Ten Great Religions by James Freeman Clarke

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[316] See Ranke, History of the Popes, Chap. I., where he says that the
Roman Empire gave its outward form to Christianity (meaning _Latin_
Christianity), and that the constitution of the hierarchy was necessarily
modelled on that of the Empire.

[317] History of Latin Christianity, Vol. II. p. 100.

[318] Maine, Ancient Law, Chap. IX.

[319] "Non aliud peccare quam Deo non reddere debitum."

[320] Caesar, Bell. Gall., I. 36, 39, 48, 50; VI. 21, 22, 23.

[321] "Praeliis ambiguus, bello non victus."--Annals, II. 88.

[322] Tacitus, Germania, Sec.Sec. 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9.

[323] "Illud ex libertate vitium, quod non simul, nec ut jussi,
conveniunt."--Germania, Sec. 11.

[324] Esprit des Loix.

[325] See, for the history and religion of the Teutonic and Scandinavian
race, Caesar; Tacitus; Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie; Geschichte und System
der Altdeutschen Religion, von Wilhelm Muller; Northern Mythology, by
Benjamin Thorpe; The Sea-Kings of Norway, by S. Laing; Manual of
Scandinavian Mythology, by G. Pigott; Literature and Romance of Northern
Europe, by William and Mary Hewitt; Die Edda, von Karl Simrock; Aryan
Mythology, by George W. Cox; Norse Tales, by Dasent, etc. But one of the
best as well as the most accessible summaries in English of this mythology
is Mallet's Northern Antiquities, in Bohn's Antiquarian Library. This
edition is edited by Mr. Blackwell with great judgment and learning.

[326] See Die Edda, von Karl Simrock. Stuttgart, 1855. Literature and
Romance of Northern Europe, by William and Mary Howitt. London, 1852.
Geschichte und System der Altdeutschen Religion, von Withelm Muller.
Gottingen, 1844. Mallet's Northern Antiquities, edited by Blackwell, in
Bohn's Antiquarian Library.

[327] Hitopadesa; or, Salutary Counsels of Vishnu Sarman. Translated fiom
the Sanskrit by Francis Johnson. London and Hertford, 1848.

[328] See Memoir of Snorro Sturleson, in Laing's Sea-Kings of Norway.

[329] It would appear from this legend that the gods are idealizations of
human will set over against the powers of nature. The battle of the gods
and giants represents the struggles of the soul against the inexorable
laws of nature, freedom against fate, the spirit with the flesh, mind with
matter, human hope with change, disappointment, loss; "the emergency of
the case with the despotism of the rule."

[330] Physical circumstances produced alterations in the mythologies,
whose origin was the same. Thus, Loki, the god of fire, belongs to the
AEsir, because fire is hostile to frost, but represents the treacherous
and evil subterranean fires, which in Iceland destroyed with lava, sand,
and boiling water more than was injured by cold.

[331] Northern Mythology, by Benjamin Thorpe.

[332] Gibbon, Chap. LVI.

[333] Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. Neander, Church History, Vol. II.
Appendix.

[334] See, for the conversion of the German races, Gibbon; Guizot, History
of Civilization; Merivale, Conversion of the German Nations; Milman, Latin
Christianity; Neander, History of the Christian Church; Hegel; Lecky,
History of European Morals.

[335] Latin Christianity, Book III. Chap. II.

[336] Palaztu, on the Western Sea. Rawlinson's Herodotus, Vol. I., p. 487.

[337] The word has been deciphered "Pulusater." Smith's Dictionary of the
Bible, Palestine.

[338] Ibid.

[339] Palestine, and the Sinaitic Peninsula. By Carl Ritter. Translated by
William L. Gage. New York. 1866.

[340] Ritter's Palestine, Vol. II. p. 315.

[341] Lynch makes it thirteen hundred feet below the surface of the
Mediterranean. See Ritter.

[342] History of Israel, translated by Russell Martineau, Vol. I. p. 231.

[343] New American Cyclopaedia, art. Semitic Race.

