Ten Great Religions by James Freeman Clarke

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Ten Great Religions

An Essay in Comparative Theology

by

James Freeman Clarke

Prophets who have been since the world began.--Luke i. 70.

Gentiles ... who show the work (or influence) of the (that) law which
is written in their hearts.--Romans ii. 15.

God ... hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all
the face of the earth ... that they should seek the Lord, if haply they
may feel after him and find him.--Acts, xviii. 24-27.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by James Freeman
Clarke, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Copyright, 1899,
By Eliot C. Clarke.

To
William Heney Channing,
My Friend and Fellow-Student
During Many Years,
This Work
Is Affectionately Inscribed.

Preface.

The first six chapters of the present volume are composed from six
articles prepared for the Atlantic Monthly, and published in that magazine
in 1868. They attracted quite as much attention as the writer anticipated,
and this has induced him to enlarge them, and add other chapters. His aim
is to enable the reader to become acquainted with the doctrines and
customs of the principal religions of the world, without having to consult
numerous volumes. He has not come to the task without some preparation,
for it is more than twenty-five years since he first made of this study a
speciality. In this volume it is attempted to give the latest results of
modern investigations, so far as any definite and trustworthy facts have
been attained. But the writer is well aware of the difficulty of being
always accurate in a task which involves such interminable study and such
an amount of details. He can only say, in the words of a Hebrew writer:
"If I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I
desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain
unto."

Contents.

Chapter I.

Introduction.--Ethnic and Catholic Religions.

Sec. 1. Object of the present Work
Sec. 2. Comparative Theology; its Nature, Value, and present Position
Sec. 3. Ethnic Religions. Injustice often done to them by Christian
Apologists
Sec. 4. How Ethnic Religions were regarded by Christ and his Apostles
Sec. 5. Comparative Theology will furnish a new Class of Evidences in
Support of Christianity
Sec. 6. It will show that, while most of the Religions of the World are
Ethnic, or the Religions of Races, Christianity is Catholic, or
adapted to become the Religion of all Races
Sec. 7. It will show that Ethnic Religions are partial, Christianity
universal
Sec. 8. It will show that Ethnic Religions are arrested, but that
Christianity is steadily progressive

Chapter II.

Confucius and the Chinese, or the Prose of Asia.

Sec. 1. Peculiarities of Chinese Civilization
Sec. 2. Chinese Government based on Education. Civil-Service Examinations
Sec. 3. Life and Character of Confucius
Sec. 4. Philosophy and subsequent Development of Confucianism
Sec. 5. Lao-tse and Tao-ism
Sec. 6. Religious Character of the "Kings."
Sec. 7. Confucius and Christianity. Character of the Chinese
Sec. 8. The Tae-ping Insurrection
Note. The Nestorian Inscription in China

Chapter III.

Brahmanism.

Sec. 1. Our Knowledge of Brahmanism. Sir William Jones
Sec. 2. Difficulty of this Study. The Complexity of the System. The
Hindoos have no History. Their Ultra-Spiritualism
Sec. 3. Helps from Comparative Philology. The Aryans in Central Asia
Sec. 4. The Aryans in India. The Native Races. The Vedic Age. Theology
of the Vedas
Sec. 5. Second Period. Laws of Manu. The Brahmanic Age
Sec. 6. The Three Hindoo Systems of Philosophy,--The Sankhya, Vedanta,
and Nyasa
Sec. 7. Origin of the Hindoo Triad
Sec. 8. The Epics, the Puranas, and Modern Hindoo Worship
Sec. 9. Relation of Brahmanism to Christianity

Chapter IV.

Buddhism, or the Protestantism of the East.

Sec. 1. Buddhism, in its Forms, resembles Romanism; in its Spirit,
Protestantism
Sec. 2. Extent of Buddhism. Its Scriptures
Sec. 3. Sakya-muni, the Founder of Buddhism
Sec. 4. Leading Doctrines of Buddhism
Sec. 5. The Spirit of Buddhism Rational and Humane
Sec. 6. Buddhism as a Religion
Sec. 7. Karma and Nirvana
Sec. 8. Good and Evil of Buddhism
Sec. 9. Relation of Buddhism to Christianity

Chapter V.

Zoroaster and the Zend Avesta.

