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(Frenchdéité; Late Latindeitas; Latindeue,divus, "the divine nature", "godhead", "god").
The original meaning of the word is shown in the Sanskritdyaus, gen.divas, rootdiv, which root appears in an adjective formation asdeva, "bright", "heavenly" —attributes of God — hencedevas, "the bright beings", or, as a noun substantive,dyaus. In its substantive form,dyaus is either masculine e.g. "heaven", "sky" — or feminine, asHeaven (personified). Hence, in theAvestadaeva,"evil spirit" Lith.deva, "a god"; Gael. andIrishdia, "god"; O. Teut.tiu; A.S.Tiw (e.g. Tuesday, i.e. Tiwesday); GreekZeus (gen.Dios Lat.Jupiter (i.e. Jov-pater). From the same root we have the Lat. names of deities:Diana, Janus, Juno, Dis, the genitiveJovis (Diovis), and the worddies.
The present article is confined to the non-Christian notion of the Deity. TheChristianidea is set forth elsewhere under the sectionGOD. The data, therefore, are drawn from the newscience of the history ofreligions. They embrace written records, customs,laws life, language. The earliest documents of history show that religion had long existed at the time of their composition. For a long time some deity had been adored, had receivedsacrifices, and no one could recall the beginning of these ancient rites. Many histories of religion published in recent years are made up of hypotheses pure and simple, often far removed from the facts on which they are based — often absolutely arbitrary. The scientific spirit demands statements of facts verified beyond dispute or inductions in accord with facts. Thus viewed, the history ofreligions shows on the subject of the Deity:
Religion, in its most general sense, is a universal phenomenon ofmankind. At times this conception appears lofty and pure, again it is comparatively crude and involved in a mass ofsuperstitious fancy. Yet, however imperfect and childish the expression may seem, it represents the highestidea of the Deity which the mind, for the time and under the circumstances, grasped.
Religious life among savage peoples of today — as amongpagan nations beforeChristianity — resembles the entangled confusion of a forest where trees, brambles, and creepers, of all ages and sizes, are to be seen interlacing, supporting and crushing each other with their earthy growths, while, above the topmost branches, is caught a glimpse of the blue sky ofheaven.
The religion ofpaganism in general isPolytheism, which has been accounted for by theories ofAnimism,Fetishism,Naturism, and the concrete forms ofAnthropomorphism andIdolatry. The advocates of these various theories should be classed as theorists rather than historians. Taking the theory of evolution as a common starting point they hold that man arose from mere animals and that he is an animal gradually transformed. They differ only in the cause and nature of the religious development which resulted in the notion of the Deity. Here we reject all presuppositions and deal only with the historical aspect of the problem. In the words of one scholar, the primitive man of modern anthropology is "a pure fiction, however convenient a fiction he may be."
Paganism presents not adoctrine, but a grouping of customs and teachings different and often opposed, an incoherent mass ofbeliefs with various origins. Close analysis enables the student to separate thedoctrinal streams and trace them to their proper sources. The luminoustruth presented by this study is the corruption of religiousideas on the nature of the Deity by the tangled confusion of human growth. Sir A. C. Lyall (Asiatic Studies, Ser. II, p. 234), while rejecting the theory of a primitive revelation admits that "beyonddoubt we find manybeliefs and traditions running downward, spreading at a level much below their source". Following are some of the causes which contributed to produce this tangled profusion in thepagan conception of the Deity.
Of necessity the result was an inexhaustible variety of deities. As time went on, the divine assumed thousands of fanciful and fortuitous images and forms. Deification of the powers of nature led first to the worship of the elements. One divinity of the heavens stood in contrast with one of the earth. Fire, as the warming, nourishing, consuming, and destroying power, was early worshipped as a separate deity. Hence the Vestal Virgins inRome, theVedic Agni, the Fire-worshippers of Mazdeism, and the sacred fire of Shintoism. So also moisture or water, not only in general, but in its concrete forms, e.g. sea, lake, river, spring, cloud; and thus was had a fourth elemental deity. In the East, Astrolatry, or Sabaeism — i.e. the worship of the stars that illumine the earth — developed above all the worship of the sun. Where soil and vegetation was rich, the earth was regarded as a nursing mother, andGeolatry in many forms arose. In theVedichymns we can trace the transition from natural phenomena into natural deities — e.g. Agni, i.e. fire, Varuna, i.e.heaven, Indra, i.e. the rain-clouds — but even thendoubts spring up, and the poetic writers ask themselves whether, after all, there are such things as the Devas. In Homer and Hesiod the forces of nature are conceived aspersons — e.g. Uranos (heaven); Nyx (night); Hypnos (sleep), Oneiros (dream), Oceanos (ocean) — the answer of Achilles to the river Scamander "in human form, confessed before his eyes" (Iliad, XXI), and hisprayer to the winds Boreas and Zephyrus, that they kindle the flames on the funeral pyre of Patroclus (Iliad, XXIII). Observation of the fact that in nature two energies — one active and generative, the other passive and feminine — combine, led men to associateheaven and earth, sun and moon, day and night, as common primal and motherly deities cooperating in the production of being. Hence the distinction of male divinities — e.g.heaven, ether, sun — and offemale divinities e.g. earth, air, moon. From this only a step to the deification of the generative principle and the worship of thephallus.
