Comparative Religion

by J. Estlin Carpenter

This is the most highly developed form of the doctrine of the divine king, which the Far East has retained for the sovereigns of China and Japan to our own day. The language and practice of Roman imperialism called forth the impassioned resistance of the early Christians, and the clash of opposing religions is nowhere portrayed with more desperate intensity than in the Book of Revelation at the close of our New Testament, where Rome and her false worship are identified with the power of the "Opposer" or Sâtân, and are hurled with all their trappings of wealth and luxury into the abyss.

The conception of a god as "saviour" or deliverer is founded on incidents in personal or national experience, when some unexpected event opens a way of escape from pressing danger. When the Gauls were advancing against Rome in 388 B.C., a strange voice of warning was heard in the street. It was neglected, but when they had been repelled, Camillus erected an altar and temple to the mysterious "Speaker," Aius Locutius, whose prophetic energy was thus manifested. In the second Punic war, when the Carthaginian general, Hannibal, was marching against the city in 211 B.C., he suddenly changed his course near the Capena gate. Again the might of an unknown deity was displayed, and the grateful Romans raised a shrine to him under the name of Tutanus Rediculus, the god who "protects and turns back." It might be the attack of an enemy, it might be the imminence of shipwreck, it might be a desolating plague, or any one of the vicissitudes of fortune, the distresses and anxieties of the soul or of the State, in the power which brought rescue or health or peace to body or mind, or life hereafter in a better world, the grateful believer recognised the energy of some superhuman being. Just as the making of the world required a creative hand, just as the arts and laws of social life were the product of some divine initiative (p. [171]), just as the higher virtues belonged to a band of spiritual forces which had a kind of individuality of their own, so the shaping of affairs bore witness to the interest and intervention of wills above those of man. All through the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean the greater deities, such as Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Æsculapius, Dionysus, Isis, Zeus, bore the title of "Deliverer." And in the mysteries which drew so many worshippers to their rites in the first centuries of our era, this deliverance took the form of salvation from sin, and carried with it the promise of re-birth into eternal life.

Similar conceptions are seen in India. The founder of Buddhism, Gotama of the Sākyan clan, was believed to have attained the Enlightenment which enabled him to discern the whole secret of existence. After a long series of preparatory labours in previous lives he had appeared as a man in his last birth, to "lift off from the world the veils of ignorance and sin." He had himself repudiated all ontological conceptions; he had explained the human being without the hypothesis of a soul or self, and the world without the ideas of substance or God. But in due time the rejected metaphysics insisted on recognition; and some three hundred years or more after his death a new interpretation of his person arose. Under the stress of pious affection, the influence of philosophical Brahmanism, and the need of permanent spiritual help, he was conceived as a manifestation of the Infinite and Eternal, who for the sake of suffering humanity from time to time condescended to seem to be born and die, that in the likeness of a man he might impart the saving truth. So he was presented as the Self-Existent, the Father of the world, the Protector of all creatures, the Healer of men's sicknesses and sins.

Over against this great figure Brahmanism placed another, that of Vishnu, with his series of "descents," in which the Buddha was formally incorporated as the ninth. The most famous of these were the heroes Rama and Krishna; and Krishna became the subject of the best-known book of Indian devotion, the Bhagavad-Gita or the "Divine Lay," which has been sometimes supposed to show traces of the influence of the Gospel of St. John. Here was a religion founded on the idea of divine grace or favour on the one part, and adoring love and devotion on the other. Krishna, also, taught a way of deliverance from the evils of human passion and attachment to the world; and Vishnu came to be the embodiment of divine beneficence, at once the power which maintained the universe and revealed himself from time to time to man.