Sec. 1. Ruins of the Palace of Xerxes at Persepolis
Sec. 2. Greek Accounts of Zoroaster. Plutarch's Description of his Religion
Sec. 3. Anquetil du Perron and his Discovery of the Zend Avesta
Sec. 4. Epoch of Zoroaster. What do we know of him?
Sec. 5. Spirit of Zoroaster and of his Religion
Sec. 6. Character of the Zend Avesta
Sec. 7. Later Development of the System in the Bundehesch
Sec. 8. Relation of the Religion of the Zend Avesta to that of the Vedas
Sec. 9. Is Monotheism or pure Dualism the Doctrine of the Zend Avesta
Sec. 10. Relation of this System to Christianity. The Kingdom of Heaven

Chapter VI.

The Gods of Egypt.

Sec. 1. Antiquity and Extent of Egyptian Civilization
Sec. 2. Religious Character of the Egyptians. Their Ritual
Sec. 3. Theology of Egypt. Sources of our Knowledge concerning it
Sec. 4. Central Idea of Egyptian Theology and Religion. Animal Worship
Sec. 5. Sources of Egyptian Theology. Age of the Empire and Affinities of
the Race
Sec. 6. The Three Orders of Gods
Sec. 7. Influence upon Judaism and Christianity

Chapter VII.

The Gods Of Greece.

Sec. 1. The Land and the Race
Sec. 2. Idea and general Character of Greek Religion
Sec. 3. The Gods of Greece before Homer
Sec. 4. The Gods of the Poets
Sec. 5. The Gods of the Artists
Sec. 6. The Gods of the Philosophers
Sec. 7. Worship of Greece
Sec. 8. The Mysteries. Orphism
Sec. 9. Relation of Greek Religion to Christianity

Chapter VIII.

The Religion of Rome.

Sec. 1. Origin and essential Character of the Religion of Rome
Sec. 2. The Gods of Rome
Sec. 3. Worship and Ritual
Sec. 4. The Decay of the Roman Religion
Sec. 5. Relation of the Roman Religion to Christianity

Chapter IX.

The Teutonic and Scandinavian Religion.

Sec. 1. The Land and the Race
Sec. 2. Idea of the Scandinavian Religion
Sec. 3. The Eddas and their Contents
Sec. 4. The Gods of Scandinavia
Sec. 5. Resemblance of the Scandinavian Mythology to that of Zoroaster
Sec. 6. Scandinavian Worship
Sec. 7. Social Character, Maritime Discoveries, and Political Institutions
of the Scandinavians
Sec. 8. Relation of this System to Christianity

Chapter X.

The Jewish Religion.

Sec. 1. Palestine, and the Semitic Races
Sec. 2. Abraham; or, Judaism as the Family Worship of a Supreme Being
Sec. 3. Moses; or, Judaism as the national Worship of a just and holy King
Sec. 4. David; or, Judaism as the personal Worship of a Father and Friend
Sec. 5. Solomon; or, the Religious Relapse
Sec. 6. The Prophets; or, Judaism as a Hope of a spiritual and universal
Kingdom of God
Sec. 7. Judaism as a Preparation for Christianity

Chapter XI.

Mohammed and Islam.

Sec. 1. Recent Works on the Life of Mohammed
Sec. 2. The Arabs and Arabia
Sec. 3. Early Life of Mohammed, to the Hegira
Sec. 4. Change in the Character of Mohammed after the Hegira
Sec. 5. Religious Doctrines and Practices among the Mohammedans
Sec. 6. The Criticism of Mr. Palgrave on Mohammedan Theology
Sec. 7. Mohammedanism a Relapse; the worst Form of Monotheism, and a
retarding Element in Civilization
Note

Chapter XII.

The Ten Religions and Christianity.

Sec. 1. General Results of this Survey
Sec. 2. Christianity a Pleroma, or Fulness of Life
Sec. 3. Christianity, as a Pleroma, compared with Brahmanism,
Confucianism, and Buddhism
Sec. 4. Christianity compared with the Avesta and the Eddas. The Duad in
all Religions
Sec. 5. Christianity and the Religions of Egypt, Greece, and Rome
Sec. 6. Christianity in Relation to Judaism and Mohammedanism. The
Monad in all Religions
Sec. 7. The Fulness of Christianity is derived from the Life of Jesus
Sec. 8. Christianity as a Religion of Progress and of universal Unity

Ten Great Religions.

Chapter I.

Introduction.--Ethnic and Catholic Religions.

