Comparative Religion

by J. Estlin Carpenter

Like physical evil such as disease, so moral evil might be attributed to the action of spirits, and periodic ceremonies might be performed for purging the community by driving them out. Sometimes the sins were buried in the ground; sometimes they were thrown into the river; sometimes they were concentrated on a person or an animal; or were magically expelled under the sanction of religion into some object which could be destroyed. In the annual celebration of the Thargelia at Athens, in the month of May, under the solemn sanction of Apollo, two "purifying men" were led through the streets to be whipped with rods, and then driven over the border of the state, bearing the people's sins. The Levitical ritual (Lev. xvi) incorporated at a late date a solemn ceremony on the tenth day of the first month of the ancient religious year (in September), when an act of atonement was performed for the whole nation. Two goats were brought into the sanctuary, and lots were cast upon them. One was dedicated to Yahweh, over the other the high priest confessed the iniquities of the children of Israel; and by the laying on of hands he transferred them to the head of the doomed animal, which was then led forth into the wilderness for a mysterious power of evil, Azazel. As the temporary adjuncts of so much guilt, the high priest and the goat-leader were required to purify themselves afterwards by bathing; the high priest must change his robes, and the goat-leader wash his clothes.

So in modern times in Nigeria the town sins are annually laid on some unhappy slave-girl, perhaps selected some time before. As she is led through the street the householders come forth and discharge the year's accumulated evil on her; then she is dragged to the river, bound, and left to drown. Japan is satisfied without a life. The ancient ritual of purification shows that in the early centuries of the national history a public ceremony was occasionally performed. In the revival of Shinto usage which marked the late reign, it was re-enacted by imperial decree in 1872 for half-yearly celebration on June 30 and December 31, at all Shinto shrines. Four or five days before these dates the believer was enjoined to procure from his priest a piece of white paper cut in the shape of a garment. On this he was to write his name and sex, with the year and month of his birth; then he must rub it over his body, and finally breathe on it. His sins would thus be transferred to the paper robe, which was to be taken back to the priest. Offerings of food and purifying ceremonies would complete the believer's release. The paper garments with their load of guilt were then to be packed in cases which were to be put in boats, rowed out to sea, and committed to the deep. There they would be carried to the great Sea Plain by the Maiden of Descent-into-the-Current, who would convey them to the Maiden of the Swift Opening, dwelling in the Eight Hundred Meetings of the Brine of the Eight Brine Currents. She would swallow them down with a gurgling sound, and the Lord of the Breath-blowing Place would finally blow them away into the Root-Country, the bottom apparently of the under-world!

The relation of morality to religion tends to become more definite along different lines of thought, which are constantly intertwined, and of which three are only isolated here for the purpose of the briefest possible illustration of the forms in which they have appeared historically. In the first place, the world may be regarded as a scene in which rival powers of help and hurt are engaged in constant conflict; and the physical dualism thus exhibited may be reproduced in the sphere of morals as a contest between powers of good and evil. Secondly, the course of nature may be viewed as a world-order, where seasonal uniformities are the manifestation of a permanent principle of harmony which is the guide of human conduct, and the vicissitudes of daily or annual experience are interpreted as the judgments of heaven on man's doings, national or personal. And thirdly, the development of the individual conscience may surmount the confusion which ranks ritual offences along with moral transgressions, and the ethical life may be set wholly free from ceremonial bondage, and carried up into the realm of spirit.