The powers of nature were at first worshipped without form or name, afterwards humanized and regarded aspersons. Thus Gaia, of ancient Pelasgic worship, appears as Rhea in Cretan traditions, as the Cybele ofAsia Anterior, as Hera in Arcadia and Samos, as the goddess of nature Aphrodite, as Demeter. InRome the Bona Dea of mystic rite, whose proper name was not to be spoken, was later akin to, or identified with, a number of Greek or Italian deities. De la Saussaye writes of ancient Babylono-Assyrian religion: "Among the influential words which could avert or expelevil, the most prominent were the names of the great gods; but these names were considered to be secret, and therefore people appealed to the god himself to pronounce them." In Samothrace the Cabiri — i.e. great and mighty deities, the supreme powers of nature — were adored at first without specific names. In old Latium the pontifices concealed the names of the gods. Herodotus says the Pelasgian deities were nameless. In theVedichymns the sacrificial tree, to which thesacrifices were attached, is thus addressed: "Where thou knowest, O Tree, the sacred names of the gods, to that place make the offerings go." According to de la Saussaye the deities of the Rig-Veda are but slightly individualized. To the formless gods of nature succeeded the deities of Homericimagination, in human shape and with human feelings. In the judgment of Herodotus it was Homer and Hesiod who settled the theogony of the Greeks — in fact laid the basis of the later Hellenic religion. The Greeks lavished the rich stores of theirintellectual life upon their deities, humanized and severed them from natural phenomena. Hence the whole of nature was pervaded by afamily of deities descending from the elements as primal gods, the individual members of whichfamily were of kin to one another and in mutual relations of higher and lower older and younger, male andfemale, stronger and weaker; so that man, feeling himself surrounded on all sides by deities, discovered in the course of nature, and in her various phenomena, their actions, histories, and manifestations of their will. The conception of these deities was anthropopathic, in their motives and passions they were more powerful and more perfect men, they had a human body and a human countenance, human thoughts and feelings, they resided in the clouds or on a high mountain; they dwelt in a heavenly palace. Such anidea is incoherent and contradictory. In reality the Deity was nature. If its inanimate forms were personified and worshipped, why not animals and plants — e.g. tree-worship?
Human Apotheosis is another cause and equally prolific in laterpagan times. Plutarch (in his "Romulus") enters at length into the question, how thesoul, when separated from the body, advances into the state of heroism, and from a hero develops into ademon and from ademon becomes a god. To Cicero thedoctrine of Euhemerism is the core and fundamental principle of the mysteries (de Nat. Deor., III xxi). With the Greeks it had been a custom tohonour renowned or well-deserving men as heroes after death, e.g. Herakles, Theseus; but to pay divine honours to the living never entered into their minds in early times. Heroes or saintly men were regarded
St. Augustine (Civ. Dei, IV, ii) discusses the opinion of Roman writers that all the manifold gods and goddesses of the Romans were in the final analysis but one Jupiter, for these deities melt away into each other on closer inspection. Thus we have a single god who by the dissection of his nature into various aspects of his powers, and by the personifying of his individual powers, has been resolved into a multiplicity of deities. The Romans thus broke up theidea of deity by hypostasizing particular powers, modes of operation, physical functions, and properties. By this process not only events in nature and inhumanlife, but their various phases, qualities, and circumstances were considered apart as endowed with proper personalities, and worshipped as deities. Thus in the life of a child; Vaticanus opens his mouth, Cunina guards the cradle, Educa and Potina teach him to eat and drink, Fabulinus to speak, Statalinus helps him to stand up, Adeona and Abeona watch over his first footsteps. Since every act required a god, there was scarcely any limit to the inventive work of theimagination. AndSt. Augustine tells us (Civ. Dei, IV viii) that the Roman farmer was in the hands of a host of deities who assisted him at each stage of ploughing, hoeing, sowing, and reaping. Under such conditions we can understand how easily the cultured Roman could embrace thepantheism ofStoic philosophy, teaching the one creative all-ruling power of Nature — itself a personification — and at the same time permit theignorant to personify and worship as distinct deities the various acts and phases by which this power was manifested.
