THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 
 5- J- '"2 "J- 
 
 THE STOEY OF THE 
 BIBLE
 
 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 BIBLE 
 
 BY 
 
 MACLEOD YEARSLEY 
 
 "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to 
 argue freely according to conscience, above all 
 other liberties." — MILTON {Areopagitica) . 
 
 London : 
 WATTS & CO., 
 
 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.4 
 
 1922
 
 Y 
 
 TO 
 
 MY SON 
 
 976252
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. THE EARTH AND MAN 1 
 
 Introduction — The Age of the Earth — The Length of Time 
 Man has Lived on the Earth — Man's Habit of Asking Ques- 
 tions 
 
 II. MAN'S FIRST SEARCH FOR EXPLANATIONS - 22 
 
 Man's Earliest Questions — Speech and Thought — Expla- 
 nations — Naturism — Animism — Sleep and Death — Ghosts and 
 Magic — Origin of Kings and Priests — Fasting and Trance — 
 Originof Doctors — Man's next Questions — Myths about Man's 
 Origin — How Death Came into the World 
 
 III. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED TRADITIONS - 47 
 
 How Primitive Ideas Took Shape as Gods — Myths and 
 their Transmission 
 
 IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED WRITINGS- - 56 
 
 Origin of Writing — Development and Spread of Writing — 
 The Art of Printing — The Influence of Writing — Character of 
 Scriptures and their Supposed Inspiration — The Scriptures of 
 Different Peoples 
 
 V. THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT - - 71 
 
 The Bible as a Sacred Book — The Early History of the Jews 
 — How the Old Testament was Built Up— The Prophets — 
 The Hagiographa — The Apocrypha 
 
 VI. SOME OLD TESTAMENT STORIES CONSIDERED - 98 
 
 Introduction — The Creation — The Fall of Man — Noah's 
 Flood — The Tower of Babel — Abraham and Isaac — Jacob at 
 the Ford of Jabbok — Joshua — Samson — The Reputed Wisdom 
 of Solomon — Daniel — Esther — Jonah — An Instance of Primi- 
 tive Law — The Story of Yahweh 
 
 vii
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 VII. THE ORIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY - - 133 
 
 Introduction — The World in which Christianity Grew Up — 
 The Cult of Mithra — The Jewish Expectation of a Messiah — 
 Jesus as a Vegetation- and Sun-God — Jesus as the Messiah — 
 Possible Origin in a Mystery Drama — Reasons for the Survival 
 of Christianity — What Christianity Absorbed from other 
 Sources 
 
 VIII. THE MAKING OP THE NEW TESTAMENT - - 171 
 
 Introduction — The Order in which the Books Appeared — 
 The Three Groups of Books Considered — The Pauline Books 
 — The Gospels — Revelation — Apocryphal Books 
 
 Note to Chapter VIII. — Mr. Robertson's Theory 
 
 IX. THE LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR 
 
 LEGACIES TO MANKIND 193 
 
 Introduction — The Teachers and Writings of Ancient Egypt 
 — Chaldaea and Hammurabi — India and Brahmanism — 
 Buddhism — Persia and Zarathustra — China : Lao-Tsze and 
 Kung-Foo-Tsze — The Wisdom of Ancient Greece — The Wis- 
 dom of Ancient Rome — Mohammed and his Teaching — 
 Summary and Conclusion 
 
 INDEX 241
 
 PREFACE 
 
 One finds by experience that even those who are accounted 
 well-educated and well-read show a woeful ignorance not 
 only of nature and her varied phenomena, but of the 
 working of their own bodies and the origin of their own 
 species. Some have a dim notion that Darwin " said we 
 came from monkeys" — a statement as inaccurate as unjust; 
 but few seem to possess any clear idea of what Evolution 
 really means. To the suggestion that this ignorance might 
 be easily dispelled, the reply is not seldom given that books 
 upon the subject are too long or too technical, or that 
 "there is no time for such studies." 
 
 Similar ignorance and apathy exist with regard to 
 religion, and the grotesque myths of cosmogony and 
 doctrine are swallowed in blind faith. Many people feel 
 that conventional religious beliefs are completely at 
 variance with science ; some are frankly sceptical as to 
 the teachings of the ordinary clergyman ; but few have 
 the moral courage to voice their doubts, and they see 
 nothing dishonouring in avowing that they "leave all that 
 sort of thing to the parsons, who are paid to look after 
 it." By a number of persons religion, in fact, is pro- 
 fessed merely as a business or social asset. 
 
 I have, therefore, ventured to presume that the follow- 
 ing pages, in which the facts concerning the origin of 
 man and the genesis of his religious systems are treated 
 
 ix
 
 x PREFACE 
 
 in the merest outline, may be of service to those who are 
 anxious to know the truth and to pursue it. I have 
 endeavoured to summarize the results of the researches 
 of recognized authorities in several departments of 
 knowledge, with a view to enabling the busy " man in 
 the street " to dispense with the reading of the voluminous 
 literature available. The statements set out may be 
 considered as accepted facts, and, as such, should appeal 
 to all who, anxious to ascertain the truth, can reason 
 without bias and are not intimidated by convention. 
 
 That the broad and simple facts of geology, anthro- 
 pology, and evolution should be made a prominent factor 
 in the education of our youth must be patent to every 
 fair-minded person. That the absurdities of the Biblical 
 cosmogony should be taught daily, in schools and churches, 
 by those who know them to be fabulous cannot be too 
 strongly condemned. 
 
 I wish to express my indebtedness to the authors of 
 the works named in the Bibliography, and my special 
 gratitude to my friend Mr. Edward Clodd for his unfail- 
 ing kindness not only in reading the manuscript, but in 
 freely giving valuable suggestions and advice. 
 
 M. Y. 
 
 London, April, 1922.
 
 BIBLIOGEAPHY 
 
 Abbot, E. A., The Common Tradition (Macmillan, Lond.; 1883). 
 Alexander, Maj.-Gen., Lao-Tsze, the Great Teacher (Lond. ; 1895). 
 Benn, A. W., Early Greek Philosophy (Constable, Lond.; 1908). 
 Budge, E. Wallis, The Book of the Dead (Brit. Mus. Pubs.; 1920). 
 Carpenter, Ed., Parian and Christian Creeds (Allen & Unwin, Lond.; 1920). 
 Chalmers, J., The Speculations of Lao-Tsze (Lond.; 1868). 
 Clodd, Ed., The Story of Creation (Longmans, Lond.; 1916). 
 
 The Story of the Alphabet (Hodder & Stoughton, Lond.; 1913). 
 
 ■ The Childhood of the World (Macmillan, New York ; 1914). 
 
 The Childhood of Religions (Kegan Paul, Lond.; 1904). 
 
 Myths and Dreams (Chatto & Windus, Lond.; 1891). 
 
 Magic in Names (Chapman & Hall, Lond.; 1920). 
 
 Animism (Constable, Lond.; 1905). 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth (Kegan Paul, Lond.; 1889). 
 
 Conybeare, F. C. , Myth, Magic, and Morals, 2nd ed. (Watts Lond.; 1910). 
 
 Encyclopedia Biblica (Black, Lond.; 1899). 
 
 Edwards, Chilperic, The Old Testament (Watts, Lond.; 1913). 
 
 Frazer, Sir J. G. , The Golden Bough, 2nd ed. , 3 vols. (Macmillan, Lond.; 
 
 1900). 
 
 Folk-Lore in the Old Testament (Macmillan, Lond.; 1918). 
 
 The Magical Origin of Kings (Macmillan, Lond.; 1920). 
 
 Gould, F. J., The New Testament (Watts, Lond.; 1914). 
 
 The Building of the Bible, 3rd ed. (Watts, Lond.; 1906). 
 
 Gunn, Battiscombe G., Instructions of Ptah-Hotep (Murray, Lond.; 1901). 
 
 Hardwicke, W. W., Evolution of Man (Watts, Lond.; 1899). 
 
 Kenyon, Sir F. G., Textual Criticism of the New Testament (Macmillan, 
 
 Lond.; 1912). 
 Keith, Sir Arthur, Antiquity of Man (Williams & Norgate, Lond.; 1920). 
 McCabe, Joseph, Prehistoric Man (Milner, Manchester ; n.d.). 
 
 The A B C of Evolution (Watts, Lond.; 1920). 
 
 Robertson, Rt. Hon. J. M., Christianity and Mythology, 2nd ed. (Watts, 
 
 Lond.; 1910). 
 
 Pagan Christs, 2nd ed. (Watts, Lond.; 1911). 
 
 A Short History of Christianity, 2nd ed. (Watts, Lond.; 1913). 
 
 The Jesus Problem (Watts, Lond.; 1917). 
 
 A Short History of Morals (Watts, Lond.; 1920). 
 
 Salt, Henry S., Treasures of Lucretius (Watts, Lond.; 1912). 
 
 Weigall, A. E. P., The Life and Times of Akh-na-ten (Blackwood ; 1910). 
 
 XI
 
 Chapter I 
 THE EARTH AND MAN 
 
 § 1. Introduction 
 
 The Bible has, for several hundred years past, been the 
 chief authority not merely for human conduct and 
 religious belief, but for the conception of the origin of 
 the universe. As such, it was accepted blindly (and is 
 still so accepted by many people) as a book produced by 
 Divine inspiration, the contents of which it were impious 
 to question. 
 
 During the past four hundred years, however, there 
 has been growing slowly, but very surely, a suspicion 
 that the Bible contained many things not in accordance 
 with ascertained facts. This suspicion became streng- 
 thened as time went on by every important discovery in 
 science, fresh facts springing up of a nature so irrecon- 
 cilable with " holy writ " that thinking men found it 
 impossible to shut their eyes to them. Theologists, with 
 a tenacity worthy of a better cause, spent fruitless hours 
 in vain endeavours to bring the Bible cosmogony 1 into 
 accord with scientific discovery, only to find that equivo- 
 cation was of no avail against the cold logic of reason. 
 Geology and biology established their truths to the 
 complete confusion of the stories of the Creation and the 
 Flood. During the past half-century the domain of 
 science has expanded ; with the growth of anthropology 2 
 it has taken in mythology and history. While scientific 
 men have applied to the stories in the Bible the masses 
 
 1 Greek, cosmos, world ; gignomai, I become, grow. 
 
 2 Greek, anthropos, man ; logos, discourse. 
 
 1
 
 2 THE EARTH AND MAN 
 
 of knowledge which have been gained by the study of 
 primitive man, his traditions and superstitions, scholars 
 have unravelled the sources from which the scriptures 
 were compiled. A new method, that of Comparative 
 Hierology, 1 has arisen. 
 
 But these facts are known to the few rather than to 
 the many. They are not yet a part of our common 
 education, although they ought to be. The old, exploded 
 Biblical cosmogony is still read out in our churches and 
 taught in our schools, as if it was a great and solemn 
 fact, by men who are well aware that they are not 
 teaching the truth. To the ignorance in which the vast 
 majority of people are kept may be added the effect of 
 custom. It is one of the many savage survivals which 
 remain in civilized man to accept the customs and beliefs 
 of those who have gone before. This attitude, when it 
 is not counteracted by active opposition, leads to apathy 
 and disinclination to make the effort which progress 
 demands, especially when questions of religion and 
 superstition are involved. 
 
 When ignorance is enforced rather than voluntary, an 
 attempt at its enlightenment must have some effect upon 
 those whose minds are willing to receive and consider 
 fresh knowledge without bias. It is for this reason that 
 this book has been written, and it will be the purpose of 
 the ensuing pages to convey a plain account, in simple 
 language, of the facts which have been ascertained by 
 science concerning the origin of the world and of man, 
 the growth of religious ideas, and the paramount part 
 played by evolution throughout the process. In addition, 
 such particulars will be offered of the great religions 
 other than Christianity as will enable them to be 
 compared fairly with the Old and New Testaments 
 and the religion of which those books are the sacred 
 writings. 
 
 1 Greek, hieros, sacred.
 
 THE AGE OF THE EARTH 3 
 
 § 2. The Age of the Earth 
 
 The ideas which existed before the evidences afforded 
 by Geology, Palaeontology, and Anthropology had made 
 plain the enormous lapse of time which has occurred 
 since the earth was formed, and man first appeared upon 
 it, were based upon tradition as embodied in the sacred 
 books. The then existing state of knowledge furnished 
 no other foundation. The present year, which is known 
 to Christians as 1922, is considered by the Moslems as 
 1340, and by Jews as 5682. The Christian reckons from 
 the reputed date of the birth of Christ, the Moslem from 
 that of the flight of Mohammed from Mecca, the Jew 
 from what he believes to be the date of the creation of 
 the world. In old Bibles the world is stated in a 
 marginal note to have been created in the year 4004 B.C. — 
 a date which, added to 1922, would make the age of the 
 universe (since sun, moon, and stars were included in 
 the Mosaic creation) 5926 years, 366 in excess of the 
 Jewish computation. This arbitrary date, the computation 
 of Archbishop Usher, was abandoned in the Revised 
 Version of the Bible as inconsistent with modern know- 
 ledge. Dr. Lightfoot {circa 1576) eclipsed Usher by 
 stating that the earth was created on October 23, 4004 B.C., 
 at 9 a.m. ! 
 
 The world is, indeed, immensely older. Primitive 
 human traditions based upon conjecture crumble in the 
 light of progressive knowledge. Astronomy, Geology, 
 and Palaeontology have to be consulted if the truth is 
 to be ascertained, and the facts which those sciences 
 have made clear must be examined. 
 
 1. Astkonomy long ago exploded the idea that the 
 earth was the centre of the universe, with sun, moon, 
 and stars revolving round it for man's sole benefit. It 
 teaches that the earth is a planet 1 revolving round the 
 Sim, which gives it heat and light. Besides the earth 
 
 1 Greek, planetes, a wanderer.
 
 4 THE EARTH AND MAN 
 
 there are seven other large planets — Saturn, Jupiter, 
 Mars, Venus, Mercury, Uranus, and Neptune, which 
 also revolve round the sun. Some of these planets have 
 much smaller bodies, called moons, revolving round them. 
 Jupiter, for instance, has eight moons, while the earth 
 has only one. There are, besides the eight big planets, 
 several hundred much smaller ones, or planetoids. This 
 arrangement of planets and planetoids moving round the 
 sun is called the Solar System. 
 
 A glance at the sky on a clear night reveals an 
 enormous number of stars, which appear as specks of 
 light. Examined through a telescope, they are seen as 
 shining points. Their great distance from the earth 
 prevents any estimation of their size. They number 
 about two thousand million, and the greater part of 
 them are known as Fixed Stars, because they all retain 
 the same position in respect to one another. As will be 
 seen presently, these fixed stars are like our sun, and 
 shine with light of their own. Their distance from us 
 is so great that, although many of them are much larger 
 than our sun, they appear to us only as twinkling points 
 of light. The planets shine with a light which is 
 reflected from the sun, and is, therefore, not their own, 
 although it is probable that some of the big planets still 
 possess some light of their own. 
 
 Scattered through the heavens are certain misty, 
 patchy clouds of light. Astronomers and chemists have 
 discovered of what stuff they are composed. They are 
 luminous masses in a state of great heat, and are called 
 nebulce; 1 and some two hundred thousand are known. 
 It was from just such a cloud that our solar system was 
 made. Opinions are divided at present as to whether 
 these nebulae are composed of gas or solid particles, there 
 being three main hypotheses. These are : the Nebular 
 Hypothesis, which considers the cloud to be composed 
 
 1 Latin, nebula, a cloud.
 
 THE AGE OF THE EAKTH 5 
 
 mainly of gas ; the Meteoritic Hypothesis, which suggests 
 it began as an immense swarm of meteors ; and the 
 Planetismal Hypothesis, in which the nebula consists 
 of a cloud of solid particles, supposed to have come from 
 the ripping open of some dead sun by another star. 
 Which of these three theories is correct matters not, as 
 it is undisputed that star systems are evolved from 
 nebulae. This process is practically as follows. The 
 material of the nebula is in constant motion round its 
 centre, like water stirred in a basin, gradually splitting 
 into rings revolving, one within another, around a central 
 mass. The rings gradually break up into masses until 
 the nebula at last becomes a number of planets whirling 
 rapidly around a central mass, or sun. Such an arrange- 
 ment is called a Star, or Stellar System. There are 
 many of them in the heavens, their suns forming the 
 fixed stars ; our solar system is one of them. They are 
 in all stages of manufacture, from nebula to complete 
 system ; and there are some which, by the gradual loss 
 of energy and the slowing down of their revolving motion, 
 have become cold and dead. Our moon is the best example 
 of this gradual cooling ; originally a part of the earth 
 which split off in the early days of the formation of the 
 solar system, it has slowly given up its heat until it has 
 become cold. 
 
 2. Astronomy having furnished the knowledge of how 
 the earth was made, Geology 1 takes up the story. The 
 earth, once formed as a planet in the evolution of the 
 solar system, was first a mass of intensely hot material, 
 which very slowly cooled until it became solid. It passed 
 through several stages ; at first a pasty, white-hot mass, 
 it subsided gradually to red-heat. All that part of it 
 which was the most heavy became slowly separated from 
 the lighter stuff to form a core to the revolving ball, the 
 lighter stuff making a crust around it. The process is 
 
 1 Greek, ge, earth, and logos. 
 
 B
 
 6 THE EAETH AND MAN 
 
 comparable to the separation of the "slag," or earthy 
 material, from the metal in the process of smelting iron 
 ore. We are ignorant as to the exact nature of the earth's 
 centre, but it is formed probably of heavy metals which 
 were smelted out in the very hot stage. The thick outer 
 crust forms the hard surface popularly known as " land." 
 Besides this land, however, there is on the earth a great 
 quantity of water, as oceans, lakes, and rivers. When the 
 globe was in the hot stage, it was surrounded by a dense 
 mass of water in the form of steam, and, as it cooled, this 
 steam cooled with it and became water. In cooling, the 
 earth shrunk, and, with this shrinking, its surface became 
 thrown into wrinkles, like the skin of a dried apple, 
 forming deep hollows in which the water collected, so 
 that finally the earth became a ball of land and water. 
 Even when the earth had thus assumed the form which 
 resembled its present condition, long ages passed before it 
 was possible for living things to exist upon it, and it was 
 in water that life had its beginnings. The details of the 
 processes which prepared the earth for life and the changes 
 which have taken place in its surface must be sought in a 
 work upon Geology. 
 
 3. Paleontology. 1 — Finally, when the world had 
 reached the stage when living beings could exist upon 
 it, life began. These living things have left their record 
 in what are known as fossils, 2 the name given to them 
 because they are dug out of the earth's crust in which 
 they lie. Such fossils may be stems and roots of trees, 
 leaves, shells, horny parts of insects, bones, footprints of 
 birds and animals, and so on. From these remains Palaeon- 
 tology reconstructs the kind of life there was in ages past. 
 It is necessary to review here the animals which 
 preceded man and their relation each to the other, so 
 that some conception may be formed of what man's 
 ancestors were like in past ages. 
 
 1 Greek, palaios, ancient ; on, being. 2 Latin, fossilis, dug up.
 
 THE AGE OF THE EAKTH 7 
 
 Until the middle of the last century it was believed 
 that all the different species of plants and animals were 
 created separately, man being made last of all ; that, 
 therefore, species are immutable. But in 1859 Charles 
 Darwin showed this to be an error, and that the various 
 species of plants and animals now living, including man, 
 were formed gradually by means of the perpetuation and 
 accentuation of variations in the individuals of a species. 
 The process took an immense time, and was due to certain 
 natural forces which are always at work. Darwin, arguing 
 upon what man can do by artificial selection in breeding 
 (e.g., pigeons), pointed out that Nature could, infinitely 
 more slowly, do the same by " natural selection." This 
 process is called The Theory of Evolution, 1 and the 
 natural forces which bring about these changes have 
 been classified as the five Laws of Evolution, which may 
 be stated briefly thus : — 
 
 1. First Law, Heredity. — That is, like produces like. 
 Cats do not produce dogs, but cats ; that is to say, the 
 young of any animal resemble their parents. The same 
 applies equally to plants. 
 
 2. Second Law, Variation. — No animals, even though 
 they belong to one kind, are exactly alike ; nor are they 
 exactly like their parents. In a litter of kittens no two 
 are precisely similar; even when they resemble each 
 other in colour, there are differences in their markings. 
 
 5. Third Law, More of all Kinds of Plants and 
 Animals come into Being than can Possibly Live. — The 
 consequence of this leads to the 
 
 4. Fourth Law, The Struggle for Existence. — This 
 struggle for existence is going on continually. Every 
 plant or animal that comes into the world has to fight 
 for food and other necessaries in order to live. The 
 outcome of this struggle is the 
 
 5. Fifth Law, The Fittest Survive. — That is to say, 
 
 1 Latin, evolvo, to unroll.
 
 8 THE EAKTH AND MAN 
 
 the beings who are strong enough to win food, or who 
 can best stand the conditions under which they live, are 
 the most likely to go on living and to produce offspring. 
 
 It is the continual working of these five laws that has 
 peopled the world with the plants and animals which 
 live upon it to-day. Throughout the long ages since life 
 first came upon the earth, various kinds of animals have 
 been evolved, and have died out because they were unable 
 to fulfil some or all of the laws of evolution. That is to 
 say, better kinds of beings took the place of others because 
 these new forms could more easily obtain food, or stand 
 great heat or cold ; and possibly, in course of time, these 
 also failed to adapt themselves to fresh alterations in their 
 surroundings, and so died out and gave place to others. 
 
 How the present animal population of the world has 
 come about must now be very briefly sketched. 
 
 The form in which life first appeared was that of a 
 jelly-like stuff called protoplasm. 1 This stuff is the founda- 
 tion upon which all life depends ; it is the basis of all 
 plants and all animals. The most simple animal consists 
 of a speck of protoplasm, containing a rounded body 
 called a nucleus, the whole so small as to require a 
 microscope to see it. Such a speck of nucleated proto- 
 plasm is called a cell. All animals consist of either one 
 or many cells ; man himself is a creature built up of an 
 untold number of cells. The simple, one-celled animal 
 is called a protozoan* ; many-celled animals are distin- 
 guished as metazoa. 3 The latter were probably evolved 
 from the former. 
 
 The first metazoa were very simple in structure : 
 sponges, corals, jelly-fish, sea-anemones, and the like. 
 On p. 9 is a chart, or simple " tree of life," which 
 illustrates how the root lay in protoplasm, and how the 
 stem was formed first of one-celled and then of many- 
 
 1 Greek, protos, first ; plasma, moulded. 
 2 Greek, protos, first ; zoon, animal. 3 Greek, meta, lator.
 
 THE AGE OF THE EAETH 
 
 THE "TREE OF LIFE" 
 
 Mam 
 
 Tail /ess Apes 
 
 Tailed Afonkeys 
 
 r, . _ Lemups* 
 
 Guanoing 
 
 Animals, 
 t, _ . . . , (Kats,M/ce,. 
 Hoofed An im a /j-,_ 
 
 (fforse. flepha n f. 
 Rh in o ceros, £tc.) 
 
 Manatees-. 
 
 Pouch ed Mamma Is 
 
 Bats 
 
 lions, Tigers, 
 Etc, 
 
 fv r Aales 
 
 £gg laying Mamma.ls 
 
 Binds 
 Tcptoises 
 
 Bony ft sh 
 
 Cpocodiles 
 Lizards 
 
 Pep tiles 
 
 I , 
 Amph i bid (Fnogs, A/easts, ftc.) 
 
 Dipn olds 
 
 Sea Souipts 
 
 Insects 
 
 ZoLstens, Crabs. Tic*. 
 
 Sea -urchins. Starfish 
 &-• Sha. -cucumbers 
 
 Corals, Jelly fish- 
 Sea Anemones 
 
 Sponges 
 
 Plants 
 
 Molluscs (Oysters. Sn.d lis, 
 Cuttle fish, ftc) 
 
 Worms 
 
 Metazoa (Miny-celled Animals) 
 Protozoa. (On e • celled An ima Is) 
 
 Protoplasm.
 
 10 THE EAKTH AND MAN 
 
 celled animals. The branches indicate how various other 
 creatures were evolved and the form from which they 
 probably sprang. No attempt can be made here to go 
 into the proofs upon which this tree of life is based, as 
 only the briefest outline is intended. Reference must be 
 made to any biological handbook by those who wish for 
 further information and detail. 
 
 The next animals were worm-like, and from them 
 branched off (1) Molluscs 1 — the oysters, snails, cuttle-fish, 
 etc. ; (2) Echiuoderms 2 — the sea-urchins, sea-cucumbers, 
 and star-fish; (3) Crustacea 3 — lobsters, crabs, and shrimps; 
 and (4) Insects. 
 
 Then came an extremely interesting group of animals 
 which show a new character, the forerunner of a great 
 change of form. All the animals mentioned hitherto 
 have soft bodies without bones ; although many of them, 
 like the oyster, the sea-urchin, and the lobster, have hard 
 shells to protect them. This new group had a gristly 
 cord running through the body, called the notochord* 
 This is the first stage of a backbone, formed of a number 
 of bones called vertebra. 6 The interesting little creature 
 with the notochord is a tiny lance-shaped animal found 
 in the sea and called the Amphioxus, 6 or lancelet. From 
 this lancelet came the fishes, first those with a frame- 
 work, or skeleton, of gristle, like the sharks, skates, and 
 dog-fish ; later with a skeleton of bone, as the salmon, 
 cod, and perch. As a side-branch from the lancelet 
 came the jelly-like sea-squirts, which have a notochord 
 only when they are young. Henceforward the animals 
 all have backbones. There are thus two great divisions 
 of animals — the Vertebrates (with backbones) and the 
 Invertebrates (without backbones). 
 
 Then appeared in the tree of life certain fish which 
 became specially adapted to a life in mud, when the 
 
 Latin, mollis, soft. 2 Latin, echinus, a hedgehog ; denim, skin. 
 
 ' Latin, crusta, a crust. 4 Greek, no I tck : chorde, string. 
 
 6 Latin, vertebra, a joint. ° Greek, amphi, double; oxys, sharp.
 
 THE AGE OF THE EARTH 11 
 
 water ran low from extremely dry seasons. Instead of 
 breathing like other fish by means of slits in the side, 
 or "gills," they have also lungs, so that, to meet success- 
 fully the struggle for existence, they came to possess two 
 ways of breathing. Hence they are called Dipnoids. 1 
 
 From the double-breathing fish were evolved the 
 Amphibians? animals able to live on land or in water, 
 such as the frogs and newts. From these came the 
 Reptiles* — the tortoises and turtles, crocodiles, snakes, and 
 lizards. A branch from the reptiles developed into 
 Birds. 
 
 From the reptiles came the Mammals? which nourish 
 their young by means of milk. The first of these were 
 curious creatures, which, like reptiles and birds, lay eggs. 
 The only examples now living are the spiny ant-eater 
 {Echidna) and the duck-billed platypus (Ornithorhynchiis) , 
 which are found only in Australia and New Guinea. 
 From the egg-laying mammals came the pouched 
 mammals, or Marsupials, 6 which carry their immature 
 offspring in a small pocket in the skin. The kangaroo 
 is the best-known example. 
 
 From the marsupials came a number of branches, 
 indicated in the tree, only one of which needs special 
 consideration here. This is the group of little tree-living 
 animals called Lemurs. 6 From the lemurs sprang the 
 apes and monkeys, and, what is more important, Man 
 himself. Precisely through which branch man was 
 evolved is not yet fully made out, but it is probable that 
 one ape-like ancestor gave rise to branches from which 
 came the gorilla, chimpanzee, orang-utan, gibbon, and 
 the earliest men. 
 
 It has now been seen how, by means of evolution, the 
 whole series of animals, ending in man himself, came 
 
 1 Greek, di, doublo ; filed, to breathe. 
 
 2 Greek, amphi, double ; bios, life. 3 Latin, repto, to crawl. 
 
 4 Latin, mamma, a breast. 6 Greek, marsupion, a little pouch. 
 
 fi Latin, lemur, a ghost, in allusion to its nocturnal habits.
 
 12 THE EAETH AND MAN 
 
 into being. The process has taken an enormous time. 
 From the truths which Astronomy, Geology, and Palaeon- 
 tology have revealed it has been estimated that at least 
 eighty millions of years went by from the time when 
 the earth was first split off from its parent nebula until 
 that when man first appeared. It is considered by some 
 that the time was even longer, but the estimate given 
 here is the smallest number of years which the process 
 can have taken. 
 
 § 3. The Length of Time Man has Lived on Earth 
 
 Although it has been shown that it was late in the 
 age of the earth when man first appeared, it must not 
 be considered that he has not been here very long. Some 
 estimate must, therefore, be given of the time which has 
 elapsed since he first lived upon a planet which we have 
 seen is immeasurably more ancient than the 5,926 years 
 of the older speculators. 
 
 Like other animals, the men who existed long ages 
 ago have left fossils behind them. Skulls, or parts of 
 skulls, and other bones have been found in caves or in 
 the gravels of ancient rivers, so that geologists and 
 anthropologists have been able to decide with considerable 
 accuracy what these very ancient men were like. Space 
 will not permit more than a brief notice of these primitive 
 men, but reference to Sir Arthur Keith's Antiquity of 
 Man will show that, from an examination of existing 
 fossil skulls, man of modern type has existed for an 
 enormous age, which puts back the period of time 
 necessary for his evolution from his ape-like ancestors to 
 a very remote period. Sir Arthur does not consider a 
 million years too great an estimate. 
 
 But besides his bones, which decay easily, so that only 
 few of them are found, man has left behind him the 
 implements — the axes, spears, hammers, harpoons, and 
 knives — that he made and used. These are mostly
 
 THE TIME MAN HAS LIVED ON EARTH 13 
 
 fashioned out of flint, or other stony material, for it was 
 a very long time before men knew the use of metal. 
 
 The general consensus of opinion is that the locality 
 in which man first appeared — the cradle of the race — 
 was somewhere in the Indian Ocean, where land (to 
 which the name of "Lemuria" has been given) has 
 been submerged since man was first evolved, although 
 not within historic times. The earliest men were 
 probably very unlike any of the people, even the lowest 
 savages, that exist to-day. They resembled much more, 
 although they were also different from them, the great 
 apes, the chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangs. They lived 
 in caves, ate roots and nuts, and probably used as 
 weapons sticks and stones picked up haphazard. Later 
 they made their implements out of flint, which they 
 shaped roughly by chipping. They existed for long ages 
 in this condition ; but, as time went on, they grew 
 gradually more skilful, and the implements they made 
 became better in workmanship. At some period they 
 became acquainted with the use of fire. How or when 
 this happened is unknown ; it may have been from the 
 accidental firing of dead trees or dry grass by lightning, 
 some of which burning stuff they may have saved to 
 keep a fire going for the sake of warmth. At some time 
 or other they learned to make fire for themselves, 
 probably by rubbing two sticks together or by striking 
 two flints one upon another, as some savages do to-day. 
 With better weapons they took to hunting, and, knowing 
 fire, they cooked and ate the animals they killed, using 
 their skins for clothing. The cave men even possessed 
 the art of drawing, scratching pictures of the animals 
 they saw or hunted upon pieces of ivory or slate. 
 
 Later on, after about six hundred thousand years 1 of 
 slow progress, men had improved. They had learned 
 
 1 It must be understood that these estimates are approximate only. 
 Anthropological research appears to tend to put man's appearance to 
 a more remote age than was formerly thought.
 
 14 THE EAETH AND MAN 
 
 a great deal of experience by long practice. Their speech 
 had been developing slowly, so that they were better 
 able to hand their experience on to their children. 
 Consequently their existence became gradually easier, 
 and they were beginning to live more comfortably. 
 They still made weapons and implements of flint and 
 stone, but they ground their edges and polished their 
 surfaces. They made bows and arrows, too, and harpoons 
 and picks of stags' horn. They had now learned to 
 weave cloth for garments, to make pottery to hold food 
 and water. They were hunters or fishers, and they also 
 tried to cultivate some kind of corn. One of the most 
 important things they did was to tame the dog, which 
 has been the " friend of man " ever since. This important 
 advance for man's comfort probably arose from making 
 friends with stray wolves. Cases may have arisen in 
 which a hungry or wounded wolf was kindly treated and 
 fed, and attached itself to man out of gratitude. Later 
 on men domesticated cattle. This word " domesticated ,: 
 comes from the Latin domus, and means to make a 
 " house-friend." 
 
 The earliest stage of man's progress is called the 
 Stone Age, and this is divided into an older stone, or 
 Palceolithic, 1 age, and a later, more advanced, new stone, 
 or Neolithic? age. It is now generally accepted that 
 before the paleolithic there was an Eolithic 3 age, when 
 man made the very roughly chipped flints found by the 
 late Mr. Benjamin Harrison in the remains of ancient river 
 gravels on the chalk plateau in Kent and Sussex and 
 elsewhere. Other implements, tending to connect these 
 eoliths with early palaeoliths in an evolutionary series, 
 have been found in the weald of Sussex by Mr. Harry 
 Morris. Moreover, there must have been a still earlier 
 period when he had not even reached flint work. These 
 
 1 Greek, pnlaios, ancient ; Hthos, stone. 
 
 2 Greek, neos, new. 3 Greek, cos, dawn.
 
 THE TIME MAN HAS LIVED ON EARTH 15 
 
 stone ages are "ages of man" that Shakespeare never 
 dreamed of. It must be understood that they do not 
 refer to periods of time, but to degrees of advancement. 
 
 At last men discovered metals, and when this happened 
 they began to go ahead much faster. At first they 
 employed Copper, but this metal was much too soft to 
 be serviceable. They learned quickly to mix it with 
 tin, and thus made bronze. With the Bronze Age very 
 much greater progress was made. Men began to live 
 together in larger numbers than before. In the Stone 
 Age the cave dwellers had gradually given up their caves 
 for rough huts ; then two or three huts had grown into 
 a collection big enough to be called a village. For a 
 long time men thus lived in small village communities, 
 sometimes built out upon a lake, on piles, to be more 
 secure. With the Bronze Age many of the village 
 communities had expanded into towns, and some of the 
 towns into cities. The simple huts had been gradually 
 replaced by houses which, during the age of bronze, 
 became in time more and more elaborate until they 
 reached the size and stateliness of the dwellings found 
 in Egypt, Assyria, Rome, and Athens. All this took, of 
 course, a very great deal of time, and was but a part of 
 the gradual advances men made in skill of workmanship 
 and comfort of living. So soon as the village commu- 
 nities reached any size men began to depend more upon 
 each other. Thus classes, like those of fisher, hunter, 
 warrior, flint-worker, etc., gradually began, and the 
 foundations of social intercourse and social order were 
 laid. Men found that when they wanted something 
 that one man could make more skilfully than they, it 
 was better to offer him for it things he could not make 
 so well rather than to waste time trying to make it for 
 themselves. So barter came about, gradually to grow 
 into commerce. 
 
 Thus life grew more complicated, and language 
 developed enormously. With this increasing complexity
 
 16 THE EAKTH AND MAN 
 
 of the Bronze Age there came about an invention which 
 was necessary with the greater social intercourse and the 
 beginnings of trade and commerce. It was something 
 which made a greater change in human life than had 
 ever been before or has ever been since. This was the 
 invention of writing, whereby men could put on record 
 the things they did and the thoughts they thought, so 
 that those who came afterwards could read what their 
 forefathers had done and known. Thus knowledge did 
 not die altogether with its possessor, and so the wisdom 
 of generations could accumulate. How great an influence 
 this had on man's progress will be seen later. 
 
 The art of writing, however, was not invented, as the 
 ancients thought, at once. It grew by evolution from 
 small beginnings, like everything else. It is quite 
 impossible to say in what age writing began, because 
 its evolution must have been very slow. As a matter of 
 fact, one might say that the first cave-man who thought 
 to pick up a sharp flint and scratch upon the cave wall a 
 rough outline of the bison he had seen was the inventor 
 of writing. The alphabet from which all our words are 
 formed had its origin in pictures, and the earliest known 
 writing was picture writing. The evolution of writing 
 from the picture will receive more detailed attention in a 
 later chapter. 
 
 Last of all, iron was discovered — an event which meant 
 a very great deal to man's advancement. All the wonderful 
 machines and inventions which seem almost matters of 
 course at the present day became possible through the 
 discovery of iron and how to work it. 
 
 Thus, just as the earth has passed through all its stages 
 from the nebula to the present-day distribution of land 
 and water, so has man progressed from the use of sticks 
 and stones to steam engines, battleships, and aeroplanes. 
 These stages of man's evolution are called the Stone Age, 
 the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, and it is in the Iron 
 Age that we are living. Naturally, the more skilful men
 
 THE TIME MAN HAS LIVED ON EAETH 17 
 
 became, the better weapons and implements they made, 
 and the faster they moved forward. It is certain that 
 they improved much more rapidly in the Neolithic Age, 
 and yet more so during the Bronze Age. As far as is 
 known at present, about six hundred thousand years 
 passed between the first ape-like men and the end of 
 the Stone Age, and only about thirty thousand years 
 between that and the termination of the Bronze Age. 
 These computations are only approximate, and are 
 probably much under- rather than over-estimated. So 
 far the Iron Age has lasted a little over three thousand 
 years. 
 
 If these three periods be added together, the shortest 
 time in which man can have existed upon the earth 
 is about six hundred and thirty-three thousand years — 
 a period very different to that assigned (not merely for 
 the duration of man's sojourn upon the globe, but for the 
 age of the whole universe) by those whose only foundation 
 for the calculation existed in their imaginations. Under 
 the old ideas, based upon myths * and ancient tales to be 
 discussed later, man had less than six thousand years in 
 which to achieve his present condition of civilization. 
 But the careful, patient toil of men of science has made 
 it clear, not only that man progressed very slowly, but 
 that he has had at least one hundred times longer in 
 which to do so than was formerly believed. Professor 
 Keith, as has been stated, inclines rather to a million 
 years for the process. 
 
 But when we talk of the progress of man from very 
 early times up to his present state of civilization, it must 
 not be thought that all men have progressed at the same 
 rate. There have been ups and downs, old civilizations 
 have been destroyed or have died out, and new ones have 
 arisen. There are races of men to-day who have never 
 got beyond the primitive state. In India, in mid-Africa, 
 
 1 Greek, mythos, a legend.
 
 18 THE EAETH AND MAN 
 
 in Australia, and in some of the South Sea Islands are 
 savages who still use stone implements. They are the 
 stragglers who have dropped out in the long wanderings 
 and migrations of primitive peoples before civilization was 
 attained. They have not advanced, either because they 
 were incapable of improvement or because they were in 
 some manner cut off from the opportunities which other 
 races have enjo} r ed. Many, like the Australian " black- 
 fellows," some of the tribes of Central Africa, and those 
 who inhabit the islands of the Pacific Ocean, were isolated 
 from other races until within very recent times. By the 
 study of such savage peoples some conception can be 
 obtained of what our own far-off ancestors were like. 
 We can learn from their customs and ways of thinking 
 how many of our own customs and ideas first came about. 
 We can realize the many savage survivals that modern 
 man shows at every turn — mental survivals as patent to 
 the skilled observer as are to the biologist the traces of 
 animal ancestry that we carry in our bodily structure. 
 Just as comparative anatomy lays bare the facts of animal 
 evolution, so does a study of savage mentality elucidate 
 many of the myths and legends that will be dealt with 
 later, and is of great assistance in making clear the origin 
 and evolution of religious beliefs. 
 
 § 4. Man's Habit of Asking Questions 
 
 We must now seek to ascertain why men have made 
 the progress that has just been sketched ; why they have 
 gone so much further than the other animals. 
 
 It is clear that man thinks about things ; indeed, there 
 is reason to believe that the word man is derived from 
 an ancient root word meaning to think. But man is not 
 the only animal which thinks. Many other animals think, 
 although probably most of them can do so only vaguely. 
 Opportunities occur every day for proving the truth of 
 this fact of animal thought. The dog knows clearly when
 
 MAN'S HABIT OF ASKING QUESTIONS 19 
 
 he has done wrong, and will avoid his master because of 
 it. A well-trained dog will often do what he is told 
 in a most surprising manner. That dogs, cats, horses, 
 elephants, seals, and monkeys can be trained to work or 
 to perform tricks is a matter of common knowledge. But 
 there is a limit to their powers of thought, and no other 
 animal, however well trained, has ever progressed like 
 man. Therefore it is evident that man has not reached 
 his improved condition solely by thinking. It has been 
 said that one of the characters which distinguish man 
 from all other living creatures is that he is a tool-using 
 animal. It is true that the ability to use his hands has 
 been of inestimable advantage to him ; and it is also true 
 that parrots and elephants are highly intelligent because 
 the former can use their claws and the latter their trunks 
 for grasping in much the same way as we use our hands. 
 But this does not help to answer the question. Monkeys 
 will employ a stone for cracking hard nuts, and there are 
 some wasps which beat down the earth over the burrows 
 in which they have laid their eggs by holding a tiny 
 fragment of stone between their jaws. Therefore the 
 tool-using argument does not assist us, and some other 
 solution of the problem must be sought. Careful study 
 of comparative psychology shows that many of the acts 
 of apparent reasoning in animals are merely plain sensory 
 associations of recorded with recurrent stimuli ; that 
 animals reason unconsciously and not consciously, while 
 man, alone of all animals, can reason in both ways. 
 
 It is also trae that many animals communicate with 
 one another by making sounds, and that this might, in a 
 sense, be called " animal speech." But the sounds they 
 make are so limited in number, and can express only such 
 conditions as anger, terror, hunger, contentment, warning, 
 or love, that they can hardly be compared to human 
 speech. It must, however, be remembered that com- 
 munication by sounds in animals is only a part of the 
 evolution which has resulted in human speech. It may
 
 20 THE EAETH AND MAN 
 
 be said, therefore, that one great fact is that man can 
 think so much better than the other animals because 
 he is able to speak. Speech assists him to clear his 
 thoughts, and gives him some vehicle in which to 
 express them and communicate his thoughts to his 
 fellows. It is speech that enables him to reason con- 
 sciously as well as unconsciously. Men are thus able 
 to discuss things among themselves. Another great 
 fact that so greatly distinguishes man from all other 
 beings is the faculty which we all possess of asking 
 questions. This is the greatest fact of all. The lowest 
 kinds of men, the most primitive savages, are highly 
 inquisitive concerning new things and things they do not 
 understand. They will ask all kinds of questions about 
 everything they see, just as children are always asking 
 questions about this, that, and the other — why the sky 
 is blue, where the rain comes from, what the wind says, 
 and the like. Children begin to ask questions as soon 
 as they have acquired sufficient command of speech to 
 express their thoughts. Savages are just like children : 
 their minds have not " grown up " like those of civilized 
 people ; they are intellectual " Peter Pans." But they 
 have the potentiality for improvement, because they can 
 talk about things and exchange thoughts with one another. 
 If they can find no one to ask who knows more than they, 
 they will put questions to themselves. The questions that 
 a savage will ask himself are much the same as those 
 of children. Lacking a guide to instruct him, he will 
 formulate replies of his own. He will decide, for example, 
 that the wind is some great spirit who is talking to him ; 
 when it is high and making a howling noise he will tell 
 himself that this great spirit is in pain or is angry with 
 him. The difficulty is that he is prone to "jump to 
 conclusions," to consider the answer he has thought of is 
 the only correct one. Worse still, he may be angry with 
 any one who thinks differently, and this has been the 
 cause of much trouble and unhappiness in the world.
 
 MAN'S HABIT OF ASKING QUESTIONS 21 
 
 The importance of this will be seen in due course. The 
 fact to bear in mind is that man differs from all other 
 animals because he is the only one that can ask questions. 
 In studying the various animals which have been 
 evolved, one cannot but be struck by the fact that so 
 many have become specialized; some for strength, as 
 the elephant, some for combat, as the stag, some for 
 swiftness of movement, as the horse and greyhound, 
 some for endurance, as the camel, and so on. Man has 
 specialized in brain; and since, as Professor Keith and 
 others have shown, the special characters of the human 
 brain must have been evolved very early in his existence 
 as a separate species, primitive man must long have 
 possessed the potentialities for his extraordinary progress. 
 One of the most striking features in the skulls of early 
 men are certain pithecoid, or ape-like, characters. Yet 
 the brains of these men were distinctly human, and, as 
 Professor Elliot Smith has said, the last part of man to 
 be polished up was his face. All things considered, he is 
 still on the upward grade ; what he may become can only 
 be conjectured ; but, as we shall point out, it is computed 
 by mathematicians that the world has still another ten 
 million years to go. If man has reached his present 
 position in one million years, he may have still greater 
 possibilities before him.
 
 Chapter II 
 MAN'S FIEST SEAKCH FOB EXPLANATIONS 
 
 § 1. Man's Earliest Questions 
 
 A brief description has now been given of the making 
 of the earth, the appearance upon it of life in plants and 
 animals, and of the process of evolution which led to 
 the advent of man. His progress has been sketched 
 rapidly, and due emphasis laid upon the enormous time 
 that it occupied. Lastly, it has been pointed out that 
 man differs from all other animals by the special size 
 and quality of his brain, to which is due his faculty of 
 inquiry, of asking questions. The next task is to discuss 
 the character of his earliest questions, using the know- 
 ledge which has accumulated from the study of existing 
 primitive races. For this it will be necessary to go back 
 a little, and to consider what sort of creature man was 
 when he first came to inhabit the earth, and how he 
 progressed in his ability to think. 
 
 Probably the very earliest men were but a slight 
 degree better than the great apes. In the beginning 
 they must have had little or no speech in which to 
 express their thoughts. The oldest skulls found tend to 
 prove this. Indeed, it is doubtful whether their ways of 
 expression were anything more than those of the " animal 
 speech " already mentioned. 1 It is likely that grunts, 
 
 1 Professor Elliot Smith, in his address as President of the Anthro- 
 pological Section of the British Association at Dundee, 1912, is of opinion 
 that the human brain must have reached almost its full development, and 
 that speech was probably in full process of evolution, before the jawbone, 
 tongue, and other parts which subserve the purposes of speech had become 
 finally and fully adapted to their new functions. With this opinion 
 Sir A. Keith (Antiquity of Man, p. 244) agrees. If this bo so, speech must 
 have boon well devclopod in early Paleoolithic times. 
 
