Three such agencies of prime importance in the transition from the mere ghost to the fully developed god must here be mentioned. They are the rise of temples, of idols, and, above all, of priesthoods. Each of these we must now consider briefly but separately.
The origin of the Temple is various; but all temples may nevertheless be reduced in the last resort either into graves of the dead, or into places where worship is specially offered up to them. This truth, which Mr. Herbert Spencer arrived at by examination of the reports of travellers or historians, and worked up in connection with his Principles of Sociology, was independently arrived at through quite a different line of observation and reasoning by Mr. William Simpson, the well-known artist of the Illustrated London News. Mr. Simpson has probably visited a larger number of places of worship all over the world than any other traveller of any generation: and he was early impressed by the fact which forced itself upon his eyes, that almost every one of them, where its origin could be traced, turned out to be a tomb in one form or another. He has set forth the results of his researches in this direction in several admirable papers, all of which, but especially the one entitled The Worship of Death, I can confidently recommend to the serious attention of students of religion. They contain the largest collection of instances in this matter ever yet made; and they show beyond a doubt the affiliation of the very idea of a temple on the tomb or grave of some distinguished dead person, famous for his power, his courage, or his saintliness.
The cave is probably the first form of the Temple. Sometimes the dead man is left in the cave which he inhabited when living; an instance of which we have already noticed among the Veddahs of Ceylon. In other cases, where races have outgrown the custom of cave-dwelling, the habit of cave-burial, or rather of laying the dead in caves or in artificial grottoes, still continues through the usual conservatism of religious feeling. Offerings are made to the dead in all these various caves: and here we get the beginnings of cave-temples. Such temples are at first of course either natural or extremely rude; but they soon begin to be decorated with rough frescoes, as is done, for example, by the South African Bushmen. These frescoes again give rise in time by slow degrees to such gorgeous works as those of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes; each of which has attached to it a magnificent temple as its mortuary chapel. Sculpture is similarly employed on the decoration of cave-temples; and we get the final result of such artistic ornament in splendid cave-temples like those of Ellora. Both arts were employed together in the beautiful and interesting Etruscan tomb-temples.
In another class of cases, the hut where the dead man lived is abandoned at his death by his living relations, and thus becomes a rudimentary Temple where offerings are made to him. This is the case with the Hottentots, to take an instance at a very low grade of culture. Of a New Guinea hut-burial, Mr. Chalmers says: “The chief is buried in the centre; a mat was spread over the grave, on which I was asked to sit until they had a weeping.” This weeping is generally performed by women—a touch which leads us on to Adonis and Osiris rites, and to the Christian Pietà. Mr. Spencer has collected several other excellent examples. Thus, the Arawaks place the corpse in a small boat and bury it in the hut; among the Creeks, the habitation of the dead becomes his place of interment; the Fantees likewise bury the dead person in his own house; and the Yucatanese “as a rule abandoned the house, and left it uninhabited after the burial.” I will not multiply quotations; it will be better to refer the reader to Mr. Spencer’s own pages, where a sufficient number of confirmatory examples are collected to satisfy any but the most prejudiced critic. “As repeated supplies of food are taken to the abandoned house,” says Mr. Spencer, “and as along with making offerings there go other propitiatory acts, the deserted dwelling house, turned into a mortuary house, acquires the attributes of a temple.”
A third origin for Temples is found in the shed, hut, or shelter, erected over the grave, either for the protection of the dead or for the convenience of the living who bring their offerings. Thus, in parts of New Guinea, according to Mr. Chalmers, “The natives bury their dead in the front of their dwellings, and cover the grave with a small house, in which the near relatives sleep for several months.”
“Where house-burial is not practised,” says Mr. Spencer, once more, “the sheltering structure raised above the grave, or above the stage bearing the corpse, becomes the germ of the sacred building. By some of the New Guinea people there is a ‘roof of atap erected over’ the burial-place. In Cook’s time the Tahitians placed the body of a dead person upon a kind of bier supported by sticks and under a roof. So, too, in Sumatra, where ‘a shed is built over’ the grave; and so, too, in Tonga. Of course this shed admits of enlargement and finish. The Dyaks in some places build mausoleums like houses, 18 feet high, ornamentally carved, containing the goods of the departed—sword, shield, paddle, etc. When we read that the Fijians deposit the bodies of their chiefs in small enbures or temples, we may fairly conclude that these so-called temples are simply more-developed sheltering structures. Still more clearly did the customs of the Peruvians show that the structure erected over the dead body develops into a temple. Acosta tells us that ‘every one of these kings Yncas left all his treasure and revenues to entertaine the place of worshippe where his body was layed, and there were many ministers with all their familie dedicated to his service.’”
Note in the last touch, by anticipation, one origin of priesthood. On the other hand, we saw in Mr. Duff Macdonald’s account of the Central African natives that those savages do not worship at the actual grave itself. In this case, terror of the revenant seems to prevent the usual forms of homage at the tomb of the deceased. Moreover, the ghost being now conceived as more or less freely separable from the corpse, it will be possible to worship it in some place remote from the dreaded cemetery. Hence these Africans “seek the spirit at the place where their departed kinsman last lived among them. It is the great tree at the verandah of the dead man’s house that is their temple: and if no tree grow here, they erect a little shade, and there perform their simple rites.” We have in this case yet another possible origin for certain temples, and also, I will add by anticipation of a future chapter, for the sacred tree, which is so common an object of pious adoration in many countries.
Beginning with such natural caves or such humble huts, the Temple assumes larger proportions and more beautiful decorations with the increase of art and the growth of kingdoms. Especially, as we see in the tomb-temples and pyramids of Egypt and Peru, does it assume great size and acquire costly ornaments when it is built by a powerful king for himself during his own lifetime. Temple-tombs of this description reach a high point of artistic development in such a building as the so-called Treasury of Atreus at Mycenæ, which is really the sepulchre of some nameless prehistoric monarch. It is admirably reconstructed in Perrot and Chipiez.
Obviously, the importance and magnificence of the temple will react upon the popular conception of the importance and magnificence of the god who inhabits it. And conversely, as the gods grow greater and greater, more art and more constructive skill will constantly be devoted to the building and decoration of their permanent homes. Thus in Egypt the tomb was often more carefully built and splendidly decorated than the house; because the house was inhabited for a short time only, but the tomb for eternity. Moreover, as kings grew more powerful, they often adorned the temples of their ancestors with emulous pride, to show their own greatness. In Egypt, once more, the original part of all the more important temples is but a small dark cell, of early origin, to which one successive king after another in later dynasties added statelier and ever statelier antechambers or porches, so that at last the building assumed the gigantic size and noble proportions of Karnak and Luxor. This access of importance to the temple cannot have failed to add correspondingly to the dignity of the god; so that, as time went on, instead of the early kings being forgotten and no longer worshipped, they assumed ever greater and greater importance from the magnificence of the works in which their memory was enshrined. To the very end, the god depends largely on his house for impressiveness. How much did not Hellenic religion itself owe to the Parthenon and the temple of Olympian Zeus! How much does not Christianity itself owe to Lincoln and Durham, to Amiens and Chartres, to Milan and Pisa, to St. Mark’s and St. Peter’s! Men cannot believe that the deities worshipped in such noble and dimly religious shrines were once human like themselves, compact of the same bodies, parts, and passions. Yet in the last instance at least we know the great works to be raised in honour of a single Lower Syrian peasant.
With this brief and imperfect notice of the origin of temples, which will indirectly be expanded in later portions of my work, I pass on from the consideration of the sacred building itself to that of the Idol who usually dwells within it.