Introduction to the History of Religions Part 30

The Jews thus became a nation organized under religious law, with an inst.i.tution devoted to voluntary communal wors.h.i.+p, and offering salvation, at first for this life only, but later (from the second century B.C. onward) for the future life also--these were elements of a church. But in two points this cult fell short of the complete church idea: the business of a church is wholly and solely religious, and the Jewish nation was organized not only for religion, but also for commerce, politics, and war;[2037] and the synagogue and the temple-service were not free to all the world--only Jews and proselytes[2038] might take part in them. Any religious body, it is true, may properly define the conditions of entrance into it; but here the restriction was national--the synagogal cult, individualistic and simply devotional as it purported to be, was a part of the national system, and its members.h.i.+p depended almost exclusively on the accident of birth. Proselytes, indeed, formed an exception--they came in of their own choice--but they were numerically not important and did not affect the general character of the cult.[2039] The Jews came as near the ideal of a voluntary religious a.s.sociation as was then possible under the hampering conditions of a racial organization and peculiar national customs. Their genius for the organization of public religion appears in the fact that the form of communal wors.h.i.+p devised by them was adopted by Christianity and Islam, and in its general outline still exists in the Christian and Moslem worlds.

+1109+. _Zoroastrianism_ resembled Judaism in its later practical monotheism and its elaborate ritual, but was more isolated and less advanced in the formation of a.s.semblies for voluntary wors.h.i.+p. Its pre-Sa.s.sanian period produced no church, only a national cult, which was adopted by the Parthians and others in debased form, but otherwise did not attract outsiders. On a sect that arose in Persia in Sa.s.sanian times see below.[2040]

+1110+. _Christianity._ The teaching of Jesus was directed toward a purification of the existing cult, the elimination of mechanical views, and the emphasizing of spiritual and ethical ideals.[2041] There is no indication that he purposed founding a separate organization.[2042] But, after his death, his disciples were drawn together by their relation to him, particularly when the new congregation became predominantly Graeco-Roman. For its administration the synagogue was the model--from it were taken the t.i.tles and functions of some of its officers and the method of conducting public service.[2043] But the new ekklesia, the church, followed its own lines and speedily created a new cult. Its fundamental conception was salvation in the future through Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. In the beginning it was thoroughly individualistic and voluntary. It had no connection with the State, was not a _religio licita_; its adherents joined it solely out of preference for its doctrines; its activity was wholly religious. But this ideal const.i.tution of a church was not long maintained. The introduction of infant baptism (toward the end of the second century) and the adoption of Christianity as the religion of the State by Constantine went far to make members.h.i.+p in the Church an accident of birth or of political position; in this regard Imperial and Medieval Christianity did not differ from the old national religions--it was a religion but not a church. At the present day in the greater part of Christendom one's ecclesiastical position is inherited precisely as the ancient clansman inherited his special cult.[2044] The word "church" has largely lost its early signification of voluntary religious a.s.sociation, and has come to mean any Christian organization, or, by further extension, any religious body.

+1111+. The secularization of the Church, the failure to discriminate between its function and that of the State, is an inheritance from Roman Imperialism, which in its turn was derived from the primitive clan const.i.tution of society in which the individual had no standing apart from the community. From the Roman Empire it pa.s.sed to Medieval Europe, and it has survived in the Christian world by force of inertia.

It is, however, not universal in Christendom (there are religious bodies in which individual freedom of choice is fully recognized), and in some cases where it exists formally or theoretically it is practically ignored. Notwithstanding departures from the ideal the services of the Church often represent voluntary wors.h.i.+p; such wors.h.i.+p, however, has been the rule in all religions from the earliest times to the present day and does not in itself distinguish Christianity from any other religion.

