Introduction to the History of Religions Part 17

+661+. The tribes of Northeastern Asia are less developed religiously.

The Koryaks are said to have benevolent and malevolent deities, but appear not to have made much progress in the recognition of the distinct departments of nature.[1114] The Ainu have a large number of specific deities: the G.o.ddess of fire, whose t.i.tle is "Grandmother"; G.o.ds of the kitchen, of doors, of springs, and of gardens.[1115] As the Ainu culture resembles that of Northeastern Asia in several respects, it is possible that in the latter region there exists a more highly specialized scheme than has yet been reported. In Central Asia also it seems that no great progress has been made in this direction by native thought. The statement of Herodotus[1116] that the Thracians in time of thunderstorms used to shoot arrows at the sky and threaten the G.o.d, may point to a recognition of a G.o.d of the sky or of storm. In the greater part of Central Asia the conception of local spirits has prevailed and still prevails (Shamanism), a phase of religion that stands below that of the division of nature into departments. In certain districts of Mongolia, in which the theistic system is complicated, departmental deities are now found, but the obvious dependence of this region on Buddhism (Lamaism) and other outside cults makes it doubtful whether or how far this scheme of G.o.ds is of native origin.[1117]

+662+. In North America the Algonkin and Maskoki nations and the Skidi p.a.w.nee have deities of the sky, the heavenly bodies, the winds, and fire.[1118] In the western part of the continent the theistic systems are less developed, but the details of the cults have not yet been fully collected; so far as appears, a departmental organization has not been made. In Brazil there is a trace of such a conception among the Tupis; but the South American tribes remain at a low level of theistic development.[1119]

+663+. The three greater religions of America, the Maya, the Mexican, and the Peruvian, offer much more interesting material, in regard to which the information which has been handed down to us is often unfortunately meager. Particularly, little definite is known of the Maya system; the indications are that the Mayas were superior in civilization to the Aztecs, and their religious customs and conceptions correspondingly higher than those of the latter.[1120]

+664+. The Aztec religion is that which the Spaniards on their arrival found to be the dominant one in Mexico. It was the religion of a conquering race, formed in part by a coalition of tribes and a combination of cults. From the records (none of which are contemporaneous) it appears that there was a very considerable specialization of function in the Aztec deities. These were probably local G.o.ds with universal functions gradually differentiated.

Huitzilopochtli, apparently a patron of vegetation (with three annual festivals corresponding to agricultural seasons), became especially the G.o.d of war, in accordance with the character of the Aztecs. Another side of social life was embodied in the conception of Tezcatlipoca, who represented law and justice, but naturally became also a G.o.d of war. In sharp contrast with these stands Quetzalcoatl, a milder G.o.d, apparently a representative of general culture and good life. But he is commonly held to be of foreign origin. If a foreigner, he was nevertheless adopted by the Aztecs and embodied one side of their life, particularly, perhaps, the protests against the human sacrifices, which were so prominent a feature in the cults of the other two deities. There were further a G.o.d of rain, a G.o.ddess of harvest, and a G.o.ddess of sensual pleasure, besides a great number of minor specialized deities. With this specialization of function, however, there was no corresponding development of character in the G.o.ds, no pantheon proper. The myths which have been preserved relate to the origin of social customs and to the birth of G.o.ds. They appear to have been developed only a step beyond the myths of the Redmen.[1121]

+665+. The Peruvian cult differs from the Mexican in that it recognizes, in its developed form, one preeminent deity, the sun-G.o.d, from whom issues all authority. Along with him stand two prominent figures, Viracocha and Pachacamac, who also are credited with great powers.