Vishnu was an ancient Vedic deity connected with the sun; and by his side Hindu theology set another god of venerable antiquity, once fierce and destructive, but now known under the name of Çiva, the "auspicious." The great epic entitled the Mahābhārata does not conceal their rivalry; but with the facility of identification characteristic of Indian thought, either deity could be interpreted as a form of the other. Çiva became the representative of the energies of dissolution and reproduction; and his worship begot in the hearts of the mediæval poets an ardent piety, while in other aspects it degenerated into physical passion on the one side and extreme asceticism on the other. But in association with Brahma, Vishnu and Çiva constituted the Trimurti, or "triple form," embracing the principles of the creation, preservation, destruction, and renewal of the world. Symbolised, like the Christian Trinity, by three heads growing on one stem,[[3]] these lofty figures were the personal manifestations of the Universal Spirit, the Sole Existence, the ultimate Being, Intelligence, and Bliss.

[[3]] Some of the Celtic deities are three-faced, or three-headed.

By various paths was the goal of monotheism approached, but popular practice perpetually clung to lower worships, and philosophy could often accommodate them with ingenious justifications. A bold and decisive judgment like that of the Egyptian Akhnaton might fix on one of the great powers of nature—the sun—as the most suitable emblem of Deity to be adored, and forbid all other cults. Or the various groups and ranks of divine beings might be addressed in a kind of collective totality, like the "all-gods" of the Vedic hymns. At Olympia there was a common altar for all the gods; and a frequent dedication of Roman altars in later days consecrated them "to Jupiter Greatest and Best, and the Other Immortal Gods." If reflection was sufficiently advanced to coin abstract terms for deity, like the Babylonian 'ilûth, or the Vedic asuratva or devatva, some poet might apprehend the ultimate unity, and lay it down that "the great asuratva of the devas is one." Both India and Greece reached the conception of a unity of energy in diversity of operation; "the One with many names" was the theme of the ancient Hindu seers long before Æschylus in almost identical words proclaimed "One form with many names." The great sky-god Zeus, whose personality could be almost completely detached from the visible firmament, brought the whole world under his sway, and from the fifth century before Christ Greek poetry abounded in lofty monotheistic language which the early Christian apologists freely quoted in their own defence. A philosophic sovereign like Nezahuatl, lord of Tezcuco, might build a temple to "the Unknown God, the Cause of Causes," where no idol should be reared for worship, nor any sacrifice of blood be offered. But other motives were more often at work. Conquest led to the identification of the deities of the victor and the vanquished; and the importance of military triumph enhanced the majesty of the successful god. In his great inscription on Mount Behistun Darius celebrated the grandeur of Ahura Mazda, "Lord All-Wise," in language resembling that of a Hebrew psalm, "A great God is Ahura Mazda, the greatest of the gods." Under the Roman Empire the principle of delegated authority could be invoked to explain the unity of the Godhead above inferior agencies; in the heavenly order there was but one sovereign, though there were many functionaries. Even Israel had its hierarchy of ministering spirits, and the Synagogue found it necessary to forbid pious Jews to pray to Michael or to Gabriel.

When the unity of the moral order was combined with the unity of creative might, the transition to monotheism was even more complete. It could, indeed, be deferred. In the ancient poems of the great religious reformer whom the Greeks called Zoroaster, Ahura Mazda is the supremely Good. Beside him are the Immortal Holy Ones, Holy Spirit, Good Mind, Righteous Order, and the rest. True, in the oppositions of light and darkness, heat and cold, health and sickness, plenty and want, life and death, he is for a time hampered by the enmity of "the Lie"; but the power of evil would be finally destroyed, and the sovereignty of Ahura established for ever (p. [247]).

From another point of view the divine purpose of deliverance must be conceived upon an equally world-wide scale. One type of Indian Buddhism looked to Avalokiteçvara (Chinese Kwanyin, Japanese Kwannon), who made the famous vow not to enter into final peace until all beings—even the worst of demons in the lowest hell—should know the saving truth and be converted. And in the Far East rises the figure of the Buddha of Infinite Light, who is also the Buddha of Infinite Life, whose grace will avail for universal redemption (p. [18]). The motive of creation falls away. The world is the scene of the moral forces set in motion under the mysterious power of the Deed. No praise rises to Amida for the wonders of the universe or the blessings of life. But to no other may worship be offered. Here is a monotheism where love reigns supreme, and it is content to trust that Infinite Mercy will achieve its end.