Ten Great Religions by James Freeman Clarke

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"He then proceeds:--

'He is one, self-proceeding; and from him alone all things proceed,
And in them he himself exerts his activity; no mortal
Beholds him, but he beholds all.'"

Professor Cocker, in his work on "Christianity and Greek Philosophy," has
devoted much thought to show that philosophy was a preparation for
Christianity, and that Greek civilization was an essential condition to
the progress of the Gospel. He points out how Greek intelligence and
culture, literature and art, trade and colonization, the universal spread
of the Greek language, and especially the results of Greek philosophy,
were "schoolmasters to bring men to Christ." He quotes a striking passage
from Pressense to this effect. Philosophy in Greece, says Pressense, had
its place in the divine plan. It dethroned the false gods. It purified the
idea of divinity.

Cocker sums up this work of preparation done by Greek philosophy, as
seen,--

"1. In the release of the popular mind from polytheistic notions, and
the purifying and spiritualizing of the theistic idea.

"2. In the development of the theistic argument in a logical form.

"3. In the awakening and enthronement of conscience as a law of duty,
and in the elevation and purification of the moral idea.

"4. In the fact that, by an experiment conducted on the largest scale,
it demonstrated the insufficiency of reason to elaborate a perfect
ideal of moral excellence, and develop the moral forces necessary to
secure its realization.

"5. It awakened and deepened the consciousness of guilt and the desire
for redemption."[267]

The large culture of Greece was evidently adapted to Christianity. The
Jewish mind recognized no such need as that of universal culture, and this
tendency of Christianity could only have found room and opportunity among
those who had received the influence of Hellenic culture.

The points of contact between Christianity and Greek civilization are
therefore these:--

1. The character of God, considered in both as an immanent, ever-working
presence, and not merely as a creating and governing will outside the
universe.

2. The character of man, as capable of education and development, who is
not merely to obey as a servant, but to co-operate as a friend, with the
divine will, and grow up in all things.

3. The idea of duty, as a reasonable service, and not a yoke.

4. God's revelations, as coming, not only in nature, but also in inspired
men, and in the intuitions of the soul; a conception which resulted in the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

The good of polytheism was that it saw something divine in nature. By
dividing God into numberless deities, it was able to conceive of some
divine power in all earthly objects. Hence Wordsworth, complaining that
we can see little of this divinity now in nature, cries out:--

"Good God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."

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.

Sec. 1. Origin and essential Character of the Religion of Rome.

In the Roman state nothing grew, everything was made. The practical
understanding was the despotic faculty in the genius of this people.
Fancy, imagination, humor, seem to have been omitted in the character of
the Latin race. The only form of wit which appeared among them was satire,
that is, wit used for a serious purpose, to punish crimes not amenable to
other laws, to remove abuses not to be reached by the ordinary police. The
gay, light-hearted Greek must have felt in Rome very much as a Frenchman
feels in England. The Romans did not know how to amuse themselves; they
pursued their recreations with ferocious earnestness, making always a
labor of their pleasure. They said, indeed, that it was well _sometimes_
to unbend, _Dulce est desipere in locis_; but a Roman when unbent was like
an unbent bow, almost as stiff as before.

In other words, all spontaneity was absent from the Roman mind. Everything
done was done on purpose, with a deliberate intention. This also appears
in their religion. Their religion was not an inspiration, but an
intention. It was all regular, precise, exact. The Roman cultus, like the
Roman state, was a compact mass, in which all varieties were merged into a
stern unity. All forms of religion might come to Rome and take their
places in its pantheon, but they must come as servants and soldiers of
the state. Rome opened a hospitable asylum to them, just as Rome had
established a refuge on the Capitoline Hill to which all outlaws might
come and be safe, on the condition of serving the community.