Apparently they were local universal deities who were incorporated into the Peruvian system and subordinated to the sun-G.o.d. All three are only vague, general figures, having no histories except a few stories of origins, and the Peruvian myths do not differ in essential character from those of the Aztecs.[1122]

+666+. In this category we may include a large number of minutely specialized deities of the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans. As among some lower tribes already referred to, so here many common objects and pursuits are regarded as being under the fostering care of specific deities. In Egypt the ripe ear of the grain, the birth of a child and its naming, and other things had their special divinities.[1123]

+667+. The Greeks had such divine patrons of the corncrib, beans, plowshare, cattle, city walls, banquets, potters, physicians, athletic contests, and even one hero known as the "frightener of horses" and a deity called the "flycatcher."[1124]

+668+. The Romans carried out this specialization in even greater detail. Almost every object and every event of the communal life had its patron deity: the house, the hearth, the field, the boundary stone, sowing and reaping, the wall, breath, marriage, education, death; the Lares were the special protectors of the house or of the field, and all patrons of the home were summed up under the general designations _dii penates_ and _dii familiares_. Most of these beings have proper names, but even where there are no such names, as in the case of the _dii penates_, there can be little doubt that they were looked on as personal individualized beings.[1125] The tendency was, as time went on, to add to the number of these specialized patrons, as appears from the Roman _indigitamenta_[1126] lists of such divine beings redacted by the priests, who were disposed, naturally, to make the objects of wors.h.i.+p as numerous as possible; but herein they doubtless responded to a popular impulse.

+669+. This disposition to define practical functions minutely appears also in the cultic history of the greater G.o.ds of the old Roman religion: the role of Jupiter as G.o.d of sky and rain was definitely fixed, and Tellus was not the divine mother of the human race but the beneficent bestower of crops. As the functions of such greater G.o.ds became more numerous and more definitely fixed, epithets were employed; Jupiter had a dozen or more of such adjectival additions, and it appears that at a later time such epithets were personalized into deities; but this academic or priestly procedure does not set aside the fact that the early Roman religion recognized a vast number of divine beings as the specific patrons of certain things and acts.

+670+. It was quite natural for the practical Roman mind to place everything of importance under the care of a divine being--a procedure which is simply carrying out in greater detail modes of thought which we have seen to be common in many of the lower tribes. Augustine thinks this specialization amusing, ridiculous, and difficult to understand. He brings up the whole question of origin when he asks why it was necessary to have two G.o.ddesses for the waves of the sea--one, Venilia, representing the wave as advancing to the sh.o.r.e; the other, Salacia, representing the wave as receding.[1127] This seems, to be sure, an unnecessary specialization; but, considered in connection with the whole Roman system, it is not less intelligible than the multiplication of deities attending upon the birth and education of a child, on the processes of farming, and on the fortunes of war. Since human life is guided by the G.o.ds, thought the Romans, there is no act that may not have its G.o.d; this system is the objectivation of the conception of divine special providence.[1128]

+671+. To certain Semitic deities highly specialized functions have been supposed to belong; but the known facts hardly warrant this supposition.

In the names Baal-Marqod, Baal-Marpe, Baal-Gad, the second element may be the name of a place; that is, the Baal may be a local deity (as the Baals elsewhere are). The t.i.tle Baal-berit[1129] has been interpreted as meaning "lord of a covenant"--that is, a deity presiding over treaties; but the expression is not clear. Baalzebub is in the Old Testament the G.o.d of the Philistine city Ekron, where he had a famous oracle;[1130] it is highly improbable that the name means "lord of flies" (which would rather be Baal-zebubim), but the sense is obscure. The New Testament Baal [Beel]-zebul[1131] (the only correct form) has been variously explained. The second element, _zebul_, occurs in the Old Testament as a name of the heavenly abode of the deity,[1132] and the t.i.tle has been regarded as the Semitic rendering of a Greek or Roman t.i.tle of a G.o.d of heaven (Zeus Ouranios; cf. Caelestis, epithet of Jupiter); as foreign deities were called "demons" by the later Jews, the chief of these deities, it is held, might well be taken to be the "prince of demons."

