[146] Maine, Ancient Law, p. 129.
[147] Ibid. p. 131.
Like the smaller units, the archaic State was not only a political but at the same time a religious community. Over and above all separate cults there was one religion common to all its citizens. In ancient Mexico and Peru it was the religion of the dominant people, the worship of the god of war or of the sun; and the sovereigns themselves were regarded as incarnations or children of this god.[148] In other cases the state religion arose by a fusion of different cults. The gods of the communities which united into a state not only continued to receive the worship of their old believers, but were elevated to the rank of national deities, and formed together a heavenly commonwealth to which the earthly commonwealth jointly paid its homage. In this way, it seems, the Roman,[149] Egyptian,[150] Assyrian, and Babylonian[151] pantheons were recruited; whilst the Greeks went a step further and, already in prehistoric times, constructed a Pan-Hellenic Olympus.[152] Sometimes also, as Professor Robertson Smith points out, different gods were themselves fused into one, as when the mass of the Israelites in their local worship of Yahveh identified him with the Baalim of the Canaanite high places, and carried over into his worship the ritual of the Canaanite shrines, not deeming that in so doing they were less truly Yahveh-worshippers than before.[153]
[148] Ratzel, op. cit. ii. 199 sq. Markham, History of Peru, p. 23.
[149] Cf. von Jhering, Geist des römischen Rechts, i. 269.
[150] Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 148.
[151] Mürdter-Delitzsch, Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens, p. 24. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 39.
[152] Cf. Rohde, Psyche, p. 36.
[153] Robertson Smith, op. cit. p. 38.
Nobody will deny that the common religion added strength to the State, but it seems that its national importance has often been overrated. On the one hand, the political fusion between different communities took place before the religious fusion and was obviously the cause of it; on the other hand, the mere tie of a common religion has never proved sufficient to bind together neighbouring tribes or peoples so as to form one nation. The Greek states had both the same religion and the same language, but nevertheless remained distinct states. Professor Seeley’s assertion that “in the East to this day nationality and religion are almost convertible terms,”[154] is very far from the truth. Wallin, who had exceptional opportunities to study the feelings of different Muhammedan nationalities, observes that “every Oriental people has a certain national aversion to every other, and even the inhabitants of one province to those of another. The Turk does not readily tolerate the Arab, nor the Persian, and these feel similarly towards the Turk; the Arab does not get on well with the Persian, nor the Persian with the Arab; the Syrian does not like the Egyptian, whom he calls inhuman, and the latter does not willingly associate with the Syrian, whom he calls simple-minded and stupid; and the son of the desert condemns both.”[155] It sometimes seems as if the national spirit of a people rather influenced its religion than was influenced by it. Patriotism has even succeeded in nationalising the greatest enemy of nationalities, Christianity, and has well nigh revived the old notion of a national god, whose chief business is to look after his own people and, especially, to fight its battles.