[11. THE ORIGIN OF GODS.]
At first glance it may seem presumptuous even to raise the question as to how gods originated. Have they not always existed? one is inclined to ask. As a matter of fact, this is the opinion of most historians, particularly of historians of religion. They hold that the belief in gods is underived. Degenerate forms may arise, the belief may at times even disappear altogether or be displaced by a crude belief in magic and demons, but it itself can in no wise have been developed from anything else, for it was possessed by mankind from the very beginning. Were it true that the belief in gods represents an original possession of mankind, our question concerning the origin of gods would be invalidated. The assumption, however, is disproved by the facts of ethnology. There are peoples without gods. True, there are no peoples without some sort of supersensuous beings. Nevertheless, to call all such beings 'gods'—beings, for example, such as sickness-demons or the demons which leave the corpse and threaten the living—would appear to be a wholly unwarranted extension of the conception of deity. Unbiased observation goes to show that there are no peoples without certain conceptions that may be regarded as precursors of the later god-ideas. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that there are some peoples without gods. The Veddahs of Ceylon, the so-called nature-Semangs and Senoi of Malacca, the natives of Australia, and many other peoples of nature as well, possess no gods, in our sense of the word. Because all of these primitive peoples interpret certain natural phenomena—such as clouds, winds, and stars—in an anthropomorphic fashion, it has been attempted time and again to establish the presence of the god-idea of higher religions. Such attempts, however, may be straightway characterized as a play with superficial analogies in which no thought whatsoever is taken of the real content of the god-conception.
Accepting the lead of ethnological facts, then, let us grant that there are stages in the development of the myth in which real gods are lacking. Even so, two opposing views are possible concerning the relation of such 'prereligious' conditions to the origin of the god-ideas essential to religion. Indeed, these views still actively compete with each other in the science of religion. On the one hand, it is maintained that the god-idea is original, and that belief in demons, totemism, fetishism, and ancestor worship are secondary and degenerate derivatives. On the other hand, the gods are regarded as products of a mythological development, and, in so far, as analogous to the State, which grew up in the course of political development out of the primitive forms of tribal organization. Those who defend the first of these views subscribe to a degeneration theory. If the ancestors reverenced in cult are degenerated deities, and if the same is true of demons and even of fetishes, then the main course of religious development has obviously been downward and not upward. The representatives of the second view, on the contrary, assume an upward or progressive tendency. If demons, fetishes, and the animal or human ancestors worshipped in cult antedate gods, the latter must have developed from the former. Thus, the views concerning the origin of gods may be classified as theories of degeneration and theories of development.
But the theories of degeneration themselves fall into two classes. The one upholds an original monotheism, the basis of which is claimed to be either an innate idea of God or a revelation made to all mankind. Obviously this assumption is itself more nearly a belief than a scientific hypothesis. As a belief, it may be accounted for in terms of a certain religious need. This explains how it happens that, in spite of the multiplication of contradictory facts, the theory has been repeatedly urged in comparatively recent times. Only a short time ago, even a distinguished ethnologist, Wilhelm Schmidt, attempted to prove that such an original monotheism was without doubt a dominant belief among the so-called Pygmies, who must, in general, be classed with primitive peoples. The argument adduced in support of this view, however, unquestionably lacks the critical caution otherwise characteristic of this investigator. One cannot escape the conviction that, in this case, personal religious needs influenced the ethnological views, even though one may well doubt whether the degeneration theory is a theory that is suited to satisfy such needs.[1] The second class of theories adopts the view that the basis of all religious development was not monotheism but primitive polytheism. This polytheism is supposed to have originated, at a very early age, in the impression made by the starry heavens, particularly by the great heavenly bodies, the sun and the moon. Here for the first time, it is maintained, man was confronted by a world far transcending his own realm of sense perception; because of the multiplicity of the motives that were operative, it was not the idea of one deity but the belief in many deities that was evoked. In essential contrast with the preceding view, this class of theories regards all further development as upward. Monotheism is held to be a refined religious product of earlier polytheistic conceptions. In so far, the hypothesis represents a transition to developmental theories proper. It cannot be counted among the latter, however, for it holds to the originality of the god-idea, believing that this conception, which is essential to all religion, was not itself the product of development, but formed an original element of man's natural endowment. Moreover, the theory attaches a disproportionate significance to the transition from many gods to a single god. It is doubtful, to say the least, whether the intrinsic value of the god-idea may be measured merely in terms of this numerical