[30] Granger, Worship of the Romans, pp. 212, 277. Cf. Jevons, in Plutarch’s Romane Questions, p. lvii.
[31] Plutarch, Questiones Romanæ, 61. Pliny, Historia naturalis, xxviii. 4. Macrobius, Saturnalia, iii. 9.
[32] Sell, op. cit. p. 185. Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 273.
One of the greatest insults which can be offered a god is to deny his existence. Plutarch was astonished at people’s saying that atheism is impiety, while at the same time they attribute to gods all kinds of less creditable qualities. “I for my part,” he adds, “would much rather have men to say of me that there never was a Plutarch, at all, nor is now, than to say that Plutarch is a man inconstant, fickle, easily moved to anger, revengeful for trifling provocations, vexed at small things.”[33] But Plutarch seems to have forgotten that a person is always most sensitive on his weak points, and that the weakest point in a god is his existence. Religious intolerance is in a large measure the result of that feeling of uncertainty which can hardly be eradicated even by the strongest will to believe. It is a means of self-persuasion in a case where such persuasion is sorely needed. Moreover, a god who is not believed to exist can be no object of worship, and to be worshipped is commonly held to be the chief ambition of a god. But atheism is a sin of civilisation. Uncultured people are ready to believe that all supernatural beings they hear of also exist.
[33] Plutarch, De superstitione, 10.
Some gods are extremely ungenerous towards all those who do not recognise them, and only them, as their gods. To believe in Ahura Mazda was the first duty which Zoroastrianism required of a man; it was Angra Mainyu, the evil spirit, that had countercreated the sin of unbelief.[34] Doubt destroyed even the effects of good actions;[35] indeed, only the true believer was to be regarded as a man.[36] The faithful were summoned to a war to the death against the opposing spirits, the Daevas, and their followers.[37] And to judge from ancient writers, the Persians, when they came into contact with nations of another religion, also carried into practice the intolerant spirit of their own.[38] Yahveh said:—“Thou shalt have no other gods before me…. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.”[39] In the pre-prophetic period the existence of other gods was recognised,[40] but they were not to be worshipped by Yahveh’s people. Nor was any mercy to be shown to their followers, for Yahveh was “a man of war.”[41] The God of Christianity inherited his jealousy. In the name of Christ wars were waged, not, it is true, for the purpose of exterminating unbelievers, but with a view to converting them to a faith which alone could save their souls from eternal perdition. So far as the aim of the persecution is concerned we can thus notice a distinct progress in humanity. But whilst the punishment which Yahveh inflicted upon the devotees of other gods was merely temporal and restricted to a comparatively small number of people—he took notice of such foreign nations only which came within his sphere of interests,—Christianity was a proselytising religion on a large scale, anxious to save but equally ready to condemn to everlasting torments all those who refused to accept it, nay even the milliards of men who had never heard of it. In this point Christianity was even more intolerant than the Koran itself, which does not absolutely confine salvation to the believers in Allah and his Prophet, but leaves some hope of it to Jews, Christians, and Sabæans, though all other infidels are hopelessly lost.[42]
[34] Vendîdâd, i. 8. 16.
[35] Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman, p. 330, n. 4.
[36] Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad, xlii. 6 sqq.
[37] See Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, iv. p. lii.; Spiegel, Erânische Alterthumskunde, iii. 692.