[344] Quoted by Le Normant, Manual of Ancient History of the East, Vol. I.
p. 71.

[345] Remarks on the Phoenician Inscription of Sidon, by Professor William
W. Turner, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. VII. No. 1.

[346] Poenulus, Act V. Sc. 1.

[347] See his Essay on the People of Israel, in Studies of Religious
History and Criticism, translated by O. B. Frothingham.

[348] Except the proselytes, who are adopted children.

[349] History of the Jewish Church, Lect. I.

[350] See, for these marvellous stories, Weil, Legends of the Mussulmans.

[351] See my sermon on "Melchisedek and his Moral," in "The Hour that
Cometh," second edition.

[352] Strabo, who probably wrote in the reign of Tiberius, thus describes
Moses:--

"Moses, an Egyptian priest, who possessed a considerable tract of Lower
Egypt, unable any longer to bear with what existed there, departed
thence to Syria, and with him went out many who honored the Divine
Being. For Moses taught that the Egyptians were not right in likening
the nature of God to beasts and cattle, nor yet the Africans or even
the Greeks, in fashioning their gods in the form of men. He held that
this only was God,--that which encompasses all of us, earth and sea,
that which we call heaven, the order of the world, and the nature of
things. Of this, who that had any sense would venture to invent an
image like to anything which exists among ourselves? Far better to
abandon all statuary and sculpture, all setting apart of sacred
precincts and shrines, and to pay reverence without any image whatever.
The course prescribed was that those who have the gift of divination
for themselves or others should compose themselves to sleep within the
Temple, and those who live temperately and justly mjiy expect to
receive lome good gift from God."

[353] "Esteeming the reproach of the Christ" (that is, of the anointed,
or, the anointed people) "greater riches than the treasures of Egypt."

[354] See this well explained in The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation,
by James B. Walker.

[355] "'Behold, when I shall come to the children of Israel, and shall say
unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall
say, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto
Moses, I AM THE I AM..... Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel,
I AM hath sent me unto you!'

"It has been observed that the great epochs of the history of the Chosen
People are marked by the several names, by which in each the Divine Nature
is indicated. In the patriarchal age we have already seen that the oldest
Hebrew form by which the most general idea of Divinity is expressed is
'El-Elohim,' 'The Strong One,' 'The Strong Ones,' 'The Strong,' 'Beth-El,'
'Peni-El,' remained even to the latest times memorials of this primitive
mode of address and worship. But now a new name, and with it a new truth,
was introduced. I am Jehovah; I appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
by the name of El-Shaddai (God Almighty); but by my name Jehovah was I not
known unto them. The only certain use of it before the time of Moses is in
the name of 'Jochebed,' borne by his own mother. It was the declaration of
the simplicity, the unity, the self-existence of the Divine Nature, the
exact opposite to all the multiplied forms of idolatry, human, animal, and
celestial, that prevailed, as far as we know, everywhere else."--Stanley's
Jewish Church.

[356] A man became a prophet only by his powers of insight and foresight;
until that was certified to the people, he was no prophet to them. When it
was, it was because he _convinced_ them by his manifestation of the truth;
consequently any revision of the law by a prophet was a constitutional
amendment by the people themselves.

[357] Hitzig, Urgeschichte und Mythologie der Philister. Tacitus probably
referred to the Cretan origin of the Philistines, when he says that the
Jews were originally natives of the island of Crete. See his account of
Moses and his institutions, Historia, V. 1-6.

[358]

"Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,--
The canticles of love and woe."

Emerson, _The Problem_.

[359] See this point fully discussed in Ritter, Palestine (Am. ed.), Vol.
I. pp. 81-151.

[360] See Weil, Biblical Legends, for the Mohammedan traditions concerning
Solomon.

[361] For he perceives the idea, but not its application to himself.

[362] Neither of them perceives that he is the object of the injury.

[363] Eccles. i. 2-11.

[364] Ibid. i. 12; ii. 11.

[365] Ibid. ii. 12-20.

[366] Ibid. ii. 24.