Sec. 1. Object of the present Work.
Sec. 2. Comparative Theology; its Nature, Value, and present Position.
Sec. 3. Ethnic Religions. Injustice often done to them by Christian
Apologists.
Sec. 4. How Ethnic Religions were regarded by Christ and his Apostles.
Sec. 5. Comparative Theology will furnish a new Class of Evidences in
Support of Christianity.
Sec. 6. It will show that, while most of the Religions of the World are
Ethnic, or the Religions of Races, Christianity is Catholic, or
adapted to become the Religion of all Races.
Sec. 7. It will show that Ethnic Religions are Partial, Christianity
Universal.
Sec. 8. It will show that Ethnic Religions are arrested, but that
Christianity is steadily progressive.

Sec. 1. Object of the present Work.

The present work is what the Germans call a _Versuch_, and the English an
Essay, or attempt. It is an attempt to compare the great religions of the
world with each other. When completed, this comparison ought to show what
each is, what it contains, wherein it resembles the others, wherein it
differs from the others; its origin and development, its place in
universal history; its positive and negative qualities, its truths and
errors, and its influence, past, present, or future, on the welfare of
mankind. For everything becomes more clear by comparison We can never
understand the nature of a phenomenon when we contemplate it by itself, as
well as when we look at it in its relations to other phenomena of the same
kind. The qualities of each become more clear in contrast with those of
the others. By comparing together, therefore, the religions of mankind,
to see wherein they agree and wherein they differ, we are able to perceive
with greater accuracy what each is. The first problem in Comparative
Theology is therefore analytical, being to distinguish each religion from
the rest. We compare them to see wherein they agree and wherein they
differ. But the next problem in Comparative Theology is synthetical, and
considers the adaptation of each system to every other, to determine its
place, use, and value, in reference to universal or absolute religion. It
must, therefore, examine the different religions to find wherein each is
complete or defective, true or false; how each may supply the defects of
the other or prepare the way for a better; how each religion acts on the
race which receives it, is adapted to that race, and to the region of the
earth which it inhabits. In this department, therefore, it connects itself
with Comparative Geography, with universal history, and with ethics.
Finally, this department of Comparative Theology shows the relation of
each partial religion to human civilization, and observes how each
religion of the world is a step in the progress of humanity. It shows that
both the positive and negative side of a religion make it a preparation
for a higher religion, and that the universal religion must root itself in
the decaying soil of partial religions. And in this sense Comparative
Theology becomes the science of missions.

Such a work as this is evidently too great for a single mind. Many
students must co-operate, and that through many years, before it can be
completed. This volume is intended as a contribution toward that end. It
will contain an account of each of the principal religions, and its
development. It will be, therefore, devoted to the natural history of
ethnic and catholic religions, and its method will be that of analysis.
The second part, which may be published hereafter, will compare these
different systems to show what each teaches concerning the great subjects
of religious thought,--God, Duty, and Immortality. Finally, it will
compare them with Christianity, and will inquire whether or not that is
capable of becoming the religion of the human race.

Sec. 2. Comparative Theology; its Nature, Value, and present Position.

The work of Comparative Theology is to do equal justice to all the
religious tendencies of mankind. Its position is that of a judge, not that
of an advocate. Assuming, with the Apostle Paul, that each religion has
come providentially, as a method by which different races "should seek the
Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him," it attempts to
show how each may be a step in the religious progress of the races, and "a
schoolmaster to bring men to Christ." It is bound, however, to abstain
from such inferences until it has accurately ascertained all the facts.
Its first problem is to learn what each system contains; it may then go
on, and endeavor to generalize from its facts.

Comparative Theology is, therefore, as yet in its infancy. The same
tendency in this century, which has produced the sciences of Comparative
Anatomy, Comparative Geography, and Comparative Philology, is now creating
this new science of Comparative Theology.[1] It will be to any special
theology as Comparative Anatomy is to any special anatomy, Comparative
Geography to any special geography, or Comparative Philology to the study
of any particular language. It may be called a science, since it consists
in the study of the facts of human history, and their relation to each
other. It does not dogmatize: it observes. It deals only with
phenomena,--single phenomena, or facts; grouped phenomena, or laws.

Several valuable works, bearing more or less directly on Comparative
Theology, have recently appeared in Germany, France, and England. Among
these may be mentioned those of Max Mueller, Bunsen, Burnouf, Doellinger,
Hardwicke, St. Hilaire, Duencker, F. C. Baur, Renan, Creuzer, Maurice, G.
W. Cox, and others.