standard. Furthermore, the fact is undeniable that philosophy alone really exhibits an absolute monotheism. A pure monotheistic belief probably never existed in the religion of any people, not even in that of the Israelites, whose national deity, Jahve, was not at all the sole god in the sense of a strict monotheism. When the Decalogue says, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," this does not deny the existence of gods other than Jahve, but merely prohibits the Israelites from worshipping any other deity. These other gods, however, are the national gods of other peoples. Not only do these other tribal gods exist alongside of Jahve, but the patriarchal sagas centre about individuals that resemble now demonic and now divine beings. The most remarkable of these figures is Jacob. In the account of his personality there seem to be mingled legends of differing origin, dating from a time probably far earlier than the developed Jahve cult. The scene with his father-in-law, Laban, represents him as a sort of crafty märchen-hero. He cheats Laban through his knowledge of magic, gaining for himself the choicest of the young lambs by constructing the watering troughs of half-peeled rods of wood—a striking example of so-called imitative magic. On the other hand, Jacob is portrayed as the hero who rolls from the well's mouth the stone which all the servants of Laban could not move. And finally, when he wrestles with Jahve by night on the bank of the stream and is not overcome until the break of day, we are reminded either of a mighty Titan of divine lineage, or possibly of the river demon who, according to ancient folk belief, threatens to engulf every one who crosses the stream, be it even a god. But what is true of the figures of the patriarchal sagas applies also, in part, to Jahve himself. In the remarkable scene in which Jahve visits Abraham near the terebinths of Mamre, he associates with the patriarch as a primus inter pares. He allows Sarah to bake him a cake and to wash his feet, and he then promises Abraham a numerous posterity. He appears as a man among men, though, of course, as one who is superior and who possesses magical power. Only gradually does the god acquire the remoteness of the superhuman. Abraham is later represented as falling down before him, and as scarcely daring to approach him. Here also, however, the god still appears on earth. Finally, when he speaks to Moses from the burning bush, only his voice is perceptible. Thus, his sensuous form vanishes more and more, until we come to the Jahve who uses the prophets as his mouthpiece and is present to them only as a spiritual being. The purified Jahve cult, therefore, was not an original folk-religion. It was the product of priests and prophets, created by them out of a polytheism which contained a rich profusion of demon conceptions, and which was never entirely suppressed.
If an original monotheism is nowhere to be found, one might be tempted to believe conversely, that polytheism represents the starting-point of all mythology. In fact, until very recently this was doubtless the consensus of opinion among mythologists and historians of religion, and the idea is still widely prevalent. For, if we hold in any way to the view that the god-idea is underived, there is but one recourse, once we abandon the idea of an original monotheism. The polytheistic theory is, as a rule, connected with the further contention that god-ideas are directly due to celestial phenomena. In substantiation of this view, it is pointed out that, with the exception of the gods of the underworld, the gods are usually supposed to dwell in the heavens. Accordingly, it is particularly the great heavenly bodies, the sun and the moon, or also the clouds and storms, to which—now to the one and now to the other, according to their particular tendency—these theories trace the origin of the gods. Celestial phenomena were present to man from the beginning, and it is supposed that they aroused his reflection from earliest times on. Those mythologists who champion the celestial theory of the origin of religion, therefore, regard god-ideas as in great measure the products of intellectual activity; these ideas are supposed to represent a sort of primitive explanation of nature, though an explanation, of course, which, in contrast to later science, is fantastical, arbitrary, and under the control of emotion. During the past century, moreover, this class of hypotheses has gradually placed less emphasis on emotional as compared with rational factors. In the first instance, it was the phenomena of storms, clouds, thunder, and lightning that were thought to be the basis of deity belief; later, the sun came to be regarded as the embodiment of the chief god; the present tendency is to emphasize particularly the moon, whose changing phases may easily give rise to various mythological ideas. Does not the proverbial 'man in the moon' survive even to-day as a well-known fragment of mythological conceptions of this sort? Similarly, the crescent moon suggests a sword, a club, a boat, and many other things which, though not conceived as gods, may at any rate be regarded as their weapons or implements. The gods, we are told, then gradually became distinguished from celestial objects and became independent personal beings. The heroes of the hero saga are said to be degenerated gods, as it were. When the myth attributes a divine parentage to the hero, or allows him to enter the realm of the gods upon his death, this is interpreted as indicative of a vague memory that the hero was once himself a god. The lowest place in the scale of heroes is given to the märchen-hero, though he also is supposed in the last analysis to have originated as a celestial deity. The märchen itself is thus regarded as the last stage in the decline of the myth, whose development is held to have been initiated in the distant past by the celestial myth. Accordingly, the