 22 
 
 «
 
 MAN'S EAELIEST QUESTIONS 23 
 
 snarls, and chuckles, eked out by grimaces and gestures, 
 formed man's chief method of expressing himself. His 
 power of thinking was not great and his thoughts must 
 have been very vague. 
 
 It is very probable that man at first classed himself 
 among the many other animals ; that as far as his 
 thoughts went he simply considered himself as one of 
 them. He was in the stage of possessing only a direct 
 knowledge of the things he saw, or heard, or felt, and 
 thought no more about his own separate existence than 
 does a very young child. 
 
 Man possessed the instinct of family life from the 
 first ; and, as the family increased, the life of the tribe 
 developed. Man is naturally gregarious 1 — that is to say, 
 he prefers to live in company with other men. As men 
 multiplied, the number of tribes increased ; and, with this 
 increase, the struggle for existence and the difficulties of 
 obtaining sufficient food became more intense, so that 
 tribe struggled with tribe for the bare necessities of life, 
 and the weaker ones went under. Moreover, the search 
 for a living tended to migration, causing men to spread 
 themselves over wider tracts of country, following the 
 lines along which the land was most fertile and suitable 
 to their wants. The common need compelled them to 
 realize the importance of helping one another, and that 
 the safety and well-being of the tribe depended upon 
 mutual co-operation and assistance. Consequently, man 
 began to understand that if he lives for himself and his 
 own comfort only, and does not remember to be careful 
 to act so as not to injure and annoy his fellows, he will 
 come to grief. That is to say, he began to learn the 
 necessity of unselfishness, of kindness to others, of self- 
 sacrifice, of " give and take," in the common life of the 
 tribe. Working together was the only thing that could 
 make the tribe successful. Thus developed the " tribal 
 
 1 Latin, grex, a flock.
 
 24 MAN'S FIEST SEAECH FOR EXPLANATIONS 
 
 instinct " (to grow, ages later, into the national instinct, 
 with all that the word "patriotism" conveys), when the 
 tribe became everything to its members, and all strangers 
 were considered as enemies. 
 
 § 2. Speech and Thought 
 
 The progress of man through the family to the tribe 
 
 (itself only a much bigger family) was largely due to the 
 
 development of articulate speech. 1 The necessity for 
 
 understanding one another better gave man the need to 
 
 invent words which he could use to put his thoughts 
 
 into shape. At the beginning many of these words were 
 
 imitations of natural sounds, as the American Indian 
 
 word baim-iva-wa for " thunder," and possibly also the 
 
 Egyptian man for " cat." When he was able to do this 
 
 his ideas became more clear to him. We cannot imagine 
 
 the possibility of any one thinking of something without 
 
 a word or words to express it. The sight of a knife, for 
 
 example, immediately conjures up the word " knife " in 
 
 the mind, even though the word itself is not spoken. 
 
 Other words come into our thoughts also when we see a 
 
 knife, such as "cut," "sharp," and the like. In fact, the 
 
 one object calls up a whole train of thoughts and ideas. 
 
 But this train of thoughts has become possible only after 
 
 long ages of progressive speech, and could not have 
 
 happened with the first men. 
 
 Speech has been described as " the garment in which 
 we clothe our thoughts." It is better, perhaps, to say 
 that icords are the symbols of thought. This conveys 
 better the conception that, without words to represent 
 them, even to ourselves, our thoughts would be nebulous 
 indeed. When speech first began, therefore, man's 
 thinking must have been of a very vague nature, and 
 probably it was a long time before he could reason clearly 
 
 1 Latin, articulatus, divided into joints — i.e., speech divided up into 
 syllables.
 
 THE EARLIEST QUESTIONS 25 
 
 enough to begin to put questions to himself or to other 
 men concerning the objects around him. Until he 
 developed sufficient speech to enable him to think clearly, 
 he took everything he saw for granted. Speech develops 
 memory and reflection ; primeval speech must have been 
 so limited as to permit but small range of reflection. 
 Once man had a stock of words for the expression of his 
 thoughts, he was able to ask questions. 
 
 § 3. The Earliest Questions 
 
 The stage reached in which there was real intercourse 
 between men by means of speech, putting questions 
 became possible, and this has never ceased. Man was 
 really beginning to look around him and to wonder 
 concerning the things he saw. From this time onward 
 he wanted to account for all he saw and felt when he 
 was awake or asleep. He had all the varied voices of 
 nature to speculate upon. There were the sigh of the 
 wind in the trees, the murmur of the brook, the roar 
 of the sea. The volcano belched its flames and overflowed 
 its torrents of fiery lava, the lightning split trees and 
 rived rocks, and the thunder boomed and crashed, 
 shaking the earth with its reverberations. What was 
 the meaning of it all ? There were hundreds of things 
 going on around this latest achievement of evolution, 
 some hideous and terrifying, some beautiful and pleasing : 
 he wanted an explanation of them all. Last night he 
 slumbered heavily in his cave and a friend had visited 
 him, with whom he talked. When he awoke it was to 
 remember that but a short time before he had seen that 
 friend crushed by the fall of a tree. How was it that he 
 could have talked with him again ? Also, why had the 
 tree fallen and crushed him ? Possibly on the following 
 night he dreamed again. This time it was of a hunt, 
 when he tracked an animal and killed it with some 
 favourite rough weapon. Turning this over in his
 
 26 MAN'S FIKST SEAKCH FOE EXPLANATIONS 
 
 immature mind when he was awake, he recollected how 
 he had killed that animal before ; he knew it because it 
 had only one ear, the other had been torn off in combat 
 with some larger and fiercer beast. The very weapon 
 with which he had slain it had been broken soon after. 
 Yet but a few moments ago he had killed that same 
 quarry again, and with the same weapon. What did it 
 mean ? How had it happened ? He had gone to sleep 
 in his cave and had awakened there ; he had not even 
 changed his position. Perhaps a companion awake in 
 the cave assured him he had never left it. Yet he must 
 have been absent some time, for the place where he had 
 killed his prey was some distance off, and he knew he 
 had been there since he went to sleep. He had recognized 
 the trees and the river. Such a dream must have been 
 a sore puzzle to these primitive men and the cause of 
 much argument. Probably the dreamer spoke of it to 
 other men, and they told him of their own similar 
 mysterious experiences. With what animated gestures 
 and excited grunts they must have discussed the matter, 
 waving their arms and eking out their still scanty stock 
 of words by acting to one another the things they had 
 seen and done, just as savages to-day will act when they 
 attempt to explain some event in their experience. 
 
 § 4. Explanations 
 
 Such must have been the class of questions that 
 primitive men asked first ; how did they endeavour to 
 answer them ? The conclusion they came to, judging 
 by their modern representatives, was that all the objects 
 they saw about them — beasts, birds, trees, rocks, stones — 
 were like themselves. Everything was as much alive as 
 they. There is nothing strange in this, especially in the 
 case of animals and birds. Any one who sees them run 
 or fly, eat and sleep, who hears their squeaks and cries, 
 would know them to be alive. The problem is no more
 
 EXPLANATIONS 27 
 
 difficult to the primitive mind as regards trees, rocks, 
 and stones. Very small children think anything that 
 moves (a mechanical doll, for instance) is alive, and will 
 talk to it as to a living thing. When it is realized that 
 these early men were in the childhood of existence, it is 
 equally reasonable that they should feel that the things 
 which we know to be inanimate were really living. In 
 the case of trees (which are, indeed, alive) the wind 
 moves their boughs and rustles their leaves, and they 
 appear to make creaking and sighing noises, especially 
 at night. Then there are the echoes among the moun- 
 tains, while stones and large rocks come rushing and 
 roaring down the hillsides. Eivers and streams make 
 sounds, and their waters flow. Volcanoes rumble and 
 roar, the rain hisses down, thunder crashes, the wind 
 makes a variety of noises. It is no wonder, therefore, 
 that all things seemed alive to primitive men ; they are 
 thought to be animate by many savages that exist 
 to-day. 
 
 Therefore, men explained these things by telling them- 
 selves and each other that every natural object had 
 a " spirit " or " ghost "; not only men and other animals, 
 but trees, stones, rocks, volcanoes, and the wind as well ; 
 in fact, everything in nature. The wind was a great 
 spirit talking ; the spirit of the river murmured when it 
 was pleased, or roared when angry and dashed its waves 
 against its banks. The spirits of the trees talked among 
 themselves when their leaves rustled ; the echoes were 
 the voices of the hill spirits calling to one another. 
 Such belief in nature spirits is very widespread among 
 savages, and was probably the earliest explanation of 
 nature that man invented. It forms one of our many 
 savage survivals, making children beat the thing which 
 annoys or hurts them, and grown men kick viciously at 
 the stool over which they stumble.
 
 28 MAN'S FIRST SEAECH FOR EXPLANATIONS 
 
 § 5. Naturism 
 
 But there was a period before that in which man 
 invented any such explanation ; a time when he was 
 more truly a part of nature than he is now ; when, as it 
 were, he and the other animals met upon common 
 ground. This requires some explanation before proceed- 
 ing further. 
 
 It has already been seen that there has never been 
 any break in the line of life which, beginning with the 
 simple, one-celled animal, has led from protoplasm up to 
 man. Man is made of exactly the same stuff and on the 
 same plan as all other animals. What people do not so 
 readily understand is that there is also no break between 
 man and other animals as regards the faculty of the 
 mind. Man's mind is so much a part of the animal 
 system that it is not possible to study him apart from 
 other creatures. Therefore the impressions made upon 
 early man by the objects around him must have been 
 just like those made upon other animals. 
 
 One chief result of these impressions must have been 
 that of fear, and the effect of fear upon children and 
 ignorant people is to give them a sense of some unknown 
 and unseen power which permeates the universe and for 
 which they are unprepared. 
 
 Studies of primitive people living in the Indian jungle 
 have shown that this indistinct fear of some mysterious 
 nature-power is their only idea of natural things. They 
 have as yet reached no explanation of nature which 
 suggests anything personal in the way of spirits that 
 deliberately hurt or help them. This primitive condition 
 is called Naturism (or, as it comes before the idea of 
 spirits, Pre-anlmism). Its root-idea is one of vague, but 
 threatening, power everywhere. The world is not yet 
 thought of as full of spirits, but as just simply alive. It 
 was only when the mind of man became more developed 
 that he began to separate himself and all the other
 
 ANIMISM 29 
 
 objects in nature into two parts, bodily and spiritual, 
 and to conceive of a "natural" and a "supernatural." 
 Naturism links up human with animal psychology. 
 
 § 6. Animism 
 
 The idea that all natural objects have spirits is called 
 Animism, 1 a conception that has exercised a very wide- 
 spread influence in the world and led to many remarkable 
 developments in superstition and worship that cannot be 
 entered into here. In the dreams described above, it was 
 in the first case the spirit of the dreamer's friend that had 
 spoken to him, the ghost of the man who had been 
 crushed by the tree. The man who dreamed of him 
 would probably conclude that his friend had grievously 
 offended the spirit of the tree, which had revenged itself 
 by falling upon and killing him. In the second dream 
 it was the spirit of the beast the hunter had killed which 
 he pursued and slew anew ; the dream-weapon he had 
 used was the spirit of the weapon he had broken. Quite 
 naturally also he would think that it was his own spirit 
 which had wandered away during sleep and had done 
 these things, leaving his body to rest quietly in the cave 
 while it hunted of its own accord. 
 
 This belief in animism rules the life of the savage. 
 Primitive man had none of the advantages that we have 
 now ; he had no one to explain the matters which he did 
 not understand. With his limited comprehension, he had 
 to find out everything for himself, and he made mistakes 
 which took ages to correct ; some of these errors are 
 being put right only now, while the survival of others is 
 responsible for the majority of our modern superstitions. 
 Most men, for example, still talk of the natural results of 
 the laws of nature as "Providence." The conception that 
 everything possessed a "spirit" of its own led to many 
 
 1 Latin, anima, a spirit.
 
 30 MAN'S FIRST SEARCH FOR EXPLANATIONS 
 
 beliefs which made men act in a manner which, while 
 seeming to them perfectly reasonable in the light of these 
 beliefs, appears foolish, often cruel, to our eyes. Some 
 of the results of the belief in animism, such as human 
 sacrifice, will require notice later. • 
 
 There were, moreover, many daily occurrences which 
 appeared to the primitive mind to strengthen convincingly 
 the belief in animism. When a man looked into the 
 water of a lake or pool, he could see himself as in a 
 mirror. He saw not only his own reflection, but those 
 of other men, their weapons, the natural objects round 
 about them, and the birds flying overhead. Everything, 
 again, himself included, had its shadow, which never left 
 its owner. The shadows of objects which, like himself, 
 could move, moved with them. They vanished only 
 when it grew dark, or the weather was cloudy. The fact 
 that the shadow of something which, like a tree or rock, 
 always remained in one place, moved round it and changed 
 its dimensions at different times of the day, was to man 
 but a further proof tha: : ; . as alive, since he was com- 
 pletely ignorant of the fact that such alterations were a 
 consequence of the position of the sun. It was but 
 natural, therefore, that man connected these shadows 
 and reflections in the water with the " spirits " belonging 
 to the objects which cast them, and that he believed 
 these spirits to be their ca,: Indeed, from such 
 
 shadows and reflections he came to the conclusion that 
 everything had a "second-self," or "spirit-double," which 
 followed it about, but could separate from its owner at 
 times. Hence he attributed a great importance to shadows, 
 believing that they could exert the same influence over 
 people and things as could their owners. From this 
 belief arose the multitude of savage superstitions con- 
 cerning shadows, many of which superstitions were 
 common in medieval Europe, and of which Chamisso's 
 story of the "Shadowless Man" is a well-known example.
 
 -HIT AND DEATH 11 
 
 § 7 5 ::p and Death 
 
 L: the :m: ::' leath ?: ._m.m ram 
 
 1 Other animals . T Hid 1mm Uttl 
 
 mis ::m.ml m i : : mh .- Tie na: .'-- . 
 
 :hai the breath was me smi: which 
 
 kd Led mm bodies. MArs ;. vrhen 
 
 A .mm - : ml m: . ; . _ -: 
 
 : .: .5 not an c isy ta i::er :: imm :ha: :h 
 
 .".'_ ::_ ..: -: re: ie ~me they - :■: 
 
 br .. g ag vent :: sighs n: gamnts 
 
 ml mm :.mm:ez:e :■: am sting m: mmmg rhei 
 
 se : :- farther strezg: man m 
 
 h = A :n saints Sleer .ml leath t rare! sa math 
 
 ke Evident :. spnm c: nil leave the la l.y in sleer. 
 
 :: a hen .: m me I'm: .r :he reason. 
 
 it am .1 :; early :_ m — hy ye: A sleeping somzlly z: 
 
 :he! When : : s :.: re mam el ml re-enterel 
 
 :' - ' : ■ 1 : : _. i mme a arise "men 
 
 i: - . . - . - m: it mall .to: izis m A zrl; in 
 
 :h tie real :: me st mm " m_."i". ms 1 ;lv 
 
 iting in its mtims Tne m mmmg A;_ sozml 
 
 :s generally :. ::m t: sl:~ m.ess. .tnl 
 
 savages A .:: m: mmse t yers.m snlle: lest me s: ::: 
 
 m ' a re : ar mng into tne "cc-ly 
 
 11 .: me smlri: mail Am: its :~ner"s 1:1 
 
 ::..::_ s] ?p ml mm. :.: v 1 :: mas: g: mm :.:m 
 
 he 1 " i . . ' : . _::..: me 
 
 atsm:: - :. :m in :'... : :me: mm.: ml yer- 
 
 : . Am me exyl.m.t: :n mi: man 
 
 is that there mas: A t ::::::; as The 
 
 idea M - . .. . s tha t : 
 
 in gh 
 
 1 c
 
 32 MAN'S FIKST SEARCH FOE EXPLANATIONS 
 
 up of nature against supernature. Hence the spirits of 
 the dead might plague the living and require to be driven 
 away or prevented from doing harm by offerings and 
 gifts. It is not until much later on in evolution that 
 the savage distinguishes between a natural world here 
 and a spiritual world elsewhere. Therefore, as man 
 pondered these matters more and more, he argued that, 
 as the spirit came back after sleep, so it might return 
 after death ; and, acting upon this supposition, he began 
 to bury the dead with greater care, placing in their 
 graves such things as belonged to them and that they 
 might need when the spirit returned. That this con- 
 ception came comparatively early is suggested by the 
 evident interments met with in early palaeolithic times. 
 
 There is another interesting point concerning these 
 primitive burials. It was usual to break any object 
 which was to be placed with the dead. Some savages 
 follow this practice in the present day. What is the 
 reason ? Probably death from disease or old age was as 
 rare with early man as it is with modern primitive 
 savages. When they died, they were killed in fight or 
 by wild beasts, or from such other causes as crushing by 
 falling trees or rocks, or by falling from a height. They 
 were hurt — broken. So when any object — a flint imple- 
 ment, for example — was broken, it was no longer of any 
 use ; it was dead. Therefore these men killed the things 
 that were to be buried with their dead owner in order 
 that their spirits might be set free to help that of the 
 deceased. With some savage tribes, in the case of chiefs 
 and headmen, it is usual to kill their wives and slaves 
 and bury them around the chief, so that their spirits may 
 serve his in the spirit world as their owners served him 
 when living. 
 
 § 8. Ghosts and Magic 
 
 A step further must now be taken. Since a man's 
 spirit or ghost could wander about doing things while
 
 GHOSTS AND MAGIC 33 
 
 he was alive or asleep, there could be no reason why it 
 should not act similarly when he was dead. It was 
 considered, as has been said, that a spirit, once it had 
 left a man's dead body, continued to inhabit the world 
 of the living in ghostly form. It might wander away 
 and merely "haunt" its old home by occasional visits, or 
 it might return into the world of the living in a fresh 
 embodiment. In the latter event it could effect its 
 purpose by entering another body. Since it is a very 
 common idea among savages that conception is the result 
 of the entry of a spirit into the mother, the usual method 
 was to return in the body of a new-born infant and to 
 inhabit it throughout the life of its host, not leaving it until 
 death, when it became again a disembodied spirit. The 
 fact that a child showed a likeness to a dead parent, 
 grandparent, or other relative, tended to support this 
 belief. Or the spirit might elect to inhabit an animal, 
 a tree, or even a rock or stone. Such a course would 
 appear perfectly reasonable to men who believed that every 
 object they saw possessed a spirit. The idea gave rise 
 to the belief in the " transmigration of souls," still held 
 by many persons, both among savages and the more 
 ignorant of civilized peoples. In the Malay Peninsula the 
 soul of a magician is supposed to enter into the body of 
 a tiger, and Skeat and Blagden give an interesting 
 description of the process. 1 
 
 Further, since spirits could do all these things, they 
 were equally capable of taking possession of a man's 
 body when he was asleep and his own spirit was away 
 engaged upon some little private excursion of its own. 
 Savages believe that there are always lurking spirits 
 ready to seize the opportunity to enter the body of a man 
 when he is at a disadvantage, as when he is too suddenly 
 awakened for his own spirit to have time to get back. 
 This " possession " of a man's body was considered as 
 
 1 Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula (Lond.; Macmillan ; 190G), ii, 351.
 
 34 MAN'S FIKST SEAKCH FOR EXPLANATIONS 
 
 accounting for madness, fits, or other nervous disorders — 
 a belief that survived well into such highly civilized 
 periods as Roman times, as shown by some of the 
 miracles recorded in the New Testament, and by the 
 story of the Gadarene swine. 
 
 In fact, there was no end to what a spirit might do ; 
 and, since men are good or bad, powerful or weak, so the 
 spirits of men, animals, and things were beneficent or 
 malignant. They could, it was believed, work a great 
 deal of good or a great deal of harm ; they were capable 
 of loving or hating, avenging neglect or injury, showing 
 gratitude and rewarding kindness. Hence, if a man 
 offended the spirit of a rock or a tree, it might revenge itself 
 by falling upon and killing him when he was unprepared. 
 
 To savages (and it must be remembered that the early 
 men who were our remote ancestors in this country were 
 savages too) there is no such thing as accident or disease. 
 Every injury, every kind of death that can befall a man, 
 is due to a spirit, save when it is owing to the act of 
 another man, as when one warrior slays another in fight. 
 The lightning that strikes, the rock that crushes, the 
 beast of prey that tears and devours, all are spirits. 
 A savage is not drowned by falling into a river and being 
 unable to swim ; it is the spirit of the water that seizes 
 and strangles him. Similarly, every disease is the work 
 of some evil spirit or is due to witchcraft, concerning 
 which something will be said presently. 
 
 Thus early man, like savages now existing, lived in 
 a world full of all kinds of spirits or ghosts, good and 
 evil. They filled his whole life, requiring to be reckoned 
 with in everything he undertook. They could not only 
 understand his spoken words, but had the power to read 
 his very thoughts. To him it was not the rain and 
 sun that made his fruit and corn to grow and ripen for 
 his food ; not the tempest that destroyed his hut ; not 
 the tree that gave him shade. It was the spirits of the 
 sun and rain, the storm and tree, that helped or harmed
 
 GHOSTS AND MAGIC 35 
 
 him. Early man was well aware that if he required the 
 assistance of some person more powerful than himself 
 the best way to go to work was to persuade him to do 
 what he desired by supplication, or by offering him some- 
 thing he wanted in exchange or that would be to his 
 advantage. Or, if he had incurred the other's anger, to 
 endeavour to placate him by promises or gifts. As a 
 matter of course, therefore, he approached the spirits in 
 the same way, seeking by prayer, offering, and sacrifice 
 to induce them to grant his desires. That is to say, he 
 began to worship them after a fashion. In every way 
 that he could devise, he strove to attract the attention of 
 beneficent spirits, to please the powerful ones, or to ward 
 off the bad influences of those whose nature was maleficent. 
 Thus, when he ate the fruit of a tree, he would leave 
 some part of it for the tree-spirit ; when he gathered his 
 scanty crops he sacrificed something to the earth-spirit 
 in the belief that he received them from it, and that his 
 offering would induce it to grant him another good crop 
 in the future. He had not then realized the orderly 
 round of the seasons, because their succession was at too 
 great intervals, and the memory of the savage is a short one. 
 He understood day and night, since these were a matter 
 of hours only. Therefore he held that, unless the earth- 
 spirit were propitiated, it might be angered and refuse 
 to yield him the crops upon which he so greatly depended 
 for food. 
 
 The life of early man being beset with hardship and 
 exposed to many dangers, the majority of the spirits 
 which surrounded him appeared to be evil, and it was, 
 consequently, the maleficent spirits that he most feared 
 and had greatest reason to propitiate or render harmless 
 The good spirits were by nature beneficent and helpful, 
 easily contented with thanks and small gifts. It was 
 the evil ones that he had to persuade, and out of his 
 efforts to bend them to his purpose grew what is called 
 magic or witchcraft.
 
 \ 
 
 3G MAN'S FIEST SEAECH FOR EXPLANATIONS 
 
 From all that has been said it can be inferred that 
 primitive man had no knowledge, such as is possessed by 
 his descendants, of the real causes underlying the workings 
 of nature. He considered that everything going on 
 around him was the work of spirits, whose nature was 
 similar to his own. It was this confusion between the 
 spirit idea (animism) and the ordinary operations of 
 nature that led to the system of magic. 
 
 The ideas upon which magic was built up were two. 
 First, that like produces like — i.e., that an effect resembles 
 its cause ("homoeopathic magic"); second, that things 
 which have once been in contact continue to act upon 
 each other even after that contact has been broken 
 ("contact magic"). 1 Examples will make this explana- 
 tion more clear. Thus, the idea that " like produces 
 like" is used by the savage witch-doctor, or medicine- 
 man, when he seeks to "make rain" — that is, to induce 
 the rain-spirit to send a shower when it is badly needed. 
 He knows that when there is thunder rain generally 
 accompanies it and falls in a shower on the ground. 
 Therefore he rattles peas or small stones in a hollow 
 gourd, thus making a noise which he fancies resembles 
 that of thunder, and pours water on the earth to represent 
 the falling of rain. The modern savage devil-doctor, 
 however, usually endeavours to postpone operations until 
 his weather experience tells him that rain is likely to 
 occur — an example followed by a certain country parson 
 who resisted the supplication of his farmer parishioners 
 to pray for rain as long as the wind remained in an 
 unfavourable quarter. To take another example, when 
 the medicine man desires to injure some one he constructs 
 a little image of him in clay or other material, and 
 believes that by sticking thorns or knives into it the man 
 will suffer precisely as if the thorns or knives were 
 inserted into him. This belief was universal in medieval 
 
 1 These two theories are branches of what is called " Sympathetic Magic."
 
 GHOSTS AND MAGIC 37 
 
 times, and still survives among ignorant peasants in out- 
 lying districts of the Continent and in the Highlands of 
 Scotland 1 at the present day. The province of homoeo- 
 pathic magic is very wide, extending, among other things, 
 to medicine, in which, to take an instance, the plant 
 called " eyebright " was considered to be a sovereign 
 remedy for eye diseases because its flower resembled an 
 eye. " In Germany yellow turnips, gold coins, gold rings, 
 saffron, and other yellow things, are still esteemed 
 remedies for jaundice." 2 
 
 To take an example of the second magical idea — that 
 things which have once been in contact will continue to 
 act upon each other after the contact is broken — the 
 medicine man believes that, provided he can obtain some 
 object which a person has worn, or some part of his body, 
 such as his blood, spittle, hair, or the parings of his nails, 
 he can affect that person by injuring or destroying it. 
 
 Among the parts of a man that can be employed for 
 purposes of "contact" magic is his name, which savages 
 consider to be an essential part of himself. This branch 
 of sorcery can only be touched upon here ; it will be 
 found very ably and amply discussed in Mr. Clodd's 
 recent work, Magic in Na??ies. It is necessary, however, 
 to point out that to primitive man his name is no mere 
 label of identity, but a very real part of himself. The 
 savage, therefore, keeps his name a strict secret, going 
 usually by some nickname, because he believes that if 
 any badly-disposed person learns it he can use it to work 
 magic to its owner's harm. This belief in the magic 
 of names has led to an extraordinary number of super- 
 stitions, not least among which is the universal custom of 
 making the name of a god into something mysterious and 
 secret, not lightly to be spoken, and with which all kinds 
 of magic can be wrought. 
 
 But the study of this great system of magic is so large 
 
 1 Frazer, Golden Bough, i, 17. 2 Frazer, Magical Origin of Kings, p. 49. 
 
 D
 
 38 MAN'S FIRST SEARCH FOR EXPLANATIONS 
 
 and complicated that no more than this brief sketch can 
 be given here. Those who would pursue the subject will 
 find in Sir James Frazer's Golden Bough practically 
 everything that is to be said concerning it. The belief 
 in magic was due to a wrong idea of nature and the laws 
 governing the natural world. 1 The greater and more 
 correct knowledge which is now possessed, and which is 
 growing daily more complete, demonstrates the error of 
 the old conceptions. Yet early peoples who practised 
 magic did so because they believed in it. They were 
 doing their best to understand the natural phenomena 
 concerning which they were continually asking them- 
 selves questions. By doing so they were really paving 
 the way for science ; indeed, it may be truly said that 
 these witch-doctors and medicine-men were the fore- 
 runners of the scientific men of to-day. 
 
 So by means of magic early man strove to bend nature 
 to his will, to coerce the spirits in which he believed into 
 granting his desires. And out of these endeavours to 
 coax or compel good and evil spirits grew the prayers, 
 the rites, and ceremonies of religion. It was in fear, 
 therefore, that religion began, by endeavouring to influence 
 malevolent spirits that were ever ready to injure mankind, 
 so that they might not do him evil. The conception of a 
 god who loved and could be loved came much later in 
 man's progress ; it has not been reached even now by 
 savage races. 
 
 § 9. The Origin of Kings and Priests 
 
 The practice of magic not only paved the way for 
 science, but also was mainly responsible for the origin 
 of kings and priests. Like other branches of the study, 
 this is a complicated subject, of which only a very rough 
 outline can be given here. 2 
 
 1 The modem stuff that goes by the name of " Spiritualism " is no better. 
 
 2 The reader who would pursue it is referred to Frazsr's Golden Bough 
 and The Magical Origin of Kings.
 
 THE OBIGIN OF KINGS AND PBIESTS 30 
 
 Probably in the beginning every man was his own 
 priest, and such dealings as he had with spirits he 
 carried out for himself. This is the condition of affairs 
 pertaining among many living primitive tribes (as in 
 Australia) as far as their personal gods are concerned, 
 and it has survived among civilized peoples as private 
 prayer. But as the ideas about spirits and the best 
 methods of propitiating or coercing them grew, they 
 became so intricate that as time went on a period arrived 
 when a special class of experts was required to carry out 
 all the magic rites and ceremonies that were considered 
 necessary. In families and small tribes this might be 
 done by the father or head man, who thus became a 
 species of chief, or king, and priest combined. Later 
 there developed a regular class of men whose special 
 office was to deal with spirits. They followed no other 
 occupation, they studied the subject, and often their know- 
 ledge was handed down from father to son. Such men 
 among savage races are called "shamans," "magicians," 
 "sorcerers," "wizards," "witch-doctors," "devil-doctors," 
 or "medicine-men," and to become one often entails a 
 long training. These experts were the forerunners of 
 priesthoods. In savage races the ruler, or king, is the 
 chief sorcerer of them all, and in many countries, both 
 primitive and civilized, the king is the head of the 
 religion. 
 
 As the religious idea became more and more elaborated 
 in course of time, the conception developed that the 
 priest-king was himself the incarnation or habitation of 
 the most important and powerful spirit, or god, of the 
 tribe, and thus he came to be worshipped as a god. In 
 this conception probably lies the origin of the so-called 
 "divine right" of kings, so that "the divinity which 
 doth hedge a king " was no mere empty phrase. It gave 
 rise to a large number of the beliefs and ceremonies of 
 different religions, which have dominated mankind in 
 many ages. The Pharaoh of Egypt, for example, was
 
 40 MAN'S FIRST SEARCH FOR EXPLANATIONS 
 
 believed to be a god, was worshipped as a god ; his 
 statues were placed among those of the gods, and with 
 them received the adoration of his subjects. He was 
 considered to be the son of Heru-ur — i.e., Horus the 
 Great, the oldest of all the gods of Egypt. 
 
 One of the results of this belief in the divinity of 
 kings led to the idea among primitive peoples (the early 
 Romans, for example, who were Animists) that when the 
 king became old and infirm the god required a new and 
 more active body, and the king whom he inhabited was, 
 therefore, killed so that the god might enter a younger 
 and stronger man. In some cases he was put to death 
 by his successor : — 
 
 The priest who slew the slayer, 
 And shall himself be slain. 1 
 
 § 10. Fasting and Trance and the Ideas 
 Concerning Them 
 
 The life of the savage and of early man was, as 
 has been said, one of hardship and ceaseless struggle 
 for existence, not only with other tribes, but with 
 the immense world of spirits which they created for 
 themselves. Scarcity of game to hunt or a bad fruit 
 season resulted in difficulties in obtaining food, which 
 often entailed famine and fasting. The brains of those 
 who were faint from hunger became tired and weak 
 from insufficient nourishment, rendering them liable to 
 hallucinations and bad dreams, during which they rambled 
 in speech or gave vent to the wild incoherencies of delirium. 
 Similar effects were induced by certain poisonous plants 
 and intoxicating drinks. Early man, like modern 
 savages, must have been acquainted with such results of 
 fasting and poisoning. To the primitive mind incoherent 
 talk is regarded as due to spirit possession, and the 
 medicine man takes advantage of this, believing that, 
 
 1 Lays of Ancient Rome : "The Battle of Lake Regillus."
 
 THE ORIGIN OF DOCTORS 41 
 
 by abstention from food or by eating certain drugs, or 
 "medicine," he can enter into communication with the 
 spirit world. He thinks that either a spirit then possesses 
 him and can say what it wishes to say through him, or 
 that during artificially-induced sleep or trance he can 
 send his own spirit to mingle for a time with other spirits 
 in the world of ghosts, to return when he awakes and 
 communicate to him all it has seen or heard there. 
 
 Fasting and the ingestion of drugs have been employed 
 by religious enthusiasts in all times and all ages ; they 
 are practised to-day by savage medicine-men, Indian 
 fakirs or "holy men," Buddhist and Christian monks and 
 priests. No doubt most of the medicine-men believed 
 that they really did speak, because a spirit or god possessed 
 them ; but some did not so delude themselves, and turned 
 their practices to account by deceiving the credulous. By 
 such means they could aggrandize their own power and 
 increase the fear with which the ignorant regarded them, 
 thus gathering riches, honour, and high rank in the tribe. 
 Being supposed to have special knowledge of and power 
 over the spirits, good or bad, they were in a position 
 easily to satisfy motives of personal revenge or dislike by 
 threatening people with them, or frightening others into 
 the conviction that they were ill and would die unless 
 they bribed the medicine-man to save them. The 
 tremendous effects of fear upon the primitive mind are 
 well known to students of anthropology, and many cases 
 are on record in which the mere knowledge of having 
 transgressed some religious prohibition, or that a sorcerer 
 has worked a spell against them, has been sufficient to 
 cause their death from sheer fright. 
 
 § 11. The Origin of Doctors 
 
 Since all diseases were supposed to be due to evil 
 spirits, the medicine-man was also the doctor of his 
 t -ibe. Since he was believed to possess the power to 
 send his own spirit to visit and communicate with the
 
 42 MAN'S FIKST SEAKCH FOE EXPLANATIONS 
 
 spirit-world, he must also be able to drive out spirits 
 which had entered other people. By this means he could 
 expel the demons of disease — an operation which he often 
 pretended to effect. With the help of a little conjuring, 
 supported by incantations, he could exhibit to the sufferer 
 the spirit which had tormented him, in the form of a small 
 stone or crystal, said to have been extracted from him by 
 magic. Among savages all disease is supernatural and 
 all medicine is magic. The present-day belief in quack 
 remedies is a survival. 
 
 § 12. Man's Next Questions 
 
 As time went on and man began to find it more easy 
 to express himself by means of spoken language, his 
 ability to think increased, and he was able to construct 
 more elaborate solutions to the problems which occupied 
 him. He began, therefore, to extend his inquiries and 
 to invent further answers. His first need — some explana- 
 tion of the operations of nature — he had met by the 
 invention of ghosts and spirits. This craving satisfied, 
 he commenced to think more concerning himself, and 
 turned to subjects which presented greater difficulties. 
 Whence had he come, and why ? This was one of the 
 problems that confronted him. Another was how death 
 came originally into the world. As has been said, he 
 attributed the facts of disease and death to witchcraft 
 and malignant spirits; but their power to cause death 
 must have originated somewhere and at some time. It 
 was to questions like these that he now sought replies. 
 
 Both problems have occupied man since very early 
 times, and inquiry must be made as to how he endeavoured 
 to answer them ; for a knowledge of his explanations will 
 assist greatly in the elucidation of some of the stories 
 contained in the Bible. 
 
 What occurred when man started to ponder the 
 questions was that he began to make guesses about
 
 MYTHS ABOUT MAX'S ORIGIN 43 
 
 them and to invent stories to explain them. He knew 
 nothing whatever about the origin of the world, or the 
 appearance of life upon it, as described in our first 
 chapter, and he was so engrossed with the conception 
 he had already formed about spirits that they filled his 
 mind to the prejudice of anything approaching clear 
 reasoning. Hence the guesses he made and the stories 
 he invented were often absurd and fantastic. These 
 myths (Greek, mythos, legend) are to be found in the 
 traditions of every race and nation, and there is a remark- 
 able similarity in the myths of different peoples, however 
 widely those peoples may be separated. 
 
 § 13. Myths about Man's Origin 
 
 It was but natural that primitive man should be highly 
 interested in the question, " How did we get here ? " It 
 has been asked by every race that has existed ; even such 
 simple peoples as the Australian blackfellows and the 
 Bushmen of Africa have invented stories to account for 
 their origin. 
 
 The legends told by all primitive folk as to the origin 
 of man are very much alike, and they can all be classified 
 in two groups. Either some great or powerful spirit 
 fashioned men and women out of earth or clay and then 
 gave them life, or else men and women grew out of some 
 other animal or from a tree. A few examples will make 
 this clear. 
 
 The Semites, the race from which originated the Jews, 
 believed that a god made the first man out of earth and 
 fashioned the first woman from one of this first man's 
 ribs. That is the story found in the Old Testament 
 (Genesis, ii). The people of Tahiti and some other parts 
 of Polynesia, the Karens of Burma, and the Tartars, 
 among many other races, tell much the same story. The 
 ancient Greeks taught that Prometheus, and the Egyptians 
 that the god Khnoumou, made men from clay with the
 
 44 MAN'S FIEST SEAKCH FOE EXPLANATIONS 
 
 aid of a potter's wheel. The Indians of Mexico, Peru, 
 and Paraguay, and the Melanesians of the Pacific, said 
 that man was moulded from red clay. The Bantu tribes 
 of Western Africa say that their god created man, plants, 
 animals, and the earth, and then took no further interest 
 in them. 
 
 These few examples are taken from a large number of 
 legends, most of which differ in matters of detail. Thus 
 the Tartars think that a devil and not a god was respon- 
 sible for making woman out of the first man's rib, while 
 the Indian tribe of Koumis believes that the god was 
 assisted by a dog in his work of creating man. 
 
 As examples of the second group of legends (called by 
 Sir James Frazer the evolutionary type 1 ) concerning 
 man's origin, many American Indians believe that he 
 was not created but evolved from some other form of 
 animal. In West Africa and Borneo it was said that 
 men came from fish ; in the Celebes from apes ; among 
 the Kayans from trees ; and in the Moluccas from both 
 trees and animals. In some of the islands of the Pacific 
 it was thought that man came from fish and grubs ; while 
 in Central Australia many tribes believe that they are 
 descended from such rudimentary creatures as worms 
 and caterpillars. 
 
 In a few savage myths the two forms of story are 
 mixed up. The Santals, for example, possess a tale that 
 two birds were the first created beings, that they then 
 raised the earth up out of the water and laid their eggs 
 upon it, and from these eggs were hatched the earliest 
 human beings. 
 
 With many peoples, all over the world, each tribe 
 venerates some bird, beast, or other animal which is 
 sacred to it, or from which the members of the tribe 
 believe themselves to be descended. These sacred objects 
 
 1 The numerous creation myths are dealt with exhaustively in Sir 
 James's Folk-lore in the Old Testament.
 
 HOW DEATH CAME INTO THE WORLD 45 
 
 are called Totems, 1 and each tribe regards its totem as the 
 friend or guardian spirit of its members. Care is taken 
 that it is never harmed, or even eaten, by any member of 
 the tribe. 
 
 § 14. How Death Came into the World 
 
 The second problem that, it has been suggested, 
 occupied the speculations of early men was : How did 
 death first occur ? They must have wondered why it 
 was that a blow from a club, a thrust of a spear, or the 
 piercing of the chest by an arrow should have liberated 
 the spirit which inhabited a man, sending it away never 
 to return, and leaving the body cold and stiff. 
 
 Towards such a question they acted precisely as they 
 had done when confronted with the riddle of whence 
 they came. 
 
 Just as has been seen in dealing with myths concerning 
 creation, a large number of legends were invented about 
 death ; and these, too, all bear a close resemblance one to 
 another. In some of them the myth teaches that the 
 first man and woman were created immortal, but that 
 they lost this gift of immortality in some way. Either 
 they disobeyed the god, or the loss was brought about by 
 the jealousy or stupidity of a serpent, a lizard, a chameleon, 
 an insect, or some other animal. 
 
 The story related in the book of Genesis of the fall 
 of man and his expulsion, with the woman, from the 
 Garden of Eden because they disobeyed the god by 
 eating a fruit which he had forbidden them to touch, 
 a disobedience into which they were tempted by a 
 serpent, is the ancient Semitic example of this class of 
 myth. 
 
 It is the curious belief of a very large number of 
 different races that the animals which, like snakes, lizards, 
 
 1 An American-Indian (Ojibway) word, meaning " family."
 
 46 MAN'S FIKST SEAKCH FOR EXPLANATIONS 
 
 and insects, can cast their skins and grow new ones are 
 immortal. 
 
 Myths of the fall of man and his consequent loss of 
 immortality differ as to the exact way in which he was 
 misled. In some examples he was cheated of his gifts 
 either deliberately or by an error on the part of the 
 messenger sent by the god. But in nearly all the stories 
 the messenger was some animal which has the power 
 of renewing its skin. The bearing of this peculiarity 
 will be shown in Chapter V, § 2, when the myths con- 
 cerning the fall of man will be more fully discussed.
 
 Chapter III 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED TRADITIONS 
 
 § 1. How Primitive Ideas Took Shape as Gods 
 
 It has been seen how man, having passed through a phase 
 (Naturism) in which he considered himself, in a vague 
 way, as one with nature, believing only in impalpable, 
 impersonal powers, had reached a stage in his develop- 
 ment (Animism) in which he endeavoured to account for 
 the operations of nature by the invention of a. crowd of 
 spirits. These, he implicitly believed, deliberately inter- 
 fered with him to his injury, or, less frequently, contributed 
 to his well-being. He was obliged, therefore, to influence 
 them by means of force (magic), bribery (offerings and 
 sacrifices), entreaty (prayers), or flattery (praise). He 
 had, further, done his best to answer, by drawing upon 
 his imagination, the more complicated questions (as that 
 of his origin) which began to occupy his attention. 
 
 These attempts, clumsy as they may seem to us, 
 exercised nevertheless a lasting influence upon the life 
 of the whole race. From the one originated the 
 multitude of gods that have been and are worshipped in 
 various parts of the world ; while the other eventually 
 gave rise to the numerous " sacred " writings which have 
 been venerated and fought over during the few thousand 
 years of what is called " history." 
 
 How these developments occurred must now be 
 explained, dealing first with the belief in gods. 
 
 Of the multitudes of spirits in which man believed 
 during the period of Animism those which appeared to 
 him most powerful, most difficult to persuade, or most 
 useful, gradually came to be considered as more important 
 
 47
 
 48 DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED TRADITIONS 
 
 than the others. The spirit of the storm or the volcano, 
 for example, would be to primitive man, as to modern 
 savages, much more powerful and difficult of persuasion ; 
 while the spirits of vegetation (trees, corn, etc.), upon 
 which he depended to a large extent for his food, were 
 clearly most useful. 
 
 As has been seen (and it is a point which must be 
 emphasized), fear was the most dominant feeling in the 
 primitive mind, because man was ignorant of natural 
 causes, and what is not understood is always feared. It 
 is the unknown that is ever the object of most dread ; 
 and fear, born of ignorance, is the mother of superstition. 
 Thunder and lightning, tempest, volcano and earthquake, 
 fire, the sea with its irresistible tides and mighty waves, 
 rivers with their sudden floods, must have been terrible 
 phenomena to the early races ; and it can easily be under- 
 stood that their spirits required to be counteracted by magic 
 or appeased with offerings and prayers. The realization 
 of the regular recurrence of the seasons, of rains in 
 tropical countries, or of the tides must have taken a 
 considerable time ; and it must have been impeded by 
 unusual occurrences, such as storms and earthquakes. 
 Men, indeed, lived in a state of continual fear as to what 
 might happen next. This fear led to that belief in the 
 supernatural which the less educated section of many 
 civilized races have not shaken off even in these days of 
 knowledge of natural causes. A more practical educa- 
 tion, in which the rudiments of natural science are taught 
 in place of old myths whose only title to credence lies 
 in their supposed inspiration, alone can eliminate the 
 many superstitions which exist actively to-day. 
 
 What spirits first played an important part in the life of 
 primitive man is not known. Much would depend upon 
 circumstances : a race living inland, for example, would 
 be ignorant of the mighty forces of the sea, while those 
 inhabiting flat countries would have no conception of 
 great mountains whose rugged and desolate fastnesses
 
 PRIMITIVE IDEAS TOOK SHAPE AS GODS 49 
 
 and mysterious echoes suggested the abode of great and 
 terrible spirits. 
 
 Another circumstance which influenced the importance 
 of special spirits was the degree of culture to which man 
 had reached. He was first a hunter, a nomad wandering 
 in search of game or pasture for such herds as he 
 possessed, and having no fixed abode. It was not until 
 he reached the stage of agriculture, in which he depended 
 for food upon the crops he cultivated, that the sun and 
 moon began to influence his actions : to him they were 
 gods. In some regions of the world the moon was 
 considered to be of much greater importance than the 
 sun, for two reasons. Owing to the heat given off by the 
 earth during the night, when the sun's warmth is no 
 longer acting, its surface cools and the water vapour in 
 the air condenses and collects upon the ground as dew. 
 Hence the moon was believed to be the great giver of 
 moisture to the earth, without which vegetation could 
 not flourish. The second reason was that the months 
 into which the year is divided were regulated by the 
 changes of the moon, so that the satellite was supposed 
 to govern the periods of the growth of the corn and 
 vegetables which supplied man's food. Moon-worship 
 prevailed also among nomads, since the sun dried up 
 their pastures, while the moon appeared to refresh them 
 with moisture. 
 