In America, except Mr. Alger's admirable monograph on the "Doctrine of the
Future Life," we have scarcely anything worthy of notice. Mrs. Lydia Maria
Child's work on the "Progress of Religious Ideas" deserves the greatest
credit, when we consider the time when it was written and the few sources
of information then accessible.[2] Twenty-five years ago it was hardly
possible to procure any adequate information concerning Brahmanism,
Buddhism, or the religions of Confucius, Zoroaster, and Mohammed. Hardly
any part of the Vedas had been translated into a European language. The
works of Anquetil du Perron and Kleuker were still the highest authority
upon the Zendavesta. About the Buddhists scarcely anything was known. But
now, though many important _lacunae_ remain to be filled, we have ample
means of ascertaining the essential facts concerning most of these
movements of the human soul. The time seems to have come to accomplish
something which may have a lasting value.

Sec. 3. Ethnic Religions. Injustice often done to them by Christian
Apologists.

Comparative Theology, pursuing its impartial course as a positive science,
will avoid the error into which most of the Christian apologists of the
last century fell, in speaking of ethnic or heathen religions. In order to
show the need of Christianity, they thought it necessary to disparage all
other religions. Accordingly they have insisted that, while the Jewish and
Christian religions were revealed, all other religions were invented;
that, while these were from God, those were the work of man; that, while
in the true religions there was nothing false, in the false religions
there was nothing true. If any trace of truth was to be found in
Polytheism, it was so mixed with error as to be practically only evil. As
the doctrines of heathen religions were corrupt, so their worship was only
a debasing superstition. Their influence was to make men worse, not
better; their tendency was to produce sensuality, cruelty, and universal
degradation. They did not proceed, in any sense, from God; they were not
even the work of good men, but rather of deliberate imposition and
priestcraft. A supernatural religion had become necessary in order to
counteract the fatal consequences of these debased and debasing
superstitions. This is the view of the great natural religions of the
world which was taken by such writers as Leland, Whitby, and Warburton in
the last century. Even liberal thinkers, like James Foster[3] and John
Locke,[4] declare that, at the coming of Christ, mankind had fallen into
utter darkness, and that vice and superstition filled the world. Infidel
no less than Christian writers took the same disparaging view of natural
religions. They considered them, in their source, the work of fraud; in
their essence, corrupt superstitions; in their doctrines, wholly false; in
their moral tendency, absolutely injurious; and in their result,
degenerating more and more into greater evil.

A few writers, like Cudworth and the Platonists, endeavored to put in a
good word for the Greek philosophers, but the religions of the world were
abandoned to unmitigated reprobation. The account which so candid a writer
as Mosheim gives of them is worth noticing, on account of its sweeping
character. "All the nations of the world," he says, "except the Jews, were
plunged in the grossest superstition. Some nations, indeed, went beyond
others in impiety and absurdity, but all stood charged with irrationality
and gross stupidity in matters of religion." "The greater part of the gods
of all nations were ancient heroes, famous for their achievements and
their worthy deeds, such as kings, generals, and founders of cities." "To
these some added the more splendid and useful objects in the natural
world, as the sun, moon, and stars; and some were not ashamed to pay
divine honors to mountains, rivers, trees, etc." "The worship of these
deities consisted in ceremonies, sacrifices, and prayers. The ceremonies
were, for the most part, absurd and ridiculous, and throughout debasing,
obscene, and cruel. The prayers were truly insipid and void of piety, both
in their form and matter." "The priests who presided over this worship
basely abused their authority to impose on the people." "The whole pagan
system had not the least efficacy to produce and cherish virtuous emotions
in the soul; because the gods and goddesses were patterns of vice, the
priests bad men, and the doctrines false."[5]

This view of heathen religions is probably much exaggerated. They must
contain more truth than error, and must have been, on the whole, useful to
mankind. We do not believe that they originated in human fraud, that their
essence is superstition, that there is more falsehood than truth in their
doctrines, that their moral tendency is mainly injurious, or that they
continually degenerate into greater evil. No doubt it may be justly
predicated of all these systems that they contain much which is false and
injurious to human virtue. But the following considerations may tend to
show that all the religions of the earth are providential, and that all
tend to benefit mankind.

To ascribe the vast phenomena of religion, in their variety and
complexity, to man as their author, and to suppose the whole a mere work
of human fraud, is not a satisfactory solution of the facts before us.
That priests, working on human ignorance or fear, should be able to build
up such a great mass of belief, sentiment, and action, is like the Hindoo
cosmogony, which supposes the globe to rest on an elephant, the elephant
on a turtle, and the turtle on nothing at all.

