In all the nations which advanced in civilization, this transformation within mythology makes itself felt. Ormuzd, the Persian god, passes from a personification of the sunlight in its battle with darkness to a spiritual deity who is the guardian of all the virtues. Indra, the Vedic god, is likewise at first the sky through which the clouds move, and is later conceived as the creator and sustainer of the world. The same process reveals itself in Egyptian mythology for we pass from Ra, the sun deity, to Neph and Pthah who represent creative energies and to Osiris, the god of truth and goodness. Thus there is in mythology a universal movement, from the visible aspects of nature as personified, to supernal beings back of nature, protecting what is thought of as highest and noblest in human conduct. The setting remains constant while new wine is poured into the old bottles. The truth of the matter is that man grew faster ethically than he did intellectually. Philosophy and science were far harder to achieve than glimpses of justice and kindness. The very growth of society in numbers forced man to adapt his conduct to a social life and to have regard to his neighbors. The ideals advocated by Confucius, Buddha, Plato, Hosea and Jesus are as noble as our own. But advance in knowledge and its presuppositions is more revolutionary and extraordinary because more artificial and more alien to the psychological prejudices of the mass of the people. Ethics, like religion, remained for ages peacefully within the mythological setting which primitive man unconsciously constructed.
We have purposely omitted prior reference to the development of religion among the Hebrews because their religion has been so important for our own civilization. The mythological element in it was relatively small for various reasons; yet this is true only if we have regard to fable and æsthetic tale. Their world was one of personal agency just as it was for other races. But the Hebrews made a fresh start long after they had isolated themselves from the general Semitic stock. Their migration from their ancient home could not help but wither the more local myths, and this tendency was reënforced by the adoption of a new god, Yahweh, the God of the Kenites. Yahweh was a god of the lightning who thundered from Mount Sinai, and he was a god of battles, just as was Thor, the thunder-god of the Scandinavians. This war god naturally obtained their allegiance during the years of conflict with the Canaanites, and gained in prestige as time elapsed. The Canaanites had their local Baal cults and myths, and these were associated with agricultural festivals and with that worship of fertility which was so wide-spread among the ancients. The followers of Yahweh, on the other hand, were hillmen and shepherds and their rites were closely connected with sacrificial observances.
As time passed, the two races mingled and the tendency was toward an amalgamation of their respective cults. But a storm of protest set in, led by the prophets and the simpler, less concretely naturalistic religion prevailed. The very simplicity of the cult of Yahweh made it a fitting basis for that ethical development which we associate with the names of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Only an ignorance of the ethical deepening of other religions can excuse the belief that this ethical development was absolutely unique. Probably it is the aspect of national monotheism, or henotheism, as it should more accurately be called, which impresses so many, whereas this feature was an historical accident. To claim that the Hebrew development was unique and therefore supernatural is to assume that the relatively unique must be supernatural. But such an assumption has no foundation in experience, for differences in the development of nations are the rule rather than the exception. Shall we say that English constitutional development is supernatural because no other nation achieved such a form of government by itself? Shall we assert that Greek art was supernatural because it was unique? Is it not evident that the wish has been father to the thought in this case? All early peoples have looked upon themselves as chosen and upon other peoples as gentiles and barbarians. We have accepted this prejudice of the Hebrews because we have adopted a modified form of their religion with its racial traditions.
But while conditions in Palestine were not favorable to the flowering of a rich and delicate mythology, it would be false to deny the presence of a mythological motive in the Hebrew outlook. The whole story of the intimate relations of Yahweh to his people and to their ancestors is through and through mythological. Milton's epic was made possible by the folklore incorporated in the Bible. There are many traces in the Bible of a common Semitic tradition in spite of the reactions which it underwent. Recent Semitic scholarship has made it evident that Babylonian beliefs had penetrated to this kindred people. There are sun-myths and tales of semi-divine heroes. After the exile, under the influence of Persia and Babylonia, there arose a belief in demons and angels as powers at work in the world for good and evil. These mythical creatures passed into the outlook of the Western mind by way of Christianity, and offered fruitful material for art and poetry, and for the gradual blossoming of new myths around the Christian epic of the universe. Milton and Dante unfold the inner meaning of life in terms which cannot be understood apart from beliefs which have their ultimate roots in primitive conceptions of the world.
Christian mythology, like Greek mythology, has its æsthetic value, but it is a mistake to assume that this value is removed when the old credence has departed. To appreciate the beauty of Botticelli's Venus, it is not necessary to believe that Venus arose from this sea-foam; in like manner, to enjoy Christian art it is not required that we accept the literal truth of its symbols. Indeed, it seems to me very doubtful whether many educated people to-day take the minor characters of the Christian pantheon very seriously. We would be more than surprised to hear angelic messengers chanting in the heavens above us. Only because they are bound up with a system of attitudes and values dear to men, are these mystic beings given that half-belief which prevents them from falling into that limbo to which dragons and griffins and nymphs have descended. That this will be their ultimate fate is certain. In Protestant countries, in which moral values control religion and sensuous elements exercise little attraction, these figures have already retreated far into the background. Yet the average religious mind likes to dally with the thought of them, much as the child, who no longer believes in fairies, still wishes to indulge in make-believe when the everyday world becomes too bare and well-ordered.
The age of myth, then, corresponds to a naïve extension of human characteristics to natural phenomena. The world becomes a drama to which man holds the key in his own life. He feels himself surrounded by mysterious forces and agencies, far surpassing his own puny strength, and inevitably conceives them in analogy with his own activities. They differ not so much in how they work as in what they do. In this way, the gods were born into the world—and once born man has been unable to free himself from them. As he has grown in mental and moral stature, he has unconsciously reflected into them this increased knowledge and these higher ideals. And the process, once begun, has continued to the present. Not until he has outgrown old fears and relinquished unwarranted hopes will these beliefs lose their power. Then and not till then, will reason be able to supplant mythology by knowledge.