 With the worship of the moon there gradually grew 
 up an important belief in spirits of vegetation and of the 
 earth. The former were worshipped as tree and corn 
 spirits, the two being often recognized as one. Thus the 
 Greek god Dionysus (the Bacchus of the Romans) was 
 venerated as a tree, a corn, and a vine spirit. The earth 
 itself became in course of time worshipped as the great 
 " Earth-mother," upon whom man was not only dependent 
 for his food, but from which he was himself produced 
 and to which he must in time return. It was but a step 
 to the consideration of the earth as the goddess of fertility
 
 50 DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED TRADITIONS 
 
 in all its manifestations. Thus to the great crowd of 
 malevolent spirits, always on the watch for an opportunity 
 to work evil upon man, were added many good, beneficent 
 spirits which helped him and gave him the things 
 necessary to his existence. The idea of vegetation spirits 
 was a universal one, and practically the same, save for 
 a few differences in detail, in such widely separated 
 countries as Europe and America. It is easy to under- 
 stand how the budding of leaves, growing into luxuriant 
 foliage at one period of the year, drooping, withering, and 
 falling at another until the trees were bare and the land was 
 naked, was conceived as due to a spirit which periodically 
 was born, grew up, and died ; and that the germinating of 
 the seed, the appearance of the green stalks, their growth 
 into tall corn which ripened into ears of ruddy gold, were 
 due to a similar spirit. Hence arose the belief in tree 
 and corn spirits that lived, died, and were buried in the 
 earth, to be born again in the spring. Such spirits were 
 considered as kindly disposed, giving freely to man 
 of their wealth of fruit and grain, and were worshipped 
 as such. From this belief sprang a great number of 
 cults, distinguished by solemn ceremonies, largely mixed 
 with magic, to ensure that the spirits should not resent 
 neglect, but should continue their bounty. The idea was 
 a perfectly reasonable one to the mind of primitive man. 
 It was believed that the corn spirit was killed every year 
 on the cutting of the harvest, and that in the seed which 
 was sown for the next year's crop he came to life again. 
 This led to the sacrifice of men or animals, parts of which 
 were eaten and parts buried with the seed corn to ensure 
 a good harvest. The idea survives in many harvest 
 customs in various parts of the world to-day, although 
 their origin is completely forgotten by those who practise 
 them. In the failure of the corn-spirit to supply man with 
 food and its renewed life in the next crop may be found 
 the origin of the conception of a saviour-god, with its 
 mechanism of sacrifice for humanity and resurrection.
 
 PKIMITIVE IDEAS TOOK SHAPE AS GODS 51 
 
 These beliefs became more and more elaborated by 
 the thinking members of the race until the spirits were 
 gradually metamorphosed into beings in the likeness of 
 men and women ; that is to say, they became anthropo- 
 morphic} Another step was made, and man began to 
 think of spirits as like himself ; he invented gods in his 
 own image. Yet later he went to the opposite extreme, 
 and the belief became inverted, so that it was the god 
 who fashioned man in his own likeness. 
 
 But while the more intellectual men endeavoured to 
 improve and elevate the ideas of gods and spirits and 
 alter the supposed meanings of the ceremonies and worship 
 paid to them, the great mass of the ignorant, common 
 people lagged behind, keeping to the older and more 
 primitive beliefs. These older beliefs kept up by the 
 common people form the main bulk of the half-magical, 
 half-religious traditions and practices known as "Folk- 
 lore," 2 which often becomes unmeaning unless its origin 
 is understood. It is, therefore, to the common people — 
 the peasantry of a country as well as to primitive savages — 
 that one must turn to understand the evolution of religions. 
 Indeed, it is a fact that all men may be divided into two 
 classes : the thinkers and the common people. The 
 former are those who have developed the great historical 
 religions like Christianity, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, 
 and Brahmanism. These are the outcome of great minds 
 striving after ideals of morality and truth ; but their con- 
 ceptions are too lofty to move greatly the common men. 
 These latter, although they may accept such religions 
 because they are imposed upon them by the thinkers who 
 lead them, cling stoutly to the more ancient beliefs in 
 evil spirits — the ideas of Animism. Of the Hindoos, who 
 profess Brahmanism, ninety per cent, live out their lives 
 in perpetual fear of evil spirits. The same is true of the 
 
 1 Greek, anthropos, man ; morphe, form. 
 
 2 Anglo-Saxon, folc, people ; lar, learning.
 
 52 DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED TRADITIONS 
 
 great mass of the Cingalese, the Burmans, and Koreans, 
 all of whom are Buddhists. The majority of the Turks 
 and Arabs, who are Mohammedans, hold the same beliefs 
 and tell stories of genie and devils which are for ever 
 seeking to injure mankind, but can be compelled by 
 magic to help those who have the means to command 
 their services, as did Aladdin by his lamp and ring. 
 Among the Christian peoples, the Finns, Albanians, the 
 ignorant peasants of France, Germany, and Switzerland 
 still believe in a multitude of spirits and goblins which 
 require to be bribed not to injure them. The folk-lore 
 of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland abounds with 
 fairies, pixies, and hobgoblins, showing that similar beliefs 
 flourished until very recently, although the gradual spread 
 of education is slowly eliminating them. Many of the 
 fairy stories that are told to children originated in these 
 remnants of Animism — relics of the beliefs of our primi- 
 tive ancestors. 
 
 § 2. Myths and their Transmission 
 
 It has been explained that primitive man invented 
 stories to account for the various problems that vexed 
 his mind and for which he sought solutions. The 
 questions comprised in the "creation" and the "fall," 
 which have been brought forward as illustrations of these 
 myths, are but two examples out of many, and their 
 construction came about in much the same way as did 
 the invention of spirits. These myths may be divided, 
 roughly, into six classes : — 
 
 1. Myths of Origin, as those which account for man's 
 presence upon earth, his "fall," or the variation in the 
 languages of different races. As will be seen later, the 
 acquisition of speech was such a natural and slow process 
 that man took it for granted, and formed no myths to 
 account for it.
 
 MYTHS AND THEIR TRANSMISSION 53 
 
 2. Myths concerning unusual natural events, as the 
 account of Noah's flood. 
 
 3. Myths of Observation — that is, those which account 
 for some peculiar natural formation. A rock, for example, 
 bearing some general resemblance to a man, would become 
 the subject of a story constructed to account for the like- 
 ness by suggesting that the rock had been originally a 
 man who was changed by a god into stone in punishment 
 for some offence. Probably the legend of Lot's wife was 
 a myth of this class. 
 
 4. Myths of History, stories told concerning a tribe or 
 nation (as of the origin of the Greeks from Hellen), or to 
 account for the superiority of some particular tribe. 
 
 5. Myths about Persons, stories told concerning indi- 
 viduals (who may or may not have existed) who achieved 
 fame by valorous deeds or wisdom. The traditions of the 
 wisdom of Solomon and the legends of William Tell and 
 King Arthur are examples of these. 
 
 6. Myths made to explain Ceremonies, or Customs, the 
 real origin of which had been forgotten. 
 
 Instances of these different classes of myth will occur 
 for explanation and discussion in the course of this book. 
 What is required now is to show the manner in which 
 they were handed down until they reached the form of 
 the legends existing to-day in sacred writings, including 
 the Bible. 
 
 When men told their ideas concerning gods, spirits, 
 and their myths explanatory of the problems which 
 occupied their thoughts, they did so to each other and to 
 their children, who repeated them. Thus these stories 
 became Traditions, handed on by transmission. At the 
 outset this handing on was by means of oral transmission, 
 or word of mouth, and it must be remarked here that 
 before written records became possible men's memories 
 for tradition were more tenacious than they are now. 
 
 The oral transmission of traditions continued for long 
 ages, children learning them from their parents and 
 
 E
 
 54 DEVELOPMENT OF SACEED TKADITIONS 
 
 teaching them later to their own offspring. The stories 
 were probably related in a kind of "sing-song," which 
 acted as an aid to memory, just as savages tell their 
 legends when seated round the camp-fire at night. From 
 this " sing-song " method gradually developed singing and 
 poetry ; the songs of primitive peoples being largely 
 concerned with gods, heroes, and great deeds. 
 
 In the days when men were still living in families, 
 and when tribes were yet small, these traditions would 
 naturally be believed by the members, who would accept 
 them with respect mingled with fear : this was the 
 beginning of their becoming sacred. 
 
 Since two persons rarely remember a thing so as to 
 repeat it exactly alike, these traditions were probably 
 slightly varied in the telling, not necessarily with inten- 
 tion, although individuals possessing more lively imagina- 
 tions might add small details. As time went on, the 
 stories would naturally become elaborated. They would 
 also have added to them portions of actual tribal history, 
 distorted, perhaps, to make them appear more remarkable 
 and more redounding to the credit of the tribe. 
 
 Thus gradually were developed tribal myths, as separate 
 from the more ordinary tales about gods and spirits. 
 When, as has been pointed out, a special class of experts 
 in the form of medicine-men and wizards arose, the more 
 important traditions concerning gods, origins, and the 
 tribe would be taken over by them, to be narrated only 
 on special occasions. Such an occasion would be the 
 " initiation " of the young men, when, after performing 
 certain ceremonies, often with the addition of severe tests 
 of endurance, they were considered to enter into full 
 membership of the tribe. In this way certain tribal and 
 other traditions developed into mysteries, 1 which tended 
 further to enhance their sacred nature and make them not 
 
 1 Greek, mi/sterion, from myo, to close the lips and eyes ; hence, some- 
 thing that must not usually be spoken about or seen.
 
 MYTHS AND THEi^ mT> * ^MISSION 55 
 
 to be questioned. We shall also now comprehend how the 
 general feeling aroused by what is not understood is still one 
 of fear. 1 The men who had charge of the traditions would 
 further add to, alter, and elaborate them, either for the 
 purpose of increasing their own influence, or of magnifying 
 the importance of the tribe. No priesthood in the history 
 of mankind has been deterred from such courses by 
 any consideration for truth. Only a knowledge of such 
 portions of the traditions would be permitted to the 
 ordinary members of the community as the chiefs and 
 medicine-men (often one and the same) thought it fit 
 for them to know, the more important parts being kept 
 secret for transmission to those who succeeded them in 
 office. 
 
 1 "Fear, in sooth, takes such a hold of all mortals, because they see so 
 many operations go on in earth and heaven, the courses of which they can 
 in no way understand." — Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, bk. i, 151-4.
 
 Chaptee IV 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED WRITINGS 
 
 § 1. The Origin of Writing 
 
 One of the most remarkable developments in the progress 
 of man has been that of writing. As might be expected, 
 this art did not, like Athene springing fully armed from 
 the head of Zeus, come into existence all at once. Several 
 attempts have been made to account for its existence by- 
 attributing it to the founder, or "culture-hero" (often 
 worshipped as a "teaching-god"), of the people who 
 possessed it. In an Irish legend, Ogmios (a Celtic 
 deity of Agriculture) is the inventor of writing, while in 
 the Northern Saga it is Odin who first devised the 
 inscriptions known as " runes." In Egypt the god 
 Thoth was believed to have invented the art of writing, 
 and Cadmus was credited by the Greeks with the intro- 
 duction into Greece, from Phoenicia or Egypt, of an 
 alphabet of sixteen letters. 
 
 It was mentioned in Chapter I that as early as Palseo- 
 lithic times man scratched pictures with a sharp flint on 
 slate, ivory, or bone, or upon the walls of his cave ; and it 
 is from picture-drawing that writing is derived. Indeed, 
 man has been a sign-maker for long ages. Primitive 
 races draw pictures for various purposes now. Australian 
 savages carve curious representations of men, animals, 
 and other objects upon rocks ; while the Bushmen of 
 Africa make similar pictures by painting with rough 
 pigments upon sandstone. Both races are among the 
 lowest types of men now living. American Indians also 
 draw pictures upon bark cut from trees, etc. None of these 
 
 56
 
 THE ORIGIN OF WRITING 57 
 
 drawings are executed for art's sake, merely to please the 
 eye ; they are done for a special purpose, which will be 
 duly explained. 
 
 The evolution of writing has been divided, roughly, into 
 the following four stages : — 
 
 1. Aids to Memory. — Some object is used for reckoning, 
 sending messages, keeping rough records, accrediting a 
 messenger, or for purposes of magic. A very common 
 form is that of a knotted cord, like the " quipus " of 
 the Peruvian Indians. This is largely employed among 
 savages in the islands of the Pacific and China Sea, by 
 the Palonis of California, and in West Africa. Such 
 knotted strings are employed much in the same way as 
 a modern civilized man ties knots in his handkerchief to 
 serve as reminders of small items that he fears he may 
 forget. Probably a very ancient form of memory-aid, 
 they were used by the ancient Egyptians, and the method 
 is mentioned by Herodotus as being employed by Darius. 
 Some races use beadwork, the wampum of the American 
 Indians being an instance. A familiar example of the 
 use of beads as an aid to memory is the rosary fingered 
 by Roman Catholics and Buddhists in reciting their 
 prayers. 
 
 Another form of memory-aid is the cutting of notches 
 in sticks. Such objects, called " message sticks," are used 
 by natives of Africa and Australia. They are also used 
 for reckoning, and down to the early years of the 
 nineteenth century were employed, as " tallies," in this 
 country for keeping Exchequer accounts of money lent 
 by persons to the Government. The burning of large 
 numbers of Exchequer tallies in the Great Fire of London, 
 representing in the Excise alone the value of £136,422, 
 caused confusion in the accounts. The destruction by 
 fire of the Houses of Parliament in 1834 resulted from 
 the overheating of stoves by the burning of an accumu- 
 lation of tally-sticks. 
 
 2. Pictorial. — It has already been pointed out that
 
 58 DEVELOPMENT OF SACKED WRITINGS 
 
 picture-drawings by primitive man were not made merely 
 for the sake of art. They served a variety of useful 
 purposes — for magic ; for records of slain enemies and 
 animals killed in the chase, or deeds of great chiefs ; 
 as a means of identifying people, as in tattooing ; and for 
 communication as messages. 
 
 3. Symbolic, or Ideographic} — Picture-writing was 
 gradually converted into a kind of shorthand, in which 
 the pictures became mere scrawls, bearing but a rough 
 likeness to the original. They thus formed symbols 
 intended to convey the original idea of the picture. This 
 occurred in many different peoples ; it is shown among 
 the Red Indians of America, the ancient populations of 
 South America, in ancient Egypt, etc. The Egyptians, 
 who, perhaps, furnish the best example, developed three 
 forms of writing — the Hieroglyphic, a pictorial writing 
 used for sacred rituals and records of kings and gods, 
 carved on stone, etc., or written on papyrus ; the Hieratic, 
 written on papyrus, and used only by the priests ; and 
 the Demotic, a popular form for keeping common records, 
 accounts, etc. 2 
 
 4. Phonetic, in which the picture became a conven- 
 tional sign which represented the sound either of a word, 
 a syllable, or a single letter. It is in this stage that an 
 alphabet comes into existence. 
 
 The evolution of writing will, perhaps, be made more 
 clear if it is explained that in the pictorial stage the 
 picture looked at suggests to the mind the thing actually 
 represented ; in the ideographic stage the picture, which 
 has become a very rough outline, suggests its name ; and 
 in the phonetic stage the now conventional sign into 
 which the picture has changed suggests the sound. 
 
 These four stages were, of course, not separated by any 
 line of demarcation ; they ran naturally one into another 
 
 1 Greek, idea, an idea; grapho, to draw. 
 
 2 These threo words are derived respectively from the Greek words 
 hieros, sacred ; glypho, to carve ; hieraticos, sacred ; and demos, people.
 
 DEVELOPMENT AND SPEEAD OF WEITING 59 
 
 and overlapped. Moreover, some living races are still in 
 the primitive memory-aid stage, and have not developed 
 writing ; others are in the pictorial stage (Australians) ; 
 others in the pictorial and ideographic stages (American 
 Indians) ; while some, like the Chinese, have never pro- 
 gressed to the stage of an alphabet at all, although they 
 have possessed the art of writing for over two thousand 
 years. 
 
 § 2. The Development and Spread of Writing 
 
 We must be content with this short sketch of the 
 manner in which the art of writing originated, and 
 we will now see in what way, once it had been 
 acquired, it developed and spread. Later the important 
 question of its influence upon mankind must be briefly 
 discussed. 
 
 Once some form of writing had come into use, it 
 furnished man with a means, more or less permanent, 
 by which he could preserve his thoughts with some 
 possibility of their being transmitted more accurately. 
 He could not, however, wholly guard against alterations, 
 made accidentally by the mistakes of those who copied, 
 or intentionally by interested persons anxious to distort, 
 until the advent of the art of printing. 
 
 Writing was early made by carving on stone, scratching 
 on slate, or on tablets coated with wax. It was also done 
 (as it is still by some savages) on the bark of trees. 
 The word "book" is derived from the Anglo-Saxon hoc, 
 meaning tablets of the bark of the beech tree, used for 
 writing upon. The Latin liber, a book (from which the 
 word "library" is obtained), meant the inner rind of a 
 tree, prepared for use as paper. The word " paper " itself 
 comes from the plant papyrus, which in Egypt was 
 made into rolls of paper. Many papyrus rolls have been 
 preserved, and are often of great length ; the famous 
 Harris papyrus, now in the British Museum, measures
 
 60 DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED WRITINGS 
 
 135 feet long by 1 foot 5 inches wide. Writing was 
 also inscribed upon specially prepared skins ; these were 
 called "parchment," from Pergamos, the town in Asia 
 Minor where they were first prepared. The pictures or 
 letters were painted upon these materials, and the word 
 " ink " is derived from the Latin tinctura, a paint. Reeds 
 and quills were used for the purpose, the word "pen" 
 being the abbreviation of the Latin penna, a feather. 
 Books were not made at first in the form in which they 
 are now familiar, but in long sheets of bark, paper, or 
 parchment, which were rolled up when not in use ; and 
 it is from the Latin volumen, a roll, that the word 
 " volume " is derived. 
 
 Besides these more familiar and universal materials for 
 writing upon, there are numerous documents preserved 
 which are inscribed upon potsherds ("ostraka"), used in 
 later Egyptian periods, as well as writings made by 
 stamping upon clay tablets, afterwards baked. The latter 
 method was used by the Babylonians. 
 
 For long ages the art of writing was kept secret by 
 priesthoods. It was not practised by kings and great 
 men, but was confined to one class called scribes, who 
 were usually either priests or closely connected with the 
 priesthood. Kings and nobles did not know how to 
 write their names, and were accustomed to sign docu- 
 ments with a seal or the impression of the thumb. Even 
 as late as the Middle Ages in this country men who did 
 not belong to religious bodies (priests, monks, and the 
 like) were unable to write, and it is only within recent 
 times that education has made the art of writing general. 
 Hence oral transmission continued long, and is still the 
 only method of handing down traditions among primitive 
 peoples who do not possess the art of writing. 
 
 The fact that writing was kept so long in the hands 
 of one special class, and that records were made 
 entirely by hand in manuscript, caused books to be 
 rare and regarded as objects of wonder. Among peoples
 
 THE ART OF PRINTING 61 
 
 who were in a high state of civilization, like the 
 Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, large numbers of scribes 
 were kept hard at work making copies of important 
 books and documents ; but even by this means any 
 considerable number of copies was not possible, so that 
 books were not common. The word "scripture" is 
 derived from the Latin scriptus, written, and was applied 
 to writing done by scribes. The position of these scribes 
 was one of great power and importance, and to injure 
 or kill a scribe was considered as a most serious offence, 
 punishable with death. 
 
 Owing to the comparative rarity of written records, 
 the fact that the art of writing was kept secret from the 
 majority, and that this art was accounted for as having 
 been imparted to the people who employed it by its 
 founder (generally regarded as a god), writings were long 
 looked upon with reverence and awe. To-day amoDg 
 primitive tribes anything written is regarded with terror 
 as mysterious and connected with magic, and writing is 
 an object of awe even among illiterate peasants. Hence 
 the " sacred " nature of scriptures, as in the case of 
 carefully guarded traditions orally transmitted, was main- 
 tained and enhanced. 
 
 A number of ancient manuscripts have been preserved, 
 but far greater quantities have been destroyed in wars 
 and in conquests by barbarous peoples who looked upon 
 them as mysterious and magical. Many others have 
 been destroyed by priesthoods of different religions, on 
 the plea that they contained matters dangerous to the 
 religion which happened to be at that time in the 
 ascendant. 
 
 § 3. The Art of Printing 
 
 A great advance in writing was accomplished by the 
 invention of printing. Lecky, the historian, has said 
 that "Printing has secured the intellectual achieve- 
 ments of the past, and furnished a sure guarantee of
 
 62 DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED WRITINGS 
 
 future progress;" a remark pregnant with truth, since 
 without the ability, by means of printing, to produce 
 books in large numbers, education upon a great scale 
 would have been impossible. 
 
 Printing was first accomplished by means of carved 
 blocks, and was known to the Chinese at an early period. 
 It came into use in Europe in the twelfth century c.e. 
 for ornamenting cloth and other fabrics ; and in the 
 fourteenth century playing-cards were printed. But the 
 first real advance was not made until the fifteenth 
 century, when Coster and Gutenburg invented movable 
 blocks, each carved with a single letter, which could be 
 put together to form words. The word "type," applied 
 to these blocks (made of wood or metal) used in printing, 
 is derived from the Greek typos, a pattern. The first 
 book printed by this method in English was The History 
 of Troy, between 1471 and 1474. It was published at 
 Bruges, and was not printed in England until 1475, by 
 William Caxton, at Westminster Abbey. The art of 
 printing has, therefore, existed in Europe for less than 
 five hundred years. When one reflects upon the rapid 
 advances in civilization which have taken place in this 
 short space of time the tremendous influence which 
 printing has had upon man's progress can be realized. 
 Books, once so rare because produced only with great 
 labour in manuscript, are now within the reach of all, 
 although this has been possible only within the last 
 century or century and a half, since the printing of books 
 rapidly and in large numbers has been a slow process 
 and is a comparatively recent achievement. 
 
 § 4. The Influence of Writing 
 
 It has been seen that writing, like everything else, has 
 developed through certain definite stages by evolution ; 
 slowly at first, then gradually faster until the introduction
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WKITING 63 
 
 of printing caused it to develop rapidly. It is significant 
 that, just as some species have not passed beyond a certain 
 stage (e.g., the Australian mud-fish), and others have been 
 shunted on to special lines in development (e.g., the horse, 
 which has been specialized for speed), so some races, like 
 the Australians, have not passed beyond the crudest form 
 of the pictorial stage, and one other at least (the Chinese) 
 has side-tracked into an elaborate system of ideographs, 
 from which no alphabet has ever been developed. 
 
 Probably, at first writing was used rather as an 
 addition to pictorial records by those whose interest it 
 was to prevent the great mass of the common people 
 from gleaning too much knowledge concerning secret 
 things. This secrecy doubtless tended in some measure 
 to hinder the development of writing ; but once such an 
 advance in transmission had been invented it was bound 
 to progress and spread, whatever the obstacles placed in 
 its way. 
 
 Few people who are able to read and write ever pause 
 to reflect upon what writing means to mankind. Not 
 only does it make it possible for two individuals to 
 communicate with one another when separated by 
 hundreds of miles of sea and land, but it enables large 
 numbers of men to share a common knowledge. In 
 addition, it enables them to profit by the knowledge 
 which has been accumulated by those who lived before 
 them. One man can now accomplish in his short life- 
 time work a small part of which alone would have 
 taken him all his life to do in days long gone by. 
 As speech developed memory, so writing fixes old 
 memories. Thus the art has made it possible for human 
 thought to become more continuous and sustained — a 
 thing which oral transmission could accomplish only to 
 a limited extent. 
 
 By means of writing traditions can be preserved more 
 fully and more exactly. The old traditions transmitted 
 entirely by word of mouth were, as has been seen, liable
 
 64 DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED WRITINGS 
 
 to become slowly altered and augmented ; but by the 
 agency of writing they began to be more fixed. 1 Liter a 
 scripta manet, says the Latin proverb — " The written 
 word remains." Only mistakes or alterations inten- 
 tionally made can change it. Thus exact thought can 
 more easily be transferred. But, although the real begin- 
 ning of intellectual life came with the art of writing, 
 its full power and influence, owing to scarcity of manu- 
 scripts and secrecy, was not reached until the invention 
 and spread of printing ; it was then that intellectual life 
 obtained its freedom, and it has since rapidly progressed. 
 
 § 5. The Character of Scriptures and their Supposed 
 
 Inspiration 
 
 All the more highly civilized nations have left behind 
 them traditions which, having become sacred in the way 
 already described, were handed down, at first by oral 
 transmission, later as written records. 
 
 Some nations have adopted the sacred traditions of 
 other peoples, and have incorporated them with such as 
 they themselves possessed, while some have had traditions 
 forced upon them by conquering nations. An important 
 instance of this is exemplified by the Jews, who, after 
 their long captivity in Babylon, adopted many of the 
 sacred traditions of the Babylonians and wove them in 
 with their own beliefs. Further influenced by those of 
 the Persians, the traditions of the Jewish people form a 
 considerable part of the Old Testament books of the 
 Bible, and were later taken over by the Christians. But 
 the beliefs which the Jews brought from Babylon had 
 been earlier derived from a more ancient race, the 
 Sumerians, so that there is here an instance of very 
 ancient traditions handed down as "sacred" from one 
 nation to another to form a scripture. 
 
 1 It is probable, however, that this preservation by writing affected only 
 the cream of tradition.
 
 THE CHARACTER OF SCRIPTURES 65 
 
 Traditions thus handed down did not remain unaltered. 
 They have frequently undergone great changes ; some- 
 times so much so that at first sight it is difficult to 
 recognize them in their original form without careful 
 investigation. The learned men of a people which 
 adopted them had, by reason of their having charge of 
 them, plenty of opportunity to alter and add to them. 
 They changed foreign names of gods to those of their 
 own deities and legendary heroes, and did their best to 
 make these traditions fit in with their own national 
 ideas. 
 
 Sacred scriptures may usually be divided into five 
 groups : — 
 
 1. Traditions as to the gods; as in the stories of 
 Greece and Rome. 
 
 2. Traditions as to origins ; as of the creation of man. 
 
 3. Sacred codes of laws ; as those presumed to have 
 originated with Moses. 
 
 4. Tribal and national traditions ; as of the origin of 
 the Greeks. 
 
 5. Sayings of great men ; as of the Chinese Confucius. 
 Examples of all these will be given when the scriptures 
 
 of different peoples are examined more in detail. 
 
 There is one other matter concerning the various 
 sacred scriptures that must be spoken of here, and that 
 is the belief in their inspiration. "Inspiration" ' means 
 " the supernatural divine influence exerted upon sacred 
 teachers and writers by the spirit of a god, by which 
 divine authority was given to their writings." 
 
 In every nation there has been a firm belief in this 
 inspiration, or divine origin, of their scriptures ; generally 
 combined with a contempt for and disbelief in those of 
 all other peoples. As the ages have gone on, the ideas so 
 deeply embedded in the mind of primitive man reappear 
 at a later and more culturally advanced period in elaborate 
 
 1 Latin, in, in; spiro, I breathe.
 
 66 DEVELOPMENT OF SACEED WRITINGS 
 
 codes of laws drawn up by learned men who claim to 
 have obtained them from the god direct. The similarity 
 which exists between the earliest words supposed to have 
 been spoken by a god and the ideas of savages is very 
 close and remarkable. It must be remembered that to 
 primitive man, as to modern savages, the conception of 
 spirits everywhere, and of their talking in dreams, was 
 very real indeed ; so that it is easy to see how man, face 
 to face with nature, " mistook his wild and wandering 
 thoughts for a revelation from heaven." 
 
 If inspiration came from the god, then the utterances 
 inspired would endure through all ages, and be conse- 
 quently fixed and unalterable ; but from time to time 
 those who had charge of sacred scriptures have not 
 thought it incompatible with their "inspired" character 
 to change them to suit fresh ideas and modern advances. 
 This is taking place to-day. It occurred in the various 
 books which form part of the Old Testament, the Jewish 
 rabbis endeavouring to reconcile them with newer thought. 
 Usually those who made such alterations claimed in their 
 turn to be inspired, thus making it appear that the god 
 changed his mind frequently — an idea which, however it 
 may accord with human progress, is scarcely compatible 
 with the attributes usually associated with a supreme 
 divinity. This question of inspiration will occupy us 
 more than once in the ensuing pages. 
 
 § 6. The Scriptures of Different Peoples 
 
 Before passing on to examine the legends and teachings 
 contained in the books of the Old Testament and the way 
 in which they were compiled, it will be well to say some- 
 thing as to the sacred writings which the various other 
 great nations of the world have regarded as inspired. 
 
 Mesopotamia. — The earliest inhabitants concerning 
 whom anything is known in the fertile valleys round the
 
 THE SCRIPTURES OF DIFFERENT PEOPLES 67 
 
 Tigris and Euphrates rivers were the Akkado-Sumerians, 
 composed of two peoples — the Akkadians, who lived in 
 the highlands, and the Sumerians, who dwelt in the 
 plains. They were the forerunners of the great empires 
 of Babylonia and Assyria. They possessed a code of 
 laws and a collection of myths which have greatly 
 influenced other ancient laws (especially those attributed 
 to Moses), myths, and beliefs of later peoples. These 
 Akkado-Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians all 
 belonged to the Semitic race, of which the Jews formed 
 a branch. 
 
 They used a system of writing which, from its wedge- 
 shaped characters, is called cuneiform. They were great 
 and powerful nations, carrying on a considerable commerce 
 with neighbouring peoples, and keeping records and 
 writing letters on tablets of baked clay, many of which 
 have been found. In 1887 over three hundred of these 
 tablets were discovered at Tel-el-Amarna, on the Nile. 
 Specimens are to be seen in the British Museum. Most 
 of them form the correspondence which passed between 
 the Court of Babylonia and the Egyptian King Amun- 
 hetep IV (the great reformer Akhnaten) in the fourteenth 
 century B.C., but some were copies of a great poem, the 
 " Epic of Gilgamesh," containing myths of the creation, 
 the fail of man, and the flood. 
 
 The oldest known sacred writing of these nations was 
 discovered at Susa in 1902. It is called the Code of 
 Hammurabi, and is engraved upon a large stone, with 
 a bas-relief of Hammurabi worshipping the Sun-god 
 Shamash. This relief has given rise to a statement 
 (repeated in many works) that the king is represented 
 receiving his code from the deity. This is, from the 
 substance of the text below it, erroneous. Hammurabi 
 lived about 2250 B.C., and united the peoples of 
 Chaldea in order to form the Babylonian Empire. For 
 the guidance of his subjects he drew up a code of some 
 three hundred laws dealing with slavery, marriage,
 
 68 DEVELOPMENT OF SACEED WBITINGS 
 
 sorcery, trade, crime, etc. — a most comprehensive collec- 
 tion, reflecting a high state of culture (see Chapter IV). 
 
 These ancient sacred writings are mentioned on account 
 of the close similarity they bear to the Jewish moral 
 laws and myths, which were evidently founded upon 
 them. The Hebrews had no writing before about 800 or 
 900 B.C. 
 
 Egypt. — The chief sacred writing of ancient Egypt 
 was the Book of the Dead, which contained full directions 
 as to the behaviour of the soul when it appeared before 
 the great judge of the dead. One sentence — " I have 
 made no man weep " — cannot be surpassed in any code 
 of morals. Portions of this complicated ritual were 
 engraved upon Egyptian sarcophagi before 2000 B.C. 
 
 Besides the Book of the Dead were the Sayings of 
 Akhnaten, or Khu-en-aten, the great reformer king of 
 Egypt, of whom something will be said later ; and the 
 Instructions of Ptah-hotep, one of the earliest known 
 moral codes, dating from about 3550 B.C. 
 
 Persia.— The ancient religion of Persia is called 
 " Zoroastrianism," from the name of its founder, Zara- 
 thustra, or, as spelt by the Greeks, Zoroaster. He died, 
 according to the best authorities, in 583 B.C. This 
 religion has been described as the "noblest and purest 
 of the ancient faiths." 1 Its sacred books form what is 
 known as the Zend-Avesta, which contains legends about 
 the gods, moral and ceremonial laws, and spells against 
 evil spirits and diseases. From it sprang the worship 
 of the sun-god Mithra, a cult which was the great rival 
 of Christianity in the early days of the latter. 
 
 China. — There are three national religions in the vast 
 country of China — Buddhism (to be considered separately), 
 Taoism, and Confucianism. 
 
 Taoism was founded by Lao-Tsze (meaning "the 
 venerable teacher"), who lived between 500 and 600 B.C. 
 
 1 E. Clodd, The Childhood of Religions (London ; 1904), p. 279.
 
 THE SCRIPTURES OF DIFFERENT PEOPLES 69 
 
 He was a great thinker, but the religion he founded has 
 degenerated into a form of animism, becoming mixed 
 up with the worship of spirits of mountains, rivers, etc., 
 and it is regarded with contempt by the more intellectual 
 Chinese. Lao-Tsze left behind him a number of Sayings 
 which are venerated by Taoists. 
 
 Confucianism is founded on the teachings of the great 
 Chinese law-giver and teacher, Kung-Foo-Tsze (meaning 
 "the master Kung"), whose name is generally known in 
 its Latin form of Confucius. He was born 551 B.C., and 
 lived to the age of seventy-two. He taught learning, 
 morals, devotion of soul, and reverence ; in other words, 
 he endeavoured to show men hoio to live. The sacred 
 books of the Chinese are The Five King and the Four 
 Shoo ("shoo" meaning "writings"), and contain the 
 sayings of the Chinese wise men. They date from some 
 centuries B.C., and deal with morals, sacred rites, poems, 
 and history. Only one of the Five King was made by 
 Confucius, and one of the Four Shoo deals with his 
 sayings. Confucius was fortunate in that he was not 
 deified after death ; he is respected entirely as a man, 
 and his teachings are venerated by all Chinese. 
 
 India. — The ancient religion of India is Hinduism or 
 Brahmanism, which is professed by three-fourths of its 
 enormous population ; the remainder are Buddhists, 
 Christians, Mohammedans, and Animists. It is very 
 ancient, the oldest of its hymns having been composed 
 over 4,200 years ago. The sacred books of Hinduism 
 are : — 
 
 1. The four Vedas, containing hymns of praise, chants, 
 sacrificial formulas, and incantations. 
 
 2. The Ar any okas and TJpanishads, which deal with 
 magic and philosophy. 
 
 3. The Sutras, containing sacrificial rules and medi- 
 tations. 
 
 4. The Pur anas and Tantras, upon which the popular 
 beliefs are founded. 
 
 F
 
 70 DEVELOPMENT OF SACKED WRITINGS 
 
 5. The Bdmdyana and Mahdbhdrata, which are 
 poems. 
 
 6. The Institutes of Manu, containing laws and a 
 myth of creation. 
 
 Buddhism. — Buddhism, the religion of many peoples 
 in China, Thibet, Burma, and India, was founded by 
 Buddha, who is said to have been born in 628 B.C. Its 
 sacred book is the Tripitaka, or "three baskets," contain- 
 ing certain rules of discipline, sayings of Buddha, philo- 
 sophy, and doctrine. Buddha was deified, and his cult 
 became corrupt. 
 
 Mohammedanism, or Islam, was founded by Mohammed, 
 who was born at Mecca in 571 a.d. It is the religion of 
 the Arabs, Turks, and many people in India. Its sacred 
 book is the Koran, or Al Koran, Arabic words meaning 
 "The Reading," or "The Book," just as our word 
 "Bible" is derived from the Greek Ho Biblos, "The 
 Book." 
 
 These are the chief sacred books of the world, in the 
 inspiration of which the countless thousands who profess 
 the religions which they represent believe firmly. Extracts 
 from them will be given in Chapter IX, and it will be 
 seen that many of their myths and teachings bear a 
 strong resemblance to each other and to those of the 
 Bible.
 
 Chapter V 
 
 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 § 1. The Bible as a Sacred Booh 
 
 The Bible consists of two parts, the Old Testament and 
 the Neio Testament. The Old Testament is a collection 
 of the sacred books and poems of the Jews, com- 
 prising their laws, myths, legends, history, and poetry. 
 The New Testament embodies the traditions and legends 
 which have accumulated round the person of Jesus Christ, 
 together with what have been believed to be his teachings 
 and those of the men who taught in his name. 
 
 For some hundreds of years the Bible has been looked 
 upon by Christians as a sacred book, written by men 
 inspired by God (the Yahweh, or Jehovah, of the Jews). 
 For long it was kept strictly secret by the priests of the 
 Christian Church, who read only such portions of it to 
 the people as they considered essential, and who forbade 
 those outside the priesthood to read it for themselves or 
 even to possess a copy, thus following a method which, 
 as pointed out in Chapter IV, is not uncommon among 
 those who assume the custody of sacred writings. This 
 attitude of the priesthood has been well portrayed in 
 Borrow's classical book, The Bible in Spain. The fact 
 that the Bible at that time was translated only into 
 Latin and Greek added to the mystery with which it 
 was intentionally surrounded ; and until it was rendered 
 into the vernacular of Dutch, English, French, and 
 German Christians it remained a sealed book to the 
 great mass of the people. 
 
 For many years the Bible was firmly believed to be 
 "inspired," and the whole Christian world had no idea 
 
 71
 
 72 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 that the stories it contained concerning the creation of 
 the world and of man, the fall of our supposed " first 
 parents" and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, 
 and the destruction wrought by an universal deluge were 
 not absolute facts. At the end of the fifteenth century 
 c.E., however, dawning science brought proofs that the 
 teachings of the Bible were at variance with the facts 
 that were beginning to be ascertained about nature. 
 Between 1473 and 1543 Copernicus, the astronomer, 
 discovered that the earth was not the centre of the 
 universe, in direct contradiction to the Ptolemaic geo- 
 central doctrine. This discovery was confirmed by 
 Kepler in 1609 to 1618, and by Galileo in 1610. The 
 Christian Church, represented by its powerful priesthood, 
 refused to admit the truth of the new doctrine, and perse- 
 cuted the discoverers ; indeed, the conception of the earth 
 moving round the sun was met with scorn and derision. 
 The pitiful story of Galileo is too well known to be related 
 here. In the eighteenth century scientific knowledge 
 steadily increased, and by the early nineteenth century 
 the creation and flood stories were disproved by the 
 incontestable discoveries of geology. The culminating 
 discovery, which came with Darwin and Huxley, is that 
 known as the doctrine of Evolution, whereby the facts 
 discussed in Chapter I were established, and it was proved 
 that man was akin to all other animals in the unbroken 
 order of nature. 
 
 During the years whence we date the gradual growth 
 of science and its discoveries (and they are scarcely more 
 than four hundred — a tiny item compared with the ages 
 man has existed), intellectual men gradually became con- 
 vinced that the statements in the Bible were disproved 
 by the known facts of nature, and that the only way in 
 which the truth could be ascertained was by reasoning it 
 out from the discoveries of Science, which are based upon 
 careful observation and comparison. Thus was applied 
 slowly, but steadily, the method called Rationalism, which
 
 THE EARLY HISTOKY OF THE JEWS 73 
 
 may be defined as " the mental attitude which unreservedly 
 accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing 
 a system of philosophy and ethics verifiable by experience 
 and independent of all arbitrary assumptions or authority." 
 This led to an extension of that method to the criticism 
 of such matters as the origin of sacred writings. By the 
 study of primitive races and their beliefs, the facts set out 
 in Chapters II to IV began to be understood, and it was 
 found that much of the teaching in all scriptures, including 
 the Bible, embodied the crude ideas, myths, and traditions 
 of peoples who had not reached beyond guessing and using 
 their imaginations. In the case of the Bible, learned men, 
 who realized that the principles which were applicable to 
 other scriptures could be equally directed to the Christian 
 sacred books, began to investigate its origin and to ascer- 
 tain how it grew into the collection of writings that it 
 finally became. All this was -not accomplished without 
 strenuous and bitter opposition, during which the truth 
 has slowly gained ground, and those interested in retarding 
 it have been obliged gradually to retire, like a beaten army, 
 from one position to another. It will now be seen what 
 this investigation has accomplished. 
 
 § 2. The Early History of the Jews 
 
 In order to understand how the Old Testament grew 
 into its present shape, it is necessary to know whence the 
 Jews came and the way in which they developed as a 
 nation. 
 
 It has been seen that the Akkado-Sumerians inhabited 
 the country round the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and 
 that they were later followed by the Babylonians and 
 Assyrians. This country was earlier called Chalda?a, and 
 the peoples inhabiting it had reached to a fair degree of 
 civilization. They belonged to the race of Semites, tribes 
 living on the borders of Chaldoea. This name " Semites " 
 was supposed to have been derived from Noah's son Shem,
 
 74 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 but it is probably a modified fragment of the ethnic name 
 Ishmael. 1 
 
 About 2,600 years before the Jews settled in the land 
 of Canaan, or Palestine (a name which is a corruption of 
 that of the Philistines), a powerful king, Sargon I, reigned 
 in Chaldasa. His mother was supposed to have placed 
 him, when a babe, in a basket of reeds made watertight by 
 bitumen, and sent him floating down the Euphrates. He 
 was rescued by a gardener named Akki, and served in the 
 latter's garden until the goddess Ishtar fell in love with 
 him and set him to rule over ChaldEea. This very ancient 
 myth is important as indicating the source of the Hebrew 
 story of Moses and Pharaoh's daughter. 
 
 The early Semites of Babylonia were controlled by a 
 powerful priesthood, who represented the gods and inter- 
 ceded with them for the rest of the people. Everything 
 they said was believed to be " inspired." They were 
 fortune-tellers and magicians, and directed the actions 
 of the kings by consulting oracles. They administered 
 justice, and were, indeed, the only learned class. Among 
 a highly superstitious people, whose life was one long 
 terror of danger from spirits and demons, they were 
 themselves superstitious. Their deities were numerous — 
 they were, indeed, Animists — and every misfortune was 
 attributed to the anger of the gods, who had to be 
 placated by sacrifices and rich offerings. One of their 
 most important deities was the Earth-god Bel. 
 
 They possessed myths of creation and of an universal 
 deluge (see Chapters IV and VI), a code of laws, and 
 tribal traditions. Probably many of the latter were 
 handed down in the stories of the Patriarchs, since 
 Abraham's brother Haran (the father of Lot) "died in 
 the presence of his father Terah in the land of his nativity 
 in Ur of the Chaldees" {Gen. xi, 28), and Abraham went 
 forth with Terah and the rest of the family "from Ur of 
 
 1 Encijdopccdia Biblica, 4449.
 
 THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE JEWS 75 
 
 the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan " {Gen. xi, 31). 
 It may be mentioned here that there are grave doubts 
 as to whether Abraham and the other patriarchs were 
 historical personages, and it is probable that they were 
 old tribal deities of Palestine. 
 
 The division of the Semitic tribes known as the Jews 
 wandered from Chaldaea as nomads, possessing flocks and 
 herds, and moving about in search of fresh pastures, 
 living the life of the modern Bedouin. This nomadic 
 life set new legends and traditions forming, which, as it 
 lasted many years, had ample time to grow. These 
 probably formed the basis for the description of the 
 "Patriarchal Age" in Genesis. 
 
 The racial affinities between the Jews and the Baby- 
 lonians explain why the basis of their worship and their 
 traditions was Babylonian. These early Jews, therefore, 
 were Animists, and had many gods, local and household 
 deities. The story of how Rachel stole the household 
 gods when she fled with Jacob from Laban (Gen. xxxi, 34) 
 indicates this. Some of the Jewish gods were tribal deities. 
 In considering the evolution of the faith of a people, it 
 must be borne in mind that tribal ethic moulds tribal 
 religion, and later follows it or is remoulded by it. The 
 early Hebrews did not worship " one god the creator of 
 heaven and earth," although possibly they had heard of 
 such a deity. Coming originally from Chaldaea, they 
 must have known of Bel, who is called Marduk, or 
 Merodach, in the Babylonian story of the creation. But 
 their conception of such a god developed very slowly. 
 Hebrew scholars have concluded that Yahweh, or 
 Jehovah, was originally simply one of their many local 
 gods. He was probably a hill-god, residing in some 
 mountain peak, one of the gods of nature-worship, who 
 first came to be the chief and later the only god because 
 he was a, fighting deity. 1 
 
 1 The story of Yahweh will be considered in Chapter VI.
 
 76 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 Just as with other primitive races, these early Jewish 
 wanderers had no special priests, the patriarch himself 
 conducting the worship and offerings. Some of the 
 tribes settled in different parts of Canaan. One such 
 settlement was in the region called Musri, near Mount 
 Horeb, in Arabia. These people were called Musrites, 
 and it has been suggested that the name Moses means 
 simply a Musrite. It is noteworthy that in Exodus xx 
 the ten commandments are given to Moses in Sinai, and 
 in Deuteronomy v in Horeb. It has recently been stated 
 by Dr. Sayce that the Israelites were never anywhere 
 near to Mount Sinai, and these two evidences tend to 
 strengthen the supposition that Moses and Musrite are 
 synonymous. There are, indeed, grave doubts as to the 
 historicity of Moses. In the account given of him in 
 the Old Testament, as in other matters, the object of 
 the narrators is " not to relate what actually occurred, 
 but to shape traditions of the past for the good of the 
 present." 1 
 
 It is probable that the "forty years in the wilder- 
 ness " expresses these wanderings of the early Jewish 
 tribes ; and that the story of the captivity in Egypt and 
 the Exodus was a legend that grew up later to account 
 for the origin of the special tribe called Israel. There is 
 no historical foundation for the story of the Exodus, and 
 no mention is made of it in the Egyptian records. 
 Palestine was under Egyptian rule. That some Jews 
 were captive slaves in Egypt is possible, however, for the 
 Egyptians needed slaves for the building of their great 
 temples and pyramids, and made raids to obtain them. 
 There is evidence that some Jews in their wanderings 
 reached the Nile Delta. The number forty frequently 
 occurs in the Bible ; in the literature of the East it 
 stands simply for an uncertain period. Until man 
 reached accuracy in his ideas of number (which was not 
 
 1 Guthc, Ocschichte des Volkcs Israel.
 
 THE EAELY HISTOBY OF THE JEWS 77 
 
 until very late in his development), the length of time 
 he assigned to his traditions and history was, as with all 
 primitive races, very vague. 
 
 The wandering Jewish tribes do not appear to have 
 reached a state of complete settlement in Canaan for 
 many years, save here and there (as at Musri, for 
 example), and then not very securely. The country was 
 occupied mainly by the Phoenicians, and did not become 
 Jewish until much later. Until the time of David the 
 Jews were represented by groups of tribes, much as 
 England was divided up into small provinces until Alfred 
 the Great prepared the way for Cnut the Dane to 
 unite them. David was the leader who, by successful 
 wars, knit these tribes together until they became more 
 firmly established, so that in the reign of Solomon they 
 began to feel themselves a people of some importance. 
 It is from this time, with its dawning sense of nationality 
 and patriotism, that the real history of "the Jews" 
 begins. Such a union of the tribes cannot have become 
 solid all at once, and it is probable that it took at least 
 one hundred years before they could settle and break 
 down completely the resistance of the older inhabitants 
 of the country. 
 