+1112+. The word "church" meant at first a local Christian congregation, but was enlarged so as to designate the whole body of Christians. In this body various tendencies of thought showed themselves from time to time, and new organizations were formed that const.i.tuted new churches in the sense that they had their own theological dogmas, ritual, and conditions of members.h.i.+p. Most of them had brief careers and offer nothing of interest for the history of the development of the church-idea. Gnosticism was a serious and noteworthy attempt to bridge over the gap between a good supreme G.o.d and an evil world, and was in form a church, but its philosophical and mystical sides had so much that was fanciful and grotesque or ethically dangerous that it did not commend itself to the ma.s.s, and soon ceased to exist as a separate organization, though its echoes long continued to be heard in certain Christian groups.[2045]

+1113+. _Cults of Mithra and Isis._ The Mithraic communities were wholly voluntary a.s.sociations, without distinctions of birth or social position, were recognized by the State, but received no pecuniary aid from it and had no official connection with it. Perhaps this independence helped to nourish the enthusiasm that carried Mithraism from one end of the Roman Empire to the other; a church appears to flourish most on the religious side when it confines itself to religion. A more important fact was that Mithraism was a religion of redemption. It does not appear that there was any general organization of the Mithraic a.s.sociations; each of these was local, probably small, had its own set of officers, and managed its own affairs.[2046] It was thus free from some of the perils that beset Christianity. It is not improbable that some of its liturgical forms were adopted by the Christian Church, but it seems itself not to have borrowed from the latter. Its weakness was its semibarbarous ritual and its polytheism; it yielded of necessity to the simpler and loftier forms of Christianity.

+1114+. The cult of Isis, in spite of its ethically high character and its impressive ceremonies of initiation (as described by Apuleius[2047]), did not give rise to a.s.sociations like the Mithraic. It belongs to the mysteries, but had not their organization of meetings and ritual, had no brotherhoods (except those whose bond of union was devotion to this cult) and no general organization embracing the Empire.

The reason for its failure in this regard appears to lie in its lack of definiteness in certain important points: it was in a sense monotheistic, since the G.o.ddess was called the supreme controller of the world of external nature and of men, but its monotheism was clouded by its connection with the old national cults and by current theological speculations--for Apuleius, it would seem, Isis was rather a name for a vague Power in nature than for a well-defined divine person, and particularly it offered no clear picture of the future and no clear hope of moral redemption, two things that were then necessary to the success of any system that aspired to supplant the popular faiths.[2048] Such lacks as these appear in the cult of Sarapis also, which never developed the characteristics of a church.

+1115+. _Manichaeism._ Of the religious movements that sprang from the contact of Christianity with the East Manichaeism was the most important on account of its great vitality. It possessed all the elements of a church, voluntary members.h.i.+p, independence of the State (it was always persecuted by the State), and the claim to a divine revelation of salvation. Like Buddhism, Jainism, and Christianity, it owed its origin to a single founder. Its plan of organization and its ethical standards were good. Like Mithraism its basis was Persian (its rise was synchronous with the Sa.s.sanian revival of Mazdaism), but the two went different ways: the former laid stress on mystical ceremonies, the latter on moral and theological conceptions. The vogue that Manichaeism enjoyed was due, apparently, to its eclectic character: adopting the Persian dualism, it modified and expounded this by a Gnostic doctrine of aeons, which was intended to harmonize the goodness of G.o.d and the existence of evil, and it added the figure of the highest aeon, Christ, the savior of men. On the other hand, its involved and fantastic machinery led to its downfall.

+1116+. Two theocratic bodies that failed to reach the full church form are _Islam_ and the _Peruvian cult of the sun_. The Islamic const.i.tution is based on a sacred book, its theology and its form of public wors.h.i.+p are borrowed from Christianity and Judaism, its private wors.h.i.+p is individualistic, and it offers paradise to the faithful. But Islam is in essence a State religion rather than a church. Its populations belong to it by descent; its head is the Calif (now the Sultan of Turkey). Its diffusion, though due in certain cases to the superiority of its ideas and the simplicity of its customs,[2049] has yet come largely (as in Egypt, Syria and Palestine, Persia, and North Africa) from social and political pressure--in some cases it has been adopted by whole nations at a blow; Mohammed forced all the people of Arabia to accept it.

Individual choice recedes into the background, except (as in Judaism) in the case of proselytes. Its conception of sin and salvation are largely external. It bears a great resemblance to the Judaism of the Hasmonean dynasty, a national cult with a priest-sovereign at its head.