However this may be, Beelzebul cannot be ranked among the deities with highly specialized functions.[1133]

+672+. The scheme of G.o.ds just described is closely allied to that of tutelary deities for individual human beings. A transitional step may be recognized in the a.s.signment of special divine protectors to every house or village or grove, as among the Ainu (with whom the tutelary power is the head of a bear), in Borneo (where every house has a human skull as protector), among the Khonds, in the Vedic Vastoshpati, the "lord of the house," in the Hindu "house G.o.ddess," and in the Chinese tutelary G.o.d for every year.[1134] From such a scheme to the a.s.signment of a protecting spirit to every human being there is but a step, and this is made natural or necessary by the increasing sense of the value of the individual. Such tutelary spirits or deities are found in Polynesia and Africa.[1135] The North American manitu and the Central American nagual,[1136] referred to above, are not only special objects of wors.h.i.+p but also constantly present guardians of individual men. The Iroquois have special tutelary spirits.[1137] In Ashanti such a function is performed by the indwelling spirit, which is scarcely distinguishable from the man himself.[1138] The Roman _genius_ represents the man's individual life, but becomes also his guardian;[1139] and the _daimon_ of Socrates was possibly originally a being of the same sort,[1140]

though he may have identified it with conscience.

+673+. In the great religions of antiquity every city and every state had its special divine protector. The Persian fravas.h.i.+s are the guardians of individual human beings. The later Jews held that there was a guardian angel for every nation and for every person.[1141] All such conceptions embody the human sense of dependence on divine aid and the demand for specific divine protectors standing near to man and sustaining special relations with individuals. In some forms of Christianity the function of protection is a.s.signed to patron saints.

+674+. Certain cla.s.ses of departmental or specific G.o.ds may be mentioned here for the purpose of indicating their development.

+675+. _Creators._ The work of the creation of the world is a.s.signed among various peoples to a great variety of beings. In the earliest strata of religious belief animals play a great role as creators. The known examples of their creative function are so numerous that we may well be disposed to regard it as universal. In general it is the best-known animal, or the one credited with the greatest sagacity, that is regarded as creator.[1142]

+676+. But the natural progress of thought involved the advance to the conception of anthropomorphic creators. A transitional stage is presented by the Australian Arunta, in whose mythical system the authors of tribal inst.i.tutions and the makers of heavenly bodies are the half-animal, half-human ancestors; this seems to be an attempt at a transformation of the old scheme of creation by animals--unwilling to abandon the earlier conception, these tribes have satisfied themselves by the theory that the ancestors and creators, though animals in nature, must at the same time have been human.[1143] We may compare with these the Melanesian and Samoan supernatural beings who are incarnate in animal forms and are at the same time originators of civilization.[1144]

These zoomorphic beings are not necessarily totems, as in Australia; outside of the Arunta it does not appear that totems as such are ever regarded as creators[1145]--they are ancestors, but at that point their function appears to cease.

+677+. There are however ghosts, which, while of course representing ancestors, are regarded not specially in their ancestorial capacity, but rather as powerful beings who have been more or less active in framing the const.i.tution of society. This form of ghost occurs in Melanesia, where also spirits, vague beings who never were human, play a great role. The best authorities find it somewhat difficult to distinguish between such ghosts and spirits on the one hand, and G.o.ds on the other hand.[1146] The Qat of the Banks Islands is in one sense a creator, since he determines the regular courses of the seasons and is the introducer of night; yet, since he does not actually create the world, but only rearranges the existing material, he belongs rather in the category of transformers or initiators. Real anthropomorphic G.o.ds appear as creators in very early tribes. Such, for example, are Baiame, Daramulun, Bunjil of Australia,[1147] perhaps Supu of the Melanesian island of Vate.

+678+. In Polynesia there is a better-defined cosmogonic anthropomorphism. The Hawaiian creators Kane and Tangaloa appear to be fully formed deities.[1148] The Maoris have the divine figures Heaven and Earth, whose children are the producers of all things in the world.