 Primitive ideas of time in years are, as has been said, 
 very vague. A study of those books of the Old Testament 
 which deal especially with history shows this plainly, and 
 it has to be assisted and corrected by comparison with 
 the records of peoples who had reached to a more 
 advanced stage of culture. In 1 Samuel xiii, 1, it is 
 stated that " Saul was one year old when he began to 
 reign, and he reigned two years over Israel." This is 
 the statement in the Hebrew document, but in the 
 Eevised Version of the English Bible the word "thirty" 
 has been substituted for "one," and a note to that effect 
 placed in the margin. Further, David (1 Kings ii, 2) 
 and Solomon (1 Kings xi, 42) are both said to have 
 reigned " forty years " — that is to say, a vague period
 
 78 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 which cannot be taken in the sense in which the term 
 is understood to-day. 
 
 After Solomon the kingdom was split into two — Israel 
 in the north and Judah in the south, with Samaria and 
 Jerusalem as their respective chief cities. In the state- 
 ments in the two books of Kings as to the reigns of the 
 kings of Israel and Judah there is a discrepancy of about 
 nineteen years. The number of years between the 
 accession of Solomon and the destruction of the northern 
 kingdom by the Assyrians was about three hundred — 
 a period which includes the founding of the Temple at 
 Jerusalem in Solomon's reign and the end of the kingdom 
 of Israel in that of Hezekiah, king of Judah. With the 
 fall of the northern kingdom the real history of Samaria 
 as a city begins. It was then that the Assyrian monarch, 
 after carrying off the people of Israel, repeopled it with 
 men from Hamath, Cuthab, Arva, and Sepharvaim. This 
 is important for a due appreciation of Samaria in later 
 history. About one hundred and thirty-four years more 
 passed from the fall of Samaria (722 B.C.) to the 
 destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar 1 (586 B.C.). 
 It was during this period that the supposed finding of 
 a sacred book {Deuteronomy) in the Temple took place 
 in the reign of Josiah — an important event as affecting 
 the making of the Old Testament. Josiah, after the 
 vigorous attempt which he made to enforce the religious 
 reforms based upon this " find," was slain soon after at 
 the Battle of Meggido, when fighting against the Egyptian 
 Pharaoh Necho. 
 
 Nebuchadrezzar carried the better classes of the Jews 
 to Babylon, where they remained in exile for about fifty 
 years, until the Babylonian Empire succumbed to the 
 Persians under Cyrus. These fifty years are known as 
 " The Exile," or " The Captivity." Cyrus sent Nehemiah, 
 
 1 Nabu-kudur-uzur ; wrongly called " Nebuchadnezzar " in the book 
 of Daniel.
 
 THE EAELY HISTOEY OF THE JEWS 79 
 
 with the remnant of the captives, to Jerusalem, with a 
 mandate to rebuild the Temple. Thus the Temple was 
 refounded exactly fifty years after its destruction. The 
 lower classes of the Jews had been left by Nebuchadrezzar 
 in their own country, where they mingled with the 
 surrounding inhabitants and lapsed into the worship of 
 other local gods. 
 
 The number of years between the founding of 
 Solomon's Temple and the fall of Jerusalem was about 
 four hundred and thirty. This represents the period 
 during which the Jews were an important nation fit 
 to be considered by the great civilized nations around 
 them. But the time was a stormy one for them, placed 
 as they were in the position of a " buffer state " between 
 the great contending empires of Babylon and Egypt. 
 
 The fall of Jerusalem naturally involved the destruction 
 of the Jewish kingdom. As a result of this and of the 
 mission of Nehemiah, the rule which replaced it was 
 a priestly one. The High Priest of the newly-built 
 Temple of Jerusalem became the head of the nation and 
 Jerusalem a " holy city." It was not the only one, for 
 holy cities were common in the East. Thus Tyre was 
 the holy city of the god Baal, and Askalon, Byblus, and 
 Sidon were holy cities in the Greek and Eoman periods. 
 Many of them have been forgotten, but so much is known 
 about Jerusalem because of the preservation of the sacred 
 writings concerning it. There are such cities at the 
 present day. Mecca is the holy city of the Moham- 
 medans, Benares of the Hindoos, and Eome that of 
 Eoman Catholicism ; while in Africa Timbuctu, Benin, 
 and other places, hold similar positions in the estimation 
 of the natives. 
 
 For over a hundred years after Cyrus the Jews seem 
 to have experienced a period of peace and tranquillity, 
 during which the Temple was built and the foundation 
 laid of the priestly form of the Jewish religion — i.e., the 
 exclusive worship of Yah weh. as a jealous god who would
 
 80 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 brook no other form of worship. The neighbouring 
 great civilizations no longer considered that there was 
 the same danger from a people ruled by priests in place 
 of kings, and therefore did not trouble them much, 
 although the Jews were probably implicated to some 
 extent in the frequent wars that went on around them. 
 
 An important event occurred when Cambyses, the 
 successor of Cyrus, marched through Palestine to conquer 
 Egypt (527 B.C.). This conquest opened Egypt to the 
 Jews, and one consequence was that they formed a 
 colony at Elephantine, from which a close correspondence 
 was kept up with Jerusalem, mention of which will be 
 made later. In 405 B.C. the Persians were driven out, 
 and until 352 B.C. Egypt was in the ascendant, and the 
 Jews again became a buffer state. Practically nothing is 
 known of the history of Jerusalem during these wars, 
 but the Jews were elaborating their sacred literature. 
 
 In 334 B.C. the Persians were defeated by Alexander 
 the Great at the Battle of the Granicus, which led to the 
 capture of Tyre and Gaza and the Greek occupation of 
 Egypt. With the Battle of Arbela (331 B.C.) the Persian 
 Empire came to an end and Greek influence became 
 supreme. This meant a great change in the Eastern 
 world, for Greek ideas were introduced. The Jews of the 
 Diaspora (the settlements outside Palestine) now largely 
 spoke Greek, and a Greek version of the Old Testament, 
 known as the Septuagint, was begun, to be finished in the 
 second century B.C. Between the Battle of Arbela and 
 190 B.C. the Jews were sometimes under the rule of the 
 Greek kings (the Ptolemies) of Egypt, sometimes under 
 those of Syria. The latter rule was completely broken 
 at the Battle of Magnesia (190 B.C.), when Antiochus 
 Epiphanes came to the throne. His name " Epiphanes " 
 means " the Brilliant," but he bore another and less 
 complimentary nickname, that of " Epimanes," or " the 
 Madman," on account of his extraordinary freaks. 
 His rule was weak, for Rome now began to influence
 
 HOW THE OLD TESTAMENT WAS BUILT UP 81 
 
 Egypt, and there were frequent revolts everywhere. One 
 of these rebellions was that of the Maccabeans, to be 
 spoken of later. In G3 B.C. Ponipey conquered Judaea, 
 and the Jews came under the vast domination of the 
 Romans. 
 
 § 3. How the Old Testament was Built Up 
 
 A position has now been reached from which an 
 explanation can be given of how the Old Testament 
 began to assume the form in which it now appears in 
 the original and in the various translations of the 
 Bible. 
 
 The books given in the list at the beginning of the 
 Old Testament number thirty-nine. The Hebrew Bible, 
 however, contained twenty-two (corresponding with the 
 number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet), and later 
 twenty-four. They were divided into the following three 
 sections : — 
 
 1. The Law: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, 
 Deuteronomy. 
 
 2. The Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, 
 Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the twelve " minor 
 prophets." [In our Bible Samuel and Kings are each 
 divided into two parts, and " the twelve " are separated. 
 
 3. The Hagiographa, or "scriptures" 1 : Ruth, Psalms, 
 Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, 
 Daniel, Esther, Ezra (of which Nehemiah forms part), 
 and Chronicles. In our Bible Chronicles is divided into 
 two parts, and Ezra and Nehemiah are separated. 
 
 The arrangement of the books in our Bible is very 
 confusing. They are mixed up in such a manner as to 
 misrepresent their meaning. The Prophets, for example, 
 have been sorted out according to their length rather 
 than their importance and the order in which they were 
 
 1 Greek, hagios, sacred ; grctpho, I write.
 
 82 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 written. The confusion has been further increased by 
 cutting the books up into chapters, whereby they are 
 often so divided as to obscure their meaning. 
 
 The manner in which the Hebrew Bible has reached 
 its present form has been traced bit by bit by the labours 
 of learned men. It is a very interesting piece of history, 
 and well illustrates the way in which sacred books, 
 believed to be "inspired," are compiled. An endeavour 
 will be made to show this as clearly and briefly as 
 possible. 
 
 All known copies of the Hebrew Bible, both printed 
 and in manuscript, contain certain peculiarities in lettering 
 to understand which requires a knowledge of Hebrew. 
 These peculiarities show that they are all derived from 
 some one book which no longer exists. This vanished 
 book was probably considered to be so sacred that the 
 scribes dared not alter it. 
 
 Although the oldest known Hebrew manuscript is not 
 older than the tenth century C.E., and, from its character, 
 the peculiarities just mentioned are probably not older 
 than the sixth century c.e., there are clues to earlier 
 manuscripts. At the end of the fourth century c.e. 
 St. Jerome translated the Hebrew into Latin, his trans- 
 lation being known as the Vulgate. It indicates that he 
 worked from a manuscript or manuscripts that differed 
 from those at present known. Further, before Jerome's 
 time, the Hebrew Bible had been rendered into Greek, 
 and these Greek versions are even more unlike the oldest 
 known Hebrew manuscript than is the Latin translation. 
 This shows that in earlier times the writers who were 
 compiling the sacred books made additions or alterations 
 as they thought fit, and that the scribes did not always 
 reverence the original writings as they did later. Hence 
 it cannot be said that the lost book was exactly like the 
 Old Testament books as we now have them. The Hebrews 
 did not possess the art of writing before 800 or 900 B.C., 
 and the tradition among the Jews at the beginning of the
 
 HOW THE OLD TESTAMENT WAS BUILT UP 83 
 
 Christian Era was that the original manuscripts were 
 destroyed with Solomon's Temple, and that Ezra made 
 a fresh set from such copies as could be found, adding to 
 them his own book and that of Nehemiah. 
 
 A step further can now be taken by examining the 
 most important of the books forming the Old Testament. 
 These are the five so-called " Books of Moses," designated 
 by the Jews as the Tor ah, or law, and by us the Penta- 
 teuch. 1 They show numerous contradictions. They 
 contain many different stories relating to the same things, 
 but disagreeing with one another. For example, in 
 Genesis xx there is a tale told of Abraham which in 
 xxvi is told of Isaac ; and, as will be seen in Chapter VI, 
 Genesis contains two different and contradictory accounts 
 of the Creation and two discrepant versions of the Flood. 
 
 Again, besides ancient legends, the Pentateuch contains 
 many laws and rules dealing with morals and worship. 
 These are not set down in any precise order, and contradict 
 one another in several particulars. In Exodus xxi, 2-11, 
 Deuteronomy xv, 12-18, and Leviticus xxv, 39-55, for 
 instance, are three laws concerning slavery, all of which 
 are contradictory. 
 
 The results of an examination of the Pentateuch show 
 clearly that the five books were compiled from three 
 distinct documents or codes. The first of these, believed 
 to be the oldest, is called the Jahvist-Elohist, because of 
 the way in which the names of the god are used. There 
 are several ways of naming the god in the Old Testament : 
 El-Shaddai (" The Mighty One," a title given to one of 
 the oldest Semitic deities), Elohim (which means "gods," 
 being the plural of El), Adonai ("Lord," or "Master"), 
 and Yahweh (or "Jehovah"), the name given to the god 
 much later. The manner in which these names are 
 translated indicates which title is used. El Shaddai (as 
 in Gen. xvii, 1) is rendered " God Almighty," Elohim 
 
 1 Greek, Penta, five ; tenchos, book.
 
 84 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 "God," Adonai "lord," and Yahweh always as "lokd." 
 In Genesis i and ii, 1-3, " Elohini " occurs thirty-five 
 times and " Yahweh " not at all, while in Genesis xxiv 
 "Yahweh" appears nineteen times and " Elohim " not 
 once. As these different names were used at different 
 periods, they give clues to the time at which the docu- 
 ments were written. The Jahvist-Elohist document was 
 clearly itself a compilation from two different sources. 
 
 The second oldest is called the T> enter onomist, because 
 it is contained chiefly in the book of Deuteronomy. It 
 belongs to about 621 B.C., the time of the " finding " of 
 the book of the law in the Temple in the reign of Josiah. 
 
 The third oldest is called the Priestly Code, as it deals 
 mostly with ceremony and ritual. It dates from soon 
 after the Exile, and was derived from the new code set 
 up by Ezra. It was read in Jerusalem in 444 B.C., and 
 covers eighty-five chapters — eleven in Genesis, nineteen 
 in Exodus, all Leviticus, twenty-eight in Numbers, and 
 parts of Joshua. It pays much attention to families and 
 pedigrees, and gives full details regarding regulations as 
 to sacrifices and priestly vestments and offices. It is to 
 the Priestly Code that are owing the descriptions of the 
 Tabernacle in the wilderness ; and the elaborate system 
 of worship and priesthood there described did not exist 
 in early Israel. 
 
 The three sources are usually denoted by scholars as 
 J E., D., and P., for short, and these letters will be used 
 here whenever there is occasion to refer to them. They 
 were probably once three separate documents, which were 
 pieced together in constructing the Hebrew Bible. The 
 Priestly Code is the largest and most important, and forms 
 the framework into which the others were fitted. 
 
 Until comparatively recently the Pentateuch was 
 believed to have been written by Moses, and this belief 
 is still held by those who are ignorant of the true facts. 
 It was, indeed, written much later. There are many 
 reasons why Moses could not have been the author, even
 
 HOW THE OLD TESTAMENT WAS BUILT UP 85 
 
 putting aside the fact that there are serious doubts as to his 
 historicity. The following are the three principal reasons: — 
 
 1. No man could describe his own death and burial 
 as that of Moses is told in Deuteronomy xxiv, 5 and 6. 
 
 2. " Before there reigned a king over Israel " is 
 mentioned, whereas the Jews had no kings until long 
 after the period described. 
 
 3. " There hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel 
 like unto Moses " (Deut. xxxiv, 10) can only be the 
 opinion of some one writing long after his death. 
 
 An examination of the Old Testament books shows 
 that they can all be classified under the three sources 
 JE., D., and P. There are contradictions not only in 
 the Pentateuch, but in other books as well. In Judges, 
 Samuel, and Kings there is one history given ranging 
 from Joshua to the Exile, while in Chronicles, Ezra, and 
 Nehemiah there is another from the death of Saul to the 
 mission of Nehemiah to rebuild the Temple. These two 
 histories disagree in many points. The story in Kings 
 is carried down to the Babylonian King Evil-Merodach 
 (" Avil-Marduk "), while Nehemiah ends with "Darius 
 the Persian" {Darius III). Further, in the books of Kings 
 special importance is given to the finding of the " laws 
 of Moses " in the reign of Josiah, while Nehemiah is 
 concerned rather with the laws published by Ezra after 
 the Exile. The differences found in the two histories 
 are due to the fact that the writers were describing 
 events from two points of view — the one from the 
 Deuteronomist, the other from the Priestly side. These 
 two elements, D. and P., are recognizable by their special 
 peculiarities. 
 
 Examination shows that the Pentateuch is made up 
 of D. and P. elements, mixed with other (JE.) material 
 which, whether handed down by oral or written trans- 
 mission, was considered sufficiently sacred not to be 
 disregarded. It means simply that, as the Jews progressed 
 in culture and in religious ideas after the Priestly Code 
 
 G
 
 86 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 had been adopted, the scribes combined it with earlier 
 writings, which, for reasons already explained in 
 Chapter IV, had come to be regarded as sacred and 
 " inspired." This took time, and the Pentateuch did 
 not reach its present form until the period of Alexander 
 the Great. 
 
 To recapitulate a little. The Jews were no more 
 exempt from the process of Evolution than any other 
 people. From primitive folk wandering as nomads, they 
 passed through a stage of Animism, worshipping a 
 number of gods and accumulating a stock of myths 
 common to the Semitic races, from which gradually came 
 into prominence a chief deity who was a fighting god. 
 The traditions of this period are preserved in the J E. 
 element of their sacred writings. After long struggles 
 and wanderings, from which they emerged a nation, a 
 priesthood developed which gave them a code of religious 
 and moral laws — the Deuteronomists. The prophets 
 Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah (except the first thirty- 
 nine chapters, which are considered to have been written 
 later) contain many of the original religious ideas of the 
 Israelites, which cannot be distinguished from those of 
 other Semitic nations. The J E. element in the Penta- 
 teuch is similar to these ideas, and is probably near to 
 these four prophets in time. The Deuteronomic code of 
 laws received by this primitive nation from a priest- 
 hood which had slowly gained in power was the book 
 " discovered " in the temple by Hilkiah, the High Priest 
 in the reign of Josiah. Hilkiah was anxious, for priestly 
 and patriotic reasons, to establish the exclusive worship 
 of one god. The reform resulted in a religious revolution, 
 and Josiah broke up the old worship of local gods, 
 destroying their sanctuaries and "high places," and 
 allowed no worship of Yahweh save in Jerusalem. This 
 meant increased revenues and greater power for the 
 priests of that holy city. As with all great changes, the 
 population, clinging to ancient customs and worship,
 
 HOW THE OLD TESTAMENT WAS BUILT UP 87 
 
 resisted strongly ; and Josiah, actively supported by the 
 priesthood, succeeded only after much bloodshed and 
 persecution. 
 
 This important change was soon followed by other 
 serious troubles. Josiah was killed in battle, and the 
 Jews were conquered and carried away into captivity in 
 Babylon. This exile is the great dividing line in their 
 history. These troubles were really caused, as has been 
 mentioned, by the position of Judah as a buffer state 
 between Babylonia and Egypt ; but the priests seized 
 upon them as an opportunity for increasing their own 
 importance. They attributed them to the anger of 
 Yahweh at the opposition of the population to the new 
 form of worship. It is from this period that the book of 
 Jeremiah, which is wholly Deuteronomic, was derived. 
 
 The better and more intellectual classes of the Jews 
 went into exile as still a primitive nation. They remained 
 in captivity for half-a-century, during which they assimi- 
 lated Babylonian culture, with all its traditions, rites, 
 and ceremonies. Hence, when Nehemiah, entrusted 
 with the Persian King's command to rebuild the Temple, 
 went to Jerusalem, those who returned with him (for 
 some settled in Babylon) did so as a people more advanced 
 in civilization and with new ideas, so that a fresh set of 
 laws and fresh traditions were published in the Priestly 
 Code. 
 
 The following table may serve to show more clearly 
 the composition of the Pentateuch. 1 Probably the oldest 
 fragment of Old Testament literature is the Song of 
 Deborah and Barak {Judges v), which is eleventh 
 century B.C. The next oldest are the " Sword Song " 
 {Gen. iv), the "Blessing of Jacob" {Gen. xlix), the "Ked 
 Sea Triumph Song" {Exod. xv), the "Song of Moses" 
 {Deut. xxxii), and the "Blessing of Moses" {Deut. xxx), 
 
 1 A detailed list of the passages which belong to the Priestly Code is to 
 be found in Gould's The Building of the Bible (now out of print).
 
 88 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 all of which are ninth to eighth century B.C. Some or 
 all of these must have been handed down by oral trans- 
 mission, since the Jews had no writing before 900 or 
 800 B.C. : — 
 
 Genesis JE., D., P. 
 
 Exodus JE. chiefly ; with some P. 
 
 Leviticus and Numbers P. chiefly. 
 
 Deuteronomy D., with some J E. 
 
 § 4. The Prophets 
 
 The books which form " The Prophets " in the Hebrew 
 Bible are mostly historical or poetic. Their sources and 
 characters will be best shown in tabular form : — 
 
 Book. 
 
 Source or 
 Age. 
 
 Eemarks. 
 
 Joshua 
 
 Judges 
 
 JE..D..P., 
 changes and 
 additions 
 down to the 
 Greek Period. 
 Made up of ex- 
 ceedingly mis- 
 c e 1 laneous 
 fragments. 
 
 D., with 
 traces of J E. 
 (story of Mi- 
 cah and the 
 Danites, xvii 
 and xviii ; the 
 Levite, xix ; 
 andthedenun- 
 ciationof Ben- 
 jamin, xx-xxi). 
 
 Attributes to one man (Joshua), 
 one generation, and one campaign 
 what was really a long series of 
 events lasting over a hundred years. 
 Owing to its made-up nature, con- 
 tains discrepancies, as in Crossing 
 of Jordan (iii, 7, and iv, 11) and 
 the setting up of the twelve stones 
 (iv, 9 and 11). See also Chapter VI. 
 
 A collection of legends of national 
 champions and deliverers, arranged 
 with the design of illustrating the 
 teachings of Hosea and Jeremiah. 
 Judges v, the Song of Deborah and 
 Barak, is probably the most ancient 
 part of the Bible.
 
 THE PEOPHETS 
 
 89 
 
 Book. 
 
 Source or 
 Age. 
 
 Eemarks. 
 
 Samuel 
 
 Kings 
 
 Jeremiah 
 
 Both books 
 J B., except 
 2 Sam. vii. 
 They have 
 been altered, 
 so that the 
 order of the 
 story is upset. 
 
 Shows in- 
 fluence of D. 
 Age in present 
 form is late, 
 probably post- 
 Exilic, as it 
 brings history 
 down to time 
 of Evil-Mero- 
 dach. 
 
 D. May 
 have been 
 written not 
 long before the 
 collapse of the 
 kingdom of 
 Judah. Added 
 to bylater wri- 
 ters anxious to 
 increase the 
 sayings of 
 Jeremiah. 
 
 Samuel was a " seer," akin to 
 the medicine-man or witch-doctor 
 of lower races. His reputation was 
 probably local, as he was unknown 
 to Saul until the latter heard of 
 him through his servant (1 Sam. 
 ix, 5-10). The stories of his child- 
 hood, the song about the Amalekites, 
 etc., were added late. Note contra- 
 dictions, as the choosing of Saul as 
 king : 1 Sam. xii states that the 
 people desire a king, and ix-x, 16, 
 that the god gives them one of his 
 own accord. 
 
 Historic, probably partly made 
 up from records left by kings, which 
 supplied some foundation of fact. 
 Contains much folk-lore and hero- 
 legend, especially as regards Solo- 
 mon (see Chapter VI, § 10). The 
 Elijah legend was manifestly drawn 
 from an old sun-myth. 
 
 The Prophets were a development 
 of the " seers," and some of them 
 were probably of the same type as 
 the modern dervishes, who work 
 themselves into a condition of excite- 
 ment during which they prophesy. 
 In Hebrew the same word is used 
 for "raving" and "prophesying." 
 The highest order of prophets was, 
 however, of a different nature, and 
 embraced thinkers and poets. Jere- 
 miah preached the reforms of Josiah, 
 and, like most reformers, was 
 bitterly hated and in danger of his 
 life for so doing.
 
 90 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 Book. 
 
 Source oe 
 Age. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 Ezehiel 
 
 Isaiah 
 
 The 
 Twelve 
 
 Minor 
 Prophets 
 
 D. xx iv- 
 xxvi are P., 
 
 added after the 
 Exile (about 
 the fifth cen- 
 tury B.C.), and 
 are the work 
 of an unknown 
 prophet. 
 
 Hosea, Arnos, 
 Nahum, Ha- 
 bakkuk, and 
 Zephaniah are 
 D. Joel, Oba- 
 diah, Micah, 
 and Haggai 
 arepost-exilic. 
 Jonah, Zecha- 
 riah, and Ma- 
 la c h i date 
 from the 
 Greek period. 
 
 Ezekiel preached to the exiles by 
 the River Chebar, and his prophecies 
 were designed to save his fellow 
 captives from despair ; hence they 
 either deal with the future of the 
 Jews or threaten other nations. His 
 winged creatures were suggested by 
 the Babylonian sculptures. 
 
 A collection of prophecies of 
 various ages ; xxxiv-xxxix contain 
 extracts from the books of Kings 
 and other sources. 
 
 Of these Hosea, pleading for a 
 higher morality and cleaner methods 
 of worship, is the greatest. Amos 
 (who was a contemporary of Hosea) 
 passionately decries the polytheistic 
 nations who refused to worship 
 Yahweh, and presents him in a 
 different light from that of the 
 other prophets, making him a god 
 who hates festivals and refuses 
 sacrifices and hymns of praise 
 (v, 21-24). These belong to the 
 eighth century B.C., and Nahum, 
 Zephaniah, and Habakkuk to the 
 seventh century B.C. Of Zechariah, 
 ix-xi and xiii, 7-9, may have been 
 written before the Exile ; xii-xiv 
 (excepting xiii, 7-9) probably belong 
 to the fifth century B.C. Jonah 
 will be discussed in Chapter VI.
 
 THE PROPHETS 91 
 
 In the Pentateuch and the Prophets are many items 
 of myth and folklore, some of which will be dealt with in 
 the next chapter. Before leaving them, however, a few 
 words must be devoted to the way in which the Jews 
 wrote history. In Genesis, Exodus, Judges, and Samuel 
 what is supposed to be history is so interwoven with 
 tradition and folk-lore that it is well nigh impossible to 
 distinguish the true from the false. Of course, the Jews 
 are not alone in this ; English history has its myths of 
 King Arthur and King Lud, and even about actual kings, 
 such as Alfred and Cnut. In the book of Kings Jewish 
 history is a little more definite, probably because, from 
 Solomon, their rulers began to cause records to be made 
 concerning their acts ; but in nearly all the books the 
 chronology is unreliable, and must be checked by com- 
 parison with that of neighbouring nations. The priests 
 not only adapted a modified history to impress the reader 
 or to glorify a king, the nation, or Yahweh, but they 
 were capable even of writing false history, as in the 
 books of Esther and Daniel. 
 
 Another point requiring mention is the long pedigrees 
 found in the Old Testament. Thus the first nine chapters 
 of Chronicles are taken up with genealogies, and there are 
 many in Genesis and other books, from the Priestly Code. 
 This love of pedigrees is characteristic of all peoples who 
 are just emerging from their primitive phase. They 
 delight in the thought that they and their great men are 
 descended from heroes and deities. The Greeks traced 
 themselves to Hellen, the Romans to Romulus. The 
 Egyptian pharaohs believed themselves descended from 
 a god, the French kings from St. Louis ; and our own 
 royal family traces back to Cerdic. This love of pedigree 
 is very persistent, and if the grandson of a labourer in 
 modern times is lucky enough to obtain a title he can 
 procure for money one that will prove him to be descended 
 from one of the Conqueror's Norman knights. Considering 
 the difficulty even now of tracing back a family for any
 
 92 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 length of time, the obstacles must have been insuperable 
 when there were no written records and only a vague 
 oral transmission to depend upon. The greater part of 
 these Old Testament pedigrees must, therefore, be untrue. 
 Perhaps the best explanation of these genealogies is that 
 they refer not to individuals, but to families, clans, and 
 tribes. It is, for example, unquestionable that the names 
 of Jacob's sons are merely clan names. This explanation 
 is, moreover, the only one which can account for the 
 extraordinary long lives recorded of the " patriarchs." 
 It is certain from medical science and the evidence of 
 anthropology that the duration of human life has been 
 much the same at all periods of the human race. Men's 
 lives are a little longer now because, thanks to medical 
 research, we know better how to preserve them ; but this 
 is a very late development indeed. In Genesis, however, 
 we find stories of men living nine hundred years, and 
 only one of the patriarchs became a father before he 
 was seventy. The rational explanation is that their 
 supposed ages refer to the period for which a tribe existed, 
 and not to individual men. 
 
 § 5. The Hagiograpka 
 
 The " Hagiographa," or " Scriptures," is a collection of 
 eleven remarkable books comprising history, historical 
 romance, fiction, philosophy, the sayings of wise men, 
 and poetry. The following table shows their source or 
 age and character : —
 
 THE HAGIOGEAPHA 
 
 93 
 
 Book. 
 
 Chronicles 
 
 Ezra and 
 Nehemiah 
 
 Daniel 
 
 Source or 
 Age. 
 
 P. Chroni- 
 cles, Ezra, and 
 N e he mi ah 
 were compiled 
 about 300 B.C. 
 by a Priestly 
 editor who 
 carried history 
 to rebuilding 
 of Temple and 
 introductionof 
 Priestly Code. 
 He used me- 
 moirs left by 
 Ezra and Ne- 
 hemiah. 
 
 P. (See 
 above.) Parts 
 of Ezra (iv, 
 8-23; v,l-vi, 
 18; vii, 12-26) 
 are in Aramaic 
 (the official 
 language of 
 the Persian 
 Court). 
 
 Greek Pe- 
 riod; about 
 164 B.C. In 
 ii, 4-end of 
 vii Aramaic is 
 used. 
 
 Eemarks. 
 
 History from the Priestly 
 point of view, and so exag- 
 gerates greatness of David and 
 Solomon and suppresses any- 
 thing to their discredit. Hence 
 often contradicts Kings, and 
 probably built up from other 
 sources, some of which are 
 mentioned, as : Book of Kings 
 of Israel and Judah (2 C. xviii, 
 16), History of Jehu (2 C. xx, 
 31), Commentary, or " Mi- 
 drash," of Iddo (2 C. xiii, 22), 
 and of Book of Kings (2 C. xxv, 
 27), Shemaiah, and Iddo (2 C. 
 xii, 15). 
 
 History from Priestly point 
 of view. Describes introduc- 
 tion of Priestly Code of laws 
 by Ezra. Ezra, Nehemiah, and 
 Chronicles are designed rather 
 to edify the reader than to 
 impart exact historical truth. 
 
 Historical romance, showing 
 how the priests falsified history. 
 Probably wx*itten to stimulate 
 Maccabaean rebellion (see 
 Chapter VI, § 11). i, 1-21, dis- 
 agrees with 2 Kings xxiii-xxiv. 
 Shows ignorance of real history 
 of fall of Babylonian Empire and 
 the Persian succession. Con- 
 tains many Macedonian words 
 unknown at the time at which 
 it was supposed to be written. 
 (See Chapter VI, § 11.)
 
 94 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 Book. 
 
 Source or 
 Age. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 Esther 
 
 Bath 
 
 Proverbs 
 
 Job 
 
 Ecclesiastes 
 
 P., third 
 century B.C. 
 
 Post-exilic ; 
 fifth century 
 B.C. 
 
 Oldest part 
 belongs to 
 Persian Pe- 
 riod. Present 
 form dates 
 from Greek 
 Period. 
 
 Post - exilic, 
 probably sixth 
 century B.C., 
 but has many 
 P. characters. 
 By an un- 
 known author, 
 who took an 
 old folk - tale 
 for his basis. 
 
 Belongs to 
 latest form of 
 Jewish litera- 
 ture (third 
 century B.C.). 
 
 Historical romance, with no 
 foundation in history, but based 
 on Babylonian myth. Probably 
 written to explain the Jewish 
 Feast of Picrirn. (See Chapter 
 VI, § 12.) 
 
 Popular fiction. A pretty 
 story adapted to Jewish ideas 
 of history, and to show that 
 David was descended from 
 Ruth, a Moabite woman. 
 
 Attributed to Solomon and 
 other sages, but simply a col- 
 lection of sayings of wise men 
 loosely strung together to form 
 a book. (See Chapter VI, § 10.) 
 
 One of the great poems of 
 the world and the greatest 
 work of Hebrew literature pre- 
 served. Suggests a new stage 
 in Jewish thought, when man 
 dared to question the acts of 
 God. Concludes at xlii, 6. 
 There are several interpola- 
 tions, as the "wisdom" chapter 
 (xxviii), most of xxvii, and the 
 speeches of Elihu (xxxii-xxxvii). 
 
 Philosophy. Attributed to 
 Solomon under name of " Ko- 
 heleth," or "The Preacher." 
 Teaching very different from 
 the usual Jewish ideas, and 
 has been toned down by altera- 
 tions and additions, as the last 
 chapter, vii, 12-14. (See also 
 Chapter VI, § 10.)
 
 THE HAGIOGRAPHA 
 
 95 
 
 Book. 
 
 Source or 
 Age. 
 
 Kemarks. 
 
 Psalms 
 
 Lamentations 
 
 Song of Songs 
 
 Belongs to 
 latest of the 
 Old Testament 
 books. Some 
 psalms are of 
 the Greek 
 period. 
 
 Sixth cen- 
 tury B.C. ; pro- 
 bably written 
 near the fall 
 of Jerusalem 
 (586 B.C.). 
 
 Persian Pe- 
 riod ; contains 
 traces of Ara- 
 maic. 
 
 Poetry. A collection of 150 
 psalms, by different authors, 
 used as hymns in the Temple 
 services. Attributed to David, 
 Solomon, Asaph, Ethan the 
 Ezrazite, Moses, and the sons 
 of Korah. Some psalms belong 
 to the time of the MaccabaBans. 
 It was not until late in Jewish 
 history that David was sup- 
 posed to have left any collection 
 of religious poetry behind him, 
 although none can be attributed 
 to him. The Babylonians 
 possessed many penitential 
 psalms which were far older 
 than any in the Hebrew Bible. 
 As the Jews were largely under 
 Babylonian influence, they pro- 
 bably imitated these psalms. 
 
 A collection of five poems 
 said to be by Jeremiah, but 
 really by different authors and 
 therefore varying in character 
 and merit. The second and 
 fourth are the finest, and were 
 probably written at a time near 
 the fall which they describe. 
 
 A love poem and not reli- 
 gious. Probably songs sung 
 by the people at weddings. 
 Attributed to Solomon because 
 it contains his name. Not 
 admitted as " sacred " until 
 the priests suggested it referred 
 to the spiritual love of Yahweh 
 for Israel — an idea varied later 
 by Christian commentators as 
 representing Christ's love for 
 his Church.
 
 96 THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 § 6. The Apocrypha 
 
 The books which have been dealt with in the foregoing 
 pages belong to the Canon 1 — that is to say, they are 
 the books recognized as " the inspired rule of faith and 
 practice." 
 
 There are, however, other writings which are not 
 included in the Canon. There are fourteen books which 
 were published too late to be included in the canonical 
 Hebrew Scriptures, but which are accepted as canonical 
 by the Koman Catholic Church, although generally 
 rejected by the Protestant Churches. These fourteen 
 books are as follows : — 
 
 1 and 2 Esdras (1 is second century B.C., 2 is first 
 century c.E.). 
 
 Tobit (second century B.C.). 
 
 Judith (first century B.C.). 
 
 Esther x, 4-xvi (ditto). 
 
 Wisdom (ditto). 
 
 Ecclesiasticus (second century B.C.). 
 
 Baruch (first century B.C.). 
 
 The Song of the Three Holy Children (Greek Period). 
 
 The History of Susannah (Greek Period). 2 
 
 Bel and the Dragon (Greek Period) . 
 
 The Prayer of Manasses (Greek Period). 
 
 1 and 2 Maccabees (first century B.C.). 
 
 Besides these there are the Tar gums and the Talmud. 
 The Jews frequently explained in Arabic the meaning of 
 their original scriptures in the form of commentaries, the 
 best of which were repeated and memorized. These 
 were known as the Targums. Further, in course of 
 time, Jewish philosophy and discussions upon law, etc., 
 accumulated, although not yet committed to writing, in 
 a mass of notes which grew into the Talmud, a work 
 
 1 Greek, Kanon, rule. 
 
 2 The story of Susannah is probably connected with a Babylonian 
 legend of the seduction of two old men by the goddess of love. It is 
 referred to in the Koran (Sura 2, 90).
 
 THE APOCRYPHA 97 
 
 containing the body of the Jewish civil and religious 
 law, with commentaries thereon, not comprised in the 
 Pentateuch. This, begun in the second century B.C., 
 was not completed until the second century of the 
 Christian Era. The Talmud consists of two parts : 
 " Mishnah " (from shanah, to repeat), or text, and 
 " Gemarah," or commentary on the Mishnah. The 
 Mishnah is divided into six sections, dealing with 
 Agriculture (tithes and forbidden mixtures in plants, 
 animals, and garments), Feasts (sabbaths, festivals, fast 
 days, and the principal feasts of Passover, Tabernacles, 
 etc.), Women (marriage, divorce, etc.), Damages (civil 
 and criminal law, ending with Sayings of the Fathers, a 
 great ethical work), Sacred Things (sacrifices and the 
 Temple), and Purifications.
 
 Chapter VI 
 
 SOME OLD TESTAMENT STORIES 
 CONSIDERED 
 
 § 1. Introduction 
 
 The method by which the various books of the Old 
 Testament were built up and the sources from which 
 they were derived having been reviewed in the previous 
 chapter, we can now pass on to the consideration of some 
 of the more important stories contained therein. 
 
 The Bible, apart from its literary beauties, furnishes 
 one of the most valuable storehouses of information as 
 to the evolution of religious ideas, and it is by keeping 
 this fact always in view that it can be studied with 
 pleasure and profit. Evolution is the key to every 
 process in the world ; not only to the formation of the 
 earth as a part of the universe and of the plants and 
 animals upon it, their structure and geographical distri- 
 bution, but to the progress of man. From what has 
 been said in earlier chapters, it cannot be too much 
 insisted that the process of evolution shows itself as much 
 in man's social habits and conduct as in his origin and 
 the details of his bodily structure. Unless this is realized, 
 it is impossible to understand rightly the connection of 
 events in history and the changes which have taken 
 place in religious thought. Evolution explains the 
 continuity of man's mental development from chipped 
 flints to aeroplanes, from Naturism through Animism to 
 the great religious systems of the world — Buddhism, 
 Confucianism, Judaism, Mohammedanism, Brahmanism, 
 and Christianity. 
 
 The fourteen stories that have been selected for con- 
 
 98
 
 THE STORY OF THE CREATION 99 
 
 sideration in this chapter form but a small part of the 
 many legends of the Old Testament that are based upon 
 ideas and myths common to all primitive races. To 
 multiply examples would be superfluous where length is 
 a consideration. The Old Testament abounds in folk- 
 lore, as has been amply shown in Sir James Frazer's 
 work on the subject ; even his three volumes by no 
 means exhaust it. 
 
 § 2. The Story of the Creation 
 
 Each of the first two chapters of Genesis contains an 
 account of the creation. The difference between the two 
 is plainly seen by comparison. 
 
 The first chapter begins with the statement, " In the 
 beginning God created the heaven and the earth," after 
 which are created all the various things belonging to the 
 universe in six days, as follows : — First day : Heaven and 
 earth ; light and darkness. Second day : The firmament. 
 Third day : Dry land and seas ; grass, herbs, and fruit 
 trees. Fourth day : Sun, moon, and stars. Fifth day : 
 Sea-monsters and winged fowl. Sixth day : Cattle, 
 creeping things, beasts of the earth, and man. It is 
 specially to be noted that the account states (Gen. i, 27) 
 "And God created man in his own image; in the image 
 of God created he him ; male and female created he 
 the?n." 
 
 The continuation of this account is in the second and 
 third verses of chap, ii, in which it is stated that on the 
 seventh day God rested, " and God blessed the seventh 
 day and hallowed it." 
 
 In the second account, which begins at ii, 4, it is said, 
 without any reference to the number of days occupied in 
 the work, that God made : — 
 
 1. Heaven and earth. 
 
 2. Man. 
 
 3. The Garden of Eden, with its trees, including (Gen.
 
 100 OLD TESTAMENT STORIES CONSIDERED 
 
 ii, 9) " the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, 
 and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." 
 
 4. Then God made the beasts and fowls {Gen. ii, 19) > 
 which he brought to man, who named them at his 
 request (ii, 20). 
 
 5. Finally, because it was " not good that man should 
 be alone," God created woman out of one of Adam's 
 ribs (ii, 21-24). 
 
 Now the way in which the solar and other stellar 
 systems, the earth, animals, and plants, and finally man, 
 were evolved has been described in Chapter I. The 
 truth of what has been there stated is now accepted by 
 every one who has any knowledge of the subject. It can 
 be seen clearly therefrom how legendary are both of the 
 Old Testament accounts. Yet they are still taught in 
 schools, churches, and Sunday schools by those who can 
 easily learn the truth, if they are not already aware of it. 
 
 It will naturally be asked why these two accounts are 
 found in the Bible, which is held to be " inspired," and 
 why they differ. The answer lies in the fact that there 
 were two original sources, as explained in the last 
 chapter. 
 
 The second account {Gen. ii, 4-25) is the older, that 
 J E. source already mentioned, while the first {Gen. i, 1- 
 ii, 3) belongs to the P. Code, compiled by the Jewish 
 priesthood after the Exile. The two versions have been 
 badly put together. 
 
 The old account is the more primitive and exhibits 
 the God acting like a man, whereas in the Priestly 
 version he is represented on a higher scale, more as an 
 abstract idea — a God who can make things by the simple 
 process of telling them to be there. The Priestly writer, 
 moreover, makes a special point of the hallowing of the 
 seventh day. This was done for special reasons. Before 
 the Exile, the seventh was one of the many ordinary 
 feast days, and appears to have been so in most parts of 
 the East. During the long captivity in Babylon the
 
 THE STORY OF THE CREATION 101 
 
 Jews were too unhappy to make festival, and their rest 
 days were not likely to be particularly joyful. The 
 Exile ended and the captives back in Jerusalem, Ezra 
 produced a new Book of the Law, in which the Creation 
 story was re-written upon the lines of the Babylonian 
 myth, and the hallowing of the seventh day was intro- 
 duced as a moral for teaching purposes to put the Jews 
 on a higher moral plane than the surrounding nations. 
 Not different in keeping a sabbath day, however, but in 
 the reason for its observance. The Babylonians had 
 their seventh-day sabbaths, following the phases of the 
 moon, whom they called " Lord of Rest." Work on 
 such days was forbidden, chiefly as bringing ill-luck 
 upon the worker. The Jews, in adopting such rest-days, 
 sought to justify themselves by the statement that the 
 seventh day had been made holy by the God resting 
 thereon from his labours. 
 
 The Hebrew story of the creation can be compared 
 with the creation myths of other primitive peoples. The 
 oldest of these myths are three, which probably had been 
 handed down from barbaric traditions. In the Babylonian 
 myth, derived from the Akkado-Sumerian story, man 
 was made from clay by Bel. In Egypt the god 
 Khnoumou, and in Greece Prometheus, fashioned him 
 from clay upon a potter's wheel. 
 
 The various creation stories met with among primitive 
 races of to-day need not be described in detail. They 
 have been patiently collected by Sir James Frazer in his 
 Folk-lore in the Old Testament. They all fall into two 
 classes, which have already been discussed in Chapter II 
 (p. 43). 
 
 The Jewish story was naturally derived from the folk- 
 lore of the country in which they lived, the myths of 
 the Semites of which they were a part. It was the 
 Akkado-Sumerian legend (see p. 67). In this poem the 
 gods first made light. Then Tiamat, the ocean goddess, 
 
 rebelled against them, and Marduk (one of the names of 
 
 H
 
 102 OLD TESTAMENT STOBIES CONSIDEKED 
 
 Bel) offered to subdue her provided the rule of heaven 
 and earth were given to him. He divided her into two, 
 and with the pieces made the upper and lower waters, 
 sea and sky (a myth borrowed by the Egyptians). Next 
 were created the heavenly bodies — sun, moon, and stars. 
 The resemblance to the account in Genesis, in which 
 light was first created and then the upper and lower 
 waters separated by a firmament, is very close. The 
 order of creation of the other objects is nearly the 
 same in the two myths, the only difference being that 
 in the Akkado-Sumerian tale the heavenly bodies were 
 made second, and in the Jewish version fourth. The 
 reason for this probably lies in the fact that the Chaldeans 
 regarded the study of the stars (astrology) as of the 
 highest importance. 
 
 § 3. The Fall of Man 
 
 The story told in Genesis of the fall of man and his 
 expulsion from the Garden of Eden belongs to the 
 explanations by which primitive man sought to account 
 for the coming of death into the world (see Chapter II, 
 p. 45). Such myths are very old indeed, and the tale 
 in Genesis was derived from Babylonian folk-lore, handed 
 on from the Akkado-Sumerians. It was altered by the 
 priests to suit Jewish ideas after the Captivity. 
 
 As was pointed out in Chapter II, there is a belief 
 among primitive peoples all over the world that animals 
 which are able to shed their skins renew their life by so 
 doing and are immortal. Such creatures are serpents, 
 lizards, and insects. The belief sometimes includes 
 birds, which moult and grow fresh plumage. The Jews 
 thought that the eagle became young again by casting 
 its feathers — a view expressed in Psalm ciii, 5 : " Thy 
 youth is renewed like that of the eagles." 
 
 With some races (Admiralty Islands, Central Celebes, 
 parts of New Guinea, etc.) it is believed that men once 
 possessed the power of casting their skins, and were
 
 THE FALL OF MAN 103 
 
 immortal until they lost the ability to do so by the 
 foolishness of an old woman, just as Eve was responsible 
 for the fall of man in the Jewish myth. Among the 
 Bahuars, who live east of Cochin-China, the immortality 
 of man was believed to be due to burial beneath a certain 
 tree, the mysterious power of which ensured their rising 
 again from the dead after a short repose. 
 
 Practically all these primitive myths explain that the 
 god intended to bestow immortality upon man, but that, 
 either by the stupidity, indolence, or jealousy of the 
 messenger (usually a snake, lizard, or bird) sent to inform 
 him of the intention, or by the fault of man himself, he 
 lost his opportunity. 
 