Within Islam there have arisen organizations that imitate the form of a church in certain respects; such were the Morabits (Almoravides) and the Mohads (Almohades),[2050] whose bond of union was in part theological, and such are the great fraternities in Africa and Asia, which are devoted, among other things, to religious work, and have elaborate organizations and ceremonies of reception.[2051] But these are all largely political and military. The Ismalic movement (from ca. 900 A.D.

on), the central doctrine of which was the incarnation of G.o.d in certain men and finally in the Mahdi, was not Islamic and not Semitic; with a nominal acceptance of the Koran, it was in fact a mixture of Persian and Buddhistic ideas; from it came the Fatimide califate of Egypt, and from this (ca. 1000 A.D.) the Druse sect, which began as a church, but has become merely a local religion.[2052]

+1117+. It was in Peru that the most thoroughgoing identification of religion with the State was effected.[2053] In the old national religions the individual followed the custom of his country; in Peru the State, in the person of the Inca, determined every person's religious position and duties. If Islam resembles Maccabean Judaism, the Peruvian organization resembled some forms of Medieval Christianity. The Inca was a Pope, only with more power than the Christian Pope, since he acted on every individual. The general ethical standard was good, in spite of some survivals of savagery, but there was a complete negation of individual freedom in religion.[2054]

+1118+. _Modern Hindu sects._ The vast multiplication of sects in India is an indication of activity of religious thought;[2055] the movement has been in general toward the formation of voluntary a.s.sociations, though with many variations and modifications. The reform sects, while they may be considered as developments out of the old systems, Vedic, civaic, Vishnuic (Krishnaic), have been affected by foreign influence, Mohammedan or Christian. Of the organizations influenced by Islam (followers of Kabir and Dadu) several have produced societies that for a time had the form of a church, with voluntary members.h.i.+p and a plan of salvation; but it has been hard for them to overcome the national tendencies to idolatry and to deification of founder or teacher. The Sikhs, beginning (in the fifteenth century) as a purely religious body, became, by the eighteenth century, a powerful political and military organization. Along with theological reform these sects have been constantly in danger of reverting more or less closely to the old national type, and their church form has been only feebly effective.

+1119+. The case has been different with the movements induced by contact with Christian forms of belief. The organizations founded or carried on by Rammohun Roy[2056] (early part of the eighteenth century) and later by Chunder Sen,[2057] Mozoomdar, and others are churches in the full sense of the word, and, notwithstanding occasional individual lapses into old Hindu ideas, have so far maintained this character; but they are not wholly native creations, and it remains to be seen what their outcome will be.[2058]

+1120+. _Babism and Bahaism_,[2059] the transformation of Babism effected by Bahau'llah, is a church in all essential points, though its organization consists merely in the devotion of its adherents to the teaching and the person of its founder; it has no clergy, no religious ceremonial, no public prayers, no connection with any civil government, but its dogma is well-defined and it offers eternal salvation to its adherents. Its chief source of inspiration is the belief that its founder was an incarnation of G.o.d, the Manifestation of G.o.d announced by his forerunner, the Bab (the "Gate" to G.o.d and truth). That its lack of official ministers and public communal religious services is no bar to its effectiveness is shown by the favor it has met with not only in Persia and other parts of Asia but also in Europe and America. Possibly its success is due in part to its eclectic character and its claim to universality (it seeks to embrace and unite Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity) as well as to the simplicity of its dogma (theism and immortality) and its admirable humanitarian spirit.[2060]

MONACHISM

+1121+. An effective outgrowth from the church is the monastic system, which is an _ecclesia in ecclesia_, emphasizing and extending certain features of the parent organization.[2061] It sprang from a dualistic conception, the a.s.sumption of a relation of incompatibility or antagonism between G.o.d and the world--a feeling whose germ appears in savage life (in taboos and other forms). It has a.s.sumed definite shape only in the higher religions and not in all of these--it is foreign to Semitic, Persian, Chinese, and Greek[2062] peoples. Austerity there has been and abstention from certain things but not with the aim of ministering to spiritual life.[2063]

+1122+. The birthplace of monachism proper was India. In the Brahmanic scheme the highest sanct.i.ty and the most brilliant prospects attached to the man who forsook the life of men and devoted himself to solitary meditation in the forest.[2064] The seclusion was individual--the man was an eremite. The organization into communities was made by Buddha[2065] and, apparently contemporaneously, by Mahavira, the founder of Jainism. It is this organization that has made the inst.i.tution a power in religious history. Buddha's a.s.sociations were open to all, without distinction of social position or s.e.x. From India monachism pa.s.sed into all the lands that were occupied by Buddhism.