But Maui, who seems to be a general Polynesian figure, is rather a culture-hero than a G.o.d, though his achievements were of a very serious sort. The Tapa of the Borneo Land Dyaks,[1149] and the Boora Pennu of the Khonds[1150] may be regarded as real G.o.ds. On the West Coast of Africa the Yorubans, the most advanced of the coast tribes, with a well-developed pantheon, have deities who may be called creators; such are Obatala, who, according to one account, made the first human pair out of clay, and Ifa, the restorer of the world after the flood.[1151]

In North America the New England Kiehtan and the Virginian Oki have creative functions.[1152] The Navahos ascribe the creation of certain animals to a G.o.d Bekotsidi, whose character and role, however, are vague.[1153] The Brazilian Tupan and Jurupari appear to be divine creators.[1154] For a good many tribes in all parts of the world the published reports give no precise information regarding the beginning of things, but it seems probable that fuller acquaintance with them would reveal conceptions similar to those described above.

+679+. The great civilized nations, with their well-formed anthropomorphic deities, have constructed elaborate cosmogonies, which commonly begin with the conception of an unshaped ma.s.s of material out of which the G.o.ds arise and create the world. There is no great difference in these various schemes: Babylonians and Greeks have fallen upon substantially the same general view of creation; the variations among the various peoples are due to circ.u.mstances of place and culture.

It is noteworthy that the Maoris have a cosmogony which is not unlike that of the great civilized nations of antiquity, but the origin of their scheme of the world is not clear.[1155]

+680+. _G.o.ds of the other world._ The cla.s.s of departmental G.o.ds includes those who have charge of the other world. As soon as the abode of men after death is definitely fixed, it is natural that a deity presiding over this other world should arise. Among the lower tribes this sort of G.o.d is not frequent.[1156] One of the clearest cases of such organization occurs in Fiji.[1157] Here, in addition to other deities who deal with the dead on their entrance into this farther world, the great deity Ndengei has his abode, and one of his functions is to pa.s.s on the merits of those who present themselves from the world of living men. He is, however, in part an otiose deity and can hardly be said to rule over this otherworldly realm. Similar undeveloped deities are found among the Maoris and the Finns.[1158]

+681+. But fully formed and effective divine rulers of the other world occur only in the more advanced religions, such as the Babylonian, the Egyptian, the Hindu, the Persian, the Greek, the Roman.[1159] From the nature of their abode such deities have very little to do with the life on earth except when, as in the Egyptian system and to some extent in the Fijian, there is a judge of conduct, with authority to a.s.sign the dead their places, good or bad. In such cases they become important moral factors in life.

+682+. An ethical G.o.d of the other world appears not to have been created by the Semites. The Babylonian Underworld G.o.ddess or G.o.d has nothing to do with moral character, and among the Hebrews, so far as the statements in the Old Testament go, no special deity was a.s.signed to the other world; whether such an Underworld deity once existed and was lost by the Hebrews, or has been expurged by the later editors of the Old Testament books, must remain uncertain;[1160] in the late pre-Christian period the national G.o.d, Yahweh, was regarded as controlling the Underworld as well as Heaven and Earth.[1161] The Greek Ades or Plouton and the Roman Pluto also are not ethical G.o.ds in the higher sense, as indeed no early deity of any people has such a moral character. At a later period ethical distinctions were introduced into the administration of the other world.

By reason of paucity of data it is difficult to determine the precise characters of various Celtic, Slavic, and Germanic deities whose names appear in the records. They are G.o.ds of clans and of departments of nature; none of them can properly be reckoned among the great G.o.ds.[1162]

+683+. _Division into good and bad Powers._ Among many savage and half-civilized peoples we find that a distinction is recognized between good and bad ghosts and spirits--a distinction at first vague, based on pa.s.sing experiences in which all the fortunes of men, favorable and unfavorable, are referred to these beings. Their morals are those of the human communities with which they are connected: they may be amiable or malignant, beneficent or revengeful, but the ethical element in their characters and deeds is not distinctly recognized and is not made the basis of the distinction between the two cla.s.ses. The world is seen to be full of Powers that make for weal or for woe--a conception that contains the germ of all the later development but is at first nebulous.