 With this knowledge of primitive folk-lore, the story 
 in Genesis can be understood. It is distinctly stated 
 {Gen. ii, 9) that there were two trees " in the midst of 
 the garden," the tree of life and the tree of the know- 
 ledge of good and of evil, and man is warned {Gen. ii, 
 16, 17) to abstain from eating the fruit of the latter only. 
 This portion of the book belongs to the older (JE.) 
 source. Chapter iii describes the " Fall," and contains 
 no mention of the tree of life until the last three verses, 
 wherein it is stated that God, after expressing anxiety 
 lest man " take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live 
 for ever," "placed at the east of the Garden of Eden the 
 Cherubim, and the flame of a sword which turned every 
 way, to keep the way of the tree of life," thus preventing 
 Adam from eating its fruit and so achieving immortality. 
 This chapter belongs to the Priestly source, as cherubim 
 and angels, derived from the Persian mythology, were 
 not brought into the Jewish ideas of spiritual beings 
 until that period. 
 
 The myth, therefore, like many other primitive tales, 
 is an attempt to explain why man is not immortal, and 
 the motive of the serpent in beguiling Eve to eat the 
 fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge was probably to 
 divert her attention from the tree of life and cheat man
 
 104 OLD TESTAMENT STOEIES CONSIDERED 
 
 of immortality. Possibly in the earliest form of the 
 myth the serpent, having been successful in his plot, ate 
 the fruit of the tree of life and became able to cast his 
 skin and thereby live for ever. 
 
 § 4. The Story of Noah's Flood 
 
 The story of the Deluge, or Noah's Flood, is another 
 study in folk-lore, and one of great interest. It was 
 derived from a Babylonian myth, of which the original 
 record was discovered in 1872, written in the Semitic 
 language and dated about 1977 B.C. This was itself 
 derived from an older myth, in the Sumerian tongue, of 
 the time of Hammurabi (see p. 67) — that is, 2250 B.C. 
 
 Attention to the story in Genesis vi, 5-ix, 17, easily 
 reveals the fact that it embodies two distinct and 
 discrepant accounts. They are derived from the two 
 sources J E. and P. These two accounts are best com- 
 pared by placing them in parallel columns : — 
 
 P. 
 
 JE. 
 
 The Animals. There were 
 taken into the Ark seven male 
 and seven female of the " clean," 
 and two, male and female, of 
 the " unclean." 
 
 Duration of the Flood. Forty 
 days and forty nights, with 
 three weeks until the waters 
 subsided — i.e., sixty-one days. 
 
 Causes of the Flood. Eain. 
 
 Sacrifice. Noah 
 altar and sacrificed. 
 
 built 
 
 an 
 
 The Bainbow. 
 tioned. 
 
 Not men- 
 
 Two animals only, male and 
 female. 
 
 150 days. The waters took 
 three months to uncover the 
 mountain tops and two months 
 more for the earth to become 
 dry. 
 
 Kain and "subterranean 
 waters." 
 
 Sacrifice not mentioned, 
 because the Priests considered 
 it highly improper for any one 
 but a member of their own 
 order to conduct so sacred a 
 rite. 
 
 Introduced, because the idea 
 of a covenant between Yahweh 
 and the Jews had arisen after 
 the time of the earlier source.
 
 THE STORY OF NOAH'S FLOOD 105 
 
 The older (JE.) narrative agrees fairly closely with 
 the Babylonian legend, both mentioning seven days' 
 warning, seven of each animal, and seven days' interval 
 between each despatch of the dove. Seven is a magic 
 or sacred number among many primitive peoples, is 
 frequently mentioned in the Bible and other sacred 
 books, and survives among ourselves in some quaint 
 beliefs and customs. There are also some resemblances 
 (as the description of the construction of the ark) between 
 the Babylonian and the Priestly stories. 
 
 There are other flood-legends spread widely over the 
 earth, and they often differ one from another. Only 
 a few of these need be mentioned ; a very full account of 
 them will be found in Sir James Frazer's Folk-lore in 
 the Old Testament. 1 
 
 The ancient Greeks had three flood-stories, and they 
 are of great interest as helping to show how such myths 
 arose. The first flood was in the time of Ogyges, and 
 was based probably on variations in size of the Copaic 
 Lake, in Bceotia. The second was Deucalion's flood, in 
 which he is described as building a ship and so saving 
 himself and his wife. This flood was associated with the 
 Thessalian Mount Othrys, and was probably framed to 
 account for the strait between Thessaly and Eubcea. The 
 third flood was in the time of Dardanus, and is connected 
 with the town of Pheneus, situated upon the shore of 
 Lake Phonia. 
 
 In connection with Deucalion's Flood, it is interesting 
 to find that the modern Turks have a tradition of a great 
 deluge due to the sudden opening of the Bosphorus, for 
 which they consider Alexander the Great responsible. 
 Such legends belong to the Myths of Observation, framed 
 to account for some natural formation (see p. 53), or for 
 the discovery of marine fossils in places remote from the 
 
 _ ' The Semang of the Malay Peninsula have vague ideas of tho destruc- 
 tion of the world by a big conflagration in place of a deluge myth. Skeat 
 and Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, ii, 219.
 
 106 OLD TESTAMENT STOEIES CONSIDERED 
 
 sea. In Persia a flood is made to account for the saltness 
 of the sea, for example. 
 
 In China there is a tradition of a flood in the reign of 
 the Emperor Yao, in the twenty-fourth century B.C.; it 
 refers to a local inundation of the Yellow River, and 
 neither the Chinese nor the Japanese have any tradition 
 of a universal flood. 
 
 In New Guinea, Melanesia, and Polynesia there are 
 numerous flood stories, in many of which the inundation 
 was caused by the sea ; in Fiji canoes used to be kept 
 ready in case another flood should occur. 
 
 In Iceland (where the flood is believed to have occurred 
 before the Creation), Australia, India, Burma, North, 
 Central, and South America, Wales, and among the 
 Gypsies (who probably brought them from India) flood 
 legends are to be found. In some cases they show 
 evidence of having arisen by Christian and Mohammedan 
 influence. 
 
 In Africa traditions of a great flood are scarcely ever 
 met with, though there are traces of such stories in 
 North Guinea and on the Congo. In East Africa any 
 such tradition is due to the influence of Christian or 
 Mohammedan missionaries. 
 
 When the various flood stories, of which only a small 
 portion has been cited, are examined they fall into two 
 classes : — 
 
 1. Those due to missionary influence by the teaching 
 of the Bible or the Koran. The result of such teaching 
 is obvious. 
 
 2. Geographical and geological influences. The forma- 
 tion of seas, the flooding of rivers, and the occurrence of 
 fossils are now satisfactorily explained in the light of 
 modern science. Geology makes it clear that no catas- 
 trophes of a universal character occur ; on the contrary, 
 changes in the earth's surface take place slowly. But 
 for primitive peoples unacquainted with these facts, myths 
 of observation were necessary to account for them. In
 
 THE TOWEK OF BABEL 107 
 
 islands, like those of the Pacific, earthquakes and huge 
 tidal waves are the usual agents in flood legends ; while 
 in low-lying countries watered by big rivers local inun- 
 dations form their basis. In such cases flood stories are 
 merely exaggerated reports of actual events which, by 
 transmission, have become partly legendary and partly 
 mythical. Where a primitive race knew of no world 
 beyond their own strip of country, any such flood legend 
 would be considered as universal. The Sumerian tradi- 
 tion probably originated in this way in an inundation of 
 the Euphrates, possibly caused by heavy rains — a view 
 which accords with the alleged cause of the Bible flood. 
 There are many instances of memorable floods in Holland, 
 and Motley ' recalls the story of the origin of the Zuyder 
 Zee in the thirteenth century. Two of the Greek flood 
 legends are accounted for by inundations caused by lakes, 
 while Deucalion's flood and the modern Turkish tradition 
 try to explain the formation of sea-straits. It is interesting 
 to note that, according to Sir James Frazer {Folk-lore in 
 the Old Testament) , there were no flood-legends in Egypt, 
 simply because the ancient Egyptians were used to the 
 regular annual rise of the Nile and the consequent flooding 
 of the narrow strip of country through which it runs. 2 
 
 § 5. The Tower of Babel 
 
 The story of the Tower of Babel is an instance of a 
 double myth. In one, a primitive people wished to 
 account for the diversity of tongues ; in the other, the 
 conception of the sky as a dome naturally excited the 
 
 1 Rise of the Dutch Republic (ed. 1913), vol. i, p. 35. 
 
 2 There is, however, a legend of a flood, brought about by the god Temu, 
 preserved in chap, clxxv of the Book of tlie Dead (Papyrus of Ani in the 
 Brit. Mus.)- The text is, however, so mutilated that it is impossible to 
 piece together the details. It is significant that the early civilizations 
 were around the Mediterranean, and that in the eastern part of that sea 
 considerable land subsidences have taken place comparatively late in the 
 human period. It is a fairly legitimate surmise that traces of these 
 subsidences may have formed the foundation for a tradition of the flood.
 
 108 OLD TESTAMENT STORIES CONSIDERED 
 
 desire to climb up to it. Among many primitive races 
 there are numerous myths dealing with these problems. 
 
 It is to be noted that in Genesis there is no mention of 
 the origin of the gift of speech ; possibly the faculty was 
 taken for granted. It has been shown in Chapter II 
 (p. 22) how speech was developed, and it would not have 
 been possible for any myths to have been framed or 
 transmitted until man had acquired considerable facility 
 in language. 
 
 But, as with other primitive races, the diversity of 
 tongues attracted the Jews, and they endeavoured to 
 account for it by the Babel story, in which they com- 
 bined it with the idea of an attempt to reach the sky by 
 climbing. 
 
 The Jews, being a branch of the great Semitic race, 
 and coming originally from Chaldaea, must have been 
 familiar with the great temple towers of its cities. Of 
 these there were many ; they were, indeed, an outstanding 
 feature of the architecture of that civilization, and the 
 remains of two are still in existence. One of them was 
 the Tower of Marduk, now forming the mound of Babil. 
 The other, the Tower of Nebo, is situated about eight 
 or ten miles from Babylon, and its modern name is 
 Bis-Nimrud. This tower was never finished, which may 
 possibly account for a part of the Babel myth. 
 
 There was such a temple tower at Ur of the Chaldees, 
 the city from which Abraham is supposed to have set out 
 for Canaan. It has been suggested that the memory of 
 this tower may have been preserved because the structure 
 belonged to the city from which the Jewish nation came. 
 
 Another suggestion is that the word " Ba-bel," which 
 means " Gate of God," was mistaken by the Jews for 
 "Balbel," a verb signifying "to confound." 
 
 Many similar stories exist concerned either with the 
 diversity of languages or the idea of climbing up to heaven ; 
 and in some the two are combined. Such legends are 
 met with, for example, in Africa, Burma, California
 
 ABRAHAM AND ISAAC 109 
 
 (in this tale there is no mention of any tower), Mexico 
 (connected with the great pyramid of Cholula), and the 
 Admiralty Islands. Many of them show traces of 
 missionary influences. This is especially the case with 
 the Mexican, Admiralty Islands, and Burmese legends. 
 The Karens of Burma have a special aptitude for 
 adopting Christian legends and camouflaging them with 
 local ideas, so that they are often difficult to recognize 
 under the disguise. 
 
 § 6. Abraham and Isaac 
 
 Genesis xii contains the well-known story in which 
 Yahweh tested Abraham by ordering him to sacrifice 
 his only son Isaac, and when he found the patriarch 
 willing substituted a ram for the boy. This story 
 belongs to that class of myth which explains customs 
 (see Chapter III, p. 53). In this case the myth explains 
 the change from human to animal sacrifice. 
 
 The custom of human sacrifice has been of world-wide 
 existence among primitive races. There is no need to go 
 into its origin here beyond pointing out that it may have 
 arisen originally from cannibalism, when victims were 
 eaten in order that any special virtue they possessed (as 
 bravery in battle or wisdom in counsel) might pass into 
 the person who devoured them ; or, as among the Maoris 
 of New Zealand, from scarcity of animal food. Later 
 the practice of human sacrifice grew into a ritual, when 
 human victims were killed either to appease the spirits of 
 those slain in a tribal war, to bribe the gods in time of 
 pestilence and famine, as thank-offerings, or that their 
 ghosts might accompany a chief into the spirit land. In 
 some of these sacrifices the victim was eaten. 
 
 With human sacrifices to vegetation-gods, the cere- 
 monial eating of the victim was a very common part of 
 the rite ; and as this victim was at first supposed to 
 represent the god, and later actually to be the deity 
 himself, the custom arose of " eating the god " with the
 
 110 OLD TESTAMENT STORIES CONSIDERED 
 
 idea that a part of his divine nature would enter into the 
 worshippers. As man gradually became more civilized 
 and more humane, the custom of human sacrifice was 
 given up, an animal being exchanged for the man. 
 Later still a cake was substituted for a living victim, 
 often made in the shape of man or animal, and this was 
 ceremonially eaten. Last of all, bread and wine, repre- 
 senting the body and blood of the victim, were used. 
 
 In this way the custom of eating ceremonial (or 
 sacramental) meals, of a sacrificial kind, at which the 
 god himself was supposed to be eaten, was evolved. Such 
 sacraments, called "Eucharists," 1 are very widespread. 
 A characteristic of most of them was that originally it 
 was the king himself who represented the god and was 
 slain; later the king's eldest son took his place, and, 
 later still, a condemned criminal was substituted. Further, 
 as the king was considered to be divine, the substituted 
 victim became the " son of the god." 
 
 The ancient god Kronos (who was the same as Saturn 
 and the Semitic god El) is said to have sacrificed his 
 " only begotten son." Now the three patriarchs, Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob, were probably ancient Semitic deities, 
 and Isaac has been identified mythologically as a sun- 
 god. It may also be pointed out here that his Hebrew 
 name of "Yishak" is very near to that of "Yeschu," 
 which is the Hebrew form of "Jesus." 
 
 It is clear from the Old Testament that it was at one 
 time the custom among the early Jews, as among the 
 Phoenicians, to sacrifice the first-born of man as well as 
 that of animals. Later, the first-born of man was 
 " redeemed " by the substitution of an animal, generally 
 a lamb or a kid. This is indicated, for example, in the 
 following passages : — 
 
 " And the Lord (Yahweh) spake unto Moses, saying, 
 sanctify unto me all the first-born" (Exod. xiii, 12). 
 
 1 Greek, Eu, well ; chairo, to rejoice.
 
 STORY OF JACOB AT FORD OF JABBOK 111 
 
 "All the first-born of thy sons shalt thou redeem" 
 (Exod. xxxiv, 20). 
 
 " And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh 
 of thy daughters shalt thou eat " (Lev it. xxvi, 29). 
 
 " Nevertheless the first-born of man shalt thou surely 
 redeem" (Numbers xviii, 15). 
 
 The fact of this early Jewish sacrifice of sons is 
 confessed in the story of Abraham and Isaac, which 
 supplies an excuse for the substitution of an animal. 
 The story is, therefore, a myth framed to account for 
 the change, for among primitive peoples the difficulty 
 of making them relinquish an old rite is so great that 
 a mere order to do so is of no avail unless it is supported 
 by some legend which makes it appear that the command 
 comes from the god. 
 
 In connection with the myth of Abraham and Isaac 
 must be mentioned the story of Jephthah's daughter 
 (Judges xi). This story is one of many tales told in 
 Arab and other tradition, based upon the sacrifice of 
 a virgin goddess. Only a usual practice of human 
 sacrifice could allow the idea of the application of the 
 vow to a human being. The story of Cymon and 
 Iphigenia is a similar myth. Such sacrifice of virgins 
 was practised by the early Greeks, and the Greek writer 
 Pausanias (iv, 9) tells of the sacrifice of a virgin imposed 
 by the Oracle at Delphi on the Messenians in their wars 
 with the Spartans. 
 
 § 7. The Story of Jacob at the Ford of Jabbok 
 
 There is a story told in Genesis xxxii, 24-32, of how 
 Jacob, having come down from the mountains of Gilead, 
 crossed the River Jabbok with his family, and, having 
 seen them pass over in safety, remained behind at the 
 ford. Here he met with a mysterious person with whom 
 he wrestled " until the breaking of the day. And when 
 he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched
 
 112 OLD TESTAMENT STOKIES CONSIDERED 
 
 the hollow of his thigh ; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh 
 was strained, as he wrestled with him." The baffled 
 stranger implored Jacob to let him go, but the patriarch 
 refused to do so unless his nocturnal opponent " blessed 
 him." The stranger asked him his name, and, when it 
 was told him, said : " Thy name shall be called no more 
 Jacob, but Israel," which means (as indicated in the 
 margin of the Revised Version) " He who striveth with 
 God." And Jacob called the place "Peniel" (that is, 
 "the face of God"), because he had "seen God face to 
 face." The last verse states that " Therefore the children 
 of Israel eat not of the sinew of the hip which is upon 
 the hollow of the thigh, unto this day : because he 
 touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew of 
 the hip." 
 
 This story is introduced here because it strikingly 
 illustrates how much there is of myth and folk-lore in 
 the Old Testament. These nine verses contain folk-lore 
 relating to local nature gods and to the mysterious magic 
 in names (see p. 37), with two myths of explanation, one 
 accounting for the name of Israel, the other for the 
 custom of not eating the sinew of the hip. 
 
 The continual motion of rivers and seas naturally gave 
 primitive man the idea that they were alive, and in the 
 folk-lore of every people is to be found evidence of the 
 belief in spirits of the water. The Greeks and Romans 
 had their river gods and naiads of the springs, of whom 
 our " Father Thames " and the patron saints of wells 
 and springs are survivals. Among all savage races the 
 idea exists of water-sprites (mostly malignant and requir- 
 ing propitiation by offerings), leading to river worship. 
 The Bantu peoples of South and South-East Africa, the 
 Banyoro (who offer sacrifices when crossing the Nile), the 
 inhabitants of Congoland and South Nigeria, the Badajas 
 of Southern India, the Todas, and many others, believe 
 that rivers and springs have their guardian gods and 
 spirits. The custom of propitiating them at fords is
 
 JOSHUA 113 
 
 very common, for among primitive folk (see Chapter II, 
 p. 34) a man is never drowned, but dragged down and 
 strangled by the water-spirit. 
 
 It is probable that in the story of the ford of the 
 Jabbok the mysterious stranger with whom Jacob wrestled 
 by night was the guardian spirit of the river, or, as the 
 Arabs would say, the genie of the ford. There are 
 similar legends of Greek heroes wrestling with water- 
 sprites. In Jacob's case an old folk-legend has been 
 turned by the Old Testament writer into a story of how 
 the patriarch struggled with Yahweh in order to frame 
 a myth to explain both his change of name and the 
 prohibition against eating a certain portion of the thigh. 
 
 The belief in the magic of names is apparent in the 
 story of how the spirit begged Jacob to tell him his 
 name. Jacob complied only when he had the spirit in 
 his power and was certain that he would use it for a 
 good purpose, and, once the god had ascertained it, he 
 employed it to work beneficent magic in a blessing. 
 
 The prohibition as to eating certain portions of animals 
 is another widespread custom. The Jews were prohibited 
 from eating one of the sinews or muscles of the thigh. 
 There are like customs, with myths to account for them, 
 among the North American Indians ; and there is an 
 ancient Mexican story similar to that of Jacob's midnight 
 wrestle at the ford of Jabbok. 
 
 § 8. Joshua 
 
 It has already been pointed out (Chapter V, p. 88) that 
 the book of Joshua describes what was probably a long 
 conflict lasting over one hundred years, and essays to fit 
 it into the life of one man, one generation, and one 
 campaign. This man was Joshua, the popular hero, 
 whose name (also spelt Jehoshua) is in Hebrew " Yeho- 
 shua," a word meaning "Yah (or Yahweh) is welfare," 
 and equivalent to " Saviour." It is important to note
 
 114 OLD TESTAMENT STOKIES CONSIDERED 
 
 that the Greek form is " Jesous," which is the same as 
 Jesus. 
 
 A study of the book of Joshua shows it to be constructed 
 of very miscellaneous fragments. It contains history, 
 both true and false, mixed with hero-legend, myth, and 
 folk-lore. It has been suggested that Joshua was a 
 successful war-leader whose name was handed down, and 
 around whom accumulated many legends and traditions — 
 a common occurrence with leaders of primitive races. It 
 may be possible that Joshua was the popular hero of the 
 early Jews until the growing power of the priesthood 
 caused his tradition to be overshadowed by that of Moses. 
 Once a race had become established and recognized as 
 a nation, and its priesthood had come to be invested with 
 great power, the latter, from motives of self-interest, 
 would magnify religion and laws to the disadvantage of 
 all else. The Jewish priests would, therefore, exalt 
 Moses the lawgiver above Joshua the general. 
 
 There is evidence to show that Joshua is not 
 historical, but a myth-duplicate of Moses, whose work he 
 repeated, as will be seen by a comparison of Exodus and 
 Joshua. In Jewish tradition he is specially associated 
 with the choosing of the Paschal lamb and the rites of the 
 Passover (Josh, v, 10) and circumcision (v, 2-10). 
 
 No less than six of the acts of Moses are ascribed 
 also to Joshua. As Moses passed the Red Sea dry-shod 
 (Exod. xiv, 21), so did Joshua cross the Jordan {Josh, iii, 
 17; iv, 18). Both appointed twelve rulers (Exod. xviii, 25 
 and Josh, iv, 2). As Moses set up twelve pillars under 
 Mount Sinai (Exod. xxiv, 4-5), ' so did Joshua set up 
 twelve stones (in Josh, iv, 8, he does so " in the midst of 
 Jordan " ; in iv, 21, they are set up in Gilgal 2 ). In Exod. 
 
 1 It may be conveniently mentioned here that so learned a divine as 
 Dr. Sayce has expressod the decided opinion that the Israelites were never 
 near Mt. Sinai at any period of their wanderings. 
 
 2 The word Gilgal means a circle. There are many such circles of 
 stones in Palestine, similar to the prehistoric circles (so-called " Druid 
 circles") of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Europe.
 
 JOSHUA 115 
 
 xii,44, Moses instituted circumcision, and in Josh, xv, 2-10, 
 Joshua revives the rite ; similarly, both Moses (Exod. xii, 
 14-18) and Joshua (Josh, v, 10) instituted the Passover. 
 Lastly, Moses (Exod. xxxi, 18) and Joshua (Josh, viii, 32) 
 both wrote the law upon stones. 
 
 There is a remarkable parallel between Moses and the 
 Greek god Dionysus. As Moses was set afloat in a rush- 
 made ark, so Dionysus was carried in a basket in the 
 sacred procession. Both Moses and Dionysus obtained 
 water by striking the earth with a rod, crossed the sea 
 with their hosts, and wrote laws upon tables of stone. 
 There are other similarities between the two, 1 but these 
 will suffice. Probably Joshua, Moses, and Dionysus are 
 all variants of the same myth. 
 
 Joshua is credited with one stupendous feat that Moses 
 did not do : he made the sun and moon stand still. 
 Similar legends are not uncommon among primitive folk. 
 In the Peruvian Andes a net was set to catch the sun ; 
 in Fiji travellers who feared to be belated tied growing 
 reeds together to delay the setting sun until they reached 
 their destination in safety. For similar reasons in New 
 Guinea the sun is told not to hurry. 2 In Homer's Iliad 
 (xviii, 239) the goddess Here hastens the setting of the 
 sun. 
 
 The hero-legend of Joshua had a special vogue in 
 Samaria, and the Samaritans possessed an uncanonical 
 book of Joshua in Arabic, a medieval production, pro- 
 fessedly translated from a Hebrew original. It is now 
 considered that he was once a Palestine deity, possibly 
 one of the gods or spirits of agriculture slain annually to 
 come to life again as personating the death and reappear- 
 ance of the crops. The book of Joshua is an instance of 
 how the Jews could manufacture false history, to the 
 national advantage, out of popular myth. 
 
 1 J. M. Robertson, Christianity and Mythology, p. 99 sg. 
 
 2 Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough, i, 117.
 
 116 OLD TESTAMENT STOEIES CONSIDEEED 
 
 § 9. The Story of Samson 
 
 The story of Samson in Judges xiv-xvi is in curious 
 contrast to the stories contained in the remainder of the 
 book. He is shown rather as a filibuster, a sort of 
 Eob Eoy Macgregor, than as a grave ruler of Israel. As 
 Sir James Frazer has said, the description given of him 
 " owes more to the brush of the story-teller than to the 
 pen of the historian." 
 
 The tales told in the book of Judges of Jephthah, 
 Deborah, Gideon, and Samson belong to the class of 
 hero-legend which are common to all nations, and resemble 
 other stories of local or tribal heroes. When the Jews 
 were united into a nation these traditions became common 
 property, and were incorporated by the Jewish writers 
 into their historical books in accordance with their ideas 
 of writing history. 
 
 The legend of Samson calls up a whole host of folk- 
 legends in which the hair is considered as the seat of 
 bodily strength. In the Greek version of the Old Testa- 
 ment there are some lines which are omitted in the 
 revised version of the English Bible. They come between 
 the thirteenth and fourteenth verses of Judges xvi, the 
 whole reading as follows, the restored verse being indicated 
 by italics : " And Delilah said unto Samson, Hitherto thou 
 hast mocked me, and told me lies : tell me wherewith 
 thou mightest be bound. And he said to her, If thou 
 weavest the seven locks of my head with the web And 
 makest (the whole) fast with the pin, then shall I become 
 weak and like any other man. And Delilah made him 
 sleep, and wove the seven locks of his head with the web. 
 And she fastened it with the pin, and said unto him, The 
 Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awaked out 
 of his sleep, and plucked away the pin of the beam and 
 the web." 
 
 There are ancient Greek legends similar to that of 
 Samson and Delilah, of which the story of Nisus is an
 
 THE STOKY OF SAMSON 117 
 
 example. Nisus was King of Megara, and was there 
 besieged by Minos. He had a daughter, Scylla, who 
 became enamoured of Minos, and, playing the traitor to 
 her father, pulled out the purple or golden hair which 
 grew on the top of his head, and upon which his life 
 depended. Nisus thereupon died, and Minos obtained 
 possession of the city. So horrified was he, however, at 
 Scylla's unnatural conduct that he caused her to be 
 drowned in the Saronic Gulf. In the Island of Nias 
 there is a similar legend concerning a king whose life 
 was in his hair, and who was betrayed to his enemies by 
 his daughter. 
 
 In the East Indies and many other places there is a 
 belief that a person's strength lies in the hair, while in 
 France, Scotland, Mexico, and some parts of India the 
 hair is supposed to be the seat of the evil powers of 
 witches and wizards. 
 
 A large class of folk-legends exists all over the world 
 in which the life of either a hero or a wizard is carefully 
 hidden away in some inaccessible spot, the secret of which 
 is carefully guarded. These myths arose from the primi- 
 tive belief that a man's soul was a distinct part of him, 
 capable of being deposited in a place of safety. Stories 
 based upon this conception of the " external soul " are 
 common in folk-lore, and are to be found among children's 
 fairy-tales. A good example is the Norse tale of " The 
 giant who had no heart in his body." One of the 
 most characteristic is the Hindoo story of the magician 
 "Punchkin," whose life was hidden in a parrot in a cage, 
 placed beneath one of six chattees ' of water in a circle 
 of palm-trees in the middle of a thick jungle hundreds 
 of thousands of miles away from where its owner was. 
 Once the parrot was obtained by his enemy, Punchkin 
 was in his power ; when its wings were torn away his 
 
 1 Chattees are the earthenware pots used in India to contain drinking 
 water. The story of Punchkin and its congeners has been ably discussed 
 by Edward Clodd in the Folk-lore Journal, ii (1884), pp. 288-303. 
 
 I
 
 118 OLD TESTAMENT STORIES CONSIDERED 
 
 arms dropped off, and when the bird's neck was wrung 
 the magician died. 
 
 Similar legends exist in Slavonic and Celtic folk-lore. 
 To the former belong the Russian story of Koshschei the 
 Deathless, whose life was hidden in an egg in a duck in 
 a hare in a casket under an oak, and the Serbian tale of 
 Truesteel. Indeed, this particular type of legend is so 
 ancient that it is found in the Egyptian story of The Two 
 Brothers, which was written about 1300 B.C. 
 
 The story of Samson is seen to be, therefore, one of 
 many variants of a very ancient folk-legend based upon 
 the conception of an " external soul." 
 
 § 10. The Beputed Wisdom of Solomon 
 
 The reputation of Solomon for wisdom has been cele- 
 brated alike by Jews in the Old Testament and Moham- 
 medans in the Koran, and legends concerning him have 
 been widely current in the East. In the Old Testament, 
 in addition to the accounts of his achievements in the 
 books of Kings and Chronicles, some of the Psalms, most 
 of the Proverbs, with the whole of Ecclesiastes and the 
 Song of Songs, are attributed to him. When the evidence 
 comes to be examined, however, it will be seen that his 
 exalted fame for great wisdom rests upon no surer 
 foundation than tradition. The stories concerning it 
 belong to the Myths about Persons (see p. 53). As in 
 the case of a much later historical personage — that " wise 
 fool," James I of England — tales of his wisdom and 
 scholarship belong to the after-growth of legend. 
 
 Solomon was by no means the magnificent potentate 
 that he has been made out. He obtained the throne by 
 a successful coup d'etat, and established himself thereon 
 by murder. He employed forced labour, indistinguishable 
 from slavery, to build his palace and the Temple, and 
 appears generally to have been as despotic and oppressive 
 as most Eastern rulers. To the Jews, however, he was
 
 THE REPUTED WISDOM OF SOLOMON 119 
 
 the " Great King " who brought about their union and 
 gained for them the position of a nation to be reckoned 
 with by their neighbours, although he appears neither 
 to have enlarged his kingdom nor to have been an 
 absolutely independent monarch. Above all, he founded 
 the first Temple. It is for this latter reason that they 
 specially venerated him. With a people that developed 
 so powerful a priesthood, it was but natural that the 
 sovereign who built the first Temple to the glorification 
 of Yahweh and the increased revenue of his priests 
 should receive their highest praise and honour, and that 
 his many less worthy actions should escape condemnation 
 by the priestly historians. 
 
 Legends of wisdom and magnificence, therefore, 
 fostered by the most powerful section of the Jews, 
 accumulated around Solomon, and in the first book of 
 Kings (iv, 29-34) it is for this that he is expressly 
 eulogized. He is " wiser than all men" — "spake three 
 thousand proverbs and his songs were a thousand and 
 five"; he understood trees, beasts, fowls, "creeping 
 things," and fishes, and " there came of all peoples to 
 hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, 
 which had heard of his wisdom." Among Eastern 
 peoples his name has been venerated and used in magic 
 as of great power (another instance of the magic in 
 names), as may be read in the Arabian Nights' Enter- 
 tainments. The verses above quoted have been even 
 considered by the credulous to mean that he understood 
 the language of trees and animals ! In the Koran 
 (xxvii, 17) Solomon is made to say : " men, we have 
 been taught the speech of birds, and are endued with 
 everything. This is indeed a clear boon from God." 
 
 The story of the Queen of Sheba, or the Sabeans 
 (1 Kings x, 1-13), is an example of popular legend. 
 Similar tales are told in the Koran and the Mahabharata. 
 Contests of wit, especially in the guise of riddles, form 
 the basis of many Eastern stories; and there is one
 
 % 
 
 120 OLD TESTAMENT STORIES CONSIDERED 
 
 famous tale, concerning two rival Rajahs of Celebes, 
 which closely parallels that of Solomon and the Queen. 
 
 The well-known story of Solomon's judgment between 
 the two women who disputed the ownership of the baby 
 (1 Kings iii, 16-28) is another widespread Eastern 
 legend, one specimen of which is to be found in the 
 literature of the Jains, in India. A tale almost exactly 
 similar is related of the Buddha. In this, which is more 
 pleasing than the Solomon story, the women having 
 promised to abide by his judgment, the Buddha ordered 
 a line to be drawn upon the ground and the child laid 
 upon it. The Buddha then directed the women to seize 
 the child by its arms and legs and pull, saying, " He shall 
 be son of her who pulls him over the line." The real 
 mother said : " Let her take the baby ; I cannot bear to 
 see him hurt." Whereupon the Buddha asked of the 
 onlookers, "Whose hearts are tender to the children?" 
 They replied, " Oh ! Pundit, mothers' hearts are tender ! " 
 " Which think you is the mother ? " questioned the 
 Buddha, to which they all answered : " She who let it go 
 is its mother " ; and the child was returned to her. 
 
 Besides all the hero and wisdom legends written around 
 Solomon by the writers of the sacred books in order to 
 glorify his name, others were probably added by later 
 writers. Of the three books of which he himself was 
 supposed to be the author, the Song of Songs was so 
 assigned because it chanced to contain his name (see p. 95). 
 Ecclesiastes begins with the verse : " The words of 
 Koheleth, the son of David, King in Jerusalem " — mean- 
 ing, of course, Solomon, as there was known to history no 
 king who was a son of David called Koheleth. In the 
 English Bible the word is translated " The Preacher," but 
 many Hebrew scholars consider this meaning improbable. 
 The Jewish Rabbis endeavoured to account for "Koheleth " 
 by inventing a legend in which Solomon made Yahweh 
 angry by his conceit over his wealth and wisdom ; where- 
 fore he sent the monarch wandering over the world
 
 THE REPUTED WISDOM OF SOLOMON 121 
 
 preaching, while a demon reigned in Jerusalem in his 
 likeness. 
 
 The book of Proverbs, as has been seen (p. 94), is 
 a collection of the sayings of wise men loosely strung 
 together. They are attributed to Solomon, Agur the 
 son of Jakeh, King Lemuel, and other Sages. It has 
 already been mentioned (p. 80) that there was at Elephan- 
 tine, in Egypt, a colony of Jews who settled there in the 
 time of the Persian kings. In 1904 nine or ten perfectly 
 preserved rolls of papyrus were found there. These 
 documents related to the affairs of the colony, and among 
 them was one entitled " Sayings of the Wise and Skilful 
 Scribe, Ahikar by name, which he taught to his Son." 
 This Ahikar was prime minister of Assyria in the reign 
 of Sennacherib, by whom he was sent to Egypt, where 
 he showed his great wisdom in a trial of wits with the 
 Pharaoh. Stories of such subtle contests are still very 
 popular in Eastern countries, and are not without appre- 
 ciation in the West. The manuscript found at Elephantine 
 was probably written specially for the Jewish colony 
 about five hundred years before the Christian era. The 
 " Sayings of Ahikar " are, however, much older than this 
 particular copy, and were well known and much prized 
 by the Jews. They are mentioned in the Book of Tobit, 
 one of the apocryphal Hebrew scriptures. A number of 
 these sayings were probably incorporated in the book 
 of Proverbs, as the following specimen extracts, out of 
 many, will show : — 
 
 Proverbs. 
 
 Withhold not correction from 
 the child ; for if thou beat 
 him with a rod he shall not 
 die. Thou shalt beat him with 
 a rod, and shalt deliver his 
 soul from Sheol. 
 
 A stone is heavy, and the 
 sand is weighty ; but a fool's 
 
 Sayings of Ahikar. 
 
 If thou strike him with a 
 rod, he does not die. But if 
 thou leave him to his own 
 will, he becomes a thief, and 
 they take him to the gallows, 
 and to death. 
 
 Son ! I have lifted iron and 
 I have lifted stones upon my
 
 122 OLD TESTAMENT STOEIES CONSIDEEED 
 
 vexation is heavier than them 
 both. 
 
 Eejoice not when thine 
 enemy falleth, and let not 
 thine heart be glad when he 
 is overthrown. 
 
 shoulders, and it was better 
 for me than to dwell with the 
 ignorant and the fool. 
 
 My Son ! Envy not the 
 prosperity of thine enemy, and 
 rejoice not at his adversity. 
 
 § 11. The Story of Daniel 
 
 The book of Daniel is a striking example of the manner 
 in which the Jews could confuse and falsify history for 
 the furtherance of their own ends and the stimulation of 
 Jewish patriotism. 
 
 For years the book of Daniel was mistaken for prophecy, 
 and was believed to have been written during the Exile 
 and to predict the coming of the Messiah} Later it was 
 supposed by the Christians to foretell the coming of Christ. 
 It was probably written, however, to stimulate the 
 Maccabaean rebellion against Antiochus Epiphanes. This 
 famous revolt was no doubt due really to quarrels among 
 the Jews themselves, but the excuse given by them for 
 its occurrence was that Epiphanes had issued an edict 
 enforcing Greek worship throughout his dominions, and 
 had established an altar to the Olympian Zeus (the 
 Jupiter of the Eomans) in the shrine of Yahweh at 
 Jerusalem. Such an act would naturally be considered 
 by the Jews as a terrible profanation of their most sacred 
 place. The book of Daniel was written for purposes of 
 propaganda; to light up fresh hope of liberty and gain 
 recruits for the Maccabaean revolt. This rising was the 
 work of the Jewish priest Mattathias and his five sons, 
 John, Simon, Judas Maccabaeus, Eleazar, and Jonathan, 
 from whom it was named. 
 
 The book of Daniel was written at the period of the 
 
 The Hebrew word Meshiach means "anointed," and was applied by 
 the Jews to an expected ruler who would deliver them from all their 
 troubles and firmly establish the nation (see p. 143).
 
 THE STOKY OF DANIEL 123 
 
 Greek rule, about 164 B.C., and the " end " spoken of by 
 the author meant the termination of the troubles of the 
 Jewish people. His knowledge of the past history of 
 his nation was remarkably inaccurate, as the following 
 facts will clearly show : — 
 
 1. The opening chapter entirely disagrees with 2 Kings 
 xxiii-xxiv in making Nebuchadrezzar (called by Daniel, 
 who was presumably well acquainted with his real name 
 of Nabu-kudur-uzur, " Nebuchadnezzar ") take Jerusalem 
 in the third instead of the eleventh year of the reign of 
 Jehoiakin, King of Judah. 
 
 2. Nebuchadrezzar had no son Belshazzar (Dan, v, 
 1 and 2), nor was there a Darius or an Ahasuerus in the 
 days described in Daniel. 1 
 
 3. The " writing on the wall " (Dan. vi, 25) cannot 
 be translated by means of any vocabulary of the Baby- 
 lonian language. Further, Daniel could not have spoken 
 in Aramaic (translated in ii, 4, as " the Syrian language "), 
 because it was not used in his country until much later. 
 Aramaic is used in Daniel from ii, 4, to end of vii. 
 
 4. The book contains a number of Macedonian words, 
 although it is alleged to have been written at a period 
 when the Greeks were not yet heard of. 
 
 5. At the time of the Exile the books of Jeremiah, 
 Ezekiel, and Zechariah, from which Daniel quotes, did 
 not exist ; and the Jews had no idea of a future life, nor 
 had they reached to the conception of a Gabriel or a 
 Michael. The later Jewish ideas of the Kingdom of 
 God and the end of the world were derived from the 
 Persians, just as their winged angels were obtained from 
 the Babylonian sculptures. 
 
 6. The date of the book has been determined from 
 chapter xi, which refers to events in the Greek period, 
 the time at which it was written. 
 
 1 The actual history as ascertained from inscriptions and the false 
 history in Daniel are decisively compared in Mr. Chilperic Edwards's 
 The Old Testament, pp. 88-90.
 
 124 OLD TESTAMENT STORIES CONSIDERED 
 
 7. In Dan. xi, 45, the death of Antiochus is prophesied 
 in the words : " And he shall plant the tents of his 
 palace between the sea and the glorious holy mountain ; 
 yet shall he come to an end and none shall help him." 
 Antiochus Epiphanes was, however, killed in a raid on 
 the Persian city of Tabae, which is over three hundred 
 miles from the Caspian Sea and over five hundred miles 
 from the Persian Gulf. 
 
 § 12. The Story of Esther 
 
 The book of Esther (which, by the way, never men- 
 tions the name of Yahweh) is another example of false 
 history, founded, in this instance, upon an ancient myth, 
 and designed to stimulate Jewish patriotism. 
 
 Ahasuerus, the Persian king mentioned, is the Hebrew 
 name for Xerxes, concerning whom a great deal is known, 
 because the Greek historian Herodotus, who was born 
 two years after he began to reign, wrote his history. In 
 this nothing whatever is said of Vashti or Esther, but 
 there is plenty of information about his queen. Xerxes 
 was not permitted to marry any one not descended from 
 certain noble families, and his queen was his cousin 
 Amestris, daughter of Otanes. They were married 
 before the third year, and she was alive after the seventh 
 year of his reign. Yet in Esther i, 9, Vashti is described 
 as his queen in the third year of his reign, and in ii, 16, 
 Esther is married to him in the seventh year. There is, 
 therefore, no room for Esther, save in the doubtful 
 character of concubine — an idea which would have been 
 essentially repugnant to Jewish pride. 
 
 Neither Ezra nor Nehemiah mentions the story of 
 Esther, although it would reflect much credit upon the 
 Jews, and when Ahasuerus is referred to {Ezra iv, 6) it 
 is as being hostile to that nation. 
 
 From the evidence, therefore, the story of Esther has 
 no foundation in history. Probably it is really a romance,
 
 THE STOKY OF ESTHEE 125 
 
 based upon Babylonian myth, and adapted to the aggran- 
 dizement of Jewish importance. The labours of men 
 learned in folk-lore and ancient religious myth have 
 shown that the names of the characters in the story are 
 Hebrew versions of those of early Chaldaean gods. Esther 
 is the same as Ishtar (Ashtaroth), an ancient Semitic 
 goddess of love, marriage, and fertility; Mordecai is 
 Marduk, a Babylonian deity ; Haman is an old Elamite 
 god. So that the legend is one of the strife between the 
 gods of Babylonia and Elam. The Jews would have 
 certainly heard of such legends during their fifty years 
 of Exile ; and, with their developing sense of poetry, it is 
 quite possible that certain acute scribes might conceive 
 the idea of adapting it to Jewish purposes, and make 
 a story out of it reflecting credit upon their nation. 
 
 Sir James Frazer, however, in The Golden Bough, goes 
 further. He traces the story of Esther to the ancient 
 ceremony of the annual festival of the corn-god and 
 corn-goddess, when two persons were selected vicariously 
 to represent these spirits or deities, treated for a time as 
 royal, and one of them (the male) then sacrificed to 
 ensure good crops. Such ceremonies have been common 
 all the world over (see p. 50), and were celebrated in the 
 Babylonian " Sacaea," the Greek " Cronia " and "Bac- 
 chanalia," and the Roman " Saturnalia." Traces of them 
 still survive in the peasant folk-lore of Spring and 
 Harvest festivals, and in our " King and Queen of the 
 May." In these ancient ceremonials the victim was 
 usually selected by drawing lots. Sir James Frazer 
 suggests that the Jewish " Feast of Purim," the name of 
 which is derived from the Hebrew Pur, a lot, was merely 
 another such rite ; and that, as there is evidence to show 
 that " Purim " was not celebrated by the Jews until after 
 the Exile, it is very possible that it was founded upon 
 the Babylonian " Saceea." If this be the fact, the story 
 of Esther would belong to the class of myth invented to 
 explain ceremonies and customs (p. 53).
 
 126 OLD TESTAMENT STORIES CONSIDERED 
 
 § 13. The Story of Jonah 
 
 The story of Jonah, although included among the 
 minor Prophets, is an obvious folk-tale, the product of 
 later Jewish literature, and dating approximately from 
 after the time of Alexander. Probably the author took 
 an old sun-myth, in which the sun was swallowed by a 
 night monster, and adapted it to an historical personage, 
 since Jonah is mentioned in 2 Kings xiv, 25, as prophesying 
 that Jereboam II should reign from Hamath to the Dead 
 Sea. This mention does not, however, say anything about 
 the fish-story. 
 
 It is popularly supposed that the prophet was swallowed 
 by a whale, but the words used (i, 17) give no warrant 
 for this assumption ; they merely say that " The Lord 
 prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah." The ordinary 
 whale cannot gulp down a man, although the great sperm 
 whale, which takes in large portions of gigantic cuttle-fish, 
 can do so. Such an incident is described by the late 
 Frank Bullen in his narrative of the cruise of the whaling 
 ship Cachalot. The whale, however, is a mammal, not 
 a fish, although it was supposed by the ancients to be 
 one. Some of the large sharks are quite capable of 
 swallowing a man entire. 
 
 The swallowing-up of men by animals is a common 
 folk-lore story, and is often based upon a sun-myth. 
 Saturn ate his children, with the exception of Jupiter, 
 who was preserved by a subterfuge, and who afterwards 
 made his father disgorge his victims. Sir James Frazer, 
 in Folk-lore in the Old Testament, relates a New Guinea 
 myth somewhat resembling the Jonah story ; and in our 
 own fairy-tales (which are nearly all old folk-lore legends) 
 Tom Thumb is swallowed by a cow and returned ; while 
 in the original tale of Red Riding Hood the little girl was 
 eaten by the wolf and recovered, well and happy, by the 
 wood-cutters after they had killed him. They do not,
 
 AN INSTANCE OF PEIMITIVE LAW 127 
 
 however, appear to have worried about the unfortunate 
 grandmother. 
 
 In Lifu and Uvea, 1 two of the Loyalty islands, there are 
 two folk-tales, both told of women who were swallowed 
 — one accidentally by a whale, the other designedly by a 
 shark. Both attempted to scrape their way out with 
 sharp shells, so that their devourers perished. 
 
 § 14. An Instance of Primitive Laio 
 
 It has been pointed out (p. 29) how, in the stage of 
 Animism, primitive man believed that every natural 
 object, animate and inanimate, possessed its own par- 
 ticular spirit. It was the natural sequence to such a 
 conception that, when any object injured or killed a man, 
 its spirit should be held responsible ; in other words, 
 that the primitive personification of external objects 
 should be reflected in primitive legislation. 
 
 An interesting instance of such primitive legislation 
 is to be found in Genesis ix, 5-6 : " Your blood will I 
 
 require; at the hand of every beast will I require it 
 
 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be 
 shed " ; and in Exodus xxi, 28 : " And if an ox gore a 
 man or woman, that they die, the ox shall be surely 
 stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten ; but the owner 
 of the ox shall be quit." 
 
