All such celebrations tend to become seasons of merrymaking, and the religious element in them then receives less and less attention.[2005] This remark holds of the festivals that Christianity took over from the old religions, adapting them to the new conditions.[2006] Such occasions lose their distinctive religious significance in proportion as the events they commemorate recede into the past and become less and less distinct. It is in very early times, when they are thought of as representing realities, that they are religiously effective; in later times they give way to more reflective forms of devotion.
[1090]. Vows, blessings, and curses may be considered to belong to worship in the regard that they contain petitions to the deity; the curse or the blessing, however, sometimes rested on a baldly objective conception of the power of words, sometimes was held to be magical: once uttered, the word, beneficent or maleficent, went to its object, person or thing, did its work, and could not be recalled; its effect could be set aside only by an utterance in the opposite direction.[2007] A magician, by the power resident in him, could fix a curse or a blessing on man or thing. An exorcism, also, might be effected by magic or by invoking the aid of a deity; an evil spirit is a supernatural Power and has to be considered—one does not worship such a being, but one may employ religious means to circumvent him. Bad magic may be overcome by good magic, and a deity, hostile and maleficent under certain circumstances, may be placated by offerings. It is not always easy to draw the line between worship proper and modes of defense against injurious Powers. But in general true worship implies friendly relations between human and superhuman persons.
[1091]. Idols. From an early time men have desired to have visible representatives of the supernatural. So long as natural objects, trees, stones, mountains, were regarded as themselves divine or as the abodes of spirits, so long as a loose social organization and the absence of definite family life led men to spend their lives in the open air, there was no need of artificial forms of the Powers. Such a need arose inevitably, however, under more advanced social conditions. Exactly at what stage men began to make images it is hardly possible to say,—the process was begun at different stages in different regions,—but it appears that in general it was synchronous with some fairly good form of social organization. Yet, where such forms exist, there are differences in the use of images. These are found—to take the lower peoples—in Melanesia and the Northern Pacific Ocean, in the northern part of South America, in North America apparently only among the Eastern Redmen (as the Lenâpé or Delawares),[2008] and on the western coast of Africa (Ashanti, Dahomi, Yoruba). Where the cult of beasts (whether totemic or not) is a living one, idolatry does not find a place; it is only when communities have begun to be agricultural that they have artificial forms of gods; that is, idolatry comes in with the stage of culture connected with the agricultural life.[2009]
The development in the form of images is familiar. The rude and, to modern eyes, grotesque idols of the lower peoples gradually pass into the more finished forms of the civilized nations.[2010] Really artistic forms, however, were produced only by some Semites (Babylonians and Assyrians) and in the Hellenic and Græco-Roman worlds. In Central America, Mexico, and Peru images are anthropomorphic but lacking in symmetry and grace. Hindu idols are often composite and grotesque, sometimes (especially images of Buddha) highly impressive.
[1092]. The Hebrews appear to have had no anthropomorphic images of their national deity. Down to a late period there was a cult of household gods,[2011] and of these, probably, there were images in private houses and in shrines, whether anthropomorphic or not is uncertain. In Solomon's temple (and in Ezekiel's proposed plan) figures of cherubs (originally divine beings) stood on the walls of the main room and guarded the ark in the adytum; they were winged creatures, the forms derived immediately from Phœnicia, ultimately from Babylonia; they appear only in the great public cult, probably did not enter into the religious life of the people at large, and there is no evidence that they ever received divine worship.[2012] The Hebrews had no plastic art of their own, seem to have had small disposition in their earlier history to make images, and later such forms were excluded by the antagonism of the prophets to foreign cults and by refined ideas of the deity.[2013] The absence of images in the Zoroastrian cult may be accounted for in a similar way—from early lack of artistic impulse and later elevated conceptions. In China there are images in household worship, but none in the great imperial religious ceremonies.[2014] Though the Koran does not expressly forbid the cult of images, yet, as the old Arabian cults denounced by the prophet were all idolatrous, images were identified with false religion (polytheism) and have been avoided by the Moslems, whose strict monotheism left no place for them.
[1093]. Images were credited in half-civilized times with a certain personality, were flogged or destroyed when they failed to do what was expected of them, or were bound in order to prevent their going away.[2015] In such cases the conception of the power of these objects was probably a confused one; though they were known to be inanimate pieces of wood or stone or other material, it was believed that they were inhabited by spirits or deities, and it was held that in some undefined way the power of the divine agent was transferred to its physical incasement—the two were practically identified. This sort of conception soon passed away and was succeeded by a symbolical interpretation. Whatever the ultimate origin of the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Hindu divine and semidivine forms (which are sometimes monstrous),[2016] it is probable that for the more thoughtful worshipers they represented divine powers and functions. Uncouth shapes may be softened or transformed by familiarity, and by association with higher ideas—things in themselves repulsive may become vehicles of devotion.[2017] In all religious worship objects associated with pious acts acquire sanctity and beauty.
[1094]. That idolatry in ancient times was not a wholly bad feature of worship is shown by the excellence of the great religions in which it was practiced. Its general function was to make the deity more real to the worshiper, to make the latter more sharply conscious of the divine presence, to fix the attention, and so far to further a real communion. On the other hand, it tended to produce a low physical conception of the divine person, and to distract the mind of the worshiper from the ethical side of worship. Its moral effect was dependent on the man's character and thought. When the image was regarded as the symbol of an ethically good Power, it was a reënforcement of pure religious feeling; when it was regarded as in itself a source of physical benefit, it was a degrading influence. This difference of effect exists in those Christian bodies that include images and pictures of the deity and of saints in their apparatus of worship.
Churches
[1095]. The history of the social organization of religion is the history of the growth of churches—voluntary associations for worship; it is toward the Church that society has hitherto moved.[2018] Every ancient community may be said to be an incipient church in the sense that it contains the germs of the later ecclesiastical development. But this later form exists in such communities only in germ—the most ancient worship was communal, an affair of clan, tribe, or State. Men were born into their religious faith and could no more change it, or think of changing it, than they could change, or think of changing, their language or any other inheritance. It was inevitable, however, that there should be a growth of individualism—instinct impelled men to think for themselves in religion as in all other things. Religion was a part of the general social movement, affected by all other parts of that movement. Independence of thought led to social aggregations, the members of which were drawn together by similarity of ideas and aspirations. This is the familiar history of social movements, and that in religion such movements have been continuous will be evident from a brief statement of the historical facts.
[1096]. Savage secret societies. These societies are referred to above;[2019] here we have only to notice their germinal ecclesiastical character. They represent a partial break-up of tribal communal worship by assigning special duties and granting special privileges to certain initiated persons. Totemic groups are sometimes (as in Central Australia) charged with specific functions in the tribal life; but membership in such groups is a matter of birth, and they everywhere tend to give way to secret societies. These latter often have charge of certain religious rites, and from their secret proceedings and from a knowledge of their secret lore the rest of the tribe are excluded.