+1123+. In Egypt under the Ptolemies there arose a sort of monastic life: after the cult of Sarapis was established men wis.h.i.+ng to devote themselves to religious meditation would go to the Sarapeum and shut themselves up in cells.[2066] It is, however, not clear that there was an organization or any sort of communal life in connection with these gatherings. There is no evidence of foreign influence beyond a possible suggestion from the fact that Sarapis was a foreign deity and his cult may have imported foreign ideas into Egypt; but he was completely domiciled in his new abode, was identified by the Greeks with their Zeus and by the Egyptians (by a popular etymology) with their Osir-Apis; there was nothing foreign in his cult, and the claim, sometimes made, for Buddhistic influence (through emba.s.sies sent by Asoka to Greek kings) has no definite historical foundation.[2067] Possibly Greek (Pythagorean) influence is to be recognized,[2068] but it cannot be considered strange that a practice of this sort should arise independently in Egypt at a time when a practical monolatry with a good ethical conception of the deity might dispose some men to solitary reflection.

+1124+. The Egyptian Therapeutae, the "Servants" of G.o.d, described by Philo,[2069] resemble these Sarapis monks in certain respects, particularly in their habit of contemplation. Their kernel, however, was Jewish--they had the Jewish Scriptures and observed the seventh day of the week. On this Jewish substratum was imposed Greek thought; they adopted the Alexandrian allegorizing interpretation of the Scriptures, and Philo includes them in that group of persons who found it desirable to withdraw from the common life of men in order to cultivate philosophical and ethical thought. Six days they lived each by himself; on the seventh day they came together for a religious service. Women as well as men were admitted into the a.s.sociation, but the place of general meeting had two divisions, one for men, the other for women. The date of the rise of the sect is uncertain, but it must probably be put in the Ptolemaic period. Their monastic organization must be referred to some current practice, Greek or Egyptian, or to a blending of various lines; the details of their history are too spa.r.s.e to build on with definiteness.

+1125+. The similar sect of the Essenes, or Essaei, which was confined to Palestine, is better known.[2070] The Jewish features in their system are: acceptance of the Jewish Scriptures, observance of the Sabbath, recognition of the temple by sending unb.l.o.o.d.y offerings, regard for ceremonial purity. Non-Jewish features are: rejection of marriage, trade and (according to Philo) animal sacrifice, turning to the sun in prayer (or, according to Josephus, praying to the sun), the teaching that the soul, when set free from the body, pa.s.ses, if good, to a delightful region across the ocean, and, if bad, to a dark den of ceaseless punishment. Foreign influence in these latter practices and beliefs is obvious, but its precise source is uncertain. There are suggestions of Pythagoreanism and possibly of Zoroastrianism;[2071] it can only be said that various ideas were in the air of Palestine, and that the Essene formulation was effected under conditions and at a time not known to us.[2072] The monastic const.i.tution was clearly of foreign (non-Jewish) origin. Essenism seems not to have affected the Jewish religious ideas of the time. Jesus, though he may have taken from it the prohibition of swearing and possibly one or two other points, was in the main and on all important points (except ethical teaching, which was largely common property) the reverse of what Essenism stood for.

+1126+. Christian monachism, which appeared first in eremitic form (second century) and later in organized communal form, may have been an independent creation of Christian piety; but it is also possible that it was suggested by the traditions of its birthplace, Egypt;[2073] definite data on this point are lacking. Whatever its origin, it speedily overran the Christian world, in which it has maintained itself up to the present day.[2074]

+1127+. Monachism has rendered valuable aid to Buddhism and Christianity by training men and women, laity and clergy, who were devoted to the forms of religion represented by these organizations. It has done a higher service by establis.h.i.+ng communities that have often been beacon lights, representing, particularly in times of popular ignorance, ideals of conduct. Such communities have often been homes of beneficence and learning. They have, on the other hand, injured religion by severing it from ordinary life. By a.s.suming that the secluded life was holier than that of the world they have tended to put a stigma of unholiness on the latter. Buddhism taught that only the monk could attain the highest sanct.i.ty and receive the highest reward, and such has generally been the teaching in those forms of Christianity in which monachism exists.

