In India the intense feeling with regard to caste but little altered the condition of things from that obtaining as above described, though the Brahmins were further away from the other castes than in other countries where the priests came from the common people; by the latter the Brahmins used to be regarded as Gods and did all they could to perpetuate this feeling. By this fact alone they became a self-constituted mystic organization, being themselves pantheists while the people were idolators. Though they taught pantheism in their sacred books, the second and third castes, namely the warriors and farmers, did not understand the teaching, and the fourth caste dared not read them at all.
In this pantheism penitents and hermits were esteemed as above kings and heroes; but even the life of a hermit was not exacting enough for them, so they organized the idea of a soul of the universe so incomprehensible that, as they themselves acknowledged, no man could comprehend it or instruct another in it. Despairing of solving the problem they finally fancied that the universe was a phantasm, and that the earth and all things earthly were nothing. They taught that through countless aeons of time men grew always worse, and were born only to suffer and die, or to do penance in the torments of an indescribable Hell. Naturally of all these things the people could only understand the teachings pertaining to hell and future punishment, and so the Brahmins contrived for them a supreme deity, having the same name as their Soul of the Universe, namely Brahma, whom they made the creator but playing a passive part. The people were not content, however, with an absentee passive God, but paid much more attention to Vishnu the preserver, and the dreaded Siva, the destroyer. After a while these three Gods were united in a sort of trinity, represented by a three headed figure, but without temples or sacrifices. The Brahmins continued their subtleties and divided the people into parties, like the scholiasts and disputants of the middle centuries of our present Christian era, and so the Hindoo religion became more and more debased. However, in the sixth century B. C., Buddha, that great figure in early history, endeavored to save it by a reform which found much more encouragement in the West, and to the far East of India, than in India itself, and which has since assumed a more composite character by fusion with the religions of the surrounding countries.
Buddha formed first a monastic society based upon ethical doctrines, whose underlying principle was that only by a renunciation of everything can man find safety, peace and comfort. Buddha's first teachings were mystic and for the initiated only; his followers believed also in reincarnation. After his death and that of those who were supposed to have lived before him, and who were expected to appear again, and who had been raised to the dignity of Gods, (and after their number had been added to that of the popular Hindoo Gods and to the Gods of the other people), then Buddhism became a polytheism, and because of the variety of possible explanations and the necessary exegesis, assumed in the end the dimensions of a secret mystic doctrine.
The Hellenes undoubtedly did, in the beginning, worship natural forces under the form of animals, especially of serpents; later human and animal forms were united, and so they had deities with heads of animals, or with the bodies of horses like the Centaurs, or with the hoofs of goats like the Satyrs. But the natural Greek taste for the beautiful early asserted itself; the figures of Gods came by degrees to express the ideal of physical perfection, that is the human shape, and the Grecian religion became essentially a worship of the beautiful, and not as among Oriental religions a worship of the unnatural or hideous. They forgot the astronomic and cosmic significance of the early myths and held rather to personifications of the normal forces, of which their poets sang as of mortal heroes. They never dreamt of dogma, creed or revelation, demanded only that man honor the Gods, but left it to the taste of each one how he should suitably perform his acts of reverence. It must be confessed, however, that in candor and chastity they left much to be desired; but this may be explained when we remember that their own Gods set them a very poor example in these respects. Still history will forgive them much because they loved much. The Greeks were exceedingly liberal in their interpretations concerning the Gods, while the various peoples constituting the Greek race were not at all agreed as to the number and respective rank of the Gods whom they worshiped. Thus one would be disowned here, another there; while in one place greater honor would be paid to one, or elsewhere to another; exactly as in the case of the Saints among the Catholic people of to-day. They went so far in their worship of the beautiful as to divide the Gods among the localities which possessed statues of them, which Gods came to be regarded as distinct individuals; so that even Socrates doubted whether Aphrodite of the sky and Aphrodite of the people were or were not the same person.
Furthermore in their liberality they made Gods to hand for every emergency, and even worshiped the unknown Gods, as St. Paul long ago recorded. For the Greeks these Gods were neither monsters like those of Egypt, India and Chaldea, nor incorporeal spirits like the Gods of Persia and of Israel, but human beings with all the human attributes. For the Greeks neither Jehovah existed, nor a personal devil in any form. Like the Greeks themselves their Gods had many human failings, though in them religion survived many mythological creations like the Centaurs, the Satyrs, etc. These were merely folklore beings enacting parts ranging from terror to farce, and never receiving divine honors.
Grecian religion was, so to speak, the established church of the Greek states, but came to be in time a cloak for the designs of the politicians; in which respect history has many times repeated itself. For instance Socrates was made to drink his cup of hemlock on the pretext that he had apostatized from the state religion. Still even in his day heresy played no part except among politicians. Every one could plainly state his convictions, and Aristophanes in his comedies introduced Gods in the most ridiculous and compromising situations. So long as the public worship of the Gods went on the state cared little for the upholding of positive or suppressing of negative beliefs. The Gods were entitled to sacrifices and the people to divine aid, but they could regulate the interchange to suit themselves. The greatest public crimes were violation of temples and profanation of sacred things; one must leave the images alone even if he did not believe in the Gods they represented. Punishment of blasphemy was only inflicted when complaint was made. Foreign Gods could be introduced and worshiped at will, providing only that the customary honors were rendered to those at home.