A political element enters into the multiplication of deities in thePagan world. To make a nation several tribes must unite. Each has its god, and the nation is apt to receive them all equally in its Pantheon. Or in time ofwar the victorious nation was not content to imposelaws and tribute upon the conquered, it must displace the conquered deities by its own. Again, where ancient nations each having its own religion and mythology, were brought by commerce into close contact, the deities who showed a certain similarity were identified, and even their names were adopted by one language from another. According to Max Müller, Durga and Siva are not natural developments, nor mere corruptions ofVedic deities, but importations or adaptations from without. A striking illustration is furnished in the history ofRome. In the earlier times the chief deities were general nature-powers or mere abstractions of the State orfamily. They had no realpersonality. Thus the Lares came from Etruria, the chief of them being the Lar Familiaris, the divine head of thefamily, the personification of the creative power assuring the duration of thefamily; Vesta, the fire of the domestic hearth the protectress of thefamily, became identified later with the Greek Hestia. Afterwards, whenRome spread out into a world-power, it received into its Pantheon the deities of the nations conquered by its armies. Again, the political element becomes a more potent factor when deities are created by human enactment. Thus, in ancientRome the pontifices had the right and care of making new deities. And inChina today the Government orders posthumous honours and titles and deifications of men, gives titles and rewards to deities for supposed public service and exercises a control overBuddhist incarnations. The Emperor ofChina used the monopoly of deification as a constitutional prerogative, like the right of creating peers.
A final explanation can be found inlanguage. The words employed by the mind to designate spiritual facts are all drawn from conscious individual experience. In the beginning man naturally expressed the power and attributes of the deity in different words drawn from nature and from life. According to de la Saussaye the opinion is even expressed in the Rig-Veda that the many names of the gods are only different ways of denoting a single being. Now the tendency of language is to become crystallized. Words gradually lose their etymological force, and their original meaning is forgotten. They stand out as distinct and independent facts in ourmental life. What was at first a sign becomes itself an object. Thus in theVedic religion the Sun has many names — Surya, Savitri, Mitra, Pushan, Aditya. Each of these names grew by itself into some kind of activepersonality after its original meaning had been forgotten. Originally all were meant to express one and the same object viewed from different points, e.g.Surya meant the Sun as offspring of the sky;Savitri the Sun as quickener or enlivener,Mitra the bright Sun of the morn;Pushan the Sun of the shepherds;Varuna was the sky as all-embracing;Aditya the sky as boundless. In this sense theHindu gods have no more right to substantive existence than Eos or Nyx; they arenomina, notnumina, i.e. words, not deities. So also inEgypt the Sun isHorus in the morning,Ra at midday,Tum in the evening,Osiris during the night. In another manner language may lead intoerror, as when Bancroft remarks that in many of the American languages the same word is used for storm and god. Brinton writes, "The descent is almost imperceptible which leads to the personification of wind as god". Goldzeher states that the Baghirami in Central Africa use the same term for storm and deity. The Akra people on the Gold Coast of Africa say, "WillGod come?" for "Will it rain?" Here we have the same word with two meanings. Thus the Odjis, or Ashantis, call the deity by the same word as the sky, but mean a personal god who created all things and is the giver of all good things.
Allpaganreligions have zoomorphic, or partially zoomorphic, idols, deities in the shape of lower animals. Especially is thistrue of theEgyptian deities. But it is the sphere of totem-lore or mythology to explain these strange metamorphoses, whichscandalizedphilosophers, and which Ovid set in verse for the cultured of his time.
Thehuman race has at all times and in various ways sought to express the notion of the deity. The history ofreligions, however, lays bare anothertruth: that the farther back we go in the history ofreligious thought, the purer becomes the notion of the deity. In the Rig-Veda, the most ancient of theHindu sacred books, traces of a primitivemonotheism are clearly shown. The Deity is called "the only existing being" who breathed, calmly self-contained, in the beginning before there was sky or atmosphere day or night, light or darkness. This being is not the barrenphilosophical entity found in the later Upanishads, for he is called "our Father", "our Creator", omniscient, who listens toprayers. Father Calmette maintains that thetrue God is taught in the Vedas. Again, "That which is and is one, the poets call in various ways", and it is declared to exist "in the form of the unborn being". Traces of a nature-religion are found in the Vedas. To a later date, however, must be ascribed the mythology of theVedichymns in which the "bright ones" (the heavens and earth, the sun and moon, with various elemental powers of storm and wind) are the only distinctly recognized deities.D'Harlez, F.C. Cook, and Phillips hold that the moral and spiritual basis is older. Pictet, A.B. Smith, Banergia, Ellingwood Wilson, Muir do not hesitate to declare that the loftier conceptions of the Vedas are unquestionably the earlier, and that they show clear traces of a primitivemonotheism. The use of different divine names in the Vedas does not warrant us in concluding without other evidence that different deities are designated. On this basis we could conclude, with Tiele, that theJews at different times worshiped three different gods, e.g.Elohim,Yahweh,Adonai. The use of the different names may be due to personification of natural forces or to crystallization of language, but such a use marks a later stage inreligious thought. Why could not these names originally be employed to express the many perfections and attributes of thegreat God? Thus theVedic poet writes, "Agni, many are the names of Thee, the Immortal One", and, "The father adoring gives many names to Thee, O Agni, if thou shouldst take pleasure therein". Of theEgyptian deity Ra it is written, "His names are manifold and unknown, even the godsknow them not". Farnell states that "many deities, some of whom were scarcely known outside a narrow area, were invoked aspolyonyme all possible titles of power being summed up in one word". Thus, the farther back we go in the history of the Indian people the purer becomes the form of religiousbelief.Idolatry is shown to be a degeneration. "It is true", says Sir A.C. Lyall, "that inIndia, as elsewhere, theidea of one Supreme Being, vaguely imagined, stands behind all the phantasmagoria ofsupernatural personages". A luminousproof of this inference is furnished by an analysis of the wordJupiter.Jupiter in Latin isZeus pater in Greek and isDyaus pitar in Sanskrit. The Teutonic form isTiu. The meaning is "Heaven-Father". The designation of the Deity in all these branches of the Aryanfamily points to a time, 5000 years ago or earlier, when the Aryans before their dispersion, before they spoke Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, or German, united in calling on the Deity as the Heaven-Father. In the VedasDyauss-pitar is found, but even in these documents Dyaus is already a fading star, he is crowded out by Indra Rudra, Agni, and other purely Indian deities. In the VedasDyaus has two forms — a masculine and a feminine. But theVedicDyu orDyaus-pitar is first of all a masculine, while in later Sanskrit only it becomes exclusively a feminine. Hence it is nottrue to say that the name originally was a feminine to designateheaven, and that the nation afterwards changed it into a proper name to express the Deity.