 This was a part of the general law of blood-revenge, 
 and, as might be expected, it is based upon a world- 
 wide principle among primitive peoples. Some of these 
 narratives are of great interest ; and, no doubt, modern 
 man's habit of kicking viciously the chair against which 
 he has barked his shins, or angrily breaking his golf club 
 when he is " off his drive," owes its origin to a savage 
 
 1 E. Hadfield, Among the Natives of the Loyalty Group (Lond., 
 Macmillan ; 1920), p. 288. For other Jonah myths see The Islanders of 
 the Pacific, by Lt.-Col. T. R. St. Johnston (Lond., Fisher Unwin ; 1921), 
 p. 58 sn.
 
 128 OLD TESTAMENT STOEIES CONSIDEEED 
 
 ancestor. The principle of blood-revenge extended among 
 the Kurkis of Chittagong to animals and trees. The 
 Ainos of Japan cut down a tree which hurts or kills a 
 man ; the Kachins of Burmah punish a river in which 
 a man has been drowned ; homicidal buffaloes are put to 
 death in Malacca and Celebes ; thieving dogs are hanged 
 in Africa ; and offending weapons are destroyed or thrown 
 away by some savages. 
 
 The principle was recognized in ancient Greece and 
 Eome ; there were trials of animals and inanimate objects 
 in Athens, and such judicial proceedings are mentioned 
 by Plato in The Laws. Not only were animals punished 
 in Eome, but even statues and other inanimate objects 
 which caused the death of human beings were tried for 
 homicide both there and at Olympia. 
 
 The ancient superstition was rife in Europe during the 
 Middle Ages ; and rats, mice, caterpillars, and other vermin 
 were solemnly tried, warned, exorcised with bell, book, and 
 candle, and even executed by the Ecclesiastical Courts. 
 Many examples are on record up to as late as 1733. It 
 is curious that the Ecclesiastical Courts dealt with wild, 
 and the Civil Tribunals with tame, animals. Some of 
 these proceedings were grotesque in the extreme : a cock 
 was executed at Bale in 1474 for laying an egg, and on 
 one occasion the bell of La Eochelle was punished for 
 heresy ! 
 
 In England the custom survived in the " Law of 
 Deodand," 1 which was not abolished until 1846. By 
 this enactment, any object which had caused the death 
 of a human being, such as a knife, an axe, or the wheel 
 of a coach, was forfeited to the Crown for pious purposes. 
 
 § 15. The Story of Yahweh 
 
 It is essential that the story of Yahweh, the deity of 
 the Jews, should be examined in some detail, in order 
 
 1 Latin, Dcus, god; do, to give.
 
 THE STORY OF YAHWEH 129 
 
 properly to grasp the steps in the process of the evolution 
 of the chief Christian Deity through Judaism. There is 
 no more interesting study in the evolution of religious 
 ideas than the narrative of how the Jews came to worship 
 one god to the exclusion of all others. This evolution 
 can be traced practically step by step in the Old Testa- 
 ment, but only the more essential facts can be given here. 
 
 The Jews were originally polytheists ; they became 
 later monotheists. Like all primitive races, they passed 
 through the stages of Naturism and Animism. They 
 worshipped the powers of nature — sun, moon, stars, fire, 
 trees, stones. Traces of this worship are met with 
 throughout the Old Testament. In the successive periods 
 of the Patriarchs (who were themselves probably ancient 
 Palestine deities, later transformed by the Jewish writers 
 into human shape) the god is represented under different 
 names at each occasion of a " covenant," or compact. 
 He is Elohim (literally, " gods ") for Noah, El Shaddai 
 for Abraham, and Yahweh for Jacob. In these early 
 times he appears to have been a very man-like god, for 
 he talks familiarly with Abraham and Sarah, and he 
 wrestles with Jacob. At the primitive stage of existence 
 man seems to want a god who is very near to him, hence 
 the deity is essentially anthropomorphic. 
 
 In order to understand his story the names of other 
 gods must be examined. According to the opinion of 
 scholars, Yahweh was Molech, with whose worship was 
 associated the sacrifice by fire of children, and to whom 
 Solomon built a "high place" for the use of his wives 
 {1 Kings xi, 7). Molech means "King," and "King" 
 was one of Yahweh's common titles. Both Yahweh and 
 Molech appear to have been worshipped under the form 
 of a young bull. Another of Yahweh's titles seems to 
 have been Baal, or Bel, who was, as has been mentioned 
 (see pp. 74-5), a very ancient Semitic deity. 
 
 The names of some of the old Jewish gods are preserved 
 in the various " Bethels " mentioned in the Old Testament.
 
 130 OLD TESTAMENT STOKIES CONSIDERED 
 
 Beth-el means the " house " or " dwelling-place of God," ' 
 and the word appears sometimes to have been used as 
 a name for Yahweh himself. It is not uncommon in 
 England as a term for Nonconformist places of worship. 
 Among the many Beth-els are " Ishum-Bethel," the 
 house of the god Ishum, and " Bethel-Anath " (or 
 "Bethanath"), the house of the goddess Anath. Ishum 
 (probably the same as Ashima, mentioned in 2 Kings, 
 xvii, 30) was the Babylonian god of fire and pestilence. 
 Yahweh was also a fire-god, in which form he appeared 
 to Moses in the burning-bush {Exocl. iii, 2) ; and he was 
 also the god of pestilence. In both attributes he is 
 referred to by Habakkuk (iii, 5) in the lines : — 
 
 Before him went the Pestilence, 
 
 And Fiery bolts went forth at his feet. 
 
 Anath is mentioned in Jeremiah, a book abounding in 
 information concerning the early worship of the Jews. 
 In chap, xliv the burning of incense to other gods is 
 condemned, especially (19) to the " Queen of Heaven," 
 who was Anath, an ancient Semitic deity. In this 
 character of Queen of Heaven she was associated with 
 Yahweh as " Lord of Heaven." In Palestine the places 
 named after her were Beth-Anath, Beth-Anoth, and 
 Anathoth ; and in Jeremiah xi, 18, it is to be noted that 
 the inhabitants of Anathoth were among the people who 
 sought the prophet's death. 
 
 The god Yahweh was originally a nature-god, a hill 
 deity. He became later a tribal god, and was adopted 
 as a " fighting god " because the tribes worshipping him 
 were successful in fighting. That Yahweh's complete 
 success as a fighting deity was sometimes doubtful is 
 shown in Judges i, 19 : " And the Lord was with Judah : 
 and he drove out the inhabitants of the hill country ; for 
 he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, 
 because they had chariots of iron." This doubt of the 
 
 1 Hebrew, Beth, house ; El, god.
 
 THE STORY OF YAHWEH 131 
 
 god's fighting quality finds an echo in the Christian 
 Book of Common Prayer, wherein the priest says " Give 
 peace in our time, Lord," and the people respond, with 
 unconscious irony, " Because there is none other that 
 fighteth for us, but only thou, God." As time went 
 on and the Jewish ideas of religion developed, Yahweh 
 was elevated to the position of a supreme god, just as 
 Merodach became chief of the Babylonian and Zeus of 
 the Greek deities. The books of Deuteronomy and 
 Joshua make Yahweh a despot ruling over the other 
 gods : " The Lord your God is God of Gods and Lord 
 of Lords." Two great attempts were made thus to 
 elevate him as the exclusive deity of the Jews. The 
 first was by Josiah, when Hilkiah produced a new Book 
 of the Law ; the second coincided with the rebuilding of 
 the Temple by Ezra after the Exile. But so persistent are 
 old beliefs and worships that the Jews frequently " back- 
 slided." Once his worship became the official worship 
 of the nation, the older gods of the sacred writings were 
 intentionally identified with him by the priests. The 
 early Christians had, as will be seen later, no sacred books 
 of their own, and, being originally a Jewish cult, they 
 adopted the Old Testament. Hence Yahweh became the 
 God of the new cult. 
 
 It is not known absolutely when the name of Yahweh 
 first appeared, but it was probably not until the Jews 
 were settled in Canaan. In the Old Testament it occurs 
 6,823 times as the proper name of the God of Israel. It 
 is, indeed, expressly stated in Exodus vi, 3, that Yahweh 
 was a late name, the verse running : " And I appeared 
 unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob as God 
 Almighty (El Shaddai) ; but by my name Jehovah I 
 was not known to them." Speculation, however, as to 
 the ancient name of this Jewish hill-deity is seriously 
 hampered by its sacred nature. As is common to all 
 primitive races, the magic of his name was so great, so 
 awful, that it could not be pronounced without serious
 
 132 OLD TESTAMENT STORIES CONSIDERED 
 
 risk, save on very special occasions. The third com- 
 mandment (Exod. xx, 7) decrees " Thou shalt not take 
 the name of the Lord [i.e., Yahweh] thy God in vain." 
 Taking the name " in vain " meant for purposes of magic 
 — an interpretation scarcely made clear by the marginal 
 note in the Revised Version, "for vanity or falsehood." 
 To avoid pronouncing the dreaded word, therefore, the 
 god was spoken of by some other term, as "the name" ; 
 more usually as Adonai, meaning "Lord," and some- 
 times written Edona. Now Hebrew, like all Semitic 
 languages, originally possessed only consonants, the 
 vowels being introduced much later. Yahweh was 
 originally written Jhvh, the J being pronounced like Y. 
 When vowels were introduced, those of " Edona " were 
 inserted in Jhvh, so that it came to be written JeHovaH, 
 the pronunciation of which appears to have been 
 "Yahweh." 
 
 The meaning of the name is still more wrapped in 
 mystery. The verse, " And God said unto Moses, I AM 
 that I am : and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the 
 Children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you " (Exod. 
 iii, 14), has been taken as showing that the interpretation 
 of Yahweh is "I am that I am" — i.e., "He that is," or 
 "the eternal." Colour is lent to this view by the fact 
 that this meaning of a god's name is found in the Egyp- 
 tian Booh of the Dead, where " I am he who I am " 
 is applied to a god. Further, the Egyptian symbol of 
 life, so conspicuous among hieroglyphic inscriptions, is 
 called Ankh, meaning "he who lives." In the Persian 
 sacred books Ahuramazda announces to Zarathustra : "I 
 am who I am, Mazda." This interpretation of Yahweh 
 is a fascinating one, as is the parallel between Jove and 
 Jehovah, both of whom were hill-gods controlling the 
 lightning. But it is speculative, and in the opinion of 
 scholars (as summarized in the Encijclopcedia Biblica, 
 3322) Yahweh is " a primitive name that had long since 
 been unintelligible."
 
 Chapter VII 
 THE ORIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 § 1. Introduction 
 
 The same process of examination employed for the Old 
 Testament has been applied with equal success to the 
 New. It has been shown that the books upon which 
 Christianity takes its stand are as much the result of a 
 slow building-up process as were the Jewish scriptures, 
 so that it is now an accepted fact that the Gospels are 
 the result of accretion through several generations. The 
 extraordinary number of contradictory teachings are as 
 much a result of the compilation of documents in the 
 New as in the Old Testament. Even the Christian 
 priesthood, after long and unavailing opposition, is now 
 constrained to admit this compilation, and one of the 
 chief matters of contention among hierologists is con- 
 cerned with the historicity or non-historicity of the Gospel 
 Jesus, a question the final adjudication of which must 
 rest with scientific historians. 1 Fortunately, history no 
 longer consists in the copying of ancient documents of 
 varying degrees of veracity, but has during the last 
 hundred years or so become a science based upon ration- 
 alistic lines and resting upon the firm foundation of 
 evolution and comparative anthropology. 
 
 One of the great obstacles to a correct (and, therefore, 
 
 1 It is related in the Talmud that a certain Jesus hen Pandira was 
 stoned and hanged to a tree on the eve of the Passover, in the reign of 
 Alexander Jannaaus, in the year 100 B.C. This Jesus may have served as 
 the peg upon which to hang the whole system of Christianity. The story 
 is, however, many centuries later, and rests upon too slender a foundation 
 to bo of sufficient importance as a basis for hypothesis. 
 
 133 K
 
 134 THE OEIGIN AND EISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 impartial) understanding of Christianity, its origin, and 
 the conditions which resulted in its survival, lies in the 
 fact that it is the official creed of a large part of the ruling 
 races of the world. Every professing Christian is willing 
 to apply the methods of rational — i.e., scientific — criticism 
 to the other great world religions, living and dead, but 
 shrinks from subjecting his own creed to a like treat- 
 ment. Forgetting, or not knowing, that all the great 
 religions have claimed to be divinely revealed, he denies 
 " inspiration " to every creed save that which he professes, 
 making an exception of Judaism, upon which Christianity 
 is founded, since not to do so would stultify the latter. 
 Even he who is Christian in name only (a not uncommon 
 figure in modern times) shows a similar disinclination. 
 It is only natural that a faith should be exalted above all 
 others by its devotees ; but, unfortunately, prejudice in 
 favour of a creed impels its adherents, when comparing 
 it with other beliefs, to the construction of misleading 
 hypotheses, whereby the truth is distorted and obscured. 
 Although the members of many religions have shown 
 tolerance towards the faiths of others, the Christians 
 have exhibited none. They have proclaimed their own 
 as the only one which has for its fundamental ethic love 
 and charity, while showing little of these virtues towards 
 those who think differently. As a matter of fact, Chris- 
 tianity is by no means the unique religion it has been 
 thought to be. The ethical conceptions, " Love thy 
 neighbour as thyself" and "Do unto others as you 
 would they should do unto you," were evolved, taught, 
 and practised by man hundreds of years before Chris- 
 tianity was thought of ; but the grotesque application 
 which restricts the meaning of " neighbours " and 
 "others" to those of the same creed, or even to a single 
 sect of the innumerable sects of that creed, is apparently 
 confined to Christianity alone. Yet, as Swift remarked, 
 writing of the religious sects of his time, " They are 
 only the same garments more or less embroidered."
 
 INTRODUCTION 135 
 
 As Mr. J. M. Robertson has pointed out, 1 a survey of 
 the comparative evolution of religions shows that not 
 only do all undergo a change in spite of the special 
 religious aversion to change, but all evolve by the same 
 laws, the differences being invariably reducible to effects 
 of environment. Hence the fact forced upon every man 
 who seeks earnestly after truth is that Christianity must 
 be subjected to the same rules as are followed in the 
 examination of any other religion or code of ethics. It is 
 only by a vigorous application of this principle that any 
 satisfactory rule of conduct for humanity can be evolved. 
 
 It is necessary, therefore, to inquire into the forces 
 which were concerned in the preparation for the appear- 
 ance of Christianity and the circumstances which ensured 
 its survival as one of the world's great faiths ; in other 
 words, to see how Christianity is a product of evolution, 
 depending upon environment for its origin, and an 
 adjustment to environment for its further development. 
 
 To give a detailed history of the rise and progress of 
 Christianity would be out of place in this book, and only 
 a brief outline will be presented. The story, which has 
 been ably dealt with by other writers, is one long and 
 sad recital of bloodshed and violence, greed, intolerance, 
 and implacable hate, 2 which are, unfortunately, still con- 
 tinuing in many parts of the world. Christianity has 
 been aptly compared to a great river upon which the 
 modern spectator gazes with awe, forgetful of the many 
 little springs and rills which have gone to make up its 
 great flood of waters. A study of its history shows the 
 justice of this comparison, but also carries with it a 
 conviction that some of these tributary streams were 
 veritable rivers of blood. 
 
 1 Pagan Christs, p 95. 
 
 2 Three records alone suffice to show the appalling bloodshed which 
 Christianity has brought in its train. The Spanish Conquest of Mexico 
 and Peru, the persecution of the Albigenses, and the Crusades cost 
 respectively twelve, one, and nine millions of lives ; a total of twenty-two 
 millions to the discredit of a message of " Love and Mercy."
 
 136 THE OEIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 § 2. The World in which Christianity Grew Up 
 
 At the dawn of Christianity the civilized world was 
 pregnant with approaching change. Like the tentacles 
 of a gigantic octopus, the influence of the Roman world 
 had spread nearly everywhere, so that the old nationalities 
 were in some cases on the verge of extinction, and in others 
 had already become extinct. Under these conditions the 
 intellectual energy which had built up the great civiliza- 
 tions, including even the intellect of Rome herself, was 
 decaying. The domination of the City of the Seven 
 Hills was crushing out freedom, and the minds of the 
 more cultured men were becoming narrower in con- 
 sequence. The capacity for clear criticism displayed by 
 the great minds of Greece and Rome in the earlier days 
 was failing, with the result that philosophy was dropping 
 back into the old mysticism at a time when, prevented 
 from exercising its energies in government and statecraft, 
 the only possible form of mental life was to be found 
 in concrete religion. In this outlet the upper classes 
 experienced at once a solace and a preoccupation, while 
 those in humbler spheres of life eagerly seized upon such 
 simpler religious doctrines as opportunity afforded them. 
 
 In Greece and Rome the worship of the gods was 
 almost entirely confined to citizens of rank, the only 
 general worship being that of the city deities. Aliens 
 and slaves were excluded from religious exercises, since 
 in the more private worship of the household deities they 
 could take no part, having no lares and penates of their 
 own. The uncultured many, the aliens and slaves, felt 
 that they were apart from the official religion, much as 
 the Victorian pauper must have felt when he regarded, 
 from his bare and comfortless bench, the rich squire in 
 his well-upholstered pew. As the latter was driven to 
 Dissent, so his ancient prototypes longed for some cult 
 of their own which would bring them into something 
 approaching intimate union. This desire found vent in
 
 WOKLD IN WHICH CHRISTIANITY GREW 137 
 
 a multitude of religious societies, whose chief features 
 included sacred initiations and feasts with ritual cere- 
 monies. The feast was usually the basis of the society ; 
 the initiation was often in the form of a baptism. To 
 such societies, which were self-supporting and self- 
 governing, were admitted slaves and aliens. An especial 
 and important feature was that women (largely excluded 
 from some of the legitimate religious ceremonies) were 
 admitted equally with the other members. These pagan 
 cults, looked upon with scorn and condemnation by the 
 cultured classes, supplied to their adherents an outlet for 
 that vague sense of mysticism and yearning after a near 
 god that is characteristic of the vast majority of men, and 
 which is the more inarticulate when education is lacking. 
 To the unthinking, uneducated mass, organized religion 
 saves the trouble of finding scientific explanations for 
 natural phenomena, and of seeking some way out of the 
 hopeless problems of sordid life. 
 
 Among the Jews themselves — and it must be remem- 
 bered that Christianity sprang from Judaism — there was 
 dissatisfaction. The poor realized they were excluded 
 from the temple services, and women murmured against 
 the civil and religious subordination in which they were 
 kept. There were sects besides those of the Pharisees 
 and Sadducees. The former, while holding to the law, 
 added to their doctrine a belief in a future state not to be 
 found in the Pentateuch. The Sadducees rejected this 
 addition, and adhered to the pure Mosaic system. The 
 most important of the additional sects was that of the 
 Essenes, of which Jesus may have been a member, which 
 had already existed for some generations, and whose 
 tenets were chiefly those of asceticism. They rejected 
 animal food and sacrifice, wine, baths, and fine garments, 
 and practised celibacy. 
 
 Moreover, there was the long-cherished Jewish belief 
 in the advent of a Messiah who should, shaking off the 
 talons of the Roman eagle, once more raise the nation
 
 138 THE OEIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 to power and credit — a belief that must presently be 
 examined in detail. 
 
 To sum up in the words of Mr. J. M. Robertson 1 : 
 " The determining political condition everywhere was the 
 social sway of the empire, keeping all men impotent in 
 the higher public affairs. Exclusion from public life, 
 broadly speaking, had been the cause of the special 
 addiction of the women, the slaves, and the unenfran- 
 chised foreigners of the Greek cities and of Rome to 
 private cults and communions. Under the empire all 
 the lay classes alike were excluded from public power ; 
 and new interests must be found to take the place of 
 the old. Within the pale of the Roman ' peace,' those 
 interests were summed up for the majority in athletics, 
 the theatre, and the circus on the one hand, and on 
 the other in the field of religious practices. Hopes of 
 betterment and despair after vain revolt were alike fuel 
 for the religious spirit, since the hope turned to vaticina- 
 tion and the despair crept for shelter to the mysteries 
 that promised a better life beyond the grave. But the 
 prevailing lot of men had become one of unwarlike sub- 
 mission ; the material refinements of civilization had 
 bred in the cities a new sensitiveness — indeed, a new 
 neurosis ; vice itself set up reactions of asceticism ; and 
 over all there brooded the pessimism of the prostrate 
 East, the mood of men downcast, consciously the puppets 
 of an uncontrollable earthly destiny, and wistful for a 
 higher vision and rule." 
 
 It was a period when everything was, as it were, in 
 the melting-pot ; when the freedom-crushing grip of the 
 Roman Empire had so paralysed man's higher intel- 
 lectual faculties that a plunge into a dark age was almost 
 inevitable, whatever ideal might be selected for future 
 human guidance. It remains to be seen what cult offered 
 the most satisfying ideal. 
 
 1 A Short History of Christianity, p. 46.
 
 THE CULT OF LI T THRA 139 
 
 § 3. The Cult of Mithra 
 
 Mithraisin 1 was for some centuries the most widespread 
 religion throughout the Roman Empire. At one time it 
 was a serious rival to Christianity, and might have ousted 
 it from the field, but it finally fell before the rival cult for 
 reasons which will be gathered later. Introduced into 
 the Roman army through oriental militarism in the time 
 of Pompey (106-48 B.C.), it spread because of its popularity 
 with the soldiers as their special faith. It penetrated 
 France and Germany, and even England, where its remains 
 have been found in Cumberland, Northumberland, York, 
 Oxford, Manchester, Chester, and London. 
 
 Mithra was an Aryan deity, and figures in the Vedas. 
 In Brahmanism, however, he lapsed into obscurity, his 
 place being taken by Agni, the fire-god ; but in Persia 
 he became prominent as a sun-god, and evolved with 
 Zoroastrianism. The most ancient Mithraic lore is con- 
 tained in the Zendavesta. The god underwent the usual 
 evolution of deities before he reached his final shape. 
 It is interesting to trace it, since it has an important 
 bearing on the origins of Christianity. Commencing simply 
 as the animized sun, Mithra became a spirit apart from 
 that object of the skies, but symbolized by it. His name 
 is derived from the Persian Mihr, meaning both " The 
 Sun " and " The Friend," thus signifying love and good- 
 will along with his solar character — attributes very natural 
 to that orb, so kindly to man. Finally, he appeared as 
 the Mediator between Ormuzd and Ahriman, the Persian 
 contending principles of good and evil. He thus became 
 a Saviour, Redeemer, and Preserver ; in other words, he 
 was one of many Pagan Christs. 
 
 Originally, the Mithra cult was simple, but, like every 
 other religion, it became overlaid with all kinds of ancient 
 
 1 The best and most impartial account of Mithraiam is to be found in 
 Mr. -T. M. Robertson's Pagan ChrUts, p. 281 sq. Those who would consult 
 a larger work will find Cumont's Mysteries of Mithra a chief authority.
 
 140 THE OBIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 symbolism and ritual. The chief of these associations are 
 the following. Mithra figured as a lion-headed god bearing 
 two keys, showing Babylonian influence, since the idea of 
 the locked entrance and exit of the firmament originated 
 with the Babylonians. He was also the " slayer of 
 the bull " (as portrayed in the very beautiful statuary 
 group in the British Museum), to which many signi- 
 ficances were attached, including that of Taurus in the 
 Zodiac, 1 representing the sun passing through that sign. 
 As the bull was also the symbol of lust and evil, his 
 slaying was symbolical of the triumph of the god over 
 those powers. 
 
 The worship of Mithra was carried on in caves, and it 
 is to be noted here that caves were one of the earliest 
 forms of temple. In the case of Mithra, this special form 
 of temple was due to the idea that the sun retired into a 
 cave during the night. The caves most sacred were those 
 in the living rock, and many remains of these rock-hewn 
 altars have been found. Mithra was, further, associated 
 with the living rock as " The rock-born." 
 
 His worship in caves was celebrated on the first day 
 of the week, or Sunday, which was from ancient times 
 consecrated to him, and called The Lord's Day (" The 
 Lord" being one of Mithra's titles), long before the 
 Christian era. Besides this weekly worship, there were 
 two chief Mithraic festivals — one at the winter solstice 
 (our Christmas), the birth-day of the sun-god ; the other 
 at the vernal equinox (our Easter), representing the period 
 of his triumph and sacrifice. Thus one attribute of Mithra 
 was that of a vegetation- as well as a sun-god, the two 
 being often associated. Christmas is a solar festival of 
 unknown antiquity, which was appropriated by the early 
 Christians because they were completely ignorant of the 
 real time of Christ's birth. At Easter most solar and 
 vegetation gods were worshipped, special mysteries being 
 
 1 The Zodiac as a symbol is of immense antiquity.
 
 THE CULT OF MITHRA 141 
 
 introduced to represent their symbolical death, the search 
 for and finding of their bodies, and their resurrection. 
 In the case of Mithra a stone image was mourned, 
 sepulchred in a rock tomb, and withdrawn as having 
 come to life again. During the interval he was supposed 
 to have descended into Hades (i.e., the sun was considered 
 to travel round the underworld). These rites were by 
 no means confined to Mithra, and their origin is lost 
 in antiquity. The same general form of worship was 
 followed in the cults of Osiris, Attis, Adonis, and Dionysus, 
 all vegetation- and sun-gods, so that the rite probably 
 originated in some universal myth. 
 
 At the initiation of those who were admitted to the 
 cult of Mithra there was a ritual sacrament of bread and 
 water, and also a baptism with water in which a mark 
 was made upon the forehead ; and as the sign of the cross, 
 which was the universal symbol of life and immortality 
 before Christianity began, was particularly associated with 
 the sun-god, it is permissible to surmise that it was the 
 mark used. 
 
 Lastly, it may be mentioned that Mithra was rock- 
 born, of the earth-mother, a virgin goddess ; and the 
 Mithraic monuments show him as a new-born babe 
 adored by shepherds, who offer him first-fruits. 
 
 The mysterious doctrines of the "Logos," or "Word," 
 and the Trinity also come into Mithraism. The former 
 appears in the Zendavesta, while a Catholic theologian 1 
 admits that Ahuramazda, Sraosha, and Mithra constitute 
 a trinity closely analogous to that of later Christianity. 
 
 Mithraism was not confined to the Roman soldiers 
 alone ; slaves and freed men joined it ; but, apparently, 
 there was no recognized place in the cult for women. 
 Moreover, it did not practise almsgiving, nor endeavour 
 to extend itself by propaganda ; and it was too esoteric 
 for the ignorant masses. The last four features placed 
 
 1 E. L. Fischer, Heidenthicm tind Offenbarung (1878), p. 130.
 
 142 THE OEIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 it at an obvious disadvantage as compared with Chris- 
 tianity, and it became absorbed by the latter, which had 
 not then reached the complicated and involved dogma 
 which it later evolved. How much Christianity absorbed 
 from Mithraism, because its features were religiously 
 attractive, may be gathered from the above description. 
 Indeed, so obvious was the plagiarism that the Christian 
 " fathers " were reduced to the invention of the lame and 
 grotesque explanation that the devil, in order to do evil 
 to the true faith, had anticipated it by imitating the 
 future Christian mysteries in Mithraism ! 
 
 As a matter of fact, Christianity had a narrow escape. 
 Mithraism was fostered and adopted by the Emperor 
 Julian (called "The Apostate"; 331-63 c.e.) ; but his 
 defeat and death at the early age of thirty-two at the 
 hands of the Persians, the very nation with whom the 
 cult originated, was disastrous to it. The omen probably 
 helped largely to induce Julian's successor, Jovian, to 
 choose Christianity. 
 
 Besides the rites, festivals, and attributes borrowed by 
 Christianity, the latter owes also to Mithra the early 
 Christian bishop's mitre and red-boots, together with 
 Peter, figuring as the rock Petra and bearing the double 
 keys of heaven and hell. In connection with that worthy 
 saint, depicted in one place as denying his Lord and in 
 another as destroying Ananias for a much more venial 
 untruth, it may be mentioned that the cock is the 
 symbolic bird of the sun-god, and is of frequent occurrence 
 on Mithraic monuments. It would have been a matter 
 for wonder had Mithra not been canonized as a saint, 
 as was another saviour-god, the Egyptian Osiris, who 
 appears in the calendar as " Saint Onuphrius." It is a 
 well-known fact in comparative hierology that the gods 
 of one religion become the demons of its successor; 1 
 
 1 Indeed, the line between god and demon is a very uncertain one. As 
 Borrow makes Lavongro remark to Potulongro : " Would it not be a rum 
 thing if divine and devilish were originally one and the same word ?"
 
 JEWISH EXPECTATION OF A MESSIAH 143 
 
 occasionally it would appear that they become its saints. 
 Osiris is not the only god who figures in the Christian 
 list. Buddha also appears under the name of ' St. 
 Josaphet"; and Dionysus, whose rustic festival was held 
 in October, was canonized not as one saint, but as jive, 
 in Saints Bacchus, Demetrius, Dionysius, Rusticus, and 
 Eleutherius, all of whom were credited with being 
 martyrs ! A martyr Dionysus was, truly, but hardly in 
 the sense of the Church. Possibly, however, Mithra 
 was better off as St. Peter, with the keys in his keeping ; 
 while the Mithraic sacred chair — in which the Pope's 
 predecessor, the High Priest of Mithra (called " Papa," 
 or father), sat in the chief Mithraic temple which once 
 occupied the Vatican Hill — is still preserved in St. Peter's 
 as having belonged to the holy keeper of the portals of 
 heaven ! 
 
 § 4. The Jewish Expectation of a Messiah 
 
 It is well known that the Jews have long cherished 
 the advent of a Messiah who should consolidate them as 
 a people, and, triumphing over all their adversaries, 
 restore to them the holy city and a position of greatness 
 among the nations. The development of this idea can 
 be traced step by step. 
 
 In its earliest development there was no fixed doctrine 
 of a personal Messiah. Yahweh was regarded as the 
 divine king of Israel, and the human kings reigned as 
 deputies only by his will and pleasure. This was the 
 belief of the prophets, to whom the kingship of Yahweh 
 was not simply an ideal, but an absolute reality. 
 
 With the changes which occurred in the type of 
 religion after the Exile, scribes took the place of prophets, 
 and the Jews felt the yoke of the foreign oppressor. The 
 scribes were hard at work remodelling the law ; but, as 
 no religion can subsist upon the dry pabulum of law 
 alone, the prophecies were systematized concurrently. 
 Yahweh was still the law-giver and hope of Israel, and,
 
 144 THE ORIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 restless under alien oppression, the people looked to him 
 to send a deliverer — a longing reflected in the newly 
 edited scriptures. 
 
 Later, after the canonical books of the Old Testament 
 were established, there arose a literature in which the figure 
 of a special Messiah very gradually acquired prominence, 
 as is seen in the books of Daniel and Maccabees. 
 
 Still later in New Testament times, the acutely-felt 
 want of a leader who should deliver them from the 
 Roman yoke made the Messianic craving one rather of 
 kingship than spiritual resurrection. 
 
 Finally, during the dying struggles of Judaism as a 
 political force, there arose a new and spiritual conception 
 of the kingdom of Yahweh and of salvation through him, 
 so that a saviour-god shaped itself in the person of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 The conception of a Messiah was not confined to the 
 orthodox Jews of Jerusalem, but was held also by the 
 Samaritans. The Samaritans were by no means a 
 Jewish sect ; they started from the same point, but 
 developed their system upon independent yet naturally 
 parallel lines. Their only sacred book was the Penta- 
 teuch, and they adhered closely to the Levitical law, while 
 developing theoretical doctrine. They believed in a 
 Messiah, whom they called the " Taheb " — i.e., "one 
 who returns," or " one who restores." They possessed 
 a book of Joshua in Arabic (see p. 115), which gave a 
 history of Israel (or, rather, of the Samaritans) from the 
 time of Joshua to the fourth century C.B., containing the 
 mythic deeds of that hero. They had, indeed, a special 
 Joshua cult. 
 
 This leads up to the connection between Joshua and 
 the origin of Christianity, which is one of much greater 
 intimacy than at first appears. It has already been 
 pointed out that Joshua, or Jehoshua, 1 is the same as 
 
 1 Joho, or Ycho, is a part of tho divine name.
 
 JESUS AS A VEGETATION- AND SUN-GOD 145 
 
 Jesus, and that it means " Saviour." The ancient and 
 mythical Joshua is a typical deliverer ; he was probably 
 an ancient Semitic deity, a sun-god ; and in Perso-Arabian 
 legend he is represented as the son of a mythical Miriam. 
 It is both interesting and instructive to note here that 
 the mothers of Jesus, Adonis, Hermes, and Buddha were 
 respectively Mary, Myrrha, Maia, and Maya, and that 
 these names, with Miriam, are the same — i.e., " Mary," 
 the original meaning of which was " nurse." Further, 
 in the Hebrew legend of the finding of the infant Moses 
 in his ark of bulrushes the name of the Egyptian 
 princess who found him is given as " Merris." These 
 correspondences suggest strongly the origin of several 
 myths from one universal root-myth. 
 
 In Deuteronomy xviii, 15, appears the distinct promise 
 of a future prophet and leader : " The Lokd thy God will 
 raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, 
 of thy brethren, like unto me ; and unto him shall ye 
 hearken." This passage was held by the Jews to refer 
 to the Joshua who succeeded his myth-duplicate Moses 
 but was applied later to the crucified Jesus. 
 
 § 5. Jesus as a Vegetation- and Sun-God 
 
 It is necessary to break off here (returning to the 
 Messiah question later) in order to discuss the possibility 
 that the story of Jesus originated in the annual sacrifice 
 of a vegetation-god. It is an established fact (as any reader 
 can convince himself by consulting Sir James Frazer's 
 Golden Bough) that the annual sacrifice of a victim, who was 
 identified with the vegetation-god, with a view to ensuring 
 a good crop was celebrated among many peoples ; that it 
 was, in a word, a very ancient and practically universal 
 rite. The chief features of this custom were : — 
 
 1. The victim was originally the king, representing the 
 god himself, and therefore deemed divine. 
 
 2. Later, the king's son acted as his vicarious sub-
 
 146 THE OKIGIN AND EISE OF CHEISTIANITY 
 
 stitute, and, his father being esteemed divine, he was the 
 " son of the god." 
 
 3. He was allowed absolute and unlimited license for a 
 variable period, was accorded royal honours, with a wife as 
 queen, and finally led in triumphal procession to sacrifice 
 
 4. He was then put to death, usually bound to a sacred 
 tree, in some cases with arms outstretched in the form of 
 a cross. 
 
 5. Portions of the victim were ceremonially eaten, 
 portions buried in the cornfields, and portions were 
 credited with magical and healing powers. 
 
 6. After a variable period, he was supposed to come 
 to life again — his resurrection representing the return of 
 vegetation. 
 
 7. The ceremony usually took place at or about the 
 vernal equinox. 
 
 8. As time went on, the victim was either chosen by lot 
 or was brought up from birth for the purpose. Sometimes 
 a condemned criminal was substituted. Later, as man 
 developed a sense of humanity, animals were sacrificed ; 
 and, later still, cakes baked in the semblance of a man 
 or animal were utilized. Finally, a sacramental feast of 
 bread and wine took the place of the human or animal 
 flesh. 
 
 9. As it was essential that the victim should be a 
 willing one, he was frequently drugged, or made drunk 
 with wine, before the sacrifice ; while, to prevent an 
 unseemly struggle likely to denote unwillingness when 
 he was bound to the tree, his 4imbs were broken. 
 
 The vegetation-mysteries were celebrated in connection 
 with many gods — Dionysus, Attis, Adonis, and others. 
 Probably the Egyptian Osiris was originally a vegetation- 
 god. They were annually performed, as has been pointed 
 out (p. 125), by the Babylonians (Sacaea), the Greeks 
 (Cronia, Bacchanalia) , and Romans (Saturnalia) . Vestiges 
 of these ancient celebrations are to be found in various 
 festivals and customs all over Europe and Asia.
 
 JESUS AS A VEGETATION- AND SUN-GOD 147 
 
 An unbiased study of Sir James Frazer's highly 
 interesting investigation of these ceremonies (in which 
 in many cases the vegetation- and sun-gods are combined 
 in one and the same deity) leads one to recognize, in the 
 crucified Jesus, an annually slain vegetation-god, hung 
 upon a sacred tree. Some of the features have been, 
 however, borrowed from the cult of Mithra (who was, as 
 has been noted, a solar- and vegetation-god), for reasons 
 already given. The points of resemblance are 1 : — 
 
 1. The description as divine and the " Son of God " 
 sent as a deputy for the Father. 
 
 2. The arrayal in regal robes and the mock adoration 
 of the Roman soldiery. 
 
 3. The triumphal procession through Jerusalem. 
 
 4. The sacramental feast. 
 
 5. The death upon the sacred tree. 2 
 
 6. The drink (wine and gall, Matt, xxvii, 34 ; Mark 
 xiv, 23) and leg-breaking, the latter practised only upon the 
 thieves, because Jesus " was dead already " (John xix, 33). 
 
 7. The burial (in a cave, borrowed from the Mithra 
 rite). 
 
 8. The resurrection. 
 
 9. The representation of the whole events of the Gospels 
 as occupying one year. 
 
 10. The sacrifice at or about the vernal equinox. 
 
 The Koman Saturnalia must have been well known to 
 the Jews, since it was celebrated by the Roman soldiery 
 wherever they were stationed. They knew also, in earlier 
 times, the Babylonian Sacaea (upon which their own Feast 
 of Purim and their story of Esther were probably founded), 
 and later Greek influence must have familiarized them 
 
 1 Only an outline is given here, several details having been omitted ; 
 but as many of the most striking and prominent points as are consistent 
 with the exigencies of space have been supplied. 
 
 2 The methods of crucifixion used by the Romans were two : — (1) The 
 victim was bound to an upright post or tree. (2) He was bound to two 
 beams, the arms being twisted bacK, behind the cross beam. The victims 
 were bound with cords, and not nailed. Nailed crucifixions were of 
 Buddhist origin.
 
 148 THE ORIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 with the Bacchanalia. It is, therefore, a plausible hypo- 
 thesis that the Christ story arose in one of these annual 
 vegetation-god celebrations, and that on this occasion the 
 victim was named Jesus. As Mr. Robertson has pointed 
 out, 1 " it may be that the roots of the historic Christian 
 cult go back to an immemorial Semitic antiquity, when 
 already the name of Jesus was divine. In the shadow of 
 that name its origins are hidden." 
 
 § 6. Jesus as the Messiah 
 
 It may be assumed with considerable plausibility that a 
 man named Jesus, sacrificed as a vegetation-god, happened 
 to correspond also to the Jewish conception of the looked- 
 for Messiah. That Jesus and Joshua 2 are identical names 
 would alone supply a considerable qualification for a 
 Messiah, and the execution on the eve of the Passover 
 would give the name for some Jews a mystic significance, 
 especially as it was a tradition among them that the 
 Messiah would come at midnight of the day of the 
 Passover. 
 
 Mr. Robertson has traced with an able and vigorous 
 pen, in various works upon the subject, the connection 
 between Jesus and the expected Messiah. He points out 
 that in the very earliest form Christianity was nothing 
 more or less than a phase of Judaism, the creed of a 
 section of Jews and Jewish proselytes who saw in Jesus 
 the hoped-for Messiah — one executed in such a manner 
 as to constitute an atoning sacrifice. The conception of 
 atonement by sacrifice had been a Semitic tenet for ages, 
 and was accepted by the Babylonians. These early Jewish 
 devotees held primitive ceremonial feasts upon the lines 
 of the Greco-Roman religious banquets, sacrificial repasts 
 
 1 A Short History of Christiatiity, p. 12. 
 
 2 It is to be noted that in Jude, 5, the reading "Jesus" (= Joshua) in 
 place of "the Lord," offered in the marginal uote of the Revised Version, 
 alone can make the verse intelligible. The Joshua of Zechariah iii, 1-8, 
 and vi, 11-15, is also a Jesus.
 
 JESUS AS THE MESSIAH 149 
 
 derived originally from ancient tribal ceremonies. The 
 Jewish idea of a Messiah included that of one who should 
 suffer and die ; but such a Messiah who died and did not 
 return triumphant was not likely to obtain any place in 
 their system. The world was used to the domination of 
 a Roman Emperor who was supposed to be divine. 
 " Against such divine pretensions on the part of the 
 Roman conqueror the Jews would instinctively develop 
 their own formulated hope of a Jewish Messiah ; and 
 wherever in the Empire men revolted against the 
 apotheosis of the earthly autocrat, the Juda3o-Gentile 
 cult of the slain and re-arising Christ, who was soon to 
 come and judge the world, would find devotees eager to 
 accord to him the attributes claimed by Caesar, and what- 
 ever others might avail. The new religion was thus in 
 every aspect a syncretism of the religious material of the 
 time." 1 
 
 Thus, in the Gospels Jesus appears generally as a 
 Jewish Messiah, to reappear shortly as the judge of 
 living and dead at the imminent catastrophe of the end 
 of the world. Such a Messiah must be of the ancient 
 Royal Line of David, born at Bethlehem ; but another 
 tradition required him to be also a descendant of Joseph. 
 Jesus was, therefore, made to be of the House of David, 
 descended, by the way, through Bathsheba, the wife his 
 royal ancestor stole from his devoted General Uriah 
 (Matt, i, 1-16) ; and of the House of Joseph by his 
 putative father, the husband of his virgin mother. 
 
 It can thus be seen that the earliest form of Chris- 
 tianity was essentially Jewish, and it can be realized that, 
 when the expectation of the return of the sacrificed Jesus 
 as a triumphing Messiah did not materialize, the cult lost 
 prestige in disappointed Jewry, and had to seek support 
 beyond that nation among the Gentiles. The awful 
 catastrophe of the fall of Jerusalem before the conquering 
 
 1 J. M. Robertson, Op. cit., p. 60.
 
 150 THE ORIGIN AND EISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 arm of the Emperor Titus, in 70 C.B., with the holocaust 
 of Jewish zealots thereby involved, made possible the rise 
 of Christianity as a separate, Gentile faith. 
 
 § 7. Possible Origin i?t a Mystery Drama 
 
 Mystery dramas — i.e., dramatic representations of the 
 central episodes of the stories of suffering deities — played 
 a very important part in the great religions of the ancient 
 world ; dramatic ritual, indeed, was naturally prior to 
 written legend. It cannot be doubted that our mediaeval 
 mystery and morality plays were the descendants of such 
 representations. In Egypt, the story of Osiris and Isis 
 was showm with images of the gods carried in procession. 
 In Greece and the Greek-speaking parts of Asia there 
 were dramatic representations of the stories of Adonis, 
 Attis, Herakles, Demeter and Persephone, and Dionysus ; 
 and in the last-named a turning-of-water-into-wine 
 miracle was regularly performed in the Eleusinian 
 mysteries. In the cult of Mithra similar dramatic per- 
 formances took place. The Hindus also had their 
 mystery dramas. 
 
 Such shows were popular and, doubtless, of considerable 
 utility in bringing home vividly to the illiterate mass of 
 the populace the essential themes of the religion of the 
 country. In mediaeval times the Christian Church had 
 its mystery plays, and sporadic performances have 
 survived to modern times in the famous Passion Play of 
 Ober Ammergau. Another such representation, attended 
 with alarming results, was performed in Mexico in 1903. 
 In Europe the appeal of the mystery-drama to t?he 
 primitive dramatic instinct of the rustic mind survives in 
 Harvest celebrations and Christmas mumming, both fast 
 disappearing. 
 
 It is an interesting and significant fact that all these 
 ancient mystery-dramas have been specially concerned 
 with sun and vegetation deities — that is to say, with slain
 
 POSSIBLE ORIGIN IN A MYSTERY DRAMA 151 
 
 saviour-gods, whose annual sacrifice and resurrection 
 ensured the saving of mankind by the recurrence of 
 successful food crops and vintages. Originally a real 
 sacrifice of a human representative, part sacramentally 
 eaten and part buried (or the blood mixed with the seed 
 corn 1 ), they came, by evolution, to be symbolically per- 
 formed. The story of Wayland Smith, as told by Kipling 
 in Puck of Pook's Hill, is an interesting illustration of 
 this evolution from the actual to the symbolic. There 
 Puck describes to the children how he had seen the 
 arrival in England of the North god Weland and his 
 worship with the real sacrifice of men and horses; and 
 how, later, its place was taken by the pretended killing 
 of a man and the burning upon Weland's altars of some 
 hair cut from the mane and tail of a horse. The study 
 of ancient and savage rituals shows the progress of this 
 evolution. These mystery-dramas were, therefore, sym- 
 bolic modifications of an original rite of human sacrifice. 
 The development of such representations was fostered as 
 strengthening the position of the priestly class. The 
 Mass is itself derived from such a mystery-drama, the 
 word " Host " being derived from the Latin Hostia, a 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Such symbolic representations must have been well 
 known to the Jews, especially in the case of the Greek 
 mysteries. There were theatres at Damascus, Jericho, 
 and Gadara. Possibly the less orthodox Jews may them- 
 selves have revived some ancient Joshua rite in times of 
 national disaster — a practice known to have occurred with 
 other peoples. In such survivals the tendency was often 
 to reinstate a ritual in its more primitive form. 
 
 Mr. Robertson 2 has pointed out that the story of the 
 Last Supper, Entry into Jerusalem, Agony, Betrayal, 
 
 1 In connection with this sanctifying with blood it is important to know 
 that our word " bless " comes from the Anglo-Saxon bledsian, to " redden 
 with blood." 
 
 2 Pagan Christs, p. xi; and Christianity and Mythology, p. 359 sq.
 
 152 THE ORIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Crucifixion, and Resurrection — all possess the essential 
 characters of the mystery-drama of a vegetation- and 
 solar-god, having its close parallels in the features of 
 other such cults ; and he contends that the narrative first 
 assuming Christian shape in a Jewish mystery-play is the 
 only satisfactory view of its origin. For his full and able 
 argument, with its great wealth of detail, the reader is 
 referred to his works as cited. 1 It may, however, be 
 mentioned, out of many points, that the Transfiguration 
 on the mountain represents the shining sun-god grouped 
 with Moses and Elias, both equally solar figures known 
 to Jewish religionists, and that the introduction of Judas 
 (really Judaios — i.e., "the Jew") was a later Gentile 
 invention traducing the Jews. 
 
