its skin, or otherwise identified themselves
with it, was to them a symbol of their community of life with
each other, and a means of their renewal and
salvation in the holy emblem. And this custom, as the reader
will perceive, became the origin of the Eucharists and Holy
Communions of the later religions.
Professor Robertson-Smith's celebrated Camel affords an
instance of this.[1] It appears that St. Nilus (fifth century)
has left a detailed account of the occasional sacrifice in
his time of a spotless white camel among the Arabs of the
Sinai region, which closely resembles a totemic communion-
feast. The uncooked blood and flesh of the animal had to
be entirely consumed by the faithful before daybreak. "The
slaughter of the victim, the sacramental drinking of the
blood, and devouring in wild haste of the pieces of still
quivering flesh, recall the details of the Dionysiac and
other festivals."[2] Robertson-Smith himself says:--"The
plain meaning is that the victim was devoured before
its life had left the still warm blood and flesh . . . and
that thus in the most literal way, all those who shared in
the ceremony absorbed part of the victim's life into
themselves. One sees how much more forcibly than
any ordinary meal such a rite expresses the establishment
or confirmation of a bond of common life between the
worshipers, and also, since the blood is shed upon the
altar itself, between the worshipers and their god. In this
sacrifice, then, the significant factors are two: the
conveyance of the living blood to the godhead, and the
absorption of the living flesh and blood into the flesh and
blood of the worshippers. Each of these is effected in the
simplest and most direct manner, so that the meaning of the
ritual is perfectly transparent."
[1] See his Religion of the Semites, p. 320.
[2] They also recall the rites of the Passover--though in this
latter the blood was no longer drunk, nor the flesh eaten raw.
It seems strange, of course, that men should eat their
totems; and it must not by any means be supposed that
this practice is (or was) universal; but it undoubtedly
obtains in some cases. As Miss Harrison says (Themis,
p. 123); "you do not as a rule eat your relations," and as a
rule the eating of a totem is tabu and forbidden, but
(Miss Harrison continues) "at certain times and under certain
restrictions a man not only may, but MUST, eat of
his totem, though only sparingly, as of a thing sacrosanct."
The ceremonial carried out in a communal way by the tribe
not only identifies the tribe with the totem (animal), but
is held, according to early magical ideas, and when the
animal is desired for food, to favor its manipulation.
The human tribe partakes of the mana or life-force of the
animal, and is strengthened; the animal tribe is sympathetically
renewed by the ceremonial and multiplies exceedingly.
The slaughter of the sacred animal and (often) the
simultaneous outpouring of human blood seals the compact
and confirms the magic. This is well illustrated
by a ceremony of the 'Emu' tribe referred to by Dr.
Frazer:--
"In order to multiply Emus which are an important article
of food, the men of the Emu totem in the Arunta tribe proceed
as follows: They clear a small spot of level
ground, and opening veins in their arms they let the blood
stream out until the surface of the ground for a space of about
three square yards is soaked with it. When the blood
has dried and caked, it forms a hard and fairly impermeable
surface, on which they paint the sacred design
of the emu totem, especially the parts of the bird which
they like best to eat, namely, the fat and the eggs. Round
this painting the men sit and sing. Afterwards performers
wearing long head-dresses to represent the long neck and
small head of the emu, mimic the appearance of the bird
as it stands aimlessly peering about in all directions."[1]
[1] The Golden Bough i, 85--with reference to Spencer and
Gillen's Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 179, 189.
Thus blood sacrifice comes in; and--(whether this has
ever actually happened in the case of the Central Australians
I know not)--we can easily imagine a member of the Emu
tribe, and disguised as an actual emu, having been ceremonially
slaughtered as a firstfruits and promise of the expected
and prayed-for emu-crop; just as the same certainly
HAS happened in the case of men wearing beast-masks of Bulls or
Rams or Bears being sacrificed in propitiation
of Bull-gods, Ram-gods or Bear-gods or simply in pursuance
of some kind of magic to favor the multiplication of
these food-animals.
"In the light of totemistic ways of thinking we see plainly
enough the relation of man to food-animals. You need or
at least desire flesh food, yet you shrink from slaughtering
'your brother the ox'; you desire his mana, yet you respect
his tabu, for in you and him alike runs the common
life-blood. On your own individual responsibility you
would never kill him; but for the common weal, on great
occasions, and in a fashion conducted with scrupulous care, it
is expedient that he die for his people, and that they feast
upon his flesh."[1]
[1] Themis, p. 140.
In her little book Ancient Art and Ritual[1] Jane Harrison
describes the dedication of a holy Bull, as conducted in
Greece at Elis, and at Magnesia and other cities. "There
at the annual fair year by year the stewards of the city
bought a Bull 'the finest that could be got,' and at the
new moon of the month at the beginning of seed-time
[? April] they dedicated it for the city's welfare. . . . The
Bull was led in procession at the head of which went the
chief priest and priestess of the city. With them went a
herald and sacrificer, and two bands of youths and
maidens. So holy was the Bull that nothing unlucky
might come near him. The herald pronounced aloud a
prayer for 'the safety of the city and the land, and the
citizens, and the women and children, for peace and wealth,
and for the bringing forth of grain and all other fruits,
and of cattle.' All this longing for fertility, for food and
children, focuses round the holy Bull, whose holiness is
his strength and fruitfulness." The Bull is sacrificed.
The flesh is divided in solemn feast among those who take
part in the procession. "The holy flesh is not offered to
a god, it is eaten--to every man his portion--by each and
every citizen, that he may get his share of the strength of
the Bull, of the luck of the State." But at Athens the Bouphonia,
as it was called, was followed by a curious ceremony.