The Gathas, the most ancienthymns of theAvesta, form the kernel about which the sacred literature of the Iranians clustered in an aftergrowth. They inculcatebelief inAhura Mazda, the self-existentomnipotent being. He is the all-powerful Lord who madeheaven and earth, and all that is therein, and who governs everything with wisdom. Tiele says that the sole really personal being isAhura, and that the two spirits in antagonism are below him (Elem of the Science of Rel., Ser. I, p. 47). The opposition ofAhriman is of a later date. Pfleiderer holds that originally he was a good spirit created byAhura (Phil. Of Rel., III, p. 84). The Amesha-Spentos of the Gathas have the nature of abstractideas or qualities, i.e. attributes ofAhura; afterwards they formed a kind of celestial council. L. H. Mills (New World, March, 1895) holds that the spiritual, unique nature ofAhura is attested beyond question, and he unites with d'Harlez Darmesteter, and Tiele in teaching that the primitive form of Iranianbelief wasmonotheistic. ThePaganism of Greece andRome with itsfamily of deities in human shapes and with human passions bears upon its face evident marks of degradation and corruption. Thus a critical study of the Aryanbeliefs convinces the student that in them we find no illustration of an evolution from a primitive, low, to a later, and higher, form. "The religion of the Indo-European race", writes Darmesteter (Contemp. Rev., Oct., 1879), "while still united, recognized asupreme God, an organizingGod,almighty, omniscient, moral. The conception was a heritage of the past."
The sametruth is evident from a study of thereligions ofEgypt and ofChina. In the most ancient monuments ofEgypt the simplest and most precise conception of oneGod is expressed. He is one and alone; no other beings are with Him; He is the only being living intruth; He is the self-existing one who made all things, and He alone has not been made. Brugsch accepts this view, but calls itPantheism. Theethical element in the Deity, however, is adverse to this. Renouf finds a similarPantheism, but prefers the word Henotheism. De la Saussaye admits that "one can maintain thatEgyptianMonotheism andPantheism have never been denied by any serious enquirer, though the majority do not look on them as general and original". The sublime portions of theEgyptian religion are not the comparatively late result of a process of purification from earlier and grosser forms. In the outlines of History of Religion Tiele so taught; but in a later work,Egyptian Religion, he expresses the contrary opinion. Lieblein, Ed Meyer, and Renouf admit degeneration inEgyptian religion. Thus de Rougé, Tiele, Pierret, Ellingwood, Rawlinson, Wilkinson hold thatbelief in oneSupreme Deity, the Creator and Lawgiver of men, is atruth clearly expressed in that ancient civilization, andPolytheism is an aftergrowth and corruption. The popular religion ofChina rests on the worship of natural powers and of ancestral spirits. Underneath, however, is the conviction of the existence of a higher creative power, which, according to Edkins (Religions inChina, p. 95), is a tradition handed down from the earliest period of their history.D'Harlez (New World Dec., 1893) and F.M. James (New World June, 1899) teach that the primitive Chinese worshipped Shang-Ti, the Supreme Lord, one, invisible, spiritual, the onlytrue god. Dr. Legge (Religion ofChina, p. 18) asserts that Ti was the one supreme object of homage as far back as we can go, and unites with d'Harlez, Faber, Happel in declaring that 5000 years ago the Chinese weremonotheists. Lenormant bases the Babylono-Assyrian religion on an originalmonotheism. He claims to have discovered a reliable trace of this in the wordIlu (el inBabel) which is said originally to mean "the only god". De la Saussaye advances as an objection that "this word is nothing else than the name for the conception ofGod, just like the Indian Deva and other epithets of the same sort"; yet he holds that "the goddesses of Babylono-Assyrian religion are really only one and the same thing under different names, and these again must be looked on partly as titles".