As everything in Rome must serve the state, so the religion of Rome was a
state institution, an established church. But as the state can only
command and forbid outward actions, and has no control over the heart, so
the religion of Rome was essentially external. It was a system of worship,
a ritual, a ceremony. If the externals were properly attended to, it took
no notice of opinions or of sentiments. Thus we find in Cicero ("De Natura
Deorum") the chief pontiff arguing against the existence of the gods and
the use of divination. He claims to believe in religion as a pontifex,
while he argues against it as a philosopher. The toleration of Rome
consisted in this, that as long as there was outward conformity to
prescribed observances, it troubled itself very little about opinions. It
said to all religions what Gallio said to the Jews: "If it be a question
of words and names and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge
of such matters." Gallio was a genuine representative of Roman sentiment.
With religion, as long as it remained within the limits of opinion or
feeling, the magistrate had nothing to do; only when it became an act of
disobedience to the public law it was to be punished. Indeed, the very
respect for national law in the Roman mind caused it to legalize in Rome
the worship of national gods. They considered it the duty of the Jews, in
Rome, to worship the Jewish God; of Egyptians, in Rome, to worship the
gods of Egypt. "Men of a thousand nations," says Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, "come to the city, and must worship the gods of their
country, according to their laws at home." As long as the Christians in
Rome were regarded as a Jewish sect, their faith was a _religio licita_,
when it was understood to be a departure from Judaism, it was then a
criminal rebellion against a national faith[268].

The Roman religion has often been considered as a mere copy of that of
Greece, and has therefore been confounded with it, as very nearly the same
system. No doubt the Romans were imitators; they had no creative
imagination. They borrowed and begged their stories about the gods, from
Greece or elsewhere. But Hegel has long ago remarked that the resemblance
between the two religions is superficial. The gods of Rome, he says, are
practical gods, not theoretic; prosaic, not poetic. The religion of Rome
is serious and earnest, while that of Greece is gay. Dionysius of
Halicarnassus thinks the Roman religion the better of the two, because it
rejected the blasphemous myths concerning the loves and quarrels of the
heavenly powers. But, on the other hand, the deities of Greece were more
living and real persons, with characters of their own. The deities of Rome
were working gods, who had each a task assigned to him. They all had some
official duty to perform; while the gods of Olympus could amuse themselves
as they pleased. While the Zeus of Greece spent his time in adventures,
many of which were disreputable, the Jupiter Capitolinus remained at home,
attending to his sole business, which was to make Rome the mistress of the
world. The gods of Rome, says Hegel, are not human beings, like those of
Greece, but soulless machines, gods made by the understanding, even when
borrowed from Greek story. They were worshipped also in the interest of
the practical understanding, as givers of earthly fortune. The Romans had
no real reverence for their gods; they worshipped them in no spirit of
adoring love, but always for some useful object. It was a utilitarian
worship. Accordingly the practical faculties, engaged in useful arts, were
deified. There was a Jupiter Pistor, presiding over bakers. There was a
goddess of ovens; and a Juno Moneta, who took care of the coin. There was
a goddess who presided over doing nothing, Tranquillitas Vacuna; and even
the plague had an altar erected to it. But, after all, no deities were so
great, in the opinion of the Romans, as Rome itself. The chief distinction
of these deities was that they belonged to the Roman state[269].

Cicero considers the Romans to be the most religious of all nations,
because they carried their religion into all the details of life. This is
true; but one might as well consider himself a devout worshipper of iron
or of wood, because he is always using these materials, in doors and out,
in his parlor, kitchen, and stable.

As the religion of Rome had no doctrinal system, its truths were
communicated mostly by spectacles and ceremonies, which chiefly consisted
in the wholesale slaughter of men and animals. There was something
frightful in the extent to which this was carried; for when cruelty
proceeds from a principle and purpose, it is far worse than when arising
from brutal passion. An angry man may beat his wife; but the deliberate,
repeated, and ingenious torments of the Inquisition, the massacre of
thousands of gladiators in a Roman amphitheatre, or the torture of
prisoners by the North American Indians, are all parts of a system, and
reinforced by considerations of propriety, duty, and religious reverence.

Mommsen remarks[270], that the Roman religion in all its details was a
reflection of the Roman state. When the constitution and institutions of
Rome changed, their religion changed with them. One illustration of this
correspondence he finds in the fact that when the Romans admitted the
people of a conquered state to become citizens of Rome, their gods were
admitted with them; but in both cases the new citizens _(novensides_)
occupied a subordinate position to the old settlers _(indigites[271]_).