Monasteries and convents, further, have in many cases become rich in this world's goods--a favorite form of devotion has been to build and endow or aid such communities (often with the belief that this atoned for sin); with wealth has come worldlymindedness and corruption of morals. Numerous examples of such decadence occur in Buddhistic and Christian history. There are, however, many examples of holy monastic living. It is true in general of these inst.i.tutions, as of all others, that when moral supervision of them is exercised by society the possibilities of moral decline are greatly diminished; in an enlightened age they may be a.s.sumed to be generally exemplary. Their specifically useful role in the development of religion, as refuges in times of turbulence and centers of charity and thought, belongs to an imperfectly organized form of society; with the growth of enlightenment they tend to disappear.

SACRED BOOKS

+1128+. All churches and all bodies approaching nearly the church-form have writings that embody their beliefs and are regarded as sacred. Such sacred Scriptures necessarily grow up with the organizations to which they belong, since these latter originate in literary periods and claim divine authors.h.i.+p. Great religious communities naturally produce a large number of such books, and at some time it becomes necessary (from the growth of heresies or rivals) to sift the whole ma.s.s and decide which works are to be considered to have permanent divine authority; the process of sifting is performed in each case by its community under the guidance of leading men, and the result is a canon of sacred Scriptures.

Such canons are found in Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam, and in minor bodies like the Essenes, Mormons, and others, but not among the Chinese, Greeks, and Romans; Brahmanism occupies a middle ground--it regards the Veda and the accessory books as ent.i.tled to great reverence, but has never drawn the line between sacred and nonsacred writings so sharply as has been done in the group named above.

+1129+. While the general method of fixing the canons has been the same everywhere, the details of the process have differed in different lands.

In India the canon of Southern Buddhism (acknowledged formerly in India and now in Ceylon, Burma, and Siam) was settled in a series of councils coming down to the middle of the third century B.C. or later (several centuries after the death of Buddha), the object being to define the faith against heresies; probably the reports of the Master's discourses (he left no writings) were examined, and those declared authentic were brought together, but the date of the final settlement of the canon is not certain, and the sacred books were not reduced to writing till the first century B.C. The canon of Northern Buddhism (accepted in Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, China, j.a.pan) is less definite and was fixed later.[2075]

+1130+. The development of the Jewish canon extended over a long period, and its history in outline is well known. While the discourses of the prophets were regarded with respect as giving divine revelations, there is no record of the recognition of an authoritative book before the fifth century B.C., when a sacred law was proclaimed by Nehemiah and Ezra.[2076] Even then there seems to have been no definite collection of writings. The Law was the national religious const.i.tution, and in process of time prophetic books and others came to be regarded with reverence. The translator of Ben-Sira (Ecclesiasticus) into Greek (132 B.C.) mentions three groups of national books (the law, the prophets, and "other writings"), but does not speak of them as divinely inspired.

But the intimate contact with the Greek world, and especially the Maccabean struggle, deepened the Palestinian Jewish reverence for the national literature. A process of sifting and defining, at first unofficial, began, and this work naturally pa.s.sed, with the growth of legal learning, into the hands of leading doctors of law. Early in the first century of our era public opinion in Palestine had taken shape; the standard established was a local national one--books ill.u.s.trating the national history and teachings, and written in Hebrew, were accepted (so, for example, the book of Esther, which is nonreligious but national), others (as the Wisdom of Solomon) were rejected. For various reasons certain books (Ezekiel, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs) remained doubtful. After the destruction of Jerusalem the increasing literary feeling, the establishment of rabbinical schools, and the necessity of defining the Jewish position against growing Christianity and other heresies led to definite action[2077]--in the Synod of Jamnia (about 100 A.D.) the Palestinian canon, after hot debates, was finally settled in the form in which the Hebrew Old Testament now appears.