Even among the lowest and most barbarous tribes illustrations of the sametruth are found. "Nothing in savage religion" writes A. Lang, "is better vouched for than thebelief in a Being whom narrators of every sort call a Creator, who holds all things in His power, and who makes for righteousness." The aborigines ofCanada call Him Andouagne, according to Father Le Jeune. This Being is seldom or never addressed inprayer. The fact of an otiose or unworshipped Supreme Being is fatal to some modern theories on the origin and evolution of the deity. Tylor admits that a Supreme Being is known to African natives, but ascribes it toIslam, or toChristian influence. If this were so, we should expect to findprayer and sacrifice. Fraser holds that the deity was invented in despair of magic as a power out of which something could be got. But how could the savage expect anything from a deity he did not address inprayer? Spencer teaches that the deity was a development out of ancestral spirits. But the Maker of things, not approached inprayer as a rule, is said to exist where ancestor spirits are not reported to be worshipped. William Strachey, writing fromVirginia in 1611 says that Okeus was only "a magisterial deputy of thegreat God who governs all the world and makes the sun to shine ... him they call Ahone. The good and peaceable god requires no suchduties [as are paid to Okeus] nor needs to be sacrificed to, for He intendeth all good unto them, He has no image." Winslow writes from New England in 1622 that the god Kiehtan is a being of ancient credit among the natives. He made all the other gods.Canadians,Algonquins,Virginians, and the natives ofMassachusetts had a Great Spirit before the advent of theChristian missionaries.
The Australian mystery-rites reveal a moral creative being whose home is in or above the heavens, and his name is Maker (Baiame), Master (Biamban) and Father (Papang). TheBenedictinemonks of Australia say that the nativesbelieve in anomnipotent Being, the creator ofheaven and earth, whom they callMotogon. The Australian will say, "No, not seen him [i.e.Baiamel, but I have felt him". Waitz tells us that the religiousideas of the African tribes are so high that if we do not like to call themmonotheistic, we may say at least that they have come very near the boundaries oftruemonotheism. "However degraded these people maybe," writes Livingstone (Missionary Travels, p. 158), "there is no need telling them of theexistence of God or of a future life. These twotruths are universally admitted inAfrica. If we speak to them of a dead man, they reply: He is gone toGod." Among savage tribes, where the supreme Being is regarded as too remote and impassive, he is naturally supplied with a deputy. Thus, e.g., Ahone has Okeus, Kiehtan has Hobancok, Boyma has Grogoragally, Baiame has Tundun, or in places Daramulun, Nypukupon in West Africa has Bobowissi. Sometimes, as inAustralia, these active deputies are sons of the supreme Being. In other cases — e.g. Finnish Num, Zulu Unkulunkulu, andAlgonquin Atahocan — this being is quite neglected in favour of spirits who receivesacrifices of meat and grease. In northwest central Queensland Roth describes Mulkari as "a benevolent omnipresentsupernatural being, whose home is in the skies". In Australia the supreme Being cannot have been evolved out of ghost-worship for the natives do not worship ancestral spirits. Sir A.B. Ellis has repudiated his theory of borrowing a god in the case of the Tshi-speaking races. Waitz also denies that the higher religiousbeliefs of the Australians were borrowed fromChristianity. His position is sustained by Howitt, Palmer, Dawson, Ridley, Gunther, and Greenway, who studied the natives on the spot. The esoteric and hidden nature of thebeliefs, the usual though not universal absence ofprayer, show their indigenous and ancient source.
