transferred to a personal being, conceived as a man. To be made strong he is made monstrous, with many hands, or heads. In a polytheistic nation, if we trace the history of the popular conception of any God, that of Zeus among the Grecians, for example, we see a gradual advance, till their highest God becomes their conception of the Absolute. Then the others are insignificant; merely his servants; like colonels and corporals in an army, they are parts of his state machinery. The passage to Monotheism is then easy.[1] The spiritual leaders of every nation,—obedient souls into whom the spirit enters and makes them Sons of God and prophets,—see the meaning which the popular notion hides; they expose what is false, proclaim the eternal truth, and as their recompense are stoned, exiled, or slain. But the march of mankind is over the tombs of the prophets. The world is saved only by crucified redeemers. The truth is not silenced with Aristotle; nor exiled with Anaxagoras; nor slain with Socrates. It enters the soul of its veriest foes, and their children build up the monuments of the murdered Seer.
We cannot enter into the feelings of a polytheist; nor see how Morality was fostered by his religion. Ours would be a similar puzzle to him. But Polytheism has played a great part in the development of mankind—yes, in the development of Morality and Religion.[2] Its aim was to “raise a mortal to the skies;” to infinitize the finite; to bridge over the great gulf between Man and God. Let us look briefly at some of its features.
I. In Polytheism we find a regular priesthood. This is
sometimes exclusive and hereditary, as in Egypt and India,
where it establishes castes, and founds a theocracy;
sometimes not hereditary, but open, free, as in Greece.[3] When
- ↑ There are two strongly marked tendencies in all polytheistic religions—one towards pure Monotheism, the other to Pantheism. See an expression of the latter in Orpheus, ed. Hermann, p. 457, “Zeus is the first, Zeus the last,” &c. &c., cited also in Cudworth, ubi sup., Vol. I. p. 404. See Zeno, in Diogenes Laertius, ed. Hübner, Lib. VII. Ch. 73, Vol. II. p. 186, et seq.; Clemens Alexand. Stromat. VII. 12. See also Cudworth, Ch. IV. § 17, et seq., and Mosheim's Annotations.
- ↑ M. Comte thinks this the period of the greatest religious activity! The facts look the other way.
- ↑ Even in Greece some sacerdotal functions vested by descent in certain families, for example, in the Iambides, Branchides, Eumolpides, Asclepiades, Cery-