 § 8. Reasons for the Survival of Christianity 
 
 In the preceding paragraphs we have endeavoured to 
 show how Christianity came into existence when the state 
 of men's minds made the time ripe for a new religion. 
 Humanity had grown tired of the old faiths, under which 
 they had not found life much easier or much better. 
 Among the Jews there was an increased longing for a 
 Messiah who should come in triumph and overthrow the 
 hated domination of the Romans — a desire of which 
 Christianity seemed to promise the fulfilment. To the 
 Gentiles the new cult appeared to offer a change in the 
 generally unsatisfactory state of things — a promise that, 
 when one considers the many abuses and the hard con- 
 ditions of the poor to-day, does not seem to have been 
 fulfilled. Indeed, the richer the Church grew, the less 
 anti-civic it became. 
 
 Christianity began among the illiterate, and Jesus does 
 not appear to have at first been regarded as a god : in the 
 earliest writings he was described merely as Yahweh's 
 " holy servant." This is in accordance with evolution in 
 
 1 See Bibliography.
 
 REASONS FOR SURVIVAL OF CHRISTIANITY 153 
 
 other creeds, wherein a fabulous hero becomes first an 
 actual man, then a demi-god, and ends as the highest 
 god. The early Christians had no scriptures save those 
 of the Old Testament ; the later elaborate manuscripts 
 were devised to support the new faith. Exactly how this 
 faith began it is difficult to say with precision. During 
 the first hundred years after the supposed date of the 
 crucifixion, the writings of the time tell merely of a 
 growing cult founded round a crucified saviour faith in 
 whom ensured salvation, but " with a theology not yet 
 coherently dogmatic." 1 It has been seen how this saviour- 
 god answered closely to the ancient conception of a vegeta- 
 tion sun-god. 
 
 The earliest traces of Christianity may have begun 
 in the sect at Jerusalem of the " Ebionites," so named 
 from the Hebrew Ebionim, signifying " the poor." These 
 appear to have been either of Samaritan origin or the 
 descendants of an old Jewish element which, from the 
 time of Ezra, had rejected the later Old Testament 
 writings. 
 
 Later there existed another sect called " Nazarites," 
 or " Nazaraeans " (Greek Nazaraioi), mentioned in Acts 
 xxiv, 5. The name of this sect has been considered to 
 have been derived from the place Nazareth, but is more 
 likely to have come from the word netzer, a "branch," 
 used in the passages, " And there shall come forth a shoot 
 out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots 
 shall bear fruit " (Isaiah xi, 1), and " that it might be 
 fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, that he should 
 be called a branch" (Matt ii, 23). In Zechariah vi, 11, 
 a Joshua (= Jesus) is spoken of as " the man whose name 
 is the Branch, and he shall grow up out of his place, and 
 he shall build the temple of the Lord." The Nazarite 
 sect, therefore, was probably connected with the Messianic 
 idea ; and the description of Jesus as the " Nazarene " or 
 
 1 J. M. Robertson, A Short History of Christianity, p. 3.
 
 154 THE OEIGIN AND KISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the " Nazarite " implied, not that he was of Nazareth, 
 but that he was to the Jews the expected " branch." 
 
 In whatever way Christianity originated, it failed com- 
 pletely among the Jews, the first people with whom it 
 arose. They expected a Messiah whose triumphant return 
 would establish for them an earthly rather than a spiritual 
 kingdom, and to those only who had reached to the con- 
 ception of a heavenly kingdom could the new cult have 
 given satisfaction. 
 
 Among the Gentiles, Christianity survived for three 
 very cogent reasons : — 
 
 1. It supplied a want. 
 
 2. It was well organized. 
 
 3. It was adaptable. 
 
 1. It supplied a want among the lower classes — slaves, 
 freed men, and women. Even men of bad principles and 
 reputation were admitted, provided they would "repent." 
 It was the creed for the poor, although for the poor it 
 does not, during its nineteen hundred years, appear to 
 have accomplished much. To these it preached a saviour- 
 god, a sort of rough communism, and the speedy approach 
 of the end of the world. It promised to show to the 
 faithful the way to a future life, with a material heaven 
 in the shape of the New Jerusalem. 
 
 Of course, Christianity was bound also to offer, like the 
 other cults, attractions in this worldly life in the form of 
 ceremonial worship and sacramental feasts. The latter 
 in their primitive form had to be kept within decorous 
 bounds, and this was accomplished by appeals to the 
 inclination for asceticism which was growing in the East. 
 
 The end-of-the-world idea was very useful, since it 
 induced the deluded faithful to part with heavy donations, 
 and enabled the Church to make it compulsory for the 
 baptized to take the sacrament and to hold over the heads 
 of its members the threat of withholding that privilege, 
 thereby entailing the awful penalty of the loss of salvation.
 
 REASONS FOR SURVIVAL OF CHRISTIANITY 155 
 
 The Church thus had superstition, the child of ignorance 
 and fear, working for it. The doctrine of the speedy end 
 of the world lasted some years, but failed ultimately for 
 want of fulfilment. It was used to its utmost in the 
 year 1000 c.e., to the great enrichment of the Church 
 and the serious misery of mankind. 
 
 2. Its organization was well adapted to spread the faith. 
 This required propagandists, a written doctrine, and a 
 well-organized Church, all of which were forthcoming as 
 time went on. The old pagan cults were decaying ; they 
 did not proselytize, they were weakening in organization, 
 and their revenues were diminishing. Paganism could 
 not readjust itself to altered circumstances, was deprived 
 of its resources, and disappeared before the younger and 
 more virile cult, which appropriated its most attractive 
 features. It was a matter of evolution. Christianity 
 flourished as a system, first because it attracted the 
 dissatisfied, craving for a simpler faith ; later, when it 
 became established, because the Church acquired the 
 power to receive unlimited donations and legacies, and 
 was debarred from parting with its property. What is 
 so lamentable is that, having gained power as a firmly- 
 established cult, it was unable to return to its primitive 
 ideal and strip itself of its borrowed pagan plumage, but 
 survived as " an idolatrous polytheism," with its host of 
 lesser deities in the shape of angels and saints, many of 
 them the dispossessed gods of older cults. It became, in 
 point of fact, a mere neo-paganism grafted on to Judaism. 
 It is this development from which the Christian Church 
 is suffering to-day. The true facts of the manner of its 
 building have been hidden for generations from the 
 great mass outside its priesthood, until now that mass is 
 becoming alive to the deception. And with the necessity 
 for coping with this awakening the Church has lost its 
 adaptability. In the words of Mr. Robertson 1 : " It has 
 
 1 A Short History of Christianity, p. 279.
 
 156 THE ORIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 been said with broad truth that whereas Greece, with her 
 dialectic discipline, exhorted men to make their beliefs 
 agree with one another, and the Christian Church ordered 
 them to make their beliefs agree with her dogma, the 
 modern spirit demands that beliefs should agree with facts." 
 
 3. Early Christianity was eminently adaptable, whereby 
 it absorbed the most attractive parts of the old cults. It 
 appealed to the masses, who, being primitive, could not 
 be weaned in a hurry from ancient beliefs and super- 
 stitions, and were therefore obliged to adopt pagan worship. 
 It has already been seen how much Christianity took from 
 Mithraism ; what other pagan features it absorbed will 
 be enumerated in the next section. 
 
 Finally, from political motives, the Emperor Constantine 
 made Christianity the State religion in 312 c.e. The 
 career of this Imperial convert — whose life, whitewashed 
 by grateful Christian historians, was stained with the 
 blackest crime and murder — appears to have been worse 
 rather than better after his conversion. For years party 
 strife and hair-splitting squabbles over dogmas had become 
 a serious menace to the survival of the faith, and Con- 
 stantine saved Christianity from itself. 
 
 The Emperor Julian, a ruler whose mind was of a high 
 order, endeavoured to reinstate Paganism in 361 c.e., but 
 he held full power for but twenty months, and fell, as has 
 been already narrated, in 363, in circumstances which led 
 to the re-establishment of Christianity by Jovian. The 
 faith had a narrow escape. 
 
 § 9. What Christianity Absorbed from Other Sources 
 
 The Christian system is not the work of one generation, 
 but of many generations ; a patchwork formed by piecing 
 together the most attractive fragments of pagan art 
 and ritual. The comparative study of early religions and 
 primitive savage ideas forces upon the unprejudiced mind 
 the conclusion that Christianity began with the adaptation
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY ABSORBED 157 
 
 of a previous myth, in all probability that vegetation-god 
 cult which forms the germ of universal historic religion. 
 If Jesus was indeed historical, his personality has become 
 so enshrouded in the extraordinary web of myth material 
 that has been woven around him as to be indistinguish- 
 able from the other saviour-gods that have, through 
 the ages, attracted man's religious sense and love of the 
 mysterious. Many cults have been built up from the 
 same fabulous material. 
 
 It is impossible in an outline to give a complete list of 
 all the points which Christianity has assimilated from 
 Paganism and Judaism ; some of them have already been 
 dealt with in this chapter, but the following are the most 
 important. They are best discussed under the three 
 headings of Attributes and Titles, Life Incidents, and 
 Teachings. 
 
 A. — Attributes and Titles 
 
 1. Alpha and Omega. — This is specially referred to in 
 Bevelation : " I am the Alpha and the Omega, said the 
 Lord God, which is and which was and which is to 
 come" (i, 8). "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the 
 beginning and the end" (xxi, 6). " I am the Alpha and 
 the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the 
 end" (xxii, 13). It is a very ancient pagan formula. In 
 the Egyptian Book of the Dead occurs : "lam Yesterday, 
 To-day, and To-morrow " ; while in Pausanias (x, 12) is 
 written " Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus shall be," and in Plato's 
 Laws (iv, 7) " God the beginning and the end." 
 
 2. Christ. — The Greek form of the Messianic name 
 was Chrestos, meaning "good, excellent, gracious, kind," 
 and it occurs frequently in the New Testament. Thus, 
 the word is used in Luke vi, 35, " For he is kind towards 
 the unthankful and the evil "; and in 1 Peter ii, 3, "If ye 
 have tasted that the Lord is gracious." The same 
 special title was applied to the gods of the Samothracian 
 mysteries — to Osiris, Isis, and Hermes.
 
 158 THE OKIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The word is also used in the form Chreistos, meaning 
 " the Anointed," and, spelt in that form, was frequently 
 used by the Christians in the second and third centuries. 
 
 3. Saviour. — This title is essentially that of a sacrificed 
 mediator, and was a common one in many religious 
 systems. In Egypt it was a title of Osiris, among the 
 Jews of Yahweh. The Greeks applied it to Zeus, Helios, 
 Artemis, Dionysus, Herakles, the Dioscuri, Cybele, and 
 yEsculapius. 
 
 4. The Logos or Word. — Philo of Alexandria, a learned 
 Jew who lived 20 B.C. to 60 c.e., suggested that the 
 "logos," or "word," meaning "reason," expressed the 
 idea of God. It is essentially an ancient conception, was 
 applied to Thoth, Hermes, and Mithra, and was well 
 known and accepted in Jewish theology. In China the 
 doctrine of an all-pervading Reason was postulated by 
 Lao-Tsze in the sixth century B.C. 
 
 5. The Lamb. — As is well known, the central feature 
 of the Passover was the eating of a lamb, slain as an 
 expiatory sacrifice. The conception was ancient, and is 
 traceable to the Chalda?ans. It was symbolical of the sun- 
 god passing through the zodiacal sign of Aries ; and the 
 lamb was, therefore, adopted in solar cults. The increasing 
 power of the sun after the vernal equinox was ascribed 
 to the influence of the sign Aries, through which it had 
 passed, so that the Lamb became the symbol of the risen 
 saviour and of his passage from the underworld into the 
 height of heaven. 1 Two thousand years later than the 
 Chaldaean period the sign through which, owing to the 
 precession of the Equinoxes, the sun passed was that of 
 Taurus the Bull. Hence, in the Persian worship of 
 Mithra, the symbol of the sun-god was the Bull, and one 
 of Mithra's titles was " The Slayer of the Bull." About 
 the beginning of the Christian era the sun began to pass 
 through Pisces (the fishes) at the Spring Equinox ; hence 
 
 1 Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, p. 39.
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY ABSORBED 159 
 
 the fish also became a Christian symbol of the saviour- 
 god. 
 
 Jesus is frequently figured as the Good Shepherd, 
 carrying the lamb upon his shoulders. This is an echo 
 of the portrayal in ancient art of Hermes carrying a ram ; 
 it is an instance of a myth of the class designed to explain 
 some pagan sculpture, or dramatic or other representation. 
 In this connection it may be pointed out that in the very 
 ancient and primitive Greek cult of Orpheus its carvings, 
 representing him as a " good shepherd " and a " fisher of 
 men," were adopted by the earliest Christians. 1 
 
 6. The Trinity. — The conception of a triune god, or 
 trinity, is of very ancient origin, as the following list 2 will 
 show : — 
 
 Babylonian. — An (Lord of Heaven), Bel (Lord of 
 Earth), Ea (Lord of the Underworld). 
 
 Egyptian. — Osiris (Father), Isis (Mother), Horus (Son). 
 Greek. — 1. Zeus (God of Heaven), Poseidon (God of 
 Ocean), Hades (God of the Underworld). 2. Zeus, 
 Athene (Goddess of Wisdom), Apollo (Sun-god). 
 
 Hindu and Vedic. — 1. Brahma (Creator), Vishnu (Pre- 
 server), Siva (Destroyer). 2. Indra (Sky-god), Sueya 
 (Sun-god), Agni (Fire-god). 
 
 Roman. — Jupiter (Lord of Heaven), Juno (Queen of 
 Heaven), Minerva (Goddess of Wisdom). 
 
 Scandinavian. — Odin (All-father), Thor (Thunder-god), 
 Loki (God of Evil). 
 
 The Christian Trinity was taken from the Trinity of the 
 Egyptians, and was originally Father, Mother, and Son ; 
 but, the growing ascetic tendency being strongly adverse 
 to the inclusion of a woman in the celestial triad, the 
 mother (than whom can be no more beautiful idea) was 
 dismissed in favour of the Holy Ghost. This intangible 
 member of the Trinity, the " wind " of Acts ii, 2, over 
 
 1 Sir E.Ray Lankoster, Diversions of a Naturalist (Methuen ; 1919), 
 p. 355. 
 
 2 E. Clodd, The Childhood of the World, p. 180.
 
 160 THE ORIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the conception of which no little blood has been shed, is 
 based upon the primitive belief, already referred to (p. 31), 
 that the breath of man was the spirit or essence of life. 
 The word " spirit " is derived from the Latin spiro 
 (I breathe), and the rapid evaporation — whereby they 
 " resolved into thin air " — of certain fluids was the cause 
 of their being called "spirits." 
 
 B. — Life Incidents 
 
 1. The story of the Birth of Jesus contains several 
 elements of pagan myth, two of which have already 
 received notice in reference to the birth of Mithra (p. 141) 
 and the name of Mary (p. 145). 
 
 Birth in a stable occurs with several gods : Horus 
 was born in the stable-temple-cave of the sacred cow ; 
 Krishna, Hermes, and Herakles were all brought up 
 among cattle. [In the cases of Horus, Zeus, Dionysus, 
 Adonis, Hermes, and Mithra — all sun-gods — the birth- 
 place was essentially a cave. Probably the stable motive 
 was fundamentally an astronomical or zodiacal adaptation. 
 
 Birth while travelling (Luke ii, 1-7) reflects the journey 
 made by Isis before the birth of Horus ; and the cases 
 of Latona and Apollo, Maya and Buddha, Coronis and 
 .ZEsculapius, in which a god-child was born during a 
 journey, may also be cited. The flight into Egypt (Matt. 
 ii, 13-6) is a variant of the same myth. 
 
 In connection with this point it is to be noted that 
 Herod was Governor of Judaea in 40 B.C., and died six 
 years before the reputed birth of Jesus ; he was not in 
 Jerusalem at all after 6 B.C. Quirinius (or Cyrenius) is 
 spoken of in Luke ii, 2, as Governor of Syria in the time 
 of Augustus. As a matter of fact, he was pro-consul of 
 Syria from 5 to 14 c.E., and Augustus died in the year 
 5 c.E. The discrepancy is obvious. 
 
 The myth of virgin-birth is not found in the original 
 versions of the second and fourth gospels, nor in any 
 writing of the Pauline epistles. It is, however, a very
 
 WHAT CHKISTIANITY ABSORBED 161 
 
 common myth-motive. Among the virgin-born gods 
 were : Perseus, of Danate ; Attis, of Myrrha ; Adonis, of 
 Myrrha ; Horus, of Isis ; Buddha, of Maya ; and the 
 Mexican Huitzilopochtli, of Coatlicue. Juno (Hera), the 
 wife of Jupiter (Zeus), was thought to become a virgin 
 again each year, and as a virgin she bore Vulcan 
 (Hephaestus), Cybele, Leto, and Demeter. 
 
 The idea of virgin-birth is very ancient. It probably 
 arose in the mysterious nature of generation, and anthro- 
 pological research has shown that it is a very common 
 belief among primitive races that conception is due to 
 the entry of a spirit into the mother, and has nothing to 
 do with sexual relations. 
 
 2. Baptism. — It has already been seen that baptism 
 with water was an initiation ceremony in the cult of 
 Mithra. That it was pre-Christian is shown in the 
 Gospels by the introduction of John the Baptist. It 
 was, in fact, a common Gentile usage. In Christianity 
 it was adopted as a substitute for circumcision, and was 
 at first celebrated only twice a year, the candidate being 
 obliged to undergo a long preparation. The earlier 
 ceremony was much more complicated than it afterwards 
 became. Commencing with the exorcism of evil spirits, 
 followed by the recital of a creed, the candidate was 
 immersed in water, signed with the mark of the cross, 
 and prayed over. He then partook of milk and honey, 
 and was finally arrayed in a white robe and crown. In 
 the early days of Christianity baptism was postponed as 
 long as possible, under the very comfortable assumption 
 that the water washed away all sin. Such was the case 
 with Constantine, whose list of crimes requiring expiation 
 was a very heavy one, and must have imposed an arduous 
 task upon the cleansing element. 
 
 Baptism of some kind or another was a ritual of many 
 pagan cults. The restless movements of water and the 
 way in which running water cast down its impurities 
 early originated the primitive idea that it was a powerful
 
 162 THE ORIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 spirit, a conception utilized as a means of removing evil 
 things. Another common form of baptism was by blood, 
 and it has already been seen that the idea of blessing is 
 connected with the application of that fluid. There were 
 many forms of this blood rite in initiation ; and special 
 mention must be made of the Taurobolia and Criobolia, 
 which were celebrated among the Romans. In these 
 ceremonies the initiate was placed in a pit covered by a 
 grating, so that he was drenched with the blood of the 
 bull, ram, or lamb slain upon it over his head. The rite 
 was supposed to ensure resurrection and eternal life, and 
 is the direct origin of the phrase, " Washed in the blood 
 of the lamb." ' 
 
 3. The Massacre of the Innocents is a detail of the 
 universal myth of the attempted slaying of the child sun- 
 god, the disappearance of the stars as they pale with 
 morning light that heralds the rising sun suggesting a 
 massacre from which the new-born sun-god escapes. 
 Similar applications of the myth occur with Romulus 
 and Remus, iEsculapius, Herakles, Attis, Cybele, and 
 Moses. 
 
 4. The Disciples. — An examination of the Gospels 
 shows a remarkable lack of foundation for the existence 
 of the twelve disciples. Of so important a question as 
 their appointment or calling one would expect a precise 
 account ; but there are circumstantial yet irreconcilable 
 allusions in the case of four or five only, as in Matt, iv, 
 18-22. In one of the Pauline epistles the three chief 
 apostles are spoken of, but there is no mention of the 
 twelve. In 1 Corinthians the only allusion to that 
 number is an interpolation. It is true that the names 
 of the twelve are found in the Gospels (as in Matt, x, 1-5, 
 and Luke vi, 13-16), but they are not in the early records, 
 having been added later. 
 
 1 Taurobolio criobolioque in (sternum renatus — "By the bull-sacrifice 
 and the ram-sacrifice born again for eternity " — is the inscription upon a 
 tomb.
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY ABSORBED 163 
 
 It has been suggested that the twelve disciples or 
 attendants form an attribute of a sun-god and are the 
 signs of the Zodiac. There are some grounds for the 
 hypothesis ; but there is another explanation in the fact 
 that the Jewish High-priest, in the later days of the 
 Temple, employed certain "Apostles" as collectors of 
 tribute and supervisors of the scattered faithful, as there 
 were Jews living in many lands. The number twelve 
 was in accordance with Jewish custom, one for each of 
 the twelve tribes. Later, as the numbers of dispersed 
 Jews increased after the fall of the Temple, seventy-two 
 collectors, answering to the traditional number of " the 
 nations " in Jewish lore, were appointed under the twelve. 
 These form the basis for "the seventy" ("seventy and 
 two " in the marginal note of the Revised Version) 
 mentioned in Luke x, 1. At this time the twelve acted 
 chiefly as regulators and teachers, and their precepts 
 were embodied in the Didache, or Teaching of the Tioelve 
 Apostles. This book, a purely Jewish manual, reflects 
 the morality and simple piety of a Jewish sect. It was 
 used largely by the Christian writers in compiling the 
 Jesuine teachings in the Gospels, and interpolations were 
 made in it to bring it into conformity with the latter. 
 
 5. The Temptation is an adaptation from a very old 
 myth, originating in the representation of the Babylonian 
 goat-god standing on a mountain beside the sun-god, and 
 symbolizing the sun in Capricorn (one of the signs of the 
 Zodiac). This was turned by the Greeks into the well- 
 known myths of Pan leading Zeus to the mountain-top, 
 of Pan or Marsyas competing with Apollo, and of Silenus 
 instructing Dionysus. 
 
 It is convenient here to mention that the conception of 
 a personal Devil is taken from the Persian Ahriman (the 
 principle of evil) or from the Babylonian goat-god, 
 through the Greek Pan. The Hebrew Azazel was a 
 variant of the goat-god. Pan, equipped, like his Satanic 
 majesty, with horns, hoofs, and tail complete, had already
 
 164 THE ORIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 developed a formidable and fearsome side to the pagan 
 world, and was supposed to lurk in woods and mountains 
 with his attendant satyrs. Silenus was a variant of Pan. 
 The angels of the Christian system, the worship of 
 which began to flourish among the Catholics of the sixth 
 century, came partly from the adoption of minor pagan 
 deities, partly from the idea of messengers employed by 
 gods. Some of the chief angels were borrowed by the 
 Jews from the Babylonians and Persians during and 
 after the Exile. 
 
 6. The Crucifixion and the Cross. — It has already been 
 pointed out that the tree upon which the Romans 
 executed delinquents was not of that form which is so 
 venerated by Christians. It was either a simple, upright 
 post or two beams arranged after the fashion of the 
 Greek letter tau — T. 
 
 The sign of the cross is one of great antiquity as a 
 solar symbol, and occurs in many ancient sculptures. To 
 mention a few instances : it occurs in Egyptian hierogly- 
 phic writing as <£$, and as the anhh, or crux ansata y } 
 the hieroglyph for immortal life. In the latter form it is 
 frequently seen in the hands of the Egyptian gods ; often, 
 in funeral sculptures, being held up to the mouth of the 
 representation of the deceased. Another Egyptian cross 
 hieroglyph was the sign ($, meaning "goodness." In 
 the Egyptian ritual of Osiris a spreading of the arms on 
 the cross was in remote antiquity a form of mystic 
 regeneration ; and in some amulets the stauros, or true 
 cross of Osiris, is depicted with human arms. On the 
 breast of a mummy in the London University Museum 
 is a T cross upon a mound, or " calvary." 
 
 The sign was well known to the Jews, and was the 
 mark of a body of religious enthusiasts in early Jewish 
 times (Ezekiel ix, 4). In the Apocalypse (Revelation), 
 which is mainly a Jewish document, it is indicated by the 
 expression, " seal of the living God " (vii, 2-3). 
 
 The crucifix did not appear in Christian art until about
 
 WHAT CHKISTIANITY ABSOKBED 165 
 
 the seventh century, but there is an ancient Asiatic 
 crucifix representing Krishna, who was a saviour-god. 1 
 
 Among other saviour-gods who were "crucified," or 
 bound or hung upon a tree, were Osiris and Horus. 
 Prometheus (who was credited by the Greeks with the 
 inestimable gift of fire to man) was nailed with chains, 
 with arms extended, to the rocks of Mount Caucasus, and 
 his tragedy was acted in Athens five hundred years B.C. 
 Such gods were sacrificed, as has been seen, to ensure 
 good crops, as "messengers" to the god, and it was a 
 Perso-Scythian usage in slaying such a "messenger" to 
 flay him and stuff the skin with outstretched arms. 
 " Thus the historic form of the crucifix was determined, 
 not by the form of normal crucifixion (for in that the 
 arms were drawn above the head and not outspread), but 
 by previous symbolism." 2 
 
 The " fathers " of the Christian Church were fully 
 aware of the existence of the cross as a sacred emblem in 
 early religions, and accounted for this in the usual way 
 by the assertion that the Devil " anticipated " Christianity. 
 
 7. The Descent into Hell is a reflection of the primitive 
 conception of the sun's passage through the under-world. 
 It occurs in the myths of the Egyptian Osiris ; the Greek 
 Herakles, Dionysus, Hermes, Adonis, Demeter, Orpheus, 
 and Ulysses ; the Persian Mithra ; and the Scandinavian 
 Balder. 
 
 8. The Seamless Robe is represented in pagan myth by 
 the indivisible robe — the " robe of light " — of Osiris, and 
 by the seamless chiton woven by Spartan women for Apollo. 
 
 9. The Miracles of Jesus have their prototypes in the 
 cults of other gods. Thus Dionysus turned water into 
 wine, and the transformation formed a prominent part of 
 the mysteries celebrated in his honour ; 3 like Jesus, he 
 
 1 This is figured in Dr. Hardwicke's Evolution of Man, p. 218. 
 
 2 J. M. Robertson, Short History of Christianity, p. 27. 
 
 3 Dionysus also rode to the temple of Dodona on two asses — a myth 
 recalled by the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. 
 
 M
 
 166 THE OEIGIN AND EISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 was also known as " the true vine." Further, he 
 miraculously fed his followers in the desert, as Jesus fed 
 the five thousand and Moses fed the Israelites in the 
 wilderness with quails and manna. 
 
 Poseidon walked upon the water, and iEsculapius 
 restored sight to the blind. 
 
 C. — The Teachings 
 
 Great stress has always been laid upon the sublimity 
 and simplicity of the teachings of Jesus. They do not, 
 however, contain one item that is original. The ethics 
 of the Gospels are, in fact, substantially Jewish, and the 
 relation of Judaism to Christianity is that of a mother 
 country to a colony. As has often happened in political 
 history, the colony rebelled successfully. Such teachings 
 as cannot be paralleled in the Jewish writings are to be 
 found in the pre-Christian literature of Egypt, Greece, 
 Rome, and India. The protestations put in the mouth 
 of the soul of the ancient Egyptian when justifying 
 himself before Osiris, the Great Judge of the Dead, are 
 equal to any Christian ethic. " I have given bread to 
 him that was hungry," he says, " water to him that was 
 thirsty, clothes to the naked, and shelter to the wanderer "; 
 and among these protestations there can be none more 
 sublime than the assertion : " I have made no man 
 weep." 
 
 In primitive god-making it is the saviour-god who 
 comes first ; the teaching-god is secondary, a necessary 
 satisfying of the human craving for guidance. Every 
 religion has had its teaching-gods ; even the primitive 
 Narrinyeri of South Australia have their Nurundere, who 
 is supposed to have instructed them in their ceremonies. 
 To name a few of the teaching-gods of antiquity : there 
 were Oannes, the fish-god, who taught the Babylonians 
 everything pertaining to civilization ; Thoth, who taught 
 the Egyptians language, names, and writing ; Osiris, who 
 instructed them in agriculture and bestowed laws ; with
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY ABSORBED 1G7 
 
 Janus, Saturn, Deineter, Athene, Cybele, Odin, and the 
 Mexican Huitzilopochtli, who were all teaching-gods. 
 
 It is a significant fact that in the Pauline writings, 
 which are enthusiastic for the Christ principle rather 
 than the Jesus principle, the Jesuine teachings are never 
 once cited : a remarkable circumstance if these teachings 
 were circulated in Paul's day. The Pauline writings are 
 equally silent as regards any biographical details of Jesus. 
 This fact, together with the knowledge that all the 
 teachings of Jesus can be traced to other and more 
 ancient sources, is sufficient to make it evident that they 
 were added to the Christian scriptures late. There are 
 additional arguments in favour of this conclusion, for 
 which the reader is referred to the works mentioned in 
 the Bibliography. As will be seen in the next chapter, 
 the books of the New Testament are as much the result 
 of gradual compilation as are those of the Old Testament. 
 In the latter is enshrined the history of a people ; in the 
 New Testament, that of a faith. The result is that, 
 " broadly speaking, the age of an early Christian docu- 
 ment is found to be in the ratio of its narrative bareness, 
 its lack of biographical myth, its want of relation to the 
 existing Gospels." ' The men who frame supposed sacred 
 documents may be deliberately fraudulent, but the 
 majority are doubtless well-meaning and devoted ; both 
 delude themselves as to the ultimate result of their 
 labours, since their fabrications are exposed by the 
 tribunal of rational criticism. 
 
 The following three examples of the teachings of 
 Jesus have been selected to illustrate the foregoing 
 remarks : — 
 
 1. The Lord's Prayer is entirely pre-Christian, its 
 sentences being derived from the Talmud, Old Testament 
 books, and Apocrypha. The Jews had a prayer called 
 the Kadish, founded upon a Babylonian prayer or incan- 
 
 1 J. M. Robertson, Short History of Christianity, p. 5.
 
 168 THE ORIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 tation to Merodach, possibly copied and altered by Ezra. 
 The Kadish runs : — 
 
 " Our father who art in heaven, be gracious to us, 
 Lord our God. 
 
 " Hallowed be thy name, and let the remembrance of 
 thee be glorified in heaven above, and upon earth here 
 below. 
 
 " Let thy Kingdom reign over us, now and ever. 
 
 " The holy men of old said, Remit and forgive unto all 
 men whatsoever they have done against me ; 
 
 " And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from 
 the evil thing ; 
 
 " For thine is the Kingdom, and thou shalt reign in 
 glory, for ever and ever more." 
 
 The following are some of the sentences from the 
 Jewish writings which are parallel to the Lord's Prayer : — 
 
 " Blessed be God every day for the daily bread which 
 he giveth us" {Talmud). 
 
 " Forgive thy neighbour the hurt that he hath done 
 thee, so shall thy sins also be forgiven when thou prayest " 
 (Ecclesiasticus xxiii, 23-4). 
 
 " Thine, Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and 
 the glory, and the victory, and the majesty : for all that 
 is in the heaven and in the earth is thine ; thine is the 
 kingdom, Lord, and thou art exalted as head above 
 all" (1 Ghron. xxix, 11). 
 
 2. "Come unto Me."— In Matt, xi, 28-30, are the 
 words : " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you 
 and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart : and 
 ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, 
 and my burden is light." The lines follow a prayer, 
 beginning " I thank thee, Father," without apparent 
 break, in such a manner as to be unintelligible. It has 
 a suggestion of Isaiah lv, 1-3 : " Ho, every one that 
 
 thirsteth, come ye to the waters Incline your ear, and 
 
 come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live."
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY ABSOEBED 169 
 
 It also recalls the formula in the Mithra mysteries : 
 ' Be of good courage^ Mystae ; ye have been instructed of 
 the God : and ye shall have salvation from your sorrows "; 
 as well as the ritual in the mysteries of Isis, in which the 
 goddess says : "lam compassionate of thy woes : I come, 
 helpful and propitious. Cease from tears and make an 
 end of lamentations ; put away despair : now doth my 
 providence cause to shine the salutary day." Later, the 
 priest tells the believer to wear a joyous countenance, and 
 to bear willingly the yoke of his new ministry. 
 
 3. The Sermon on the Mount (according to Matt, v-vii ; 
 it is described as delivered on a plain in Luke vi, 17) is 
 a collection of wise sayings. They are recorded in a very 
 disconnected manner, and show nothing of the character 
 of a sermon or discourse. Nearly all these sayings are 
 pre-Christian, and are to be found in the Talmud, the 
 Old Testament, the Apocrypha, or the Teachings of the 
 Twelve Apostles (" Didach6 "). A few examples may be 
 quoted in illustration : — 
 
 Mattheio, ch. v-vii 
 Blessed are the poor in 
 spirit : for theirs is the king- 
 dom of heaven " (v, 3). 
 
 " Blessed are the pure in 
 heart : for they shall see God " 
 (v, 8). 
 
 " Every one who is angry 
 with his brother shall be in 
 danger of the judgment ; and 
 whosoever shall say unto his 
 brother, Baca, shall be in 
 
 Parallel texts 
 
 " The Lord preserveth the 
 simple : I was brought low, 
 and he saved me " (Psalm 
 cxvi, 6). 
 
 " Mysteries are revealed 
 
 unto the meek The Lord 
 
 is honoured of the lowly " 
 
 (Ecclesiasticus iii, 19-20). 
 
 " He that is of a lowly spirit 
 shall obtain honour" (Prov. 
 xxix, 23). 
 
 ' Who shall ascend into the 
 
 hill of the Lord? He that 
 
 hath olean hands and a pure 
 heart" (Psalm xxlv, 3, 4). 
 
 " He who oauses his brother 
 publicly to blush shall have 
 no part in the future life " 
 (Talmud). 
 
 " Babbi Chiskias said, Who-
 
 170 THE OEIGIN AND RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 danger of the council ; and 
 whosover shall say, Thou fool, 
 shall be in danger of the hell 
 of fire " (v, 22). 
 
 " Eesist not him 
 evil : but whosoever 
 
 that is 
 smiteth 
 
 thee on thy right cheek, turn 
 to him the other also " (v, 39). 
 
 " And in praying use not 
 vain repetitions, as the Gentiles 
 do " (vi, 7). 
 
 soever calleth his neighbour 
 resho, wicked, he is thrust into 
 hell" (Sohar., Exod., fol. 50, 
 col. 299j. 
 
 " Thou shalt not hate thy 
 brother in thy heart" {Lev. 
 xix, 17). 
 
 " Let him give his cheek to 
 him that smiteth him" (La- 
 ment, iii, 30). 
 
 ' If thy comrade call thee 
 an ass, put on the pack-saddle" 
 (Talmud). 
 
 " If any one give thee a 
 blow on the right cheek, turn 
 to him the other also, and 
 thou shalt be perfect " (Dida- 
 chd, chap. i). 
 
 " Let the words of a man 
 always be few before the face 
 of God " (Talmud). 
 
 In conclusion, it may be pointed out that the frequent 
 " parables " in which Jesus is represented as indulging 
 are obscure and can scarcely be considered as " teachings "; 
 indeed, in Matt, xiii, 10, and onwards, their uselessness as 
 such is demonstrated : " Therefore speak I to them in 
 parables ; because seeing they see not, and hearing they 
 hear not, neither do they understand." In verse 36 the 
 disciples themselves are obliged to ask that the parables 
 may be explained, although in verse 11 it is said that 
 " Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the 
 kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given."
 
 Chapter VIII 
 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 § 1. Introduction 
 
 The books which form the New Testament number 
 twenty-seven, and for purposes of consideration they may 
 be divided into three groups : — 
 
 1. Historical. — The four Gospels — Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke, John ; The Acts of the Apostles. 
 
 2. Teaching. — The epistles attributed to Paul and other 
 apostles, viz.: — Romans,! and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 
 Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, J. and 2 Thessalonians, 
 
 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 and 
 
 2 Peter, 1, 2, aud 3 John, Jude. 
 
 3. Prophecy. — The Apocalypse, 1 or Revelation, attri- 
 buted to St. John. 
 
 Before discussing these books it is necessary to refer 
 briefly to contemporary Koman literature, and especially 
 to the Jewish writings of the time, in order that some 
 idea may be gained as to the knowledge shown of the 
 Christians in the former, and to realize that, from the 
 many parallels to be found in the New Testament books, 
 their writers were well acquainted with the literature of 
 the Jews apart from the Old Testament. 
 
 Mr. F. J. Gould 2 points out that the following well- 
 known writers of the Roman literary world " yield no 
 testimony to the origin and progress of the Christian 
 faith and practice": — Seneca (who lived 3-65 C.E.), 
 Petronius (?-66), Pliny the Elder (23-79), Juvenal 
 
 1 Greek, Apokalypsis, revelation ; derived from apo, from ; kalypto, 
 cover. 
 
 2 The New Testament, p. 16. 
 
 171
 
 172 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 (60-140), Martial (40-104), Quintilian (40-? 118), Epic- 
 tetus (40-120), Plutarch (45-120), and Apion (20-48). 
 
 Tacitus (55-120) and Pliny the Younger (61-105) refer 
 to the Christian people, and Suetonius (75-160) mentions 
 the punishment inflicted by Nero upon the Christians, 
 " a sect of men who professed a new and evil super- 
 stition," as well as disturbances raised by Jews in Eome 
 at the instigation of " Chrestus." 
 
 Philo of Alexandria (20 b.c-60 c.e.) and Josephus 
 (37-100), both Jewish writers of celebrity and integrity, 
 are also silent. It is especially remarkable that the latter, 
 while describing religious movements among his contem- 
 porary Jews, says nothing of Christianity. Interpolations 
 were made subsequently by interested writers to supply 
 the defect. 
 
 Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians, to which various 
 dates, ranging from about 112 to 140 c.e., have been 
 assigned, mentions no New Testament books, but recom- 
 mends " the epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle," 
 quotes good maxims from the Old Testament, and tries 
 to reconcile opposing parties of Christians by appeals to 
 the " words of the Lord Jesus " in terms which, although 
 similar to the teaching in the New Testament, are not 
 paralleled by any passage therein. Clement, further, 
 mentions no details of the life of Jesus. 
 
 So much for contemporary literature apart, save Philo 
 and Josephus, from the Jews ; let it now be seen what 
 appeared in the period immediately before and after the 
 Christian Era — writings which were not included in the 
 Old Testament. They are mostly of an apocalyptic 
 nature, a canonical example of which has been discussed 
 already in the book of Daniel (p. 122). These writings 
 appeared between 200 B.C. and 100 o.E., and are briefly 
 as follows : — 
 
 1. The book of Enoch, composed in the last two 
 centuries B.C., deals with "evil angels, the temporary 
 triumph of sin, the intervention of the divine Anointed
 
 ORDER IN WHICH BOOKS APPEARED 173 
 
 One, or Son of Man, the doom of the wicked in the fiery 
 abyss, and the opening of Paradise to the righteous." ' 
 Words and ideas derived from it are traceable in Jude, 
 Apocalypse, Acts, Romans, and other New Testament 
 books. 
 
 2. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (the 
 DidachS, see p. 163), written between 130 B.C. and 
 10 O.E., and translated into Greek. It is the first Jewish 
 work to speak of the home of the saints as the " New 
 Jerusalem." 
 
 3. The Assumption of Moses (7-30 c.e.) describes the 
 Advent of the Heavenly One. One passage compares 
 closely with Matt, xxiv, 29. 
 
 4. The Secrets of Enoch (1-50 c.e.) contains the first 
 conception in religious literature of the duration of the 
 Messianic kingdom for a thousand years. 
 
 5. The Apocalypse of Baruch (50-90 c.e.) appeared in 
 the time of Paul, and was composed in part before and 
 in part after the fall of Jerusalem in 70. Its tone is 
 Pharisaic, and it states that the just are saved by works 
 and that righteousness is by the law. 
 
 6. The Prophecy of the Last Days, which forewarns 
 against false Messiahs, prepares for the fall of Jerusalem, 
 and looks for the coming of the Son of Man. It was 
 written about 68 c.e., and much of it has been incor- 
 porated in Matt, (xxiv, 1-44, and x, 17-23), Mark 
 (xiii, 1-37), and Luke (xvi, 5-36). 
 
 § 2. The Order in which the Books Appeared 
 
 At the outset the Christians possessed no literature of 
 their own, and therefore adopted the books of the Old 
 Testament as their sacred writings. The new faith was, 
 indeed, founded upon Jewish religion and tradition, and 
 naturally took its scriptures. Slowly, however, there grew 
 
 1 F. J. Gould, The New Testament, p. 47.
 
 174 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 up a number of writings dealing with the Christian faith, 
 some of which became, in the course of some two centuries, 
 canonical, and were combined to form what is now known 
 as the New Testament. Like every other known collec- 
 tion of sacred writings, this compilation was a product of 
 evolution, and did not assume its present form until after 
 many years. Some of the materials upon which the books 
 were founded were probably manuscript memoranda of 
 maxims, sayings, and formulae collected and arranged for 
 teaching purposes ; but to these were gradually added 
 accounts which alleged to be particulars of the life of 
 Jesus. 
 
 An examination of the New Testament clearly shows 
 the existence of two separate religious conceptions, both 
 of which have existed, usually concurrently, in every 
 great religion. They may be called the popular and the 
 theological ideas. In the Christian faith the former is 
 contained in the Jesus idea, the conception of a popular 
 figure of flesh and blood individuality. He is originally 
 essentially a man, Yahweh's " holy servant"; and there are 
 strong reasons for the assumption that Jesus (putting 
 aside for the moment any doubts as to his historicity) 
 was at first regarded as a man and not as a divine being. 
 As such he is reverenced by Mohammedans. Many of 
 the sayings attributed to him by the Gospels make him 
 expressly deny that he is anything but a man, and the 
 fact that these sayings contradict others reputed to be his 
 furnishes one of the most serious discrepancies to be found 
 in the New Testament. The more liberal-minded among 
 Jews have always accepted Jesus as a wise and good 
 man, but have refused to accept him as divine, and the 
 contradictory sayings alluded to strongly support them. 
 Among the more ignorant, especially the Polish and 
 Russian, Jews (who form the majority of the race) it is 
 the belief that Jesus proclaimed himself as the Messiah 
 and posed as such, and that he incurred the death penalty 
 justly as a false prophet. In this Jesus may be well
 
 ORDER IN WHICH BOOKS APPEARED 175 
 
 compared to Buddha and Confucius. Jesus and Buddha 
 (upon whose authentic existence doubt has been cast 
 likewise) were both saviours and teachers, about whom 
 has gathered much mythical material ; both were deified, 
 and the great faiths founded upon them have become 
 markedly corrupt. Partly on that account they have been 
 practically abandoned by thousands of thinking men. 
 Fortunately for Confucius, however, he was never accorded 
 divinity, but has remained for the two thousand odd years 
 which have elapsed since his death no more than a man of 
 great intellectual powers and high principles. No " faith " 
 was founded around his personality, and his sayings and 
 teachings are to-day venerated and respected by all classes 
 of Chinese alike. 
 
 It is the popular idea that is found in the Gospels, and 
 it supplies the want of the ignorant masses who yearn for a 
 " near " god — a god who is, as it were, one of themselves ; 
 one they can understand, who understands them, feels 
 for them in their troubles, and sympathizes with their 
 struggles. 
 
 The human-god idea, however, does not satisfy the 
 intellectual minority. That type of man requires some- 
 thing much more mysterious, a kind of divine essence, or 
 abstract principle, smacking (like the " Logos") of magic, 
 rather than anything so simple as a high type of man. 
 Thus arises the theological idea, which is essentially that 
 which animates the Pauline writings. In such a con- 
 ception of faith there is no necessity for any elaborate 
 picture of Jesus, the thought being directed rather to the 
 " divine Logos," after the fashion of human philosophy 
 in all ages. The conception of the " Logos," or reason, 
 as a divine attribute, essence, or principle, was no new 
 thing, but merely a production of the preceding ages 
 during which civilized man had been an abstract thinker. 
 In Egypt Thoth was the "word"; Nabu in Assyria; 
 Agni in India. Hermes, Apollo, Athene, and Metis (the 
 personified Reason and Intelligence of Zeus), all repre-
 
 176 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 sented the mysterious reason, intelligence, word, or name, 
 the all-pervading, endowed with the highest kind of 
 magic. The longing to evolve this type of idea was the 
 natural outcome of the trend of intellectual thought 
 before the dawn of modern science. The best minds 
 were but groping in the dark, seeking for light, but 
 finding only a twilight, in which they mistook ideas for 
 things. With the development of science another type 
 of intellectual man is evolving, to whom appeal only 
 those things which can be proved to be facts. It is this 
 attitude of mind alone which can find truth and at the 
 same time realize that it exists not in the imagination, 
 but in experience. The method of inquiry which relies 
 solely on facts yearly gathers strength, and is sternly 
 inimical to superstition and the creeds which originate 
 therefrom. 
 
 To the common people, whose minds could not soar 
 to pre-scientific flights of fancy, the " Logos " was 
 unsatisfying, save perhaps for the magic it denoted. 
 They required the human-god idea. But such is the 
 superstition of ignorance that even a popular hero needed 
 to be invested with something mysterious ; hence the 
 surrounding myths of virgin-birth and the like. 
 
 The two conceptions are combined in the Christian 
 faith, the one being represented in the Gospels, the other 
 in the epistles attributed to Paul and his fellow apostles. 
 It follows that the theological idea, being the conception 
 of the intellectuals who alone could put their doctrines 
 into writing, would be the one found in the older 
 scriptures. The popular conception would be recorded 
 later, since the intellectual minority, realizing their 
 ideas to be unintelligible and therefore unacceptable, 
 would find it necessary to furnish something likely to 
 appeal to the more simple-minded majority, containing 
 as it did slaves and men and women of low degree 
 intellectually and socially. This is precisely what is 
 found when the dates at which the different books of the
 
 OEDER IN WHICH BOOKS APPEARED 177 
 
 New Testament were compiled are examined. The 
 Pauline writings were first composed, the Gospels with 
 their biographical details coming later. The preach- 
 ing Jesus was created after the Pauline epistles were 
 written. 
 