+684+. In a somewhat higher form of culture these two cla.s.ses of Powers may be unified respectively into, or replaced by, two G.o.ds, one helpful, the other harmful. Such appears to be the scheme of the Masai, who have their black G.o.d and red G.o.d.[1163] A Californian cosmogonic myth describes a nonmoral conflict of work between the good "Creator" and the malicious Coyote.[1164] A real unification appears, however, to be rare; it supposes in fact a degree of reflection and organization that we should not expect to find among lower peoples. The story, for example, that has been told of a well-developed dualistic system of the Iroquois is based on a misconception.[1165] Dualism proper is not recognizable among the savages of America, Polynesia, Asia, or Africa.[1166] In the Old Testament prior to the sixth century B.C. the spirits, good and bad, which are not essentially different from those we find among the lower tribes, are ma.s.sed under the control of Yahweh, and do his bidding without moral reflection; when he sends a lying spirit into the mouth of Ahab's prophets[1167] this spirit goes without malice merely to perform the will of the supreme G.o.d. This ma.s.sing of all spirit Powers under the control of one G.o.d is a step toward unity and clearness in the conception of the government of the world.

+685+. At a later stage of social growth there appears the conception of a cosmic struggle, the conflict between the natural forces that tend to disorder and those that tend to order. Philosophical reflection led to the supposition of an original chaos, a medley of natural forces not combined or organized in such a way as to minister to the needs of human life; and a similar conception of conflict may have arisen from observation of the warring elements at certain seasons of the year.

+686+. The adjustment of the rival forces and the establishment of a system of physical order is referred to the great G.o.ds. Such a picture of the original state of things is contained in the elaborate Babylonian cosmologies that have come down to us; in these the dragon of disorder (Tiamat) is completely conquered by the G.o.d Bel-Marduk, who represents the Babylonian civilization of the time in which the cosmology arose. Of the same nature is the Egyptian myth of the contest between Horus (the light) and Set (the dark), in which, however, the victory of Horus is not described as being absolute[1168]--a representation suggested, possibly, by the recognition of the persistence of the good and bad elements of the world; compare the cosmologies of the Maidu and the Khonds mentioned above (--684). In the Greek and Teutonic myths in which the Giants are the enemies of the great G.o.ds a more humane and settled government of the world is introduced by Zeus and Wodan. Traces of this construction of the universe are to be found also among the Maoris, the Hawaiians, and other peoples of a like grade.[1169]

+687+. In the original form of these myths there is no moral element beyond the fact that the settlement of the cosmic powers was necessary in order to the establishment of good social life. Individual wicked deities do not appear at this stage, but the way is prepared for them by the picture of cosmic struggle in which powers friendly and unfriendly to men are opposed to one another. A similar conception is found in the figures of the Fates, who are the embodiment of the course of events in the world--the immovable, remorseless, absolute fortune of men, good and bad--a picture of life as it has presented itself, doubtless, to men in all periods of history. Out of this came the abstract conception of Fate, the impersonal power that controls all things.

+688+. The deeper conception of a conflict between the moral good and the moral evil in life belongs to the latest period in religious history. Here the determining fact is the control of the world by the high G.o.ds, who have their adversaries, but in general prove victors. At the foundation of this scheme of the world lies the conception of order, which is particularly defined in the Vedic _arta_ and the Avestan _asha_[1170]--the regulation of the world in accordance with human interests, in which the ethical element becomes more and more prominent as human society is more and more formed on an ethical basis.