In "The Golden Bough" (2d ed.), Fraser has raised the question, whether magic has not everywhere preceded religion. Yet among the blacks ofAustralia, the most backward race known, we find abundant testimony of abelief speculative, moral, emotional, but not practical. These deities are not propitiated by sacrifice and very seldom byprayer, yet they are makers, friends, and judges. In the conception of them theethical element predominates. An all-knowing Being observes and rewards the conduct of men, He is named with reverence if named at all; His abode is in the heavens; He is Maker and Lord of all things; His lessons soften the heart. Mariner says concerning the Tongan deity Ta-li-y-Tooboo: "Of his origin they had noidea, rather supposing him to be eternal". In Guinea the natives worship "The Ancient One", "The Ancient One in Skyland", "Our Maker", "Our Father", "Our Great Father". Wilson writes that theirbelief in one supreme Being who made and upholds all things is universal. In America the sametruth obtains. To the IndiansGod is "The Great Spirit". With some theidea of the Deity is very lofty; again it is found in cruder and lower expression. Darwin's description of the Patagonians as having very low religiousbeliefs is refuted by Giacomo Bove. The Pawnees worshipA-ti-us ta-kaw-a, i.e. our Father in all places, orTi-ra-wa, i.e. the Spirit-Father, with whom they expect to live after death. The Zunis speak of the deity asAwonawilona, i.e. the All-Father. The Indians of Missouri worship "Old Man Immortal" "the Great Spirit", "the Great Mystery". The Tinne of British America have the termNayeweri, i.e. "He-who-creates-by-thought". TheAlgonquin speaks ofKitche-Maneto who created the world 'by an act of his will". If the supreme Being in barbarous tribes is regarded as otiose and inactive, so as to become a mere name and a byword, it is due to the fact that He has been thrust into the background by the competition either of ancestral spirits — e.g. Unkulunkulu of the Zulus — or of friendly and helpful spirits — as, e.g., the Australian Baiame and Mungau-ngaur. Thus in West Africa the nativesbelieve in Motogon who created by breathing, he is long since dead and they pay him no worship. From a study of savage tribes Mr. Lang holds that first in order of evolution camebelief in a supreme Being by some way only to be guessed at (to himSt. Paul's explanation is the most probable); that thisbelief was subsequently obscured and overlaid bybelief in ghosts and in a pantheon of lesser deities; that in many cases the savage creative Being has a deputy, often ademiurge, who exercises authority; that when this is the case, where ancestor worship is the working religion, the deputy easily comes to be envisaged as the first man. If to this we add the tradition, universal both among civilized — e.g.Hindus, Greeks, Romans — and savage nations, that formerlyheaven was nearer to man than it now is, that the Creator Himself gave lessons of wisdom tohuman beings, but afterwards withdrew from them toheaven, where He now dwells, the line of reasoning will be even more cogent.
Therefore we can consider as conclusions well established:
Tylor concedes that "the degeneration theory, nodoubt in some instances with fairness, may claim thesebeliefs as mutilated and perverted remains of a higher religion" (Primitive Culture, ed. 1871, p. 305).
The modernscience of anthropology proposed an explanation of its own for the origin and existence of the Deity. It was called the anthropological theory. Its principal advocates were Tylor and Spencer. In purpose they agree, i.e. to show that the Deity has no real existence outside the mind of men; in method only they differed. With Tylor the method was biological, and we haveAnimism; with Spencer it waspsychological, and we have what is termed the ghost-theory. According to Spencer, primitive man derived the conception of spirit from reflections on phenomena of sleep, dreams, shadow, trance, and hallucination. In these experiences the ghosts of the departed came to him, he grew to dread them, and so worshiped them. From the departedsouls of his kindred, first worshipped, theidea was gradually extended; they then became gods; finally, one of these deities in imagination became supreme and was regarded as the one onlyGod.
It is a fact that ancestor-worship is found in various nations, inChina,India, ancientGreece andRome it is, or was, an organized system. Here it formed the basis offamily religion and ofcivil law.
The Romans had theirdii manes, i.e. divine ancestralspirits ("Eos leto datos divos habento" — Laws of the Twelve Tables as cited by Cicero in "De Leg.", II, ii, 22). Aslar familiaris, the first ancestor was considered the protector and genius of the house. InGreece the ancestralspirits offamilies becametheoi patrooi i.e. paternal gods. How the ancestor watches over the race is shown in the "Antigone". InIndia we find thepitris, the companions of the devas, and later above the devas. In ancientPersia thefravashis helpedAhura Mazda in all his works. The songs of theShih-King describe the ancestral festivals ofChina. With theSlavs was deeply rooted thebelief in vampires, thesouls of dead people, who suck the blood from the living. Among some savage nations the malignant character of ghosts prevails and gives rise to magic.
On these facts Spencer constructs a theory to explain the origin and development of the deity among all nations. The theory is purely materialistic and unscientific.
Superior or supreme beings are found among races who do not worship ancestralspirits. It was not shown, it was denied by Waitz, it was not even alleged by Spencer, that theAustralians steadily propitiate or sacrifice at all to any ghosts of dead men. The Dieri of CentralAustraliapray for rain to the Mura Mura, agoodspirit, not a set of remote ancestralspirits. Thus theAustralians and Andamanese worship a relatively supreme Being and Maker, and do not worship ghosts.
The Zulus are ancestor-worshippers; yet the recent deadparent, i.e. the father of thefamily actuallyworshipping, is far above all others. Thus the supreme ancestralspirit changes with each generation. If, therefore, ancestors are forgotten in proportion as they recede from their living descendants, how can we on Spencer's hypothesis maintain that as they gradually recede into the past, they develop into the conception of a supreme Deity and Creator? And how can we explain that savages can forget the very names of their great grandfathers and yetremember traditionalpersons from generation to generation? The Aborigines ofAustralia will often, by peculiar devices, avoid mentioning the names of the dead, a practice hostile to the development of ancestor-worship, yet these same people have abelief in a deity and in a future state of some kind. The Wathi-Wathi call this beingTha-tha-pali; theTa-ta-thi call himTulong.