 In 1912 the number of Greek manuscripts extant 1 
 were fourteen papyri, one hundred and sixty-eight 
 " uncials," or large letter writings, and about four 
 thousand "minuscles," or small letter manuscripts. 
 Among the first named is a papyrus book-leaf found at 
 Oxyrhynchus in 1896, and said to date from the third 
 century o.E.; it contains verses from Matt. i. The 
 uncial manuscripts on vellum first appeared in the fourth 
 century, and to them belongs that known as the " Vatican 
 Codex," which does not contain Hebreics, the Pauline 
 pastoral epistles, or Revelation. All the New Testament 
 is found, with other documents, in a manuscript called 
 the " Sinaitic Code," preserved at Petrograd, and probably 
 written in Egypt in the fourth century. A full list of 
 these manuscripts will be found in Mr. Gould's The Neiv 
 Testament. The "Received Text" — i.e., the one in 
 modern use — is believed to have been compiled at Antioch, 
 in Syria, about 350 c.e. 
 
 The older portions of the Pauline writings show no 
 knowledge of any biography or teaching of Jesus, save 
 for a very doubtful passage in 1 Corinthians xi, 23-8, 
 referring to Jesus at the supper. Later on the Christian 
 writers appear to have certain accounts which were 
 evidently expanded from generation to generation until, 
 by the end of the second century, there existed the four 
 canonical gospels. These are, however, not known to 
 have been completed even then,. In a treatise against 
 the Christians, written by Celsus between 170 and 180, 
 the Gospels are described as having been subject to 
 numerous alterations. Additions were possible after the 
 
 1 Sir F. G. Kenyon, Textual Criticism of the New Testament.
 
 178 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 time of Origen (? 182-251), who replied to Celsus with 
 the feeble argument that the alterations were the work 
 of heretics. 
 
 With the four canonical gospels appeared several 
 apocryphal books, which were equally popular for a 
 considerable time, until they were finally discarded by 
 the Church. These apocryphal scriptures will be referred 
 to later. 
 
 The following table shows the approximate period at 
 which the different books of the New Testament were com- 
 piled, with brief remarks upon their salient characters : — 
 
 Book. 
 
 Date 
 
 Compiled. 
 
 Eemaeks. 
 
 Mattheio 
 
 Mark 
 
 Luke 
 
 Early in 2nd 
 
 Cent. 
 
 End of 1st 
 
 Cent. 
 
 First half of 
 2nd Cent. 
 
 Shows a Hebrew tone, and 
 is respectful towards the Old 
 Testament system. Adapted 
 and edited for dogmatic pur- 
 poses, as it shows traces of 
 divisions into 5, 7, and 3, 
 probably for convenience in 
 teaching. 
 
 Chaps, i and ii and the men- 
 tion of the " Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost" (xxviii, 19) were 
 inserted later. 
 
 The shortest. Its Greek is 
 least polished. Mattheio and 
 Luke were probably founded 
 upon it. xvi, 9-20 was added 
 subsequently. 
 
 Luke and Acts were written 
 by the same person. Shows 
 a tendency to universalism 
 rather than rigid Judaism. 
 Written in good Greek, with 
 a regard to dramatic interest 
 and dialogue.
 
 ORDER IN WHICH BOOKS APPEARED 179 
 
 Book. 
 
 Date 
 
 Compiled. 
 
 John 
 
 Acts 
 
 Romans 
 
 1 and 2 Corin- 
 thians 
 
 Qalatians 
 
 Ephesians 
 
 About 140. 
 
 About 
 to 150. 
 
 130 
 
 23). 
 
 58 (i to xiv, 
 
 57-8. 
 
 58. 
 
 1st Cent. Re- 
 written 2nd 
 Cent. 
 
 Remaeks. 
 
 Gives a new and philoso- 
 phical presentation of the 
 Christian faith. Chap, xxi is 
 a subsequent insertion. 
 
 Has little historical value. 
 Does not accord with the Pau- 
 line epistles, and gives similar 
 careers to Paul and Peter, often 
 doubling their actions. 
 
 Represents the Gospel as a 
 new liberty built upon old 
 Mosaic law, and love as the 
 truest fulfilment of the Law. 
 Chap, xv is not genuine. 
 
 Written soon after Paul's 
 Letter of Expostulation sent to 
 Corinth, in which he pleads 
 his claim to the honour of 
 Apostleship. This was added 
 to 2 Corinth, (x-xiii). 2 Corinth. 
 (i-ix) followed. About this 
 time Paul communicated with 
 Christists at Ephesus ; and a 
 portion of the epistle is now in 
 Romans (xvi, 1-20). 
 
 Shows some disorder in the 
 text, as vi, 14-vii, 1, and x-xiii. 
 
 A controversial pamphlet of 
 conflicting temperaments and 
 ideas. 
 
 Contains some Pauline pas- 
 sages. Ephesians and Colos- 
 sians both contain Gnostic 
 terms, as " Sophia " (the divine 
 wisdom), 'Pleroma" (the 
 divine fullness), " Gnosis " (the
 
 180 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 Book. 
 
 Date 
 Compiled. 
 
 EE MARKS. 
 
 
 
 divine revelation), "Phronesis" 
 
 
 
 (judgment), etc. 1 
 
 Philippians 
 
 62-3. 
 
 Supposed to have been writ- 
 ten by Paul in prison. Some 
 passages, as iii, 2, are doubtful. 
 
 Colossians 
 
 1st Cent. Ee- 
 
 Written in prison. Gnostic 
 
 
 written 2nd 
 
 terms (see Ephesians) intro- 
 
 
 Cent. 
 
 duced in 2nd Cent. 
 
 1 and 2 Thes- 
 
 53-4. 
 
 1 Thess. ii, 14-6, is probably 
 
 salonians 
 
 
 an interpolation, as it appears 
 to refer to the fall of Jerusalem 
 in 70, and Paul is reputed to 
 have died in 64. 2 Thess. con- 
 tains peculiar repetitions of the 
 first book, and also a Christian 
 apocalypse (see below). 
 
 1 and 2 Timo- 
 
 ■ 
 
 Three pastoral epistles writ- 
 
 thy 
 
 ■ 2nd Cent. 
 
 ten in Paul's name, apparently 
 
 Titus 
 
 , 
 
 by a dweller in Asia Minor, to 
 edify members of the Christian 
 Societies. Advise saints in 
 general, and give special direc- 
 tions to bishops to avoid brawl- 
 ing and intemperance. The 
 tone of 2 Tim. is very bitter. 
 It has been much interpolated, 
 and contains 46 words not in 
 the other epistles. 
 
 Philemon 
 
 1st Cent. 
 
 May be genuine. 
 
 1 Tho Gnostics were certain religious groups who developed the doctrine 
 of the secret Revelation (or " Gnosis "), postulating a Primal Man, existing 
 before the present world, who was embodied in many forms until he 
 assumed that of Christ. This Christ was regarded as an ideal figure 
 representing human salvation, but not related to any historical person 
 such as Jesus.
 
 ORDER IN WHICH BOOKS APPEARED 181 
 
 Book. 
 
 Date 
 Compiled. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 Hebrews 
 
 James 
 
 1 and 2 Peter 
 
 1, 2, and 3 
 
 John 
 
 Jude 
 
 Bevelation 
 
 2nd Cent. 
 
 2nd Cent. 
 
 First half of 
 2nd Cent. 
 
 Late 2nd 
 Cent. 
 
 100-50. 
 
 1st Cent.; 
 iv-xxii, 5, pro- 
 bably written 
 about 68. 
 
 Suggests that the ancient 
 Jewish ritual was a foreshadow- 
 ing of Jesus officiating as High 
 Priest in the spiritual temple 
 (ix, 1-5). 
 
 An ethical essay rather than 
 a Christian document. It con- 
 tains no Jesuist or Christian 
 doctrine, except the added 
 Ebionitic invective against the 
 rich. Names Jesus only twice ; 
 one is clearly an interpolation, 
 the other presumptively so. 
 Contains a moral exhortation 
 to Jews comparable to the pre- 
 Christian " Teaching of the 
 Twelve Patriarchs." 
 
 Imitates language of Paul 
 and James. Its reference to 
 Jesus as the Lamb without 
 blemish indicates the gradual 
 development of the Messiah- 
 lamb conception of the Apoca- 
 lypse. 
 
 Owed their origin to the 
 " Logos " movement. The 
 authors are unknown, but they 
 belonged to the same school of 
 thought as the gospel of John. 
 
 A fulmination against false 
 teachers. Quotes Enoch (see 
 above, p. 172). 
 
 Essentially an adaptation of 
 Jewish apocalyptic literature 
 to Christian ideas (see below). 
 
 N
 
 182 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 § 3. The Three Groups of Books Considered Separately 
 
 A. — The Teaching Geoup 
 
 It has been seen at what periods approximately the 
 various books collected together in the New Testament 
 were written. The reader must, however, be reminded 
 that many years passed before they were formed into a 
 fixed and sacred canon. It remains to consider, in slightly 
 more detail, the three groups into which these books were 
 classified at the opening of this chapter. As it is evident 
 that the Scriptures which are devoted to the expounding 
 of the Christian faith — the teaching group — are the oldest, 
 it is more convenient that they should be dealt with first, 
 and that the Acts of the Apostles, although it purports to 
 be historical, should be considered with them. 
 
 Much controversy has raged around the authenticity of 
 these books, and the balance of opinion at the present 
 time leans to the conclusion that the genuine character 
 of the Pauline epistles is very doubtful. The critics of 
 the nineteenth century, after much examination, con- 
 cluded that Romans, Galatians, and the two books of 
 Corinthians were the genuine work of Paul ; but Professor 
 W. van Manen 1 and other careful students have affirmed 
 that not one single epistle in the New Testament can be 
 ascribed to him, their chief reason being that the theology 
 and church organization depicted in them show a develop- 
 ment too mature and complicated to have been possible 
 before 64 C.E., the reputed year of Paul's death. 
 
 The older portions of these epistles display no know- 
 ledge of the life and teachings of Jesus, and they contain 
 numerous Greek words and phrases from the Didache, 
 which, as has been indicated, was written about 100 B.C. 
 and translated into Greek. 
 
 The book of the Acts contains details concerning the 
 life of Paul, but it is not always in agreement with the 
 
 1 Encyclopedia Biblica, Art. Paul.
 
 THREE GROUPS OF BOOKS CONSIDERED 183 
 
 epistles attributed to him ; indeed, the book is of prac- 
 tically no historical value. The chief of these discrepancies 
 may be enumerated as follows : — 
 
 1. There are three versions of Paul's vision of Christ at 
 Damascus : — 
 
 (a) Paul's companions see the heavenly light, but 
 hear no one. 
 
 (b) They hear the voice, but see no one. 
 
 (c) Paul alone sees the light, and hears the voice. 
 
 2. The circumcision of Timothy by Paul is spoken of 
 in Acts, but the rite is opposed in the epistles. 
 
 3. In Acts Paul encourages four men to shave their 
 heads in a Nazarite vow, but scorns such a thing in the 
 epistles. 
 
 4. He affirms in Acts that as a Pharisee he was 
 harassed for believing in the Resurrection, but in the 
 epistles he glories in the cross of Christ and lays no 
 stress on the Pharisaic doctrine. 
 
 5. The actions of Peter and Paul are doubled in Acts. 
 Throughout Acts the attitude towards the Romans is 
 
 friendly, and it is probable that the author (who, it is 
 believed, also wrote the Gospel of Luke) intended his 
 story to emphasize the unity of the early Christians 
 (who were by no means in perfect accord) and the good 
 relations between them and the Roman authorities. 
 
 It is remarkable that nothing is said in the New 
 Testament of the death of so important an apostle as 
 Paul. There are, however, traditional accounts of his 
 career and end which are reducible to the following 
 dates : — 
 
 35 Conversion. 
 
 38 First visit to Jerusalem. 
 
 53 Various travels until second visit to Jerusalem. 
 
 58 Trial before Felix. 
 
 60 Prisoner in Caesarea. 
 
 64 Journey to Rome and death. 
 With the exception of the trial before Felix and its
 
 184 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 resumption before Festus (for which reliance can be 
 placed upon Roman history), these dates are questionable. 
 If he died in 64, he cannot have written after the fall of 
 Jerusalem in 70, although the words in Romans ix have 
 been considered to refer to that event. Taking the 
 reputed date of his death, however, it would have been 
 about thirty-four years after the supposed death of Jesus 
 in 30. This gives but a short time for the evolution of a 
 doctrine so mature as that found in the epistles. There 
 is, however, little doubt that Paul ranked in the second 
 century as an historical personage, in whose name it was 
 worth while to write and even to forge. 
 
 It has already been pointed out that the Pauline 
 teachings and the Gospels represent two separate con- 
 ceptions of religious thought — the intellectual, appealing 
 to the mind, and the popular, appealing to the emotions. 
 It is a very plausible supposition that the Pauline writings 
 do not contain a " creed which was slowly elaborated from 
 a primitive religious romance of Jesus of Nazareth, but 
 rather of a double and parallel movement, the result of 
 a widespread and continuous agitation of thought and 
 feeling in the Roman Empire ; one movement focussing 
 itself in doctrines and principles such as Paul's, the other 
 revealing itself in parables, hero stories, and dramatic 
 apocalypses. Modern Europe illustrates the action of 
 the same two types of religious intellect and emotion ; 
 and the most religious country in the world, India, has 
 for ages presented similar evolutions of popular love of 
 the dramatic on the one hand, and of philosophic and 
 ethical speculation on the other." 1 In other words, the 
 intellectual conception was a reflection of the philosophical 
 thought of the times ; the popular one merely sought the 
 ages-old ideas of the vegetation-god under a fresh disguise. 
 In support of this contention may be mentioned the affinity 
 of thought that exists between the writings ascribed to 
 
 1 F. J. Gould, Tlic New Testament, p. 33.
 
 THREE GEOUPS OF BOOKS CONSIDERED 185 
 
 Paul and those of the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca 
 (3 B.C.-G5 c.e.). Thus, to mention only three of the 
 parallels which are to be found between them : — 
 
 Seneca 
 "Pertinacious goodness 
 overcomes evil men." 
 
 " To obey God is liberty." 
 
 " Virtue is barred to none ; 
 she is open to all, she receives 
 all, she invites all — gentlefolk, 
 freedmen, slaves, kings, exiles." 
 
 Paul 
 " Overcome evil with good." 
 
 " Where the Spirit of the 
 Lord is, there is liberty." 
 
 "There is neither Jew nor 
 Greek ; there is neither bond 
 nor free ; there is neither male 
 nor female ; for ye are all one 
 in Christ Jesus." 
 
 In the reason for this affinity of thought — that the 
 ethical ideas contained in the writings of both were 
 drawn from the same general thought of the age — 
 probably lies the secret of the Pauline epistles. 
 
 B. — The Historical Group 
 
 Attention must now be turned to the Four Gospels. 
 Reference to the table on p. 178 will make prominent a 
 fact of no small significance, and which lends support to 
 much that has been said above. Leaving out of con- 
 sideration the Acts and Revelation, it is noteworthy that 
 ten, or nearly half, of the twenty-one Apostolic writings 
 were compiled before the first century had terminated; 
 whereas only one of the four Gospels {Mark) made its 
 appearance by that time, the remaining three not coming 
 into existence until the first half of the second century 
 was well advanced. 
 
 Between the first three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, 
 and Luke there is a general similarity in the method of 
 describing the life and teachings of Jesus. They therefore 
 form a Triple Tradition, and, as they present a common 
 view or synopsis of the life of the reputed founder of the 
 Christian faith, they are called The Synoptics. They give 
 the impression of having been compiled from a common 
 source which has now been lost, but the character of
 
 186 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 which may be surmised. A comparison between Matt. 
 xvi, 13-21, Mark viii, 27-31, and Luke ix, 18-22, will 
 demonstrate the close similarities which exist between 
 the three. The Synoptics must, therefore, be considered 
 together and apart from the Gospel of John, which 
 belongs to a different category. 
 
 The opinion of modern critics is that the compilers of 
 Mattheio and Luke took their material from Mark and 
 from some other source which has been lost, and which 
 was mainly composed of the sayings of Jesus. The 
 supposed document is called the " non-Marcan " source, 
 or "Q." 1 This has been reconstructed by Professor 
 Harnack, and the result of his labour 2 shows that, while 
 Matthew copied it more faithfully, he added passages 
 which suggest a later state of church organization than 
 suits the earlier Messiah conception. Luke, on the other 
 hand, recast it, but was more conservative in following 
 the order of the document. 
 
 The chief points in this lost narrative are : — (1) It 
 contains no mention of the death or resurrection of 
 Jesus. (2) The horizon of Jesus in these sayings is 
 wholly Jewish and Palestinian. (3) From their character 
 the sayings can belong only to the earliest age. (4) It 
 records no miracles, and only two cures are mentioned — 
 the blind demoniac {Matt, xii, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 30, 43-5 ; 
 Luke xi, 14, 17, 19, 23-36) and the paralytic girl (Matt. 
 vii, 28, viii, 5-10; Luke vii, 1-10). (5) The compiler 
 considers Jesus to have become the Messiah at his bap- 
 tism. Jesus never claims to be the Messiah, but rather, 
 Mohammed-like, to possess the final revelation of God's 
 nature. (6) Its precepts are addressed to the immediate 
 disciples, and do not refer to organization and Church 
 discipline ; this suggests that they are of earlier date than 
 the organized Church of Jerusalem referred to in the 
 
 1 Q is short for the German Quellen, spring. 
 
 2 For the full text of the non-Marcan source see F. C. Conybeare's 
 Myth, Magic, and Morals, pp. 108-2G.
 
 THREE GROUPS OF BOOKS CONSIDERED 187 
 
 Pauline epistles. The critics consider " Q " to have been 
 a translation from an Aramaic document. 
 
 Mark, the oldest of the Synoptics, is the shortest, 
 written in the least polished Greek, and offers no account 
 of the birth, childhood, or resurrection of Jesus. Indeed, 
 the legend of his birth at Bethlehem is evidently entirely 
 unknown to Mark and the author of the fourth Gospel. 
 The last twelve verses in the Received Text are an addition, 
 the true ending being at xvi, 8, as is the case with the 
 two older manuscripts of the New Testament. Apparently, 
 Mark was written for general readers ; it gives picturesque 
 detail, and adds interpretations (as of " Talitha cumi ") 
 to words likely to be unintelligible to other than Jewish 
 readers. 
 
 Matthew was the work of an unknown writer (probably 
 a Palestine Jewish Christian). It has a Hebrew tone, 
 and is respectful towards Jewish law. From the numerical 
 feature (alluded to in the Table, p. 178) discovered by Sir 
 J. C. Hawkins, 1 it is likely that it was employed as a 
 teaching manual, the arrangements in fives, sevens, and 
 threes (e.g., seven blessings ; seven woes against the 
 Scribes and Pharisees ; three duties of alms, prayer, and 
 fasting ; three degrees of sin and punishment) being an 
 aid to memorizing. It also contains the formula of 
 Baptism (xxviii, 9), and is the only Synoptic to speak 
 of the " Kingdom of Heaven," which phrase occurs 
 thirty-two times, and of the "Church" (ekklesia). Hence 
 critics consider that Matthew was a book compiled for 
 some dogmatic purpose. 
 
 Luke, as has been said, was written by the same person 
 who wrote Acts. Its tone is universal rather than Jewish, 
 and therefore Jesus is traced back to Adam, in contrast 
 to Matthew, in which the pedigree stops at Abraham. 
 The Samaritan is exalted, and women are treated with 
 more consideration from a religious point of view than 
 
 1 Horce Synopticce. (Clarendon Press, Oxford ; 1909.)
 
 188 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 in the other Gospels. Luke makes a point of trying to 
 harmonize everything with the social side of life. 
 
 Allusion has already been made (p. 160) to the discrep- 
 ancies which appear in the Synoptic chronology when 
 it is compared with the more exact records of Roman 
 history : the statements in Luke ii, 2, concerning 
 Quirinius, and Matt, ii, 13, as to Herod cannot be 
 reconciled either with each other or with the Roman 
 records. 
 
 The Gospel of John belongs to an entirely different 
 aspect of thought from that of the three Synoptics. The 
 first Jewish Christians were Unitarians, and at the dawn 
 of the second century the orthodox Christians possessed 
 no more definite theology than that of the ignorant 
 votaries of any pagan saviour-god. To these John, com- 
 piled about 140 c.E., brought a theistic creed ; it offered 
 a new and philosophical presentation of the faith more 
 acceptable to the order of mind to which the Pauline 
 teachings appealed. 
 
 John represents Jesus in the light of a being with 
 divine attributes, and suppresses all that savours too much 
 of common human clay. It omits his baptism by John 
 the Baptist, but accentuates his divine nature by describing 
 how the Spirit of God descended " like a dove " upon 
 his head. It is silent concerning virgin-birth, shepherd 
 adoration, circumcision, the flight into Egypt, and the 
 disputing with the Temple doctors. Instead, it invests 
 Jesus with symbolic ideas and attributes. These are 
 sevenfold : he is the " Bread," ' the " Light," the " Door," 
 the "Good Shepherd," the " Resurrection," the "Way," 
 and the "Vine" 1 — attributes applied to other saviour- 
 gods. 
 
 The Fourth Gospel contains no apocalyptic element ; in 
 place of an awe-inspiring Day of Judgment, emphasis is 
 
 1 Dionysus was " the Vine " to his votaries, and Osiris was "the Bread 
 of Everlastingness."
 
 THREE GROUPS OF BOOKS CONSIDERED 189 
 
 laid upon the Comforter, the Peace, and the Second 
 Birth. 
 
 Chapter xxi, which is written in a different Greek 
 style, was probably added by another writer. 
 
 With John and its emphasis of the doctrine of the 
 " Logos " the Christian faith was invested with a more 
 definite and orthodox form, and " one may surmise that, 
 if the doctrines represented in the Fourth Gospel had 
 not been developed, a very considerable mass of the more 
 cultured citizens of the Roman Empire would have with- 
 held their support, and the Christian faith would have 
 been confined largely to the proletariat, just as the faith 
 of Mithra appealed mainly to the soldiers." l 
 
 C. — Prophecy 
 
 The development of apocalyptic literature among the 
 Jews between 200 B.C. and 100 c.e., to which allusion 
 was made on p. 172, could not fail to influence the 
 Christian writers and be used by them for their own 
 purposes. There are hints of it in 2 Thessalonians 
 (which is, indeed, a miniature Christian Apocalypse), 
 Matt, x and xxiv, Mark xiii, and Luke xvi ; but the 
 most striking apocalyptic work in the New Testament 
 is that of Revelation, attributed to " St. John the Divine," 
 but really a production mainly Jewish. According to 
 the critics of the twentieth century, this book, written in 
 Greek, was produced during the reign of Domitian 
 (81-96 c.e.), but it is an adaptation, with interpolations, 
 of several Jewish works to Christian needs. 
 
 Shortly after 64 (the reputed year of Paul's death) an 
 obscure Jewish sect in Asia Minor was persecuted, and 
 one of its members, Antipas (Rev. ii, 13), suffered 
 martyrdom. An adherent wrote a Book of the Unveiling, 
 or Apocalypse, which was incorporated in Revelation 
 iv-xxii, 5. This, since it contains references to Rome, 
 
 1 F. J. Gould, Tlie New Testament, p. 85.
 
 190 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 symbolized as the " Beast," was probably written about 
 68. The Beast's "number is six hundred and sixty and 
 six," referring to the fact that the name of the Emperor 
 Nero, written in Hebrew letters (which also count as 
 numerals), is 666. It describes the final judgments of 
 God on the Pagan world, and, in chap, vii, the " sealing " 
 of the tribes of Israel. Dan is not included, since, 
 according to an ancient tradition, it was from Dan that 
 Anti-Christ would come. 
 
 Rev. i, 9-iii is founded upon the Seven Epistles to the 
 seven groups, or churches, written by a disciple of the 
 same sect, the chief faith of which appears to have been 
 the expectation of a warlike Messiah. 
 
 It is to be noted that there are very few allusions to 
 Jesus in Revelation ; what are to be found are interpola- 
 tions in a work essentially Jewish. 
 
 § 4. Apocryphal Books 
 
 As with the Old so with the New Testament, a number 
 of books were produced which were, for various reasons, 
 not included in the canon. Indeed, were all the books 
 purporting to be sacred included in the New Testament 
 that collection would be double its present size. Certain 
 of those now to be found therein had their claims to a 
 place in the canon temporarily disputed ; these, called 
 from that fact the Antilegomena, 1 were Hebrews, James, 
 Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation. 
 
 The chief apocryphal books of the New Testament are 
 as follows : — 
 
 The Logia, or sayings of Christ, a Greek fragment 
 found at Oxyrhynchus. 
 
 The Gospels according to the (1) Hebrews, written in 
 Aramaic about 120, and of Ebionitic origin, translated 
 by Jerome into Greek and Latin ; (2) Nazarenes, written 
 about 110-40; (3) Egyptians, probably the earliest 
 
 1 Greek, And, against ; lego, speak.
 
 APOCRYPHAL BOOKS 191 
 
 Gnostic Gospel, showing a knowledge of the four 
 Canonical Gospels. 
 
 The Gospels of Thomas, Peter (written about 140), 
 the Twelve, Matthias, Nicodemus, and the Infancy. 
 
 The Acts of Andrew, John, Peter, Paul, and Pilate. 
 
 The Preaching of Peter. 
 
 The Abgar Epistles. 
 
 The Epistles of Barnabas to the Laodiceans, of Poly- 
 carp, Ignatius, and Clement (see p. 172). 
 
 Note to Chapter VIII 
 
 1 1 
 
 THE JESUS PROBLEM " 
 
 REFERENCE must again be made to the question of the 
 historicity of Jesus, a problem about which there is consider- 
 able controversy. In Chap. VII was discussed the close 
 parallel between Jesus and the universal cult of the vegetation- 
 god, and it was suggested that Christianity arose in the 
 mystery celebrated in honour of the representative of a deity 
 as an atoning sacrifice. That such an annual ceremony was 
 celebrated is very likely, and the possibility that the victim on 
 a particular occasion happened to be some one named Jesus, 
 or Joshua, would have fitted in well with the Jewish expecta- 
 tion of a Messiah. With the knowledge which has in recent 
 times been gathered concerning the methods of god-making 
 and the universal craving for saviour-gods and teaching-gods 
 among mankind, it is easy to see how old myths could be 
 applied to and fresh legends have accumulated around such 
 a figure as the victim sacrificed in conformity with annual 
 custom when he, on one particular occasion, happened to bear 
 so auspicious a name as Jesus — a name which to the religious 
 Jew was redolent of divine attributes. When the period 
 happened to be one of political unrest amid a people chafing 
 for freedom the possibility is strengthened. Christianity is 
 by no means the only religion in which an extensive literature 
 of sacred scriptures has been formed around a vegetation- or 
 sun-god, a literature held to be inspired quite as much as the 
 books forming the New Testament. 
 
 How exactly the story told in the Synoptics arose is not 
 known, but that its growth was gradual over a period of about 
 a hundred years is certain. The theory formulated by Mr. 
 J. M. Robertson to account for it demands mention. This
 
 192 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 theory suggests that the story of the Entry into Jerusalem, 
 the Last Supper, Passion, Trial, Crucifixion, and Resurrection 
 was compiled from the word-book and stage directions of a 
 mystery-play of a vegetation-god acted annually by some of 
 the religious communities from which Christianity originated ; 
 so that, as Mr. Gould has said, 1 " Religion, art, and ancient 
 tradition may all have co-operated in the creation of the 
 Christian gospel." 
 
 Mr. Robertson pushes home his hypothesis with a great 
 wealth of detail, and it is, according to Mr. Gould, 2 "increasingly 
 gaining acceptance." The arguments used by him to support 
 it are too numerous for discussion here, and the reader is 
 referred to the works cited in the Bibliography. It must, 
 however, be mentioned that there is one point which creates 
 considerable difficulty and makes the acceptance of the theory 
 impossible to many. The Jews themselves have never ques- 
 tioned the historical existence of Jesus, and, had his story 
 originated in the way Mr. Robertson suggests, the Rabbis 
 would, in the furious battles which waged round Christianity 
 during the first two centuries of the Christian Era, have found 
 a potent weapon in the retort that Jesus was only a figure in 
 a play. There is no evidence that this retort was ever made. 
 
 If, however, a real person bearing the significant name of 
 Jesus happened to have been the victim in an annual sacri- 
 fice on one occasion, and in consequence he thus possessed 
 certain necessary qualifications for a Messiah, a new cult 
 might easily have arisen concerning him, especially when the 
 circumstances of the time are taken into consideration. With 
 the great popularity of mystery-dramas among the common 
 people in ancient religions, the peculiar circumstances of the 
 event might well have formed the motive of one of these 
 performances, and the Gospel story might have been compiled 
 from the book used by the performers. In that case the 
 historicity of the individual who was the central figure around 
 which the drama was woven need not be contested, and it may 
 be taken that a Jesus existed about whom accumulated the 
 usual supernatural paraphernalia of a vegetation-god, with his 
 virgin-birth, miracles, etc. This hypothesis would strengthen 
 Mr. Robertson's main contention. 
 
 The New Testament, p. 82. 2 hoc. cit., p. 12.
 
 Chapter IX 
 
 LIVES OF GKEAT TEACHERS AND THEIR 
 LEGACIES TO MANKIND 
 
 § 1. Introduction 
 
 An attempt has now been made to follow the course of 
 evolution from the nebula which became the solar system 
 to the appearance of man upon earth ; thence to note 
 his development, very gradual at first, but slowly gathering 
 momentum as his intelligence increased with experience 
 and the acquisition of language, until he had reached the 
 stage at which he can be regarded as a civilized being, 
 founding cities, developing arts, commerce, and written 
 traditions. It has been shown how, from primitive 
 Naturism and Animism, man's religious conceptions have 
 gradually developed, until from them were evolved the 
 great religious systems of the world. Only one of these 
 systems (since Christianity is the direct offspring of 
 Judaism) has been considered in any detail, that being 
 the one with which, in dealing with the story of the Bible, 
 this work was specially concerned. 
 
 It has been shown how the books forming the Bible 
 originated, and the reader must have realized already 
 that the teachings contained in the Old and New 
 Testaments do not occupy the unique position claimed 
 for them. Indeed, of the reputed teachings of the 
 founder of Christianity himself there is not one that has 
 not been taken from, or cannot be paralleled in, other and 
 older doctrines. As a matter of fact, the ethical basis of 
 all the great religions is the same, and every new faith 
 that has appeared has merely re-expressed it without 
 
 193
 
 194 LIVES OF GKEAT TEACHERS 
 
 altering its fundamental significance. This basis is what 
 is known as the Golden Bute, which is embodied in the 
 command "Do as you would be done by," and expressed 
 in the one word "Reciprocity." There is no virtue that 
 cannot be included in this single maxim. It has been 
 proclaimed by every man, and is not the perquisite of 
 any single faith. Its germ was in the time that man 
 first realized the meaning of social organization. Unfor- 
 tunately, however, man is adept in protestation, but 
 clumsy in fulfilment. Since also the vast majority of 
 mankind does not stop to think, but mistakes noise for 
 zeal and words for deeds, those who shout loudest are 
 accepted at their own valuation, while silent merit 
 often is left unheeded. Such listeners hear and act not, 
 but acquiesce and forget. The same ethical ideals are 
 proclaimed age after age and meet with the same fate ; 
 the thinking minority strives to practise them, the 
 unthinking many repeat them but do not act upon 
 them. 
 
 Ardent supporters of Christianity have proclaimed it 
 
 as the one faith which has worked for man's salvation 
 
 and stood the test of ages for charity, self-denial, and 
 
 piety. They forget, however, that no pagan annals can 
 
 show anything more diabolical and horrid than (to take 
 
 one example out of many) the massacre of the Albigenses, 
 
 and that Christianity has not endured a half of the years 
 
 during which the religion of Ancient Egypt existed. 
 
 Nor can Christianity show a more sublime picture of 
 
 self-sacrifice than that told in the pagan stories of Damon 
 
 and Pythias, or Orestes and Pylades. Finally, neither 
 
 Christianity nor any other faith can offer a collection of 
 
 purer and more lofty ideals than those which were 
 
 inculcated, and, what is better, practised, by the Egyptian 
 
 Reformer-king, Akh-na-ten, 3,270 years ago. 
 
 Neither Christianity nor any other man-made creed is 
 responsible for any improvement or increase in the 
 humaner qualities that are discoverable in mankind ;
 
 INTRODUCTION 195 
 
 rather has the slow process of man's social evolution 
 improved his creeds. Had Christianity been the wondrous 
 success which it is claimed to be, such an event as the 
 Great War of 1914-18 must have been impossible, unless 
 Yahweh has relapsed into his old character of a fighting- 
 god ; and to those who would protest that the Church 
 has civilized man must be returned the answer that 
 rather is it man who is civilizing the Church. 
 
 A brief examination of the lives and sayings of the 
 world's great teachers, with extracts from the latter, 
 will, therefore, complete the task undertaken in this 
 book by showing that the main teachings of the great 
 religions which have dominated the civilized world are 
 the same, and that they have been the ideals of human 
 conduct throughout the ages. 
 
 The selections made embrace the following, placed 
 chronologically : — 
 
 B.C. From 4400. Egypt. Book of the Dead ; Ke'gemni ; 
 
 Ptah-Hotep ; Akhnaten. 
 2400. India. Brahmanism. 
 2250. Chaldcea. Hammurabi. 
 600-500. India. Buddha. 
 
 583. Persia. Zarathustra. 
 600-500. China. Lao-Tsze ; Kung-Foo-Tsze. 
 Greece. 
 c.E. 106 to 180. Bome. Cicero; Lucretius; Seneca; 
 
 Epictetus ; iElian ; Marcus Aurelius. 
 632. Arab. Mohammed. 
 
 It may be pointed out that between 1000 B.C. and 
 200 c.b. the Jewish sacred literature was slowly evolving, 
 although it is doubtful whether the Jews possessed the 
 art of writing before 900 B.C. In this literature, as in 
 every other sacred writing, were contained high ethical 
 conceptions, as exemplified in Isaiah and Micah.
 
 196 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 § 2. The Teachings and Writings of Ancient Egypt 
 
 One of the most elaborate of the great religious systems 
 of the world was that of Ancient Egypt. It lasted at 
 least four thousand years, and, although a complicated 
 system of many gods, its ethics were equal to the teach- 
 ings of any other great faith, Christianity not excepted. 
 Space does not allow of even a brief exposition of the 
 ancient Egyptian pantheon, which contained sun-deities, 
 saviour-gods, and numerous divinities of animistic origin. 
 Its ethical code may be judged by its great sacred work, 
 the so-called Book of the Dead. This title is given to 
 the collection of funerary texts which the ancient Egyptian 
 scribes composed for the benefit of the dead, and which 
 comprise magic names, formulae, spells and incantations, 
 hymns, litanies, and prayers. A large number of these 
 texts have been preserved in sepulchral inscriptions upon 
 the walls of tombs, on sarcophagi and coffins, or written 
 upon papyrus rolls which were buried with the dead man 
 for use during his passage through the underworld. It 
 is from these manuscripts that the title under which they 
 are known was derived, as the Egyptian tomb-robbers 
 gave to every such roll found with mummies the name 
 "Kitab al-Mayyit"— i.e., "Book of the Dead Man." 
 The origin of the texts found in the Book of the Dead 
 is lost in antiquity ; by the Egyptians themselves they 
 were believed to have been composed by Thoth, the 
 god reputed to have bestowed upon them the art of 
 writing, and they were certainly in general use as far 
 back as about 3700 B.C. 
 
 The following quotation from the " Chapter of the 
 Judgment of Osiris " illustrates the high code of ethics 
 which the Egyptians had evolved. The sentences were 
 to be repeated by the deceased on entering the Judgment 
 Hall :— 
 
 " Behold, I have come to thee, and I have brought 
 macLt [i.e., truth, integrity] to thee. I have destroyed
 
 TEACHINGS AND WBITINGS OF EGYPT 197 
 
 sin for thee. I have not sinned against men. I have 
 not oppressed [my] kinsfolk. I have done no wrong in 
 the place of truth. I have not known worthless folk. 
 I have not wrought evil. I have not defrauded the 
 oppressed one of his goods. I have not done the things 
 that the gods abominate. I have not vilified a servant 
 to his master. I have not caused pain. I have not let 
 any man hunger. I have made no one to weep. I have 
 not committed murder. I have not commanded any to 
 commit murder for me. I have inflicted pain on no 
 man. I have not defrauded the temples of their oblations. 
 I have not purloined the cakes of the gods. I have not 
 stolen the offerings to the spirits [i.e., the dead] . I have 
 not committed fornication. I have not polluted myself 
 in the holy places of the god of my city. I have not 
 diminished from the bushel. I did not take from or add 
 to the acre-measure. I did not encroach on the fields 
 [of others] . I have not added to the weights of the 
 scales. I have not misread the pointer of the scales. 
 I have not taken milk from the mouths of children. 
 I have not driven cattle from their pastures. I have 
 not snared the birds of the gods. I have not caught fish 
 with fish of their kind. I have not stopped water [when 
 it should flow]. I have not cut the dam of a canal. 
 I have not extinguished a fire when it should burn. 
 I have not altered the times of the chosen meat offerings. 
 I have not turned away the cattle [intended for] offer- 
 ings. I have not repulsed the god at his appearances. 
 I am pure. I am pure. I am pure. I am pure " 
 
 Later in the chapter comes the address which the 
 dead man had to make to the gods after this compre- 
 hensive negative declaration of innocence of sin, and this 
 contains the following passage : — 
 
 " I have given bread to the hungry, water to the 
 thirsty, raiment to the naked, and a boat to him that 
 needed one. I have made holy offerings to the gods, and 
 sepulchral offerings to the beatified dead. Be ye then 
 
 o
 
 198 LIVES OF GEEAT TEACHEBS 
 
 my saviours, be ye my protectors, and make no accusation 
 against me before the Great God. I am pure of mouth 
 and clean of hands ; therefore it hath been said by those 
 who saw me, ' Come in peace, come in peace.' " 
 
 These quotations serve at least to show that the 
 Ancient Egyptian code of ethics was an exalted one, 
 containing every essential which is usually supposed to 
 make a "good Christian." Whether this code was lived 
 up to as much by the one as by the other is hardly the 
 question ; the code itself was there. 
 
 There are, however, other ethical works preserved of 
 the Egyptians besides that so fully set out in the Book 
 of the Dead. These are the " Instructions " of Ptah- 
 hotep (3550 B.C.) and Ke'gemni, or Kaquemna (3998 B.C.). 
 They are nearly six thousand years old, and occupy an 
 unique place in the literature of the world. Thirteen 
 hundred years earlier than the code of Hammurabi and 
 two thousand years before the Vedas, they are the oldest 
 remaining books extant, and fully equal the ethics 
 contained in the Old and New Testaments. Their 
 preservation is due to the fact that they were used as 
 text-books and school writing-exercises. They were 
 discovered in the Prisse Papyrus, a roll twenty-three feet 
 seven inches long by five and seven-eighth inches broad, 
 preserved in the Bibliothique Nationale at Paris. Its 
 date is about 3550 B.C., and it contains two works : — 
 
 1. The Instructions of Ke'gemni, dating from the end 
 of the reign of Heuni, the last Pharaoh of the Third 
 Dynasty (about 3998 B.C.). 
 
 2. The Instructions, to his son, of Ptah-hotep, who 
 lived in the time of Assa, the last King but one of the 
 Fifth Dynasty, who reigned from 3580-36 B.C. 
 
 Nothing is known as to the lives of these two men, but 
 
 the following extracts will serve to show the nature of 
 
 their writings : — 
 
 Ke'gemni : 
 
 "The cautious man flourisheth, the exact one is
 
 TEACHINGS AND WRITINGS OF EGYPT 199 
 
 praised ; the innermost chamber openeth unto the man 
 of silence. Comfortable is the seat of the man gentle 
 of speech." 
 
 "Gluttony is an abomination: therein is the quality of 
 
 the beast A base man is he that is governed by his 
 
 belly ; he departeth only when he is no longer able to 
 fill full his belly in men's houses." 
 
 " If a man be lacking in good fellowship, no speech 
 hath any influence over him. He is sour of face towards 
 the glad-hearted that are kindly to him ; he is a grief 
 unto his mother and his friends." 
 
 "Beware of making strife, for one knoweth not the 
 things which the God will do when He punisheth." 
 
 Ptah-hotep : 
 
 " Be not proud because thou art learned, but discourse 
 with the ignorant man as with the sage." 
 
 " If thou be a leader, as one directing the conduct of 
 the multitude, endeavour always to be gracious, that 
 thine own conduct be without defect." 
 
 " Cause no fear among men ; for [this] the God 
 punisheth " 
 
 " If thou be lowly, serve a wise man, that all thine 
 actions may be good before the God." 
 
 " If thou desire that thine actions may be good, save 
 thyself from all malice, and beware of the quality of 
 covetousness." 
 
 " Quarrelling in place of friendship is a foolish thing." 
 
 " Excellent in hearing, excellent in speaking, is every 
 man that obeyeth what is noble; and the obedience of 
 an obeyer is a noble thing." 
 
 " Obedience is better than all things that are ; it maketh 
 goodwill." 
 
 " He that obeyeth becometh one obeyed." 
 
 " Take not any word away, neither add one ; set not 
 one in the place of another." 
 
 " Forsooth, a good son is of the gift of the God ; he
 
 200 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 doeth more than is enjoined on him, he doeth right, and 
 putteth his heart into all his goings." 
 
 But of all that has come down to modern times of the 
 lore of Egypt none is more edifying than the life and 
 teachings of Akh-na-ten, the Reformer-king, of whose 
 life a considerable amount is known despite the endeavours 
 of the powerful priesthood of the god Amun to blot out 
 his records. Of this Pharaoh Professor Flinders Petrie 1 
 has said : " How much Akh-na-ten understood we cannot 
 say, but he had certainly bounded forward in his views 
 and symbolism to a position which we cannot logically 
 improve upon at the present day." Only twenty-eight 
 years old when he died, he was "the first of all human 
 founders of religious doctrines — the world's first idealist " 
 (Weigall). 
 
 Akh-na-ten was the son of Amun-hotep III and Queen 
 Thi, and grandson of Thothmes IV. Born 1386 B.C., 
 and called Amun-hotep after his father, he was a delicate 
 boy, with a misshapen skull, and suffered from fits, 
 probably of an epileptic character. His father married 
 him early to a daughter of the King of Mitanni, a buffer- 
 state between the Pharaoh's Syrian possessions and the 
 lands of the Hittites and Mesopotamians. The girl was 
 between eight and nine years old, and her name, 
 Tadukhipa, was changed to Nefertiti. Young people 
 mature early in the East, and their first child was born 
 about five years later. 
 
 Amun-hotep III died in 1375, and his son ascended 
 the throne, when about ten or eleven years old, as the 
 fourth of his name ; his mother, Queen Thi, acting as 
 regent. He reigned only seventeen years, during which 
 he founded his new religion, first exalting the worship 
 of the sun-god Ra under the name of Aten and then 
 elaborating it into an essentially monotheistic cult. He 
 broke with the priesthood of Amun, and abandoned the 
 
 1 History of Egypt.
 
 TEACHINGS AND WEITINGS OF EGYPT 201 
 
 city of Thebes to found a new one close to Tel-el-Amarna, 
 some hundred and sixty miles above the modern Cairo. 
 This city he called Khut-Aten, " The City of the Horizon 
 of Aten," and took up his residence there in the nineteenth 
 year of his age and the eighth of his reign. His original 
 name, Amun-hotep (meaning "The Peace of Amun"), 
 thus becoming singularly inappropriate, he changed it for 
 Akh-na-ten (or Khu-en-aten)— i.e., "The Glory of Aten." 
 The religion of Aten which Akh-na-ten formulated has 
 been thus spoken of by Petrie : "No such grand theology 
 had ever appeared in the world before, so far as we know ; 
 and it is the forerunner of the later monotheistic religions." 
 Aten was originally the actual sun's disc. Akh-na-ten's 
 conception of the god was as the power which created 
 the sun, the energy which penetrated to the earth in the 
 sun's heat and caused all things to grow. The hymn to 
 Aten which the Keformer-king composed bears a striking 
 resemblance to Psalm civ, as will be seen by the following 
 brief extract : — 
 
 Akh-na-ten's Hymn. 
 " How manifold are all thy 
 works !— Thou didst create 
 the earth according to thy 
 desire — men, all cattle — all 
 that are upon the earth." 
 
 " Thou makest the seasons. 
 — Thou hast made the distant 
 heaven in order to rise therein 
 — dawning, shining afar off, and 
 returning." 
 
 " The world is in thy hand, 
 even as Thou hast made them. 
 When Thou hast risen, they 
 live ; when Thou settest, they 
 die. — By Thee man liveth." 
 
 Psalm civ. 
 
 " Lord, how manifold are 
 
 thy works ! In wisdom hast 
 
 Thou made them all. The 
 
 earth is full of Thy creations." 
 
 " He appointed the moon 
 for certain seasons, and the 
 sun knoweth his going down." 
 
 " These wait all upon Thee. 
 When Thou givest them [food] 
 they gather it ; and when Thou 
 openest Thy hand, they are 
 filled with good. When Thou 
 hidest Thy face, they are 
 troubled. When Thou takest 
 away their breath they die." 
 
 /
 
 202 LIVES OF GBEAT TEACHEKS 
 
 Akh-na-ten lived up to the purity of his creed, and, 
 being a reformer who, did he live in modern times, would 
 be accounted as in advance of his age, fell in consequence. 
 In the last two years of his reign came a Hittite invasion 
 of the Egyptian possessions in Syria, and Akh-na-ten had 
 conscientious objections to warfare. Unfortunately, ideals 
 are not of much value in