That the races of Italy, among whom the Latin language originated, were of
the same great Asiatic stock as the Greeks, Germans, Kelts, and Slavic
tribes, is sufficiently proved by the unimpeachable evidence of language.
The old Latin roots and grammatic forms all retain the analogies of the
Aryan families. Their gods and their religion bear marks of the same
origin, yet with a special and marked development. For the Roman nation
was derived from at least three secondary sources,--the Latins, Sabines,
and Etruscans. To these may be added the Pelasgian settlers on the western
coast (unless these are included in the Etruscan element), and the very
ancient race of Siculi or Sikels, whose name suggests, by its phonetic
analogy, a branch of that widely wandering race, the Kelts[272]. But the
obscure and confused traditions of these Italian races help us very little
in our present inquiry. That some of the oldest Roman deities were Latin,
others Sabine, and others Etruscan, is, however, well ascertained. From
the Latin towns Alba and Lavinium came the worship of Vesta, Jupiter,
Juno, Saturn and Tellus, Diana and Mars. Niebuhr thinks that the Sabine
ritual was adopted by the Romans, and that Varro found the real remains of
Sabine chapels on the Quirinal. From Etruria came the system of
divination. Some of the oldest portions of the Roman religion were derived
from agriculture. The god Saturn took his name from sowing. Picus and
Faunus were agricultural gods. Pales, the goddess of herbage, had
offerings of milk on her festivals. The Romans, says Doellinger, had no
cosmogony of their own; a practical people, they took the world as they
found it, and did not trouble themselves about its origin. Nor had they
any favorite deities; they worshipped according to what was proper, every
one in turn at the right time. Though the most polytheistic of religions,
there ran through their system an obscure conception of one supreme being,
Jupiter Optimus-Maximus, of whom all the other deities were but qualities
and attributes. But they carried furthest of all nations this
personifying and deifying of every separate power, this minute subdivision
of the deity. Heffter[273] says this was carried to an extent which was
almost comic. They had divinities who presided over talkativeness and
silence, over beginnings and endings, over the manuring of the fields, and
over all household transactions. And as the number increased, it became
always more difficult to recollect which was the right god to appeal to
under any special circumstances. So that often they were obliged to call
on the gods in general, and, dismissing the whole polytheistic pantheon,
to invoke some unknown god, or the supreme being. Sometimes, however, in
these emergencies, new deities were created for the occasion. Thus they
came to invoke the pestilence, defeat in battle, blight, etc., as
dangerous beings whose hostility must be placated by sacrifices. A better
part of their mythology was the worship of Modesty (Pudicitia), Faith or
Fidelity (Fides), Concord (Concordia), and the gods of home. It was the
business of the pontiffs to see to the creation of new divinities. So the
Romans had a goddess Pecunia, money (from Pecus, cattle), dating from the
time when the circulating medium consisted in cows and sheep. But when
copper money came, a god of copper was added, AEsculanus; and when silver
money was invented, a god Argentarius arrived.

Sec. 2. The Gods of Rome.

Creuzer, in speaking of the Italian worship, says that "one fact which
emerges more prominently than any other is the concourse of Oriental,
Pelasgic, Samothracian, and Hellenic elements in the religion of Rome." In
like manner the Roman deities bear traces of very different sources. We
have found reason to believe, in our previous chapters, that the religion
of Egypt had a twofold origin, from Asiatic and African elements, and that
the religion of Greece, in like manner, was derived from Egyptian and
Pelasgic sources. So, too, we find the institutions and people of Rome
partaking of a Keltic and Pelasgic origin. Let us now see what was the
character of the Roman deities.

* * * * *

One of the oldest and also most original of the gods of Rome was the
Sabine god JANUS. He was the deity who presided over beginnings and
endings, over the act of opening and shutting. Hence the month which
opened the year, January, received its name from this god, who also gave
his name to Janua, a gate or door[274], and probably to the hill
Janiculum[275].

The Romans laid great stress on all beginnings; believing that the
commencement of any course of conduct determined, by a sort of magical
necessity, its results. Bad success in an enterprise they attributed to a
wrong beginning, and the only remedy, therefore, was to begin anew. Ovid
(Fasti, I. 179) makes Janus say, "All depends on the beginning." When
other gods were worshipped, Janus was invoked first of all. He was god of
the year. His temple had four sides for the four seasons, and each side
had three windows for the months. That his temple was open in war, but
closed in peace, indicated that the character of Rome in times of war was
to attack and not to defend. She then opened her gates to send her troops
forth against the enemy; while in seasons of peace she shut them in at
home. This symbol accords well with the haughty courage of the Republic,
which commanded victory, by not admitting the possibility of defeat[276].

