THE HIBBERT LECTURES,
1884.

THE HIBBERT LECTURES, 1884.

LECTURES
ON THE
ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF RELIGION
AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE
NATIVE RELIGIONS OF MEXICO
AND PERU.
DELIVERED AT OXFORD AND LONDON,
In APRIL and MAY, 1884.
By
ALBERT RÉVILLE, D.D.
PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE OF RELIGIONS AT THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE.
Translated by PHILIP H. WICKSTEED, M.A.

WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON;
And 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.

1884.
[All Rights reserved.]

LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. GREEN AND SON,
178, STRAND.

CONTENTS.

[Lecture I.]
INTRODUCTION.—CENTRAL AMERICA AND MEXICO.THEIR COMMON BASES OF CIVILIZATIONAND RELIGION.
PAGE
Importance of the history of Religion[1]
The religions of Mexico and Peru, and the special importanceof studying them[7]
Journey to another planet[8]
Parallelism of religious history in the New World and inthe Old[9]
Central America and Mexico, and the authorities as to theirhistory and religion[14]
Area and general character of this civilization[18]
The Mayas[20]
Toltecs, Chichimecs and Aztecs[24]
The Aztec empire[29]
Character of the religious conceptions common to CentralAmerica and Mexico[35]
The serpent-god and the American cross[38]
Estimate of the character and significance of the parallelismsobserved[39]
[Lecture II.]
THE DEITIES AND MYTHS OF MEXICO.
PAGE
The Sun and Moon[45]
The pyramidal Mexican temples[47]
The great temple of the city of Mexico[48]
The narrative of Bernal Diaz; and the two great Aztec deities,Uitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca[51]
Mythical significance of Uitzilopochtli[54]
Significance of Tezcatlipoca[60]
The serpent-god Quetzalcoatl, god of the east wind[62]
Netzalhuatcoyotl, the philosopher-king of Tezcuco[69]
Number of Mexican deities[70]
Tlaloc, god of rain[71]
Centeotl, goddess of maize[72]
Xiuhtecutli, god of fire[74]
The Mexican Venus[75]
Other deities[76]
The Tepitoton[77]
Mictlan, god of the dead[78]
Summary and reflections[79]
[Lecture III.]
THE SACRIFICES, SACERDOTAL AND MONASTICINSTITUTIONS, ESCHATOLOGY AND COSMOGONYOF MEXICO.
PAGE
Recapitulation[85]
Original meaning of sacrifice[86]
Human sacrifices and cannibalism[87]
Importance attached to the suffering of the victims[90]
Tragic and cruel character of the Mexican sacrifices[91]
The victims of Tezcatlipoca and Centeotl[93]
The children of Tlaloc[96]
The roasted victims of the god of fire[97]
Mexican asceticism[99]
Mexican "communion"[101]
Religious ethics[102]
The priesthood[106]
Convents, monks and nuns of ancient Mexico[109]
Mexican cosmogonies[112]
The great jubilee[116]
The future life[118]
Conversion of the Mexicans[121]
The Inquisition[122]
Conclusion[123]
[Lecture IV.]
PERU.—ITS CIVILIZATION AND CONSTITUTION.—THELEGEND OF THE INCAS: THEIR POLICYAND HISTORY
PAGE
The Peru of the Incas[127]
Cortes and Pizarro[131]
The Inca hierocracy[132]
The Quipos[134]
Authorities for the history and religion of Peru[136]
Garcilasso el Inca de la Vega[137]
Peruvian civilization[139]
Huayna Capac's taxation[142]
Social, political and military organization of Peru[143]
Education[152]
Material well-being[153]
The legend of the Incas: Manco Capac and Mama Ogllo[156]
Were the Incas really the sole civilizers of Peru?[159]
Succession of the Incas and character of their rule[160]
Free-thinking Incas[161]
Huayna Capac's departure from traditional maxims[166]
[Lecture V.]
THE FALL OF THE INCAS.—PERUVIAN MYTHOLOGYPRIESTHOOD.
PAGE
Recapitulation[171]
Atahualpa and Pizarro[172]
Father Valverde's discourse[174]
Atahualpa's imprisonment and death[176]
Inca pretenders[179]
Worship of the Sun and Moon[182]
Viracocha, god of fertilizing showers[184]
His consort, Mama Cocha[186]
Old Peruvian hymn[187]
Pachacamac, god of internal fire[188]
The myth of Pacari Tambo[191]
Cuycha, the rainbow[194]
Chasca, the planet Venus[194]
Worship of fire[195]
Worship of the thunder[196]
Worship of esculent plants[197]
Worship of animals[198]
The Huacas[199]
Peruvian priesthood[202]
The Virgins of the Sun[204]
Punishment of faithless nuns[206]
Independent parallelisms, illustrated by the "couvade"[208]
[Lecture VI.]
PERUVIAN CULTUS AND FESTIVALS.—MORALSAND THE FUTURE LIFE.—CONCLUSIONS.
PAGE
Peruvian temples[215]
Sacrifices[218]
Columns of the Sun[222]
Hymns[223]
Religious dances[224]
The four great festivals[225]
Chasing the evil spirit[227]
Occasional and minor festivals[229]
Eclipses[230]
Sorcerers and priests[230]
Moral significance of the Peruvian religion[232]
Communion, baptism and sacerdotal confession[233]
Various ideas as to the future life[235]
Supay, the god of the departed[237]
Conversion of the Peruvians[239]
Are the origins of the American civilizations to be sought inthe Old World?[241]
Real significance and importance of analogies observed[243]
Sacrifice[245]
Three stages of religious faith: animistic nature-worship,anthropomorphic polytheism and spiritual monotheism[246]
The genesis of the temple[249]
Primitive independence and subsequent mutual interpenetrationof religion and morals[250]
Human nature invincibly religious[252]
The guiding principle[254]
Farewell[255]

ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA.