+689+. Ethical dualism is most fully embodied in the Persian conception of two G.o.ds, good and bad, with the understanding that the good G.o.d, Ahura Mazda, exercises a certain restraint on the bad G.o.d, Angro Mainyu, who is finally to be crushed.[1171] This optimistic point of view, which has no doubt existed in germinal shape among all peoples, appears also in the modified dualism of the Old Testament and the late Jewish and Christian schemes. The Old Testament Satan is originally a divine being, one of the "sons of the Elohim" (that is, he belongs to the Elohim, or divine, cla.s.s); his function is that of inspector of human conduct, prosecutor-general, with a natural tendency to disparage men and demand their punishment. As a member of Yahweh's court and council he makes regular reports to his divine lord and pleads cases before the divine court.[1172] In this character he is suspicious and mischievous but not immoral; but a little later a trace of malice appears in him,[1173] and in the uncanonical Jewish book of the Wisdom of Solomon and in the New Testament he advances to the position of the head of the kingdom of moral evil, so that he is called also "the G.o.d of the present age"[1174]--that is, he is the controller of the existing unregenerate element in human society, and is to be displaced when the ideal age shall be established.

+690+. _Man's att.i.tude toward demons._ Demons[1175] (the term being taken to include all early malefic superhuman beings, whether ghosts or spirits) are feared and guarded against, but rarely receive wors.h.i.+p. As they are the authors of all physical ills that cannot be explained on natural grounds, measures, usually magical, are taken to thwart their purposes--to prevent their intervention or to overcome and banish the evil begun by them. As they are not credited with moral principle, hostility to them rests not on ethical feeling but merely on fear of suffering.[1176] If they are placated, it is in cases in which they approach the character of G.o.ds and in so far cease to be demons in our sense of the word. They serve a useful purpose in that, taking on their shoulders all the ills of life, they leave the clan G.o.ds free from the suspicion of unfriendliness to men.[1177] On the other hand, the belief in them has created a pseudo-science of relief from suffering and a great host of pseudo-doctors who for a long time exercised a large control over society and bound men in fetters of ignorance.

+691+. In early societies demons have not individual names. In savage societies there are malefic deities, with individual names, connected with sicknesses and other ills; but such deities are not demons. Demons do not enter into friendly social relations with men,[1178] and observation of experiences is not carried so far as to a.s.sign every ill to a separate author. In more advanced societies, as, for instance, the Babylonian,[1179] demons are divided into cla.s.ses according to their various lines of activity, and to these cla.s.ses names are given. If some individual demon, representing a particular ill, becomes specially important, it may receive an individual name. In general, the demonic name-giving follows the theistic, but lags behind it. Clan G.o.ds have at first some such appellation as Old One, Grandfather, or a descriptive epithet (as among some American Indian tribes), and later, Lord, Lady, Mighty One, Exalted One; in process of time they receive proper names, which must have arisen at a relatively early period, since the meaning of the names of most of the old deities was to the ancients, as it is to us, unknown. In the case of the demonic world this development has not been carried so far, for the reason stated above, namely, that these beings, unlike G.o.ds, have not become real citizens of the communities with which they are connected.

+692+. In like manner the organization of demons has not kept pace with that of G.o.ds. In most regions they have remained a mob, every individual pursuing his way independently. It is only in advanced cults that they form a community with a head. In China and Persia the sharp division of supernatural forces into two cla.s.ses was the outcome of great religious reformations that followed the usual savage chaos of the hordes of demons. The Jewish demonology (probably influenced by the Persian) chose for the head of its kingdom of evil an old G.o.d (the Satan) or the similar figure Azazel.[1180]

