An analysis of religious belief

by viscount John Russell Amberley

CHAPTER IV.
HOLY ORDERS.

Rites, acts of worship and sacrifices, originally performed by each individual at his own discretion, or by each household in its own way, fall (as we have seen) with advancing development into the hands of professional persons consecrated for this especial purpose. Very great importance attaches to these consecrated persons. The place they occupy in all societies above the level of barbarism is one of peculiar honor; and their influence on the course of human history has in all ages with which that history is acquainted been conspicuous and profound. Once devoted to their religious duties, they become the authorized representatives of deity on earth. In treating of their consecration, we consider them as channels of communication from earth to heaven; we have now to consider them as channels of communication from heaven to earth.

Endowed by the general wish of all human society with a special right to convey their petitions to the divine beings whom they worship, they do not fail to claim for themselves the correlative right of conveying to men the commands, the intentions, the reproofs, and the desires of these divine beings. It is the priests alone who can pretend to know their minds. It is the priests alone who can correctly interpret their often enigmatic language. It is the priests alone through whom they generally deign to converse with mortals.

Such is the ecclesiastical theory throughout the world; and it is as a general rule accepted by the communities for whose guidance it is constructed. Exceptions do indeed present themselves, above all in the case of the remarkable men whose careers we shall deal with in the ensuing chapter, who have founded new religions independently of, or even in spite of, very powerful existing priesthoods. And, speaking generally, the holy class is not always coëxtensive with the consecrated class. We shall notice further on an important order among the Jews who were universally received as holy, without being consecrated. Moreover, there has often existed a species of men who, without regular consecration, have nevertheless served as a channel of communication from God or from inferior spirits to man. Such were magicians, astrologers, "et hoc genus omne," in ancient times; such are the so-called mediums in the present day. Conversely, consecration, though by its very nature implying holiness as its correlative, implies it less and less as we rise in the scale of culture. Thus, in the more advanced forms of Protestantism, such as the Presbyterian or the Unitarian, the minister is scarcely more than a mere teacher; he has little or no more power to convey commands or intimations from God than any member of his congregation. So that we should have a rough approximation to the truth were we to say that in the lower grades of religious culture we have holy orders without consecration; while in the higher grades we have consecrated orders without holiness.

Between these extremes there lies the great body of regular and qualified priests, appointed to communicate upwards, and entitled to communicate downwards. Invasions of their authority by irregular pretenders are the exceptions, not the rule. It is the usual order of things, that the decisions of priests on matters pertaining to religion should be accepted in submissive faith, by the societies to which they belong. Where, as in the case of Jesus of Nazareth, some bold individual brushes aside successfully the pretentions of ecclesiastical castes, the theory is only modified to suit the individual instance. Ecclesiastical castes, deriving their title from the innovator himself, spring up again at once; and differ only in so far as the God whose will they expound is either another God, or a new modification of the same God.

Numerous privileges are generally accorded to priests. Sometimes they enjoy exemptions from the operation of the ordinary laws; sometimes they are permitted a disproportionate share in the government of their country; sometimes, without possessing recognized legislative powers, they control the destinies of nations by the expression of their views. Often, the whole physical force of the government is at their disposal, for the propagation and support of the system they uphold; occasionally, when their authority has reached its highest point, the mere solemn declaration of their commands is enough to ensure the acquiescence of monarchs and the obedience of their subjects. Corresponding to these considerable rights, they perform a considerable variety of functions, which are regarded by the societies who employ them as not only useful, but indispensable. We find them in all primitive communities acting as the recognized doctors of the people, treating their diseases by the method of supernatural inspiration. Rising a little higher, they predict that class of events which is so interesting to each individual, namely, the prospects of his or her life. In other words, they become fortune-tellers, astrologers, or (by whatever means) readers of the future. Or they control the weather, calling down from heaven the needful rain. They are inspired by the deity in whose service they are enrolled, and they announce his will. In his name they threaten evil-doers with punishment, and promise rewards to the faithful and obedient. Benefits from on high are declared to be the lot of those who pay them honor. They proclaim the fact that their presence is essential to the performance of important rites, and that their assistance at these must be duly rewarded. Sometimes they are in possession of knowledge which is only permitted to be imparted to their own caste. They are at all times the authorized expositors of theological dogma, and the authorized guardians of public ritual.