Alexandrian Judaism had a different standard and accepted, in addition to the Palestinian collection, a group of books (the Apocrypha) that the Palestinians rejected. Certain other books (as the various Enoch apocalypses) were not accepted by either Jewish body, though they were highly esteemed. Both canons were slow growths of national feeling--books were chosen that accorded with prevailing ideas; but it is now impossible to recover all the critical views that determined the results.[2078]

+1131+. Young Christianity, at first a Jewish body, naturally adopted the Jewish canons, but in the course of a century produced a considerable normative literature of its own. The Christian canon was settled much in the same way as the Jewish. There was doubt about certain books, there were differences of opinion in different quarters, the growth of heresies called for the establishment of a definite standard, and a final decision was reached in the West and announced toward the end of the fifth century by Pope Gelasius; in the East the action was less definite, but the conclusion was about the same. The books of the Alexandrian canon that were rejected by the Palestinians were largely used by early Christian writers, by whom some of them are constantly cited as sacred Scripture, for they were found in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint), which was the Old Testament text used by Christians. So great was their popularity that Jerome was led, against his judgment, to include them in his translation (the Latin Vulgate), and by the Council of Trent (1546) they were indorsed as deuterocanonical, and are still so regarded in the Roman Church. In the Greek Church they were accepted as canonical in the beginning and up to the early part of the nineteenth century, but are now, it would seem, looked on only as useful for the instruction of catechumens.[2079] By Protestants their canonical authority is generally denied, though up to the early part of the nineteenth century they were commonly printed in editions of the Bible; the Articles of the Church of England characterize them as instructive but not of authority for doctrine, and lessons from them now appear in the Lectionary of the Church.[2080]

+1132+. The history of the collection of the Zoroastrian sacred books is involved in obscurity. A late tradition was that many such writings were destroyed by Alexander. This points to a belief that the existing writings were later than the fall of the old Persian empire. When a beginning was made of committing Zoroastrian material to writing is uncertain. In the first century of our era Pliny had heard of verses ascribed to Zoroaster,[2081] and, as Mazdean books were in existence at the rise of the Sa.s.sanian dynasty, the probability seems to be that the reduction to writing had then been going on for a considerable time--how long it is impossible to say. The material grew with the development of the people and was ascribed to Zoroaster[2082] (as the Jews ascribed their legal material to Moses). An official collection of sacred writings was made in the fourth century of our era--the exact extent of this collection and the principle that governed its formation are not clear. It may be surmised that the appearance of strange teachings, such as that of Mani, and the spread of Christianity eastward, forced on the leaders the task of defining the orthodox faith.[2083] In making their collection they would naturally take only such writings as were in accord with the spirit of the religion of their time. Thus they established (in the fourth century) a body of sacred writings; it does not follow that no additions were later made to the canon--how far it is represented in the present Avesta it may be difficult to say.

+1133+. The history of the Islamic canon is simple. The Koran enjoys the distinction of being the only sacred canon produced by one man. There never was any question of its sacredness, and there has been hardly any question of its content. Mohammed's discourses were taken down by his followers in his lifetime, were put into shape just after his death, the collection was revised a few years later (under the Calif Othman), has since been universally accepted in the Moslem world as the authoritative divinely given standard of religious truth, and there is no reason to doubt that it contains substantially all the teaching of the Prophet and only his teaching. The scribe Zayd, who acted as editor, may have altered or inserted a word here and there, but he would not have dared to change the thought. The traditions of extra-Koranic sayings ascribed to Mohammed (the _hadith_), so far as they may be supposed to be genuine utterances of his (most of them are spurious), do not add anything to his doctrine.[2084]

+1134+. As to the influence of sacred books on religion, it is obvious, in the first place, that they are always formulations of the ideas of the places and times in which they originate, and that they vary in tone and in importance accordingly. It is true, however, that the canonical collections of the great religions, having arisen in enlightened circles, all have, along with local (social, mythological, eschatological) features, generally high ethical and spiritually religious standards. For this reason they have always been, as religious and ethical guides and sources of inspiration, important factors in the development of civilization as well as in the life of the churches.

Their teachings, generally representing the ideas of gifted men formulated under the pressure of great religious enthusiasm, have perpetuated high standards, holding them up in times of decadence and corruption and clouded moral vision.