+693+. It does not appear that religious wors.h.i.+p has ever been offered to a being regarded as morally bad and in honor of moral badness. The "devils" reported by early (and some recent) travelers as the recipients of religious homage turn out on inquiry to be clan G.o.ds whose anger is feared.[1181] The cult of many savage and many civilized deities has been, and is, characterized by gross cruelty and licentiousness; but it is certain that human sacrifice and s.e.xual indulgence were, and are, in these cases not regarded as morally wrong. Durga (Kali), wife of civa, most terrible and repulsive of female deities, while she is feared, is also revered as the giver of all good gifts; and the Thugs, when they offered her their strangled victims, ascribed no more moral blame to her than to themselves--their work they regarded not as murder but as pious sacrifice.[1182] The Gnostic sects, Ophites and Cainites, looked on the serpent and Cain as friends of the supreme Deity and of man; they were enemies only of the Demiourgos, the Jewish G.o.d Yahweh, who, they held, wished to keep man in ignorance.[1183] The Mesopotamian Yezidis also (the so-called devil-wors.h.i.+pers) revere only beings that they regard as morally good or as destined to become good. Their peculiar att.i.tude toward Satan (a mingling of fear and respect) is based not on his connection with evil but on their expectation that, though he is now fallen from his high angelic estate, he is ultimately to be restored to his original dignity.[1184]

+694+. Thus, it cannot be said that a demon has ever developed into a G.o.d. The malefic Powers of savages have generally been absorbed by higher beings or have otherwise disappeared. Some G.o.ds, such as the Hebrew Satan and certain Greek deities, have been degraded to the demonic cla.s.s. In some cases, particularly in the Zoroastrian system, a being who is the consolidation of all malign supernatural activities has been credited with all-but divine power and authority.[1185] But the two cla.s.ses remain distinct--the true "G.o.d" is a friendly member of a human society, and when he is angry may be placated; the true "demon" is essentially hostile to men and must be thwarted and expelled.[1186]

+695+. _G.o.ds of abstractions._ G.o.ds of abstractions, found in certain theistic systems, are to be distinguished on the one hand from deities that are simply personalizations of physical objects (such as Vesta and Agni) and on the other hand from poetical personifications, such as that of Wisdom in the Jewish books of Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus, and the Wisdom of Solomon, and from concrete figures like the Logos of Philo and the Fourth Gospel. Though these abstract forms appear to be relatively late (posterior to the formation of the greater G.o.ds), the meagerness of our data makes it difficult to describe their genesis and the conceptions of their character by the peoples among whom they arise.

Some facts known to us, however, may help us to understand in part the process by which they came into existence.

+696+. We have already considered the tendency in human communities to particularize the divine objects of wors.h.i.+p and to personalize external objects; everywhere, it would appear, there is a disposition to a.s.sign a particular divine control to every fact that is specially connected with human interests. We have to note, further, the tendency to concretize, as, for example, in many cases in which evil, physical or moral, is regarded as a concrete thing that may be removed bodily from the community.[1187] This sort of conception we may suppose to be connected with early psychological theory, according to which anything that affects man is credited with manlike form and power. The facility with which the abstract and the concrete may be identified is ill.u.s.trated by such modern terms as deity, majesty, highness, state, government, direction, counsel; in these expressions the abstract quality or act is incarnated in certain persons, and so we may imagine that at a certain stage of society any quality or act might be isolated and regarded as a personal thing. A series of victories, for example, might suggest the conception of 'victory' as a thing present in these events, and the tendency to personalize would then create the divine figure Victory.

Historically a personalization may have arisen, in some cases, through the isolation of an epithet of a deity (so, for example, Fides may have come from Dius Fidius),[1188] but in such cases the psychological basis of the personalization is the same as that just stated. From these, as is remarked above, must be distinguished poetical and philosophical abstractions.

+697+. Whatever be the explanation of the process, we find in fact a large number of cases in which such abstractions appear as deities and receive wors.h.i.+p.