The lower culture all over the world ascribes disease or accident, madness, calamity, and death, to the agency of hostile powers lying in wait for man, and breaking in on his security. The violences of the elements, the hurricane, the flood, the earthquake, the volcanic eruption, are in the same way the work of giants towering in might above the common herd of the demons of air, water, or earth. The spirits of the evil dead, especially of powerful magic-men, Shamans, and the like, of malicious character, are potent for sickness and disaster. But in their unorganised ranks there is no controlling or directing force. Here and there some figure or group emerges into prominence. At the head of the demonic hosts of Babylonian mythology is a band of seven ruling spirits, perhaps the windy counterparts of the sun and moon and the five planets. In Egyptian story Set (or by his Greek name Typhon) is the evil opposite of the good Osiris whom he does to death; or it is the sun himself who is attacked in his nightly journey by the serpent Apap with his monstrous crew. Scandinavian mythology was full of these conflicts. The oppositions of light and darkness, storm and calm, warmth and cold, were felt with unusual vehemence. Over the motley multitude of powers infesting forest and field, the wind and the water, rose the giants of mountain and cataract, the furious blast, the curdling frost. The giants of the frost were evil powers, like the wolf Fenris, and the serpent Nidhogg, who lay beneath one of the roots of the mighty cosmic tree (in Niflheim, a second being among the frost-giants, and a third among the gods), for ever gnawing till the great world's end. Above them rose the dread goddess Hel, the "hollow," once, apparently, the name of the grave, and then of the power that ruled the gloomy underworld, the abode of those who had not fallen upon the battle-field. She, in her turn, was subordinated to Loki, once reckoned among the gods, capricious and tricky, who becomes the father of Hel, the wolf Fenris, and the Midgard snake, and leads the forces of evil for the destruction of the world. He compasses the death of Balder the fair, Odin perishes by the wolf, and Thor by the serpent; though god and wolf and serpent in their turn sink in common ruin. But the powers engaged in the strife are all superhuman; man has no share in the warfare, save when the warriors pass at death into the abode of the gods, and take their place beside them in the final conflict. Loki is no Devil, he does not tempt, or interfere with the children of earth; he does not affect their present conduct or future destiny.

The oppositions of light and darkness belong to every zone all round the world, and were perhaps most strongly felt among the Indo-Iranian branches of the great Aryan family. The name deva in ancient Indian mythology denotes the shining powers of the upper world, the radiant dwellers in the sky. In contrast with it stands another, the asura, once a title of high honour, for it clung even to Varuna, but later degraded to the designation of demonic beings, who appear again and again in contest with the devas for the precious drink of immortality. So the realm of darkness is the realm of evil. Into the pit of darkness are the wicked thrust: and when right and wrong are presented under the forms of truth and falsehood, and untruth is identified with gloom, the poet reached the natural symbolism—"Light is heaven, they say, and darkness hell."

It was, however, among the cognate Iranian people that this antithesis acquired the greatest force, under the influence of the prophet Zarathustra. By a curious historic-religious process which cannot here be traced, the terms of the opposing forces were reversed. Ahura (= asura) remained the name of the Supreme Power, with the addition of the term Mazda, "all-knowing," and the daevas (= devas) became the evil multitude. In the oldest part of the Zend Avesta Ahura appears as the sole Creator, the God of light and purity and truth, who dwells on high in the Abode of Song. Beside him is his Good Mind, and the Holy (or beneficent, gracious) Spirit. But opposed to him in the realm of darkness beneath is "the Lie" (drug), with its correlates the Bad Mind and the Evil Spirit (Añra Mainyu, not yet a proper name). The world between is the scene of continuous struggle, and in this conflict man is called to take his part. Ritual purity, appropriate sacrifice, and personal righteousness in thought, word, and deed, are his weapons in the fight. By these he helps to establish the sovereignty of Ahura, and to curtail the power of "the Lie." The earliest representations offer no account of the origin of the Drug any more than of Ahura himself. But later speculation, impressed with the contrasting elements of human life, began to ascribe to him, too, under the name of Ahriman (Añra Mainyu), creative power; all noxious animals and plants were due to him; plague and disease came from his hands; all agencies of cold, darkness, and destruction were his work; he was the daeva of daevas, Lord of death, and author of temptation. And finally, in the long process of thought the two powers of good and evil had both issued from a still higher unity, Zervan Akarana, Time without bound. But long ere this the Persian character had responded to Zarathustra's teaching of warfare against "the Lie"; and Herodotus bears testimony to their repute for loyalty to truth. For from the earliest days the dualism of Zarathustra bound together morality and religion in the closest alliance. How the great demand for the ultimate victory of good was to be justified will be seen hereafter (p. [247]).

A second group of figures embodying the same idea of the connection of morality with religion is found in the various impersonations of the Order of Nature and its correlate in Law in the world without and the heart within. The speculations of the early Greek philosophers in their attempts to reach an ultimate Unity behind all the diversities of appearance familiarised the higher minds with the idea of the harmony of the cosmos. "Law," sang Pindar, "is king of all, both mortals and immortals." And this sovereign order is represented mythologically by Themis, whom Hesiod exalts to be the daughter of Heaven and Earth, and bride of Zeus. Pindar pictured her as borne in a golden car from the primeval Ocean, the source of all, up to the sacred height of Olympus, to be the consort of Zeus the Preserver. But though she is thus the spouse of the sovereign of the sky, she is in another aspect identified with Earth, scene of fixed rules both in nature and social life, for with the cultus of the earth were associated not only the operations of agriculture, but the rites and duties of marriage, and the maintenance of the family. So Themis is the mother of the seasons in the annual round, and the sequences of blossom and fruit are her work; but among her daughters are also Fair Order, Justice, and Peace, and the world and the State thus reflect obedience to a universal Law.