Let us enter on a more detailed account of these several characteristics of the priestly order.

First, it has to be noted that the differentiation of this order from the rest of society is in primitive communities very incomplete. Fathers of families, or any venerable and respected men, act as priests, and perform the requirements of divine worship according to their own notions of propriety. Thus in Samoa, Mr. Turner tells us that "the father of the family was the high-priest, and usually offered a short prayer at the evening meal, that they might all be kept from fines, sickness, war, and death." He also directed on what occasions religious festivals should be held, and it was supposed that the god sometimes spoke through the father or another member of the family (N. Y., p. 239). So in the early period of the history of the Israelites, there was no formal and regular priesthood, and no established ritual. The Levites were not devoted to the functions they subsequently discharged, until, in the course of the Exodus, they had proved their qualification by the holy zeal with which they slaughtered their brethren. It was for the perpetration of this massacre that they were promised by Moses the blessing of God (Exod. xxxii. 25-29). With advancing culture, the necessity for separating priests from laymen is always felt. The ministrations of unskilled hands are not held to be sufficient. Ritual grows fixed; and for a fixed ritual there must be a special apprenticeship. Ceremonies multiply; and the original family prayer having grown into a more elaborate system of worship, takes more time, and demands the attention of a class who make this, and kindred matters, their exclusive occupation.

While, however, the ministers of the gods are thus differentiated from the people at large, they are not differentiated until a later stage from the ministers of the human body. Medicine and priestcraft are for a long time united arts. On this connection, Brinton very justly remarks, that "when sickness is looked upon as the effect of the anger of a god, or as the malicious infliction of a sorcerer, it is natural to seek help from those who assume to control the unseen world, and influence the fiats of the Almighty" (M. N. W., p. 264). Thus in America the native priests were called by the European colonists, "medicine men." The New Zealand priests were "expert jugglers," and when called in to the sick would ascribe some diseases to a piece of wood lodged in the stomach; this they pretended to extract, and produced it in evidence of their assertion. An acquaintance of the author from whom I borrow this fact, saw one of these doctors tear open the leg of a rheumatic patient, and (apparently) take out of it a knotted piece of wood (N. Z., p. 80). In the Fiji islands they occasionally use their medical powers malevolently, instead of benevolently. In Tanna, there was a class of men termed "disease-makers," and greatly dreaded by the people, who thought that these men could exercise the power of life and death, the calamity of death being the result of burning rubbish belonging to the sufferer. When a Tannese was ill, he believed that the disease-maker was burning his rubbish, and would send large presents to induce him to stop; for if it were all burned he would die (N. Y. p. 89-91). The Samoans believed disease to be the result of divine wrath, and sought its remedy at the hands of the high-priest of the village. Whatever he might demand was given; in some cases, however, he did not ask for anything, but merely commanded the family of the patient to "confess, and throw out." Confessing, and throwing out, consisted of a statement by each member of the family of the crimes he had committed, or of the evil he had invoked on the patient or his connections, accompanied by the ceremony of spurting out water from the mouth towards him (N. Y., p. 224). Like the Fijians, the natives of Australia employ priests to cure their illnesses. Their ecclesiastical practitioners "perform incantations over the sick," and also pretend to suck out the disease, producing a piece of bone which they assert to be its cause (S. L. A., p. 226). The Africans have an exactly similar belief in the influence of fetish over disease. Reade observes that epileptic attacks are (as is natural from their mysterious character) ascribed to demoniacal possession, and that fetish-men are called in to cure them. This they attempt to accomplish by elaborate dances and festivities, "at the expense of the next of kin," which sometimes end in driving the patient into the bush in a state of complete insanity. When cured, he "builds a little fetish-house, avoids certain kinds of food, and performs certain duties" (S. A., p. 251). The negroes on the coast of Guinea, when ill, apply to their priest, who informs them what offerings are required to ensure their recovery (D. C. G., p. 213). When an Amazulu is troubled by bad dreams, he applies to a diviner, who recommends certain ceremonies by which the spirit causing the dreams is supposed to be banished. Should he be ill, his friends apply to the diviner, who discovers the source of the illness, and probably demands the sacrifice of a bullock. A remarkable sensitiveness about the shoulders indicates the spiritual character of the doctor. If he fail to remove disease, he is said to have no "Itongo," or spirit, in him (R. S. A., pt. ii. pp. 159, 160, 172). The Fida negroes sent to consult their divine snake through a priest when ill, and the priest (unless he announced that the disease would be fatal) received a reward for indicating the remedies to be used. Moreover, the priests were the physicians of the negroes. Two theories prevailed among the people as to the origin of illnesses. Some tribes held them to be due to evil spirits, who were accordingly driven away by a prescribed system of armed pursuit. But the priests in other places regarded them as a consequence of discord between spirit and soul, and required the patient in the first instance to confess his sins. This being done, they obtain from their deity an indication of the offerings to be made, or the vows to be fulfilled, to restore mental harmony. They then undertook the treatment of the body by physical means (G. d. M., pp. 335, 336). In Sierra Leone, as in other parts of Africa, "the practice of medicine, and the art of making greegrees and fetishes, in other words, amulets ... is generally the province of the same person." Those who practice medicine are looked upon as witches, and believed not only to converse with evil spirits, but to exercise control over them (N. A., vol. i. p. 251). In New France, in the eighteenth century, the principal occupation of the native priests was medicine (N. F. vol. iii. p. 364). In Mexico, the people came from all parts to the priests to be anointed with the peculiar unguent used in the special consecration mentioned above (Supra, p. 116). This they termed a "divine physic," and considered as a cure for their diseases (H. I., b. 5, ch. 26).