If the people were so ignorant, how happened the priests to be so wise? If
the people were so credulous, why were not the priests credulous too?
"Like people, like priests," is a proverb approved by experience. Among
so many nations and through so many centuries, why has not some one priest
betrayed the secret of the famous imposition? Apply a similar theory to
any other human institution, and how patent is its absurdity! Let a
republican contend that all other forms of government--the patriarchal
system, government by castes, the feudal system, absolute and limited
monarchies, oligarchies, and aristocracies--are wholly useless and evil,
and were the result of statecraft alone, with no root in human nature or
the needs of man. Let one maintain that every system of _law_ (except our
own) was an invention of lawyers for private ends. Let one argue in the
same way about medicine, and say that this is a pure system of quackery,
devised by physicians, in order to get a support out of the people for
doing nothing. We should at once reply that, though error and ignorance
may play a part in all these institutions, they cannot be based on error
and ignorance only. Nothing which has not in it some elements of use can
hold its position in the world during so long a time and over so wide a
range. It is only reasonable to say the same of heathen or ethnic
religions. They contain, no doubt, error and evil. No doubt priestcraft
has been carried very far in them, though not further perhaps than it has
sometimes been carried in Christianity. But unless they contained more of
good than evil, they could not have kept their place. They partially
satisfied a great hunger of the human heart. They exercised some restraint
on human wilfulness and passion. They have directed, however imperfectly,
the human conscience toward the right. To assume that they are wholly evil
is disrespectful to human nature. It supposes man to be the easy and
universal dupe of fraud. But these religions do not rest on such a sandy
foundation, but on the feeling of dependence, the sense of accountability,
the recognition of spiritual realities very near to this world of matter,
and the need of looking up and worshipping some unseen power higher and
better than ourselves. A decent respect for the opinions of mankind
forbids us to ascribe pagan religions to priestcraft as their chief
source.

And a reverence for Divine Providence brings us to the same conclusion.
Can it be that God has left himself without a witness in the world, except
among the Hebrews in ancient times and the Christians in modern times?
This narrow creed excludes God from any communion with the great majority
of human beings. The Father of the human race is represented as selecting
a few of his children to keep near himself, and as leaving all the rest to
perish in their ignorance and error. And this is not because they are
prodigal children who have gone astray into a far country of their own
accord; for they are just where they were placed by their Creator. HE "has
determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation."
HE has caused some to be born in India, where they can only hear of him
through Brahmanism; and some in China, where they can know him only
through Buddha and Confucius. The doctrine which we are opposing is; that,
being put there by God, they are born into hopeless error, and are then
punished for their error by everlasting destruction. The doctrine for
which we contend is that of the Apostle Paul, that God has "determined
beforehand the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord,
IF HAPLY THEY MAY FEEL AFTER HIM AND FIND HIM." Paul teaches that "all
nations dwelling on all the face of the earth" may not only seek and feel
after God, but also FIND him. But as all living in heathen lands are
heathen, if they find God at all, they must find him through heathenism.
The pagan religions are the effort of man to feel after God. Otherwise we
must conclude that the Being without whom not a sparrow falls to the
ground, the Being who never puts an insect into the air or a polyp into
the water without providing it with some appropriate food, so that it may
live and grow, has left the vast majority of his human children, made with
religious appetences of conscience, reverence, hope, without a
corresponding nutriment of truth. This view tends to atheism; for if the
presence of adaptation everywhere is the legitimate proof of creative
design, the absence of adaptation in so important a sphere tends, so far,
to set aside that proof.

The view which we are opposing contradicts that law of progress which
alone gives meaning and unity to history. Instead of progress, it teaches
degeneracy and failure. But elsewhere we see progress, not recession.
Geology shows us higher forms of life succeeding to the lower. Botany
exhibits the lichens and mosses preparing a soil for more complex forms of
vegetation. Civil history shows the savage state giving way to the
semi-civilized, and that to the civilized. If heathen religions are a
step, a preparation for Christianity, then this law of degrees appears
also in religion; then we see an order in the progress of the human
soul,--"first the blade, then the ear, afterward the full corn in the
ear." Then we can understand why Christ's coming was delayed till the
fulness of the time had come. But otherwise all, in this most important
sphere of human life, is in disorder, without unity, progress, meaning, or
providence.