+1135+. A specially noteworthy point in their influence is their role of household monitors and comforters. As religious manuals, invested with divine authority, they have found their way into families and other small and intimate circles, have been children's textbooks and parents'

guides, and thus have entered in an extraordinary way into individual life. They have reached wider circles through expositions and discourses held in connection with stated religious services. They have been used as textbooks in schools, and in general have been the most widely read books in the world. They have thus been unifying forces, each in its special community.

Their influence, further, has not been confined to purely religious life. Being regarded as containing the final truth, they have been objects of study and occasions of the development of learning. The necessity of explaining their use of words and grammatical constructions, their historical and geographical statements and views, their pictures and theories of social life, their psychology and philosophy, their theistic and eschatological ideas, have led to investigations of all these subjects. Early Moslem science sprang from the study of the Koran, and the later Moslem discussions of free-will, immortality and other points were called forth by Koranic statements.

The philosophical writings of Maimonides, produced under Greek influence (through Moslem translations of Aristotle), were directed to the elucidation of Old Testament ideas. The contributions of modern Christians, Jews, Moslems, and Parsis to knowledge, sacred books being the occasions, are numerous and important.

+1136+. Along with these beneficent influences there have been others less praiseworthy. As any sacred book belongs to a particular age, it inevitably, in the course of time, falls into disaccord with later ideas on certain points. When this happens there are always some persons who, failing to discriminate between the local and transitory and the permanent, unjustly reject the book _in toto_; others, making a distinction, take it as a literary product, accept what they think valuable, and treat the rest as an imperfect product of the past. Those who accept the book as divinely inspired and therefore, as they think, infallible either maintain literally all its statements (cosmological, historical, eschatological, and other) or else undertake to interpret certain of them in accordance with current views. When such interpretation is forced, it becomes intellectually and morally an evil--it accustoms the religious public to logical distortions, and it nourishes a disingenuousness that easily becomes immoral. The belief that a sacred book is final authority often results in limitation of freedom of thought--certain things are excluded from discussion. The instinctive demand for freedom a.s.serts itself, however, in various ways: sometimes, as described above, a desired sense is obtained by violence; sometimes a religious body that is regarded by its adherents as authoritative interpreter changes its decision, in accord with the spirit of a new age, and grants liberty where it had previously refused it The treatment of sacred books follows the phases of general culture.

The dogmatic statements of these books are condensed into creeds, which become organic law.[2085] They express each the interpretation put by a given church on the words of its sacred Scriptures. The interpretations are the outcome of historical processes, the final result of which is a formulation of the ideas of its time; where the same sacred book is accepted by several churches, there may be several different creeds based on the one book--that is, churches and creeds alike are subject to the variations of human opinion that result from differences of temperament, social surroundings, and general culture. Creeds are convenient and effective manuals. They may be made to change their meaning by processes of interpretation; elasticity in a creed is favorable to permanence--it is thereby able to adapt itself to changing conditions--and the degree of elasticity depends largely on the persons who are its authorized expounders, that is, on the area of public opinion that these persons represent.

+1137+. _General influence of churches._ All organized religion has been a potent factor in human life. In savage and half-civilized communities it enters into every detail of life, since, in the absence of knowledge of natural law, everything that happens is ascribed to supernatural agency. In the old national cults, in which other departments of thought (art, commerce, science, philosophy) became prominent, religion was somewhat isolated--it received a particular representation in sacrifices, festivals, and other observances; but such ceremonies were so numerous, and so many ancient customs survived, that it still played a conspicuous part in daily life.[2086] In the period in which churches arose there was a still greater specialization of the activities of life, and this specialization has become more p.r.o.nounced in modern times, in which from various causes the tendency is to ma.s.s religious observances in certain days and seasons and leave the rest of the time free. This apparent banishment of religion from everyday affairs does not, however, signify diminution of interest in religion itself--partly it is an economic arrangement, the a.s.signment of a definite time to every particular duty, but mainly it is the result of a better conception of what religion means, the feeling that, being an inward experience, it is less dependent on external occasions.