Such rude notions as these, implying a supernatural as opposed to a natural theory of the physical conditions of the body, are not wholly extinct even among ourselves. They exist, like so many of the crude conceptions of the savage, in the form of respected survivals wholly inconsistent with our practical habits. True, we do not call in the clergyman to assist or to direct at the sick-bed. But we do ask him to put up prayers for the recovery of the sick; and in the case of royal princes, the clergy throughout the land are set to work to induce the divine Being to give their illnesses a favorable turn. Now, this proceeding, however disguised under refined and imposing forms, is practically on a level with that of the Amazulu, who seeks to pacify the offended spirit that has attacked him with pain by the sacrifice of a bullock; or with that of the Fijian who, when his friend is ill, blows a shell for hours as a call to the disease-maker to stop burning the sick man's rubbish, and as a sign that presents will speedily reach his hands. Nay, the very missionary who relates this Fiji custom gives at least one proof of his fitness to understand the native mind, in a passage showing that in reference to beliefs like these his own was almost on a par with it. A war, of which the missionaries disapproved, had been going on for four months, "and the end of it was, the war was raised against ourselves. After they had been fighting for months among themselves, contrary to all our entreaties, God commenced to punish them with a deadly epidemic in the form of dysentery." Now, the conviction that diseases are punishments sent by some god, or at any rate direct results of an intention on the part of some god to harm the sufferer, is at the root of the priestly, as opposed to the scientific, treatment. For if God punishes with a deadly epidemic, it is an obvious inference that the mode of cure and of prevention is not to take physical remedies, and observe physical precautions, but to avoid the sin for which the punishment is given. And this is the common conclusion of the savage and the Christian, though the superior information of the Christian renders his conduct self-contradictory and confused, where that of the savage is logical and simple.