"The hide was stuffed with straw and sewed up, and
next the stuffed animal was set on its feet and yoked to
a plough as though it were ploughing. The Death is
followed by a Resurrection. Now this is all important.
We are accustomed to think of sacrifice as the death, the
giving up, the renouncing of something. But SACRIFICE
does not mean 'death' at all. It means MAKING HOLY,
sanctifying; and holiness was to primitive man just special
strength and life. What they wanted from the Bull was
just that special life and strength which all the year long
they had put into him, and nourished and fostered. That
life was in his blood. They could not eat that flesh nor
drink that blood unless they killed him. So he must
die. But it was not to give him up to the gods that they killed
him, not to 'sacrifice' him in our sense, but to have him,
keep him, eat him, live BY him and through him, by his
grace."
[1] Home University Library, p. 87.
We have already had to deal with instances of the
ceremonial eating of the sacred he-Lamb or Ram, immolated
in the Spring season of the year, and partaken of in a kind
of communal feast--not without reference (at any rate in
later times) to a supposed Lamb-god. Among the Ainos
in the North of Japan, as also among the Gilyaks in
Eastern Siberia, the Bear is the great food-animal, and
is worshipped as the supreme giver of health and strength.
There also a similar ritual of sacrifice occurs. A perfect
Bear is caught and caged. He is fed up and even
pampered to the day of his death. "Fish, brandy and
other delicacies are offered to him. Some of the people
prostrate themselves before him; his coming into a house
brings a blessing, and if he sniffs at the food that brings a
blessing too." Then he is led out and slain. A great feast
takes place, the flesh is divided, cupfuls of the blood are
drunk by the men; the tribe is united and strengthened, and
the Bear-god blesses the ceremony--the ideal Bear that has
given its life for the people.[1]
[1] See Art and Ritual, pp. 92-98; The Golden Bough, ii, 375
seq.; Themis, pp. 140, 141; etc.
That the eating of the flesh of an animal or a man conveys
to you some of the qualities, the life-force, the
mana, of that animal or man, is an idea which one often
meets with among primitive folk. Hence the common
tendency to eat enemy warriors slain in battle against
your tribe. By doing so you absorb some of their valor
and strength. Even the enemy scalps which an Apache
Indian might hang from his belt were something magical
to add to the Apache's power. As Gilbert Murray says,[1]
"you devoured the holy animal to get its mana, its swiftness,
its strength, its great endurance, just as the savage now
will eat his enemy's brain or heart or hands to get
some particular quality residing there." Even--as he explains
on the earlier page--mere CONTACT was often considered
sufficient--"we have holy pillars whose holiness consists
in the fact that they have been touched by the
blood of a bull." And in this connection we may note
that nearly all the Christian Churches have a great belief
in the virtue imparted by the mere 'laying on of hands.'
[1] Four Stages of Greek Religion, p. 36.
In quite a different connection--we read[1] that among the
Spartans a warrior-boy would often beg for the love of the
elder warrior whom he admired (i. e. the contact with
his body) in order to obtain in that way a portion of the
latter's courage and prowess. That through the mediation
of the lips one's spirit may be united to the spirit of another
person is an idea not unfamiliar to the modern mind; while
the exchange of blood, clothes, locks of hair, etc., by lovers
is a custom known all over the world.[2]
[1] Aelian VII, iii, 12: . See also E. Bethe on "Die Dorische
Knabenliebe" in the Rheinisches Museum, vol. 26, iii, 461.
[2] See Crawley's Mystic Rose, pp. 238, 242.
To suppose that by eating another you absorb his or her
soul is somewhat naive certainly. Perhaps it IS more native,
more primitive. Yet there may be SOME truth even
in that idea. Certainly the food that one eats has a
psychological effect, and the flesh-eaters among the human
race have a different temperament as a rule from
the fruit and vegetable eaters, while among the animals
(though other causes may come in here) the Carnivora
are decidedly more cruel and less gentle than the Herbivora.
To return to the rites of Dionysus, Gilbert Murray, speaking
of Orphism--a great wave of religious reform which
swept over Greece and South Italy in the sixth century
B.C.--says:[1] "A curious relic of primitive superstition
and cruelty remained firmly imbedded in Orphism,
a doctrine irrational and unintelligible, and for that very
reason wrapped in the deepest and most sacred mystery: a belief
in the SACRIFICE OF DIONYSUS HIMSELF, AND THE PURIFICATION OF MAN
BY HIS BLOOD. It seems possible that the savage
Thracians, in the fury of their worship on the mountains,
when they were possessed by the god and became
'wild beasts,' actually tore with their teeth and hands
any hares, goats, fawns or the like that they came
across. . . . The Orphic congregations of later times, in
their most holy gatherings, solemnly partook of the blood
of a bull, which was by a mystery the blood of Dionysus-
Zagreus himself, the Bull of God, slain in sacrifice for the
purification of man."[2]
[1] See Notes to his translation of the Bacch of Euripides.
[2] For a description of this orgy see Theocritus, Idyll xxvi;
also for explanations of it, Lang's Myth, Ritual and Religion,
vol. ii, pp, 241-260, on Dionysus. The Encyclopdia Brit.,
article "Orpheus," says:--"Orpheus, in the manner of his death,
was considered to personate the god Dionysus, and was thus
representative of the god torn to pieces every year--a ceremony
enacted by the Bacchae in the earliest times with a human victim,
and afterwards with a bull, to represent the bull-formed god. A
distinct feature of this ritual was (eating the
flesh of the victim raw), whereby the communicants imagined that
they consumed and assimilated the god represented by the victim,
and thus became filled with the divine ecstasy." Compare also the
Hindu doctrine of Praj | 