This deity is believed by Creuzer and others to have had an Indian origin,
and his name to have been derived from the Sanskrit "Jan," _to be born_.
He resembles no Greek god, and very probably travelled all the way from
Bactria to Rome.

On the Kalends of January, which was the chief feast of Janus, it was the
duty of every Roman citizen to be careful that all he thought, said, or
did should be pure and true, because this day determined the character of
the year. All dressed themselves in holiday garb, avoided oaths, abusive
words, and quarrels, gave presents, and wished each other a happy year.
The presents were little coins with a Janus-head, and sweetmeats. It was
customary to sacrifice to Janus at the beginning of all important
business.

Janus was the great god of the Sabines, and his most ancient temple
appears to have been on Mount Janiculum[277]. The altar of Fontus, son of
Janus, and the tomb of Numa, a Sabine king, were both supposed to be
there. Ovid also[278] makes Janus say that the Janiculum was his citadel.
Ampere remarks as a curious coincidence, that this god, represented with a
key in his hand, as the heavenly gate-keeper, should have his home on the
hill close to the Vatican, where is the tomb of Peter, who also bears a
key with the same significance. The same writer regards the Sabines as
inhabiting the hills of Rome before the Pelasgi came and gave this name of
Roma (meaning "strength") to their small fortress on one side of the
Palatine.

In every important city of Etruria there were temples to the three gods,
JUPITER, JUNO, and MINERVA. In like manner, the magnificent temple of the
Capitol at Rome consisted of three parts,--a nave, sacred to Jupiter; and
two wings or aisles, one dedicated to Juno and the other to Minerva. This
temple was nearly square, being two hundred and fifteen feet long and two
hundred feet wide; and the wealth accumulated in it was immense. The walls
and roof were of marble, covered with gold and silver.

JUPITER, the chief god of Rome, according to most philologists, derives
his name (like the Greek [Greek: Zeos]) from the far-away Sanskrit word "Div" or
"Diu," indicating the splendor of heaven or of day. Ju-piter is from
"Djaus-Pitar," which is the Sanskrit for _Father of Heaven_, or else from
"Diu-pitar," _Father of Light_. He is, at all events, the equivalent of
the Olympian Zeus. He carries the lightning, and, under many appellations,
is the supreme god of the skies. Many temples were erected to him in Rome,
under various designations. He was called Pluvius, Fulgurator, Tonans,
Fulminator, Imbricitor, Serenator,--from the substantives designating
rain, lightning, thunder, and the serene sky. Anything struck with
lightning became sacred, and was consecrated to Jupiter. As the supreme
being he was called Optimus Maximus, also Imperator, Victor, Invictus,
Stator, Praedator, Triumphator, and Urbis Custos. And temples or shrines
were erected to him under all these names, as the head of the armies, and
commander-in-chief of the legions; as Conqueror, as Invincible, as the
Turner of Flight, as the God of Booty, and as the Guardian of the City.
There is said to have been in Rome three hundred Jupiters, which must mean
that Jupiter was worshipped under three hundred different attributes.
Another name of this god was Elicius, from the belief that a method
existed of eliciting or drawing down the lightning; which belief probably
arose from an accidental anticipation of Dr. Franklin's famous experiment.
There were no such myths told about Jupiter as concerning the Greek Zeus.
The Latin deity was a much more solemn person, his whole time occupied
with the care of the city and state. But traces of his origin as a ruler
of the atmosphere remained rooted in language; and the Romans, in the time
of Augustus, spoke familiarly of "a cold Jupiter," for a cold sky, and of
a "bad Jupiter," for stormy weather.

The Juno of the Capitol was the Queen of Heaven, and in this sense was the
female Jupiter. But Juno was also the goddess of womanhood, and had the
epithets of Virginensis, Matrona, and Opigena; that is, the friend of
virgins, of matrons, and the daughter of help. Her chief festival was the
Matronalia, on the first of March, hence called the "Women's Kalends." On
this day presents were given to women by their husbands and friends. Juno
was the patroness of marriage, and her month of June was believed to be
very favorable for wedlock. As Juno Lucina she presided over birth; as
Mater Matuta,[279] over children; as Juno Moneta, over the mint.