most prevalent present-day tendency of nature mythology is to assume an orderly development of a twofold sort. On the one hand, the moon is regarded as having been the earliest object of cult, followed by the sun and the stars. Later, it is supposed, a distinction was made between gods and celestial objects, though the former were still given many celestial attributes. On the other hand, it is held that the gods were more and more anthropomorphized; their celestial origin becoming gradually obscured, they were reduced to heroes of various ranks, ranging from the heroic figures of the saga to the heroes of children's märchen. These theories of an original polytheism are rendered one-sided by the very fact that they are not based upon any investigations whatsoever concerning the gods and myths actually prevalent in folk-belief. They merely give an interpretation of hypothetical conceptions which are supposed to be original, and it is from these that the gods of actual belief are derived. Those who proceed thus believe that the task of the psychologist of religion and of the mythologist is completed with the demonstration that back of every deity of myth there lurks a celestial phenomenon. It has been maintained, for example, that every feature of the Biblical legend of Paradise had its origin in ideas connected with the moon. Paradise itself is the moon. The flaming sword of the angel who guards Paradise is the crescent moon. Adam is either the half-moon or the familiar man in the moon. Finally, Adam's rib, out of which Eve was created, is again the crescent moon.
We need not raise the question whether such a mode of treatment ever correctly interprets any actual mythological conception, or whether it represents nothing other than the creation of the mythologist's imagination. This much is clear, that it leaves out of consideration precisely those mythological ideas and religious views that really live in folk-belief. Doubtless we may assume that celestial phenomena occasionally factored as assimilative elements in the formation of mythological conceptions. But such conceptions cannot possibly have been due exclusively to celestial factors, for the very reason that, even where these are indubitably present, they are inextricably interwoven with terrestrial elements derived from man's immediate environment. Consider, for example, the figure of Helios in Greek mythology. His very name so inevitably suggests the sun that this connection remained unsevered throughout later development. Nevertheless, the Greeks no more identified the god Helios with the sun than they did Zeus himself with thunder and lightning. On the contrary, these celestial phenomena were all only attributes of deities. The god stands in the background, and, in the idea which man forms of him, the image of human heroes plays no less a part than do the impressions made by the shining heavenly bodies. These various interpretations of nature mythology, therefore, overlook an important psychological factor which is operative even in elemental experiences, but which attains increasing significance in proportion as the psychical processes become more complicated, and especially, therefore, in the formation of mythological conceptions. I refer to the assimilative fusion of psychical elements of differing origins. No external object is perceived precisely as it is immediately given in reality. In the experience of it, there are fused numerous elements whose source is within ourselves; these partly reinforce and partly suppress the given elements, thus producing what we call the 'perception' or the 'apprehension' of the object. The process of assimilation is greatly influenced by the emotions that may be present. To the frightened person, thunder and lightning suggest a god who hurls the lightning. Such a person believes that he really sees this god. Either the surrounding portions of the sky assume, in his imagination, the form of an immense anthropomorphic being, or the thunder and lightning lead his gaze to the canopy of clouds, hidden back of which he thinks that he discovers, at least in vague outline, the thundering Zeus. To gain some appreciation of the tremendous potency of assimilative processes, one need but recall certain situations of ordinary life, such as are experienced even apart from the influence of fear or ecstasy. Consider, for example, the vivid impression that may be aroused by theatrical scenery, which in reality consists of little more than suggestive outlines. A particularly striking illustration is offered also by the familiar puzzle pictures. In a picture of the foliage of a tree there are sketched the outlines of a human face or of the head of a cat. An uninitiated observer sees at first only the foliage. Not until his attention has been directed to it does he suddenly discover the head. Once, however, he has seen the latter, he cannot suppress it, try as he may. Here again it is sometimes but a few indistinct outlines that evoke the picture. The truth is that to a very great extent the observer reads the head into the drawing through the activity of his imagination. Now, it is but natural that such an assimilation should be immeasurably enhanced under the influence of the emotions which excite the mythological imagination. As is well known, Apollo, as well as Helios, was represented by the image of the sun. This image, however, was even less adequate to embody the idea of the Greek in the former case than it was in the latter. The Greek was able, however, to imagine the radiant sun as an attribute of the deity or as a manifestation of his activity. He could see in the sun the shield or chariot of the god; in the sun's rays, his missiles. Here again, however, he had in mind the indefinite outlines of a powerful anthropomorphic god, who could become independent of the natural phenomenon according as his name was free from connection with it.