The otiose, unworshipped supreme Being, often credited with the charge of future rewards and punishments among ancestor-worshipping peoples, cannot be explained in Spencer's theory. On the contrary, it shows the corruption of Theism byAnimism. "Among thenegroes of CentralAfrica", writes de la Saussaye "we findbelief in aHighest God, the Creator of the world; but of course thisGod is notworshipped since as a general rulenegroes worship cruel dreaded gods much more than friendly gods. Worship of ancestors is also general. InDahomey and Ashantee huge human hecatombs are offered to deceased rulers". The Kaffirs acknowledge a deity, Molunga, but neitheradore norpray to him. The Zulu religion, now almost exclusively ancestor-worship, seems to contain a broken and almost obliterated element ofbelief in a high, unworshipped Deity presiding over a future life. The Zulu Unkulunkulu made things, as theAustralian Baiame. Unlike them, he is subject to the competition of ancestral ghosts, the more recent the more powerful, in receipt ofprayer and sacrifice. Hence he is neglected, by manybelieved to be dead or the mere shadow of a children's tale. Or this being exists in repose, remote from men with whom he acts through a deputy or deputies.
Spencer, to support his theory,appealed to the crude languages of savages; he said that they were unable to say, "Idreamed that I saw", instead of "I saw". Now, in many savage speculations are foundideas asmetaphysical as inHegel. Again, theAustralian languages have the nounsleep and the verbto see. They make an essential distinction between waking hallucinations and the hallucinations of sleep; anyone can have the latter, only a wizard the former. Furthermore, Spencer contradicted himself; he credited these low savages with great ingenuity and strong powers of abstract reasoning — an admission fatal to his premises. Again Spencer held that theidea of the Deity was formed after theanalogy of human rulers. But whence comes thegreat God in tribes which have neither chief nor king nor distinction of rank, e.g. the Fuegians, Bushmen,Australians? The Deity cannot be a reflection fromhuman kings where there are no kings. Furthermore, Spencer's assumption wasfalse, viz. that deities improve morally and otherwise according to the rising grades in the evolution of culture and civilization. Usually, the reverse is the case. "In its highest aspect", writes A. Lang "that simplesttheology ofAustralia is free from the faults of the populartheology inGreece. TheGod discouragessin, He does not set the example ofsinning. He is almost too sacred to be named (except in mythology) and far too sacred to be represented by idols. It would scarcely be a paradox to say that the popular Zeus or Ares is degenerate from Darumulum or the Fuegian being who forbids the slaying of an enemy".
The real difficulty in Spencer's theory was to account for the evolution from ghosts of theeternal creativemoral Deity found in thebelief of the lowest savages. The Bushmen, Fuegians,Australiansbelieve inmoral, practically omniscient, deities, makers of things, fathers inheaven, friends, guardians of morality, seeing what isgood or bad in the hearts of men. So widely is thisbelief diffused that it cannot be ignored. The only recourse is to account for these deities as "loan-gods". This explanation was refuted by A. Lang. Waitz wrote, "Among branches where foreign influence is least to be suspected we discover behind their more conspicuousfetishisms andsuperstitions something which we cannot strictly callmonotheism, but which tends in that direction." In thebelief of the savages morality and religion are united. The savage, who lives in terror of thesouls of the dead mightworship a devil, not a deity who ismoral and benevolent. The Andamanese havePulusha, "Likefire", but invisible, never born, and soimmortal, who knows the thoughts of the heart, is angered by wrongdoing, pitiful to the distressed, sometimes deigning to grant relief, the judge ofsouls. Huxley's contention in "Science and Hebrew Tradition", that theAustralians had merely a non-moralbelief in ghost-like entities, usually malignant, and that in this statetheology is wholly independent ofethics, is refuted by an exact study of these verybeliefs. He claims that the religion of Israel arose from ghost-worship. But how does he explain the silence of theprophets or the Hebrew apparent indifference to the departedsoul?Elohim differs from a ghost, in Hebrewbelief He isethical,immortal, and without beginnings. "In all ancient primitive peoples", writes Wellhausen, "religion furnished a motive forlaw andmorals; in case of none did it become so with such purity and power as in that of theIsraelites". The problem which Spencer's theory cannot solve is, how theAustralians could bridge the gulf between the ghost of a soon-forgotten fighting man and that conception of a Father inHeaven, omniscient,moral, which under various names is found all over a continent. The distinction between the creative supreme Deity of the savage, unpropitiated by sacrifice, and the waning, easily-forgotten, cheaply propitiated ghost of a tribesman is vital and essential.