Behind Greece lay Egypt, where tradition said that Thales, first of Greeks to philosophise, had studied. When the soul of the dead man was brought to the test of the balance (p. [8]), he was supported by the goddesses of Maāt or Truth. Derived from the root mā, "to stretch out," this name covered the ideas of rectitude or right, and Maāt was the splendid impersonation of order, law, justice, truth, in both the physical and moral spheres. She is the daughter—or even the eye—of the Sun-god Rê. But she is conceived in still more exalted fashion as the sovereign of all realms, and is elevated above all relationships. She is Lady of heaven, and Queen of earth, and even Lady of the Land of the West, the mysterious dwellings of the dead. In one aspect she serves each of the great gods as her lord and master; in another she knows no lord or master. So it is by her that the gods live; she is, as it were, the law of their being; alike for sun and moon, for days and hours, in the visible world, and for the divine king at the head of his people. She is solemnly offered by the sovereign to his god, and the deity responds by laying her in the heart of his worshipper, to manifest her everlastingly before the gods. Through the court-phrases gleams the solemn idea that sovereignty on earth is no law to itself; it must follow the ordinances of heaven.

Chinese insight early reached a similar thought. Before the days of Confucius or his elder contemporary Lao-Tsze, the wiser observers had noted the uniformity of Nature's ways. Were not Heaven and Earth the nourishers of all things? Did not Heaven pour down all kinds of influences upon the docile and receptive Earth? Heaven was all-observing, steadfast, impartial; and its "sincerity," seen in the regular movements of the sun and moon, or the succession of the seasons, becomes for the moralist the groundwork of the social order. This daily course is called Heaven's way or path, the Tao (the highway as distinguished from by-tracks), which with unvarying energy maintains the scene of our existence, and provides the norm or pattern for our conduct. In the hands of Lao-Tsze this became the symbol of a great philosophical conception. Behind the visible path which all could see lay the hidden Tao, untrodden and enduring. Here was the eternal source of all things, for ever streaming forth in orderly succession, but never vaunting itself or inviting attention by outbursts of display. It was the type for man to follow; the sage, like Heaven, must have no personal ends; he must act, like the great exemplar, without meddling interference, leaving his nature to fulfil itself; let him renounce ambition and cultivate humility; only one who has "forgotten himself" can become identified with Heaven. "Can you"—so Lao-Tsze was said to have asked an inquirer six hundred years before Jesus taught in Galilee—"Can you become a little child?"

The Vedic seers were hardly less impressed with the sense of an orderly control in contemplating the energies around them. Four words are used to denote the institutes or ordinances, the fixed norms or standards, the solemn laws, and the steadfast path, according to which the rivers flow, the dawn comes forth after the night, the sun traverses the sky, and even the storm winds begin to blow. Of these the last named, the Rita (with its Zend equivalent Asha), the ordered course along which all things move, presents the least abstract, the most mythical form. For here is that which exists before heaven and earth; they are born of it, or even in it, and its domain is the wide space. From it, likewise, the gods proceed, and the lofty pair, Mitra and Varuna, with Aditi and her train, are its protectors. But through the mystical identity of the order of nature and the order of sacrifice (p. [143]), the cultus—whether on earth or in heaven—is also its sphere. Agni, the sacrificial fire, the dear house-priest, is Rita-born, and by its aid carries the offerings to heaven. Such, also, is the sacred drink, the Soma, which is borne in the Rita's car, and follows its ways. And the heavenly sacrificers, the Fathers in the radiant world above, have grown according to the Rita, for they know and faithfully obey the law. Thus it becomes the supreme expression of morality, and is practically equivalent with satya, true (literally, that which is), or good. Heaven and Earth are satya, veracious, they can be trusted; they are ritāvan, faithful to the Path, steadfast in the Order. Not less so is the godly man; he, too, is ritāvan (Zend ashavan), the same word being used to denote divine holiness and human piety. And thus the life of gods and men, the order of nature, the ritual of worship, and daily duty, were all bound together in one principle.