Such religious freedom could naturally only exist during the minority or the absence of a priestly class. Anyone could transact business with the Gods or conduct sacrifices; priests were employed only in the temples, and outside of them they had neither business, influence nor privileges. Their pantheism was comprehensive; the Gods were everywhere, and the honor done to them consisted in invocations, votive offerings and sacrifices. The Grecian religion recognized no official revelation which all were required to believe, though it did not deny the possibility of revelations at any time. Their oracles were obtainable only in particular places and through duly qualified individuals. At one time in ancient Greece conjuration was in vogue, but the Gods and demons who indulged in it were all borrowed from foreign sources, and in time it degenerated into pure magic.
The Greeks, however, could not get away from the sentimental notion that belief in the Gods must have an ethical side and must be subordinate to their faith; in other words that human nature was something entirely different from the divine to which it was subject. Alienation from the God in which they believed led necessarily to the impulse to seek him, which was the leading motive in the institution of the Grecian mysteries,—Gods who were man's equals were not sufficient for the Greeks. In the beginning of these mysteries they borrowed the art of the popular religion, disregarded the science of the day as well as the philosophic doctrines of their great men, held in contempt both human power and human knowledge, and devoted themselves almost entirely to self-introspection, meditation on revelation, incarnation and resurrection, and presented these things in dramatic forms and ceremonies, by which illusions they hoped to make more or less impression upon the senses. The Grecian mysteries were the opposite of genuine Hellenism. The true Greek was cheerful, happy, clear in perception, and his Gods appeared to him as do their statues to us to-day. But Greek mysticism was full of gloom, symbolism and fantastic interpretations; in every way it was unhellenic and abnormal, having no fit place in their soil nor in their age. It always has been the case that sentimental, romantic or mystical dispositions find delight in the mysterious, while logical minds are unmoved by it. From the Mysteries no man was excluded, save those who had shown themselves unworthy of initiation. They had their origin in the early rites of purification and atonement; the former being at first only bodily cleansing, which later took on a moral significance; while the atonement was a sort of expiation which came with the consciousness of sin and desire for forgiveness. Atonement was most called for in case of blood guiltiness, and consisted largely in the sacrifices of animals, burning of incense, etc. In all the ancient mysteries these two features of purification and expiation played a great part.
Of them all the oldest and most celebrated were those instituted at Eleusis, in Attica, in honor of the Goddess Demeter (Latin Ceres), and her daughter Persephone (Latin Proserpina). To these were added later a masculine deity, known at first as Iacchos, whose name is probably related to Jao, which appears in Jovispater or Jupiter, and to the Hebrew Yahve or Jehovah. Later, however, B was substituted for I and Iacchos was made to read Bacchus. Jao was the Harvest God, and consequently God of the grape, hence the close relation to Bacchus. The Greek word Eleusis means advent, and commemorates the visit of Demeter while wandering in search of her daughter,—which reminds one of the Egyptian story of Isis. Moved by gratitude, Demeter bestowed upon the people of Eleusis the bread-grain and the mysteries. From this city the cult of these two deities spread over all Greece and most of Asia Minor, passed into Italy in modified form, and thus became widely accepted. The people built at Eleusis a temple in pure Doric style and a Mystic House in which the secret festivals were held. The city was connected with Athens by a Sacred Way, which was flanked with temples and sanctuaries, while in Athens itself was a building, the Eleusinion, in which a portion of the mysteries were celebrated. The buildings at Eleusis were in good preservation until the fourth century A. D., when they were destroyed by the Goths under Alaric, and at the instigation of monkish fanatics. You will see, then, that the mysteries were widely observed in Asia Minor, and at a time when they must have deeply tinged the religious views and habits of a large portion of the population prior to the beginning of the Christian Era.
The Eleusinian mysteries were always under the direction of the Athenian government, and the report of their celebration was always rendered to the grand council of Athens. The function of the priests was an hereditary and exclusive privilege and the mysteries as a whole were under the immediate care of a sacred council. The people contented themselves mainly with honoring the Gods, while in these mysteries the original endeavor was to emphasize the preëminence of the divine over the human, hence their careful guardianship by the authorities of the state. Both were offshoots of pantheism, one seeing the divine in all earthly things, the other constantly searching for it there, and striving to unite with it. Monotheism, that is absolute separation of the human from the divine without hope of union, is a purely Oriental conception, quite incomprehensible to the Greek mind. No ancient Greek ever conceived of a creative deity in the Egyptians' sense, nor of a vengeful Jehovah like that of the Hebrews.