Finally, the two conceptions (i.e. ghost and god) have different sources. According to de la Saussaye, "The sentiments which men entertain towardsspirits and gods are different.Fear and egoistic calculation, which prevail inAnimism, have been replaced by more exalted sentiments and a less selfish interest. This by itself would speak against a derivation of the wholebelief in gods fromAnimism." Spencer spoke of medicine menadored as gods after death; but this supposed theidea of the Deity. InRome,Greece, andIndia, ancestor-worship supposes the worship of the great gods. The departed, the fathers, the ancestors, the heroes are admitted to thesociety of the gods — they are often called "half-gods" — but the gods are always there before them. Again the Deity of savagefaith as a rule never died at all; yet the veryidea of ghost implies the previous death; a ghost is a phantom of a dead man. Now anthropologists tell us that theidea of death as a universal ordinance is unnatural to the savage (A. Lang; de la Saussaye). Diseases and death once did not exist and normally ought not to exist, the savage thinks. The Supreme Deity of the savage is minus death; he was active before death entered the world, and was not affected by the entry of death. The essential characteristic of Darumutum, of Baiame, of Cogn, of Bunjil is that they never died at all. They belong to the period before death entered the world. Hence between the high deities of savages and theapotheosized first ancestors exists a great gulf, i.e. death.
It is interesting to compare this savagebelief with thedii immortales of the Romans, the of the Greeks,theoi athanatoi theAmartya of theHindus, the deathless gods ofBabylonia, and theEgyptian deities, kings over death and the dead. The Banks Islanders have two orders of intelligent beings different from living men: ghosts of the dead and beings who are not, nor ever have been, human. The beings who never were human and who never died are calledvui; the ghosts are namedtamate. A vui is not a spirit who has been a ghost. This is the usual savagedoctrine. The distinction, therefore, between eternal being and ghost is radical and common. The fault of some anthropologists is in neglecting the distinction, in confusing both under the name of spirits, and in deriving both from the ghosts of the dead. In Polynesia the gods are calledatua; the spirits andsouls of the departedtiki. Their conceptions of the heavenly dwellings of the gods and the underground kingdom of the dead (Po, Pulotu) are greatly developed and not clearly defined. The Fijians have the termkalou, which signifies beings other than men. All gods arekalou, but not all beings that arekalou are gods. Gods arekalou vu, deified ghosts arekalou yalo; the former are eternal the latter subject to infirmity and even death. Their supreme deity, Udengei, is neglected. But so would Jehova have been neglected, and become a mere name, if not for the Prophets. A. Lang says, "TheOld Testament is the story of the prolonged effort to keep Jehova in the supreme place. To make and succeed in this was thedifferentia ofIsrael." The Zulus believe their first ancestor Unkulunkulu was the Creator and prior to death. Reville does not understand, in Spencer's system, "why, in so many places, the first ancestor is the Maker, if not the Creator of the world, Master of life and death, and possessor of divine powers not held by any of his descendants. This proves that it was not the first ancestor who became God, in thebelief of his descendants, but rather the Divine Maker and Beginner of all who, in the creed of his adorers, became the first ancestor." Miss Kingsley maintains that a clear line of demarcation exists between ghosts who are worshipped and gods, that the former never developed into the latter; warns us against confusing the offerings to the dead withsacrifices made to the gods; she says West Africa has never deified ancestors.
Finally, as de La Saussaye states, in Greece other names are applied to the altars,sacrifices, and offerings connected with the dead than those used in the worship of the Olympian gods. The altar of the ancestors iseschara, of the godsBomos; the offering of sacrifice to the ancestors isenagizein orentemnein to the godsthyein; the libations to the ancestorschoai, to the godsspondai. Again, thetemples of the gods in Greece were so constructed that thestatue in the main shrine should face the rising sun, the temple of the hero opened to the west and looked toward Rebus and the region of gloom. With Aeschylus the homage of the highest gods is kept apart from that of the powers below. The Greeks sacrificed to the gods by day, to the heroes in the evening or by night; not on high altars, but on a low sacrificial hearth, black-colored animals of the male sex were killed for them, and the heads of the victims were not, as in the case of those intended for the gods, turned toward the sky, but pressed down to the ground. M. Müller tells us that in the Vedas the exclamation used in sacrificing to the gods issvaha, to the departedsradha. Rightly, therefore, Jevons holds that the ghost never became a god and rejects the theory that all the deities of the earlier races, without exception, were the spirits of dead men divinized. "If Mr. Spencer", writes M. Muller, "can find a single scholar to accept this view of the origin of Zeus in Greek or Dyaus in Sanscrit, I shall never write another word on mythology or religion." Thus the Ghost-theory is needed only for the rise of ghost-propitiation and genuine ancestor worship. It reveals something in man apart and distinct from the material elements of the body. Thus viewed, its arguments are so many reasons for thebelief in the future life of thesoul after dissolution of the body.
Thus the history of religion reveals
Thesetruths are found in every nation historically known to us. The latterbelief, developed into ananimistic ghost-worship, obscures, but does not obliterate, the former. "Christianity", writes A. Lang, "combined what was good inAnimism, the care for the individualsoul as animmortal spirit under eternal responsibilities, with the One Righteous Eternal of propheticIsrael."
APA citation.Driscoll, J.T.(1908).Deity. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04683a.htm
MLA citation.Driscoll, John T."Deity."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 4.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1908.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04683a.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by Tomas Hancil.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor.Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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