+698+. _Semitic._ The material for the Semitic religions on this point is scanty.[1189] The Arabic divine names supposed by Noldeke to represent abstractions are Manat (fate), Sa'd (fortune), Ru?a (favor), Wadd (love), Manaf (height), 'Au? (time). Whether these are all abstract terms is doubtful. _Wadd_ means also 'lover,' divine friend or patron. _Sa'd_ occurs as adjective 'fortunate,' is the appellation of certain stars, and the G.o.d Sa'd is identified by an Arab poet with a certain rock[1190]--the rock is doubtless an old local divinity. _Ru?a_ is found apparently only as a divine name (in Palmyrene and Safa inscriptions and as a G.o.d of an Arabian tribe)--the form may be concrete, in the sense of 'favoring,' divine patron. As "time" (_dahr_, _zaman_) often occurs in Arabic poetry in the sense of 'fate,' the G.o.d 'Au? may be an embodiment of this conception.[1191]

_Manaf_, if understood, as is possible, in the sense 'high place,' is not abstract but concrete, though in that case the original reference of the term is not clear.

+699+. Manat is one of the three great G.o.ddesses of Mecca, the others being Al-Lat ('the G.o.ddess') and Al-Uzza ('the mighty one'); as these two names are concrete, there is a certain presumption that _Manat_ likewise is concrete. The original meaning of the word is obscure. It does not occur as a common noun, but from the same stem come terms meaning 'doom, death,'[1192] and, if it be allied to these, it would be an expression for 'fate' (like _'Au?_). However, the stem is used in the sense 'number, determine, a.s.sign,' and Manat may be the divine determiner of human destinies. From this same stem comes the Biblical _Meni_, and apparently the a.s.syrian _Manu_.[1193] The ordinary North Semitic conception of the source of human destinies is that they are determined by the G.o.ds and written on tablets or in a book,[1194] and the same conception may have existed in the South Semitic area.[1195]

The other deity mentioned in Isaiah lxv, 11, is Gad; the word means in Arabic and Hebrew 'fortune, good fortune,' and occurs as the name of a deity in Phoenician and Aramaic inscriptions, but the data are not sufficient to fix its original sense. It is the name of a Hebrew tribe, which is perhaps so called from the tribal G.o.d, and the name of a tribal G.o.d is probably concrete.[1196]

+700+. It seems, then, that for most if not all of the names of the Semitic deities just mentioned abstract senses, though possible, are not certain. Noldeke remarks that most of these terms are poetical--they may be ornate epithets given to old concrete divine figures, in which case the real cults were attached to these latter and not to abstractions. It must be regarded as doubtful whether Semitic religion created any abstract deity.

+701+. _Egyptian._ The most prominent Egyptian abstract deity is Maat, 'truth.' She fulfilled an important function in the judgment-hall of Osiris in the Underworld, and was widely revered, but had no mythical history, and seems to have been rather a quasi-philosophical creation than a vital element of the Egyptian religious life. A G.o.d Destiny is mentioned, who generally bestowed a happy fate.[1197]

+702+. _Roman and Greek._ The most fully developed form of this conception is found in the Roman cult.[1198] The civic genius of the Romans led them to give prominence to the maintenance of public and private rights; thus among their deities appear public safety or salvation (Salus Publica), public faith or fidelity to engagements (Fides), civic harmony (Concordia), connubial purity (Pudicitia), filial devotion (Pietas), the boundary of property (Terminus), victory (Victoria), liberty (Libertas). There are further the G.o.ds Youth (Juventus and Juventas) and Desire[1199] (Cupido), perhaps as things fundamental in human life.[1200] Fortune (Fortuna) is the ma.s.s of evidence determining life by the will of the G.o.ds, with which the utterances of the G.o.ds (Fata) are identical, and the embodiment of the determining agencies is the Parcae. Several of these deities have their correspondents in the Greek theistic system:[1201] Eros (desire); Tuche (that which is allotted one by the G.o.ds or by the course of events); Moira (Aisa), the unification of all the powers that determine man's destiny. The G.o.d Kronos was by some improperly identified with "time"