+1138+. Churches, as is remarked above, differ from the old national religions mainly in the emphasis they lay on individualism and on the idea of redemption. They represent a profounder conception of the ethical relation between man and G.o.d, or, as in Buddhism, between man and the ideal of perfection in the universe. They foster religion by holding public services and by the production of devotional works; they advance learning by supplying men of leisure; socially they are in general a conservative force, with the good and bad effects of conservatism. But their special function is to treat man as a spiritual being having immediate personal relations with the deity. Charitable and educational work (ethical and other) and social gatherings they share with other organizations, and they are incompetent in themselves to deal with economic and other scientific questions. That wherein they stand apart from other organizations is the emotional element they introduce into man's att.i.tude toward the universe. According to this point of view man regards himself not merely as a part of the world but as bound to its author by ties of grat.i.tude and affection. This sentiment may be independent of all scientific theories, may be shared by the learned and the unlearned; it is thus a great unifying force, and gives to life the glow of enthusiasm with the repose of trust.

+1139+. The temptations to which churches are exposed are those that are touched on above, and they may be briefly summed up here. There is the tendency to an excessive elaboration of the externals of religion, ritual, and dogma. Something of these is doubtless necessary in churches as in all human organizations, but they may easily be carried so far as to obscure the essential things. The history of all churches exhibits this tendency. There are protests from time to time, revolts against formalities and speculations, and then frequently in the new organizations the old movement is resumed. For our own times a distinction may perhaps be made: while there seems to be a steady general increase of ritual, there is in many quarters a disposition to minimize or curtail dogma.

+1140+. However this may be, a more important tendency in churches is toward the claim to absolute authority in religious matters. This tendency is universal in bodies that hold to the infallibility of certain sacred books. It is obvious that absolute authority in an organized body and individual freedom are mutually incompatible,[2087]

and that all that makes for freedom makes against the church influence in this direction. Finally, when churches enter into administrative alliance with the civil authorities, or a.s.sume civil and political power, they to that extent abdicate their spiritual rights and abandon their true function.

UNIVERSAL RELIGIONS

+1141+. So far only particular religions, belonging to particular peoples or regions, have been considered. In recent years the question has been much discussed whether any of these may be called universal. A universal religion may be defined either as one that has been accepted by all peoples, or as one whose doctrines are such that it may be so accepted. The term is frequently used loosely to describe a religion that has pa.s.sed definitely beyond its birthplace and has been adopted by different nations or districts. Obviously, if we take the stricter definition, the question at issue can be decided only by an appeal to facts. Whether or not a given religion has actually been universally accepted can be determined from statistics, and the question whether it is fitted to be generally adopted must be answered by a similar appeal.

It may be held, and is held, of various religions that their standards are so high and their schemes of wors.h.i.+p and conceptions of salvation so obviously suited to human nature that they cannot fail to be adopted when they are known; but such are the diversities of human thought that this consideration cannot be regarded as decisive--a religious system that seems to one set of men to be perfect may appear to others to be unsatisfactory,[2088] and it is only by trial that it can be determined how far it is capable of conquering new territory. The test of actual diffusion, then, must be applied to those religions for which the claim to universality has been made--these are Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Islam.[2089]

+1142+. Buddhism has had a history full of vicissitudes.[2090] Beginning in Northern India as an Aryan faith, in the course of a few centuries it overran a great part of the peninsula, then began to decline, gradually lost its hold on the people, partly, it is said, by reason of the corruption of its morals, chiefly, doubtless, because it was not suited to the character of the Hindu people, and finally, in the twelfth century of our era, left its native land, to which it has never returned. Meantime it had established itself firmly in Ceylon and later in Burma and Siam and had been carried to China (not long after the beginning of our era), whence it pa.s.sed to Korea, Central Asia, j.a.pan, and adjacent islands, and as early as the sixth century gained a footing in Tibet. It has maintained its conquests outside of India to the present day, except that it has been driven out of a considerable part of Central Asia by Mohammedanism; in China and j.a.pan it exists alongside of the native cults, its relations with which are friendly. It presents the curious spectacle of a religion, originally Hindu Aryan, that now finds a home exclusively (with one exception, Ceylon) among non-Aryan peoples; but among these peoples it has generally been degraded by the infusion of low native elements, and has discarded its original essence.

By reason of its negative att.i.tude toward life it has found no favor as a system with Western Indo-Europeans, Persians, and Semites, except that it gave a coloring to certain Persian sects (the Ismailic) and has perhaps influenced Bahaism.[2091] As far as present appearances go there is no probability of its gaining general acceptance.