P. 16, note, under Acosta, add, "E[dward] G[rimstone]'s translation was edited, with notes, for the Hakluyt Society, by Clements R. Markham, in 1880."

P. 17, [note], lines 4 and 5, to "English translation" add "in epitome."

" [lines 8 and 9], for "Ixtilxochitl" read "Ixtlilxochitl."

" [line 7] from below, for "note" read "notes."

P. 32, [line 10] from below, for "bases" read "basis."

P. 34, [line 1], for "lama" read "llama."

P. 35, [last line], insert "and" after "America."

P. 77, [note, last line], for "caps." read "capp."

P. 92, [line 9 from below], omit "to" before "which."

P. 113, [note, last line], for "Chichemeca" read "Chichimeca."

P. 129, [line 3], for "East to West" read "West to East."

P. 224, [note], for "Rivero y Tschudi, l.c." read "Rivero y Tschudi: Antigüedades Peruanas: Viena, 1851." N. B. An English translation of this work by F. L. Hawks appeared at New York in 1853.

LECTURE I.
INTRODUCTION.—CENTRAL AMERICA AND MEXICO. COMMON BASES OF CIVILIZATION AND RELIGION.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

My first duty is to acknowledge the signal honour which the Hibbert Trustees have done me in inviting me to follow such a series of eminent men as the previous occupiers of this Chair, and to address you, in the free and earnest spirit of truth-loving and impartial research, on those great questions of religious history which so justly pre-occupy the chosen spirits of European society. Our age is not, as is sometimes said, an age of positive science and of industrial discoveries alone, but also, and in a very high degree, an age of criticism and of history. It is to history, indeed, more than to anything else, that it looks for the lights which are to guide it in resolving the grave difficulties presented by the problems of the hour, in politics, in organization, and in social and religious life. Penetrated more deeply than the century that preceded it by the truth that the development of humanity is not arbitrary, that the law of continuity is no less rigorously applicable to the successive evolutions of the human mind than to the animal and vegetable transformations of the physical world, it perceives that the present can be no other than the expansion of germs contained in the past; it attempts to pierce to the very essence of spiritual realities by investigating the methods and the laws of their historical development; it strives, here as elsewhere, to separate the permanent from the transient, the substance from the accident, and is urged on in these laborious researches by no mere dilettante curiosity, but rather by the hope of arriving at a more accurate knowledge of all that is true, all that is truly precious, all that can claim, as the pure truth, our deliberate adhesion and our love. And in the domain of Religion, more especially, we can never lose our confidence that, if historical research may sometimes compel us to sacrifice illusions, or even beliefs that have been dear to us, it gives us in return the right to walk in the paths of the Eternal with a firmer step, and reveals with growing clearness the marvellous aspiration of humanity towards a supreme reality, mysterious, nay incomprehensible, and yet in essential affinity with itself, with its ideal, with its all that is purest and sublimest. The history of religion is not only one of the branches of human knowledge, but a prophecy as well. After having shown us whence we come and the path we have trodden, it shadows forth the way we have yet to go, or at the very least it effects the orientation by which we may know in which direction it lies.

Gentlemen, in these Lectures I shall be loyal to the principles of impartial scholarship to which I understand this Chair to be consecrated. Expect neither theological controversy nor dogmatic discussion of any kind from me. It is as a historian that I am here, and as a historian I shall speak. Only let me say at once, that, while retaining my own very marked preferences, I place religion itself, as a faculty, an attribute, a tendency natural to the human mind, above all the forms, even the most exalted, which it has assumed in time and space. I can conceive a Templum Serenum where shall meet in that love of truth, which at bottom is but one of the forms of love of God, all men of upright heart and pure will. To me, religion is a natural property and tendency, and consequently an innate need of the human spirit. That spirit, accidentally and in individual cases, may indeed be deprived of it; but if so, it is incomplete, mutilated, crippled. But observe that the recognition of religion itself (in distinction from the varied forms it may assume), as a natural tendency and essential need of the human mind, implies the reality of its object, even if that sacred object should withdraw itself from our understanding behind an impenetrable veil, even could we say nothing concerning it save this one word: IT IS! For it would be irrational to the last degree to lay down the existence of such a need and such a tendency, and yet believe that the need corresponds to nothing, that the tendency has no goal. Religious history, by bringing clearly into light the universality, the persistency and the prodigious intensity of religion in human life, is therefore, to my mind, one unbroken attestation to God.

And now it remains for me to express my lively regret that I am unable to address you in your own tongue. I often read your authors: I profit much by them. But I have emphatically not received the gift of tongues. By such an audience as I am now addressing, I am sure to be understood if I speak my mother-tongue; but were I to venture on mutilating yours, I should instantly become completely unintelligible! Let me throw myself, then, upon your kind indulgence.