I.—ANCIENT MYTHOLOGIES.
The current views respecting the relations of ancient mythologies with each other and with the Bible have been continually shifting and oscillating between extremes. The latest and at present most popular of these extreme views is that so well expounded by Dr. Max Müller in his various essays on these subjects, and which traces at least the Indo-European theogony to a mere personification of natural objects. The views given in the text are those which to the author appear alone compatible with the Bible, and with the relations of Semitic and Aryan theology; but, as the subject is generally regarded from a quite different point of view, a little further explanation may be necessary.
1. According to the Bible, spiritual monotheism is the primitive faith of man, and with this it ranks the doctrine of a malignant spirit or being opposed to God, and of a primitive state of perfection and happiness. It is scarcely necessary to say that these doctrines may be found as sub-strata in all the ancient theologies.
2. In the Hebrew theology the fall introduces the new doctrine of a mediator or deliverer, human and divine, and an external symbolism, that of the cherubic forms, composite figures made up of parts of the man, the lion, the ox, and the eagle. These forms are referred back to Eden, where they are manifestly the emblems of the perfections of the Deity, lost to man by the fall, and now opposed to his entrance into Eden and access to the tree of life, the symbol of his immortal happiness. Subsequently the cherubim are the visible indications of the presence of God in the tabernacle and temple; and in the Apocalypse they reappear as emblems of the Divine perfections, as reflected in the character of man redeemed. The cherubim, as guardians of the sacred tree, and of sacred places in general, appear in the worship of the Assyrians and Egyptians, as the winged lions and bulls of the former, and the sphinx of the latter. They can also be recognized in the sepulchral monuments of Greek Asia and of Etruria. Farther, it was evidently an easy step to proceed from these cherubic figures to the adoration of sacred animals. But the cherubic emblems were connected with the idea of a coming Redeemer, and this was with equal ease perverted into hero-worship. Every great conqueror, inventor, or reformer was thus recognized as in some sense the "coming man," just as Eve supposed she saw him in her first-born. In addition to this, the sacredness of the first mother as the mother of the promised seed of the woman, led to the introduction of female deities.
3. The earliest ecclesiastical system was the patriarchal, and this also admitted of corruption into idolatry. The great patriarch, venerable by age and wisdom, when he left this earth for the spirit world, was supposed there, in the presence of God, to be the special guardian of his children on earth. Some of the gods of Egypt and of Greece were obviously of this character, and in China and Polynesia we see at this day this kind of idolatry in a condition of active vitality.
4. As stated in the text, the mythology of Egypt and Greece bears evident marks of having personified certain cosmological facts akin to those of the Hebrew narrative of creation. In this way ancient idolators disposed of the prehistoric and pre-Adamite world, changing it into a period of gods and demigods. This is very apparent in the remarkable Assyrian Genesis recovered by the late George Smith from the clay tablets found in the ruined palace of Assurbanipal.
5. In all rude and imaginative nations, which have lost the distinct idea of the one God, the Creator, nature becomes more or less a source of superstitions. Its grand and more rare phenomena of volcanoes, earthquakes, thunder-storms, eclipses, become supernatural portents; and as the idea of power associates itself with them, they are personified as actual agents and become gods. In like manner, the more constant and useful objects and processes of nature become personified as beneficent deities. This may be, to a great extent, the character of the Aryan theology; but, except where all ideas of primitive religion and traditions of early history have been lost, it can not be the whole of the religion of any people. The Bible negatively recognizes this source of idolatry, in so constantly referring all natural phenomena to the divine decree. In connection with this, it is worthy of remark that rude man tends to venerate the new animal forms of strange lands. Something of this kind has probably led some of the American Indians to give a sort of divine honor to the bear. It was in Egypt that man first became familiar with the strange and gigantic fauna of Africa, whose effect on his mind in primitive times we may gather from the book of Job. In Egypt, consequently, there must have been a strong natural tendency to the adoration of animals.
The above origins of idolatry and mythology, as stated or implied in the Bible, of course assume that the Semitic monotheistic religion is the primitive one. The first deviations from it probably originated in the family of Ham. A city of the Rephaim of Bashan was in the days of Abraham named after Ashtoreth Karnaim—the two-horned Astarte, a female divinity and prototype of Diana, and perhaps an historic personage, in whom both the moon and the domestic ox were rendered objects of worship. This is the earliest Bible notice of idolatry. [160] In Egypt a mythology of complex diversity existed at least as far back. We must remember, however, that Egypt is Cush as well as Mizraim, and its idolatry is probably to be traced, in the first instance, to the Nimrodic empire, from which, as from a common centre, certain new and irreligious ideas seem to have been propagated among all the branches of the human family. It is quite probable that the correspondences between Egyptian, Greek, and Hindoo myths go back as far as to the time when the first despotism was erected on the plain of Shinar, and when able but ungodly men set themselves to erect new political and social institutions on the ruins of all that their fathers had held sacred. In addition to this, the mythology and language of the Aryans alike bear the impress of the innovating and restless spirit of the sons of Japhet.
I have stated the above propositions to show that the Bible affords a rational and connected theory of the origin of the false religions of antiquity; and to suggest as inquiries in relation to every form of mythology—how much of it is primitive monotheism, how much cherub-worship, how much hero-worship, how much ancestor-worship, how much distorted cosmogony, how much pure idealism and superstition, since all these are usually present. I may be allowed further to remind the reader how much evidence we have, even in modern times, of the strong tendency of the human mind to fall into one or another of these forms of idolatry; and to ask him to reflect that really the only effectual conservative element is that of revelation. How strong an argument is this for the necessity to man of an inspired rule of religious faith.
[The above note was in substance contained in the Appendix to "Archaia" in 1860, and its correctness has, I think, been confirmed by subsequent discoveries.