[367] Ibid. iii. 1-11.

[368] Ibid. iii. 18-21.

[369] Ibid. iv. 1-3.

[370] Ibid. iv. 9-12.

[371] Ibid. v. 1-7, 18.

[372] Ibid. vi.

[373] Eccles. vii. 2, 10, 15, 16.

[374] Ibid. vii. 26-28.

[375] Ibid. viii. 2, 3, 4, 11, 14(ix. 2, 3), 15, 17.

[376] Ibid. xi. 1, 2, 6.

[377] Ibid. xii. 1-8, 9, 12, 13.

[378] Doellinger, The Gentile and the Jew.

[379] See article on the Talmud, Quarterly Review, 1867.

[380] An anecdote was recently related of a little girl, five years old,
who was seen walking along the road, looking up into the trees. Being
asked what she was seeking, she replied: "Mamma told me God was
everywhere, but I cannot see him in that tree." The faith of the
patriarchs was like that of this child,--not false, but unenlightened.

[381] "And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and
fall at Ramoth-Gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on
that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and
said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he
said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all
his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go
forth and do so."

[382] See Greg, The Creed of Christendom, Chap. V. Also, The Spirit of the
Bible, by Edward Higginson.

[383] Mohammed der Prophet, sein Leben und seine Lehre. Stuttgart, 1843.

[384] Essai sur l'histoire des Arabes, avant l'Islamisme, pendant l'epoque
de Mahomet, et jusqu'a la reduction de toutes les tribus sous la loi
mussulmane. Paris. 3 vols. 8vo. 1847-48.

[385] Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammed, etc. Von A. Sprenger. Berlin,
1861.

[386] Sprenger, Vorrede, p. xii.

[387] The Life of Mahomet and History of Islam. By William Muir, Esq.
London, 1858.

[388] A Series of Essays on the Life of Mohammed, and Subjects subsidiary
thereto. By Syed Ahmed Khan Bahador. London: Trabner & Co. 1870.

[389]

"Quo fit ut omnis
Votiva pateat velut descripta tabella
Vita senis."

HORACE.

[390] The same remark will apply to Cromwell.

[391] "Mohammed once asked Hassan if he had made any poetry about Abu
Bakr, and the poet repeated these lines; whereupon Mohammed laughed so
heartily as to show his back teeth, and said, 'Thou hast spoken truly, O
Hassan! It is just as thou hast said.'"--Muir, Vol. II. p. 256.

[392] Muir, Vol. II. p. 128.

[393] Koran, Sura 80.

[394] Mahomet and the Origin of Islam. Studies of Religious History.
Translated by O. B. Frothingham.

[395] Lewes, Life of Goethe, Vol. I. p. 207.

[396] Mahomet et le Coran, par J. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, Paris, 1865,
p. 114.

[397] Les Religions et les Philosophies dans L'Asie Centrale. Par M. le
Comte Gobineau. Paris.

[398] A Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia. By William
Gifford Palgrave. Third edition. 1866. London.

[399] Article in Revue des Deux Mondes, January 15, 1868.

[400] Studies in Religious History and Criticism. The Future of Religion
in Modem Society.

[401] Ibid., "The Part of the Semitic People in the History of
Civilization."

[402] Ibid. The Future of Religion in Modern Society, The Origins of
Islamism.

[403] The Sympathy of Religions, an Address by Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
Boston, 1871.

[404] Job i. 6, 12; ii. 1; Zech. iii. 1; 1 Chron. xxi. 1.

[405] In the passages where Satan or the Devil is mentioned, the truth
taught is the same, and the moral result the same, whether we interpret
the phrase as meaning a personal being, or the principle of evil. In many
of these passages a personal being cannot be meant: for example, John vi.
70; Matt. xvi. 23; Mark viii. 33; 1 Cor. v. 5; 2 Cor. xii. 7; 1 Thess. ii.
18; 1 Tim. i. 20; Heb. ii. 14.

[406] Exodus vi. 2.

[407] Exodus iii. 14.