Thus, even those nature gods who might appear to be purely celestial deities, as, for example, Helios, or the lightning-hurling Zeus, are the products of a psychological assimilation of perceptual elements, the most important of which have their ultimate source in terrestrial life. Hence it is that, wherever the nature myth has reached its complete development, the gods appear in human form. It is only in an age still influenced by totemic ideas that zoömorphism occurs alongside of anthropomorphism, or in combination with it. Of such figures, the one which maintained itself longest—as is shown by the history of ancient Egypt—was that of a human body with the head of an animal. After this connection of an incipient deity cult with the ideas of the preceding age had disappeared, the only remaining trace of totemism was the fact that an animal was represented as accompanying the deity. Eventually the animal became a mere symbol used by art in its pictorial representations of the god. Doubtless the lamb, as a symbol of Christ, may be regarded as a late survival of a stage of deity belief which was still semi-totemic, and under the influence of the sacred animals of older cultural religions. The expression 'sacred animals,' moreover, points to the fact that the worship and veneration paid to the god influenced also the attitude taken toward the animal. But however far this development of the god-idea may have advanced, the essential elements of the conception nevertheless remained of terrestrial origin. In the mythological assimilation-complexes that gave rise to gods, celestial phenomena furnished but a part of the elements. At best, they were the exciting stimuli; in many cases, it is doubtful whether they exercised any influence whatsoever upon the origin of mythological conceptions. Whether, for example, the crescent moon has actually any connection with the flaming sword of the angel of Paradise, or whether it suggested the club of Hercules, this and much else is possible, but is incapable of demonstration. Even where this influence upon mythological conceptions is incontestable, celestial phenomena are subordinate to terrestrial factors, and in most cases they have left no trace in consciousness. Proof of the dominant importance of the terrestrial environment is not far to seek. Even the celestial gods are conceived as men or as anthropomorphic beings, and it is usually the earth that is regarded as the scene of their activity.
The theories maintaining the originality of the god-idea have more and more been displaced by the contrary view, namely, that the gods developed out of lower forms of mythological thought. Here there are two distinct interpretations. The first and the older is the ancestor theory. This represents a particular form of animism, for the soul of the ancestor is thought to become a god. The worship of the god, therefore, is held to have been originally a reverence paid to the ancestor. The main evidence for this view is found in the ancestor worship which is actually being practised, among many peoples, even at the present time. Prior to the Jahve religion, such a cult is supposed to have prevailed even among the Israelites. Do not the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob appear as the ancestors of the later tribes of Israel? More significant still are the ancestor cults that have prevailed in China and Japan since very ancient times. It should be remembered, however, that these cults, wherever they occur, represent but more or less prominent elements of more extensive mythological and religious conceptions. Hence the ancestor theory, also, is an arbitrary construction based on a presupposition which is in itself very improbable, namely, that all mythology and religion must eventually be traceable to a single source. The contention, for example, that a Zeus or a Jahve was a human ancestor elevated into a deity is a completely arbitrary supposition, lacking the confirmation of empirical facts.
Finally, there is another theory which, like the ancestor hypothesis, seeks to derive gods, or at least the beings generally regarded as gods, from more primitive mythological ideas. This theory, which was developed by Hermann Usener, the most prominent student of the science of religion among recent classical philologists, might perhaps be referred to, in distinction from the soul and ancestor hypothesis, as the demon theory of the origin of gods. Usener agrees with the rival hypothesis in assuming that the exalted celestial deities were not the first of the higher beings who were feared or worshipped in a cult, but that there were other more temporary gods. Though these many temporary gods are described as demoniacal beings, they are nevertheless regarded as gods of a primitive sort. Usener distinguishes three stages in the development of gods. First, there was the 'god of the moment.' Some phenomenon—such, for example, as a flash of lightning or a clap of thunder—was felt to be divine. But, inasmuch as the impression was vanishing, the mythological idea in question was that of a 'god of the moment.' Then followed a second stage, in which a demoniacal power was associated with a particular place. Following upon these local gods came other gods, representing the guardian powers of a tribe, a vocation, or some other social group. At the third stage of development, the 'particular god' acquired a personal nature, and thus finally became a god proper. The gods of this final stage are called by Usener 'personal gods.'