The name of Minerva, the Roman Athene, is said to be derived from an old
Etruscan word signifying mental action.[280] In the songs of the Sabians
the word "promenervet" is used for "monet." The first syllable evidently
contains the root, which in all Aryan languages implies thought. The
Trinity of the Capitol, therefore, united Power, Wisdom, and Affection, as
Jupiter, Minerva, and Juno. The statue of Minerva was placed in schools.
She had many temples and festivals, and one of the former was dedicated to
her as Minerva Medica.

The Roman pantheon contained three classes of gods and goddesses. First,
the old Italian divinities, Etruscan, Latin, and Sabine, naturalized and
adopted by the state. Secondly, the pale abstractions of the
understanding, invented by the College of Pontiffs for moral and political
purposes. And thirdly, the gods of Greece, imported, with a change of
name, by the literary admirers and imitators of Hellas.

The genuine deities of the Roman religion were all of the first order.
Some of them, like Janus, Vertumnus, Faunus, Vesta, retained their
original character; others were deliberately confounded with some Greek
deity. Thus Venus, an old Latin or Sabine goddess to whom Titus Tatius
erected a temple as Venus Cloacina, and Servius Tullius another as Venus
Libertina,[281] was afterward transformed into the Greek Aphrodite,
goddess of love. If it be true, as is asserted by Naevius and Plautus, that
she was the goddess of gardens, as Venus Hortensis and Venus Fruti, then
she may have been originally the female Vertumnus. So Diana was originally
Diva Jana, and was simply the female Janus, until she was transformed into
the Greek Artemis.

The second class of Roman divinities were those manufactured by the
pontiffs for utilitarian purposes,--almost the only instance in the
history of religion of such a deliberate piece of god-making. The purpose
of the pontiffs was excellent; but the result, naturally, was small. The
worship of such abstractions as Hope (Spes), Fear (Pallor), Concord
(Concordia), Courage (Virtus), Justice (AEquitas), Clemency (Clementia),
could have little influence, since it must have been apparent to the
worshipper himself that these were not real beings, but only his own
conceptions, thrown heavenward.

The third class of deities were those adopted from Greece. New deities,
like Apollo, were imported, and the old ones Hellenized. The Romans had no
statues of their gods in early times; this custom they learned from
Greece. "A full river of influence," says Cicero, "and not a little brook,
has flowed into Rome out of Greece[282]." They sent to Delphi to inquire
of the Greek oracle. In a few decades, says Hartung, the Roman religion
was wholly transformed by this Greek influence; and that happened while
the senate and priests were taking the utmost care that not an iota of the
old ceremonies should be altered. Meantime the object was to identify the
objects of worship in other countries with those worshipped at home. This
was done in an arbitrary and superficial way, and caused great confusion
in the mythologies[283]. Accidental resemblances, slight coincidences of
names, were sufficient for the identification of two gods. As long as the
service of the temple was unaltered, the priests troubled themselves very
little about such changes. In this way, the twelve gods of Olympus--Zeus,
Poseidon, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestos, Hermes, Here, Athene, Artemis,
Aphrodite, Hestia, and Demeter--were naturalized or identified as Jupiter,
Neptune, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, Mercury, Juno, Minerva, Diana, Venus,
Vesta, and Ceres, Dionysos became Liber or Bacchus; Persephone,
Proserpina; and the Muses were accepted as the Greeks had imagined them.

To find the true Roman worship, therefore, we must divest their deities of
these Greek habiliments, and go back to their original Etruscan or Latin
characters.

Among the Etruscans we find one doctrine unknown to the Greeks and not
adopted by the Romans; that, namely, of the higher "veiled deities,"[284]
superior to Jupiter. They also had a dodecad of six male and six female
deities, the Consentes and Complices, making a council of gods, whom
Jupiter consulted in important cases. Vertumnus was an Etruscan; so,
according to Ottfried Mueller, was the Genius. So are the Lares, or
household protectors, and Charun, or Charon, a power of the under-world.
The minute system of worship was derived by Rome from Etruria. The whole
system of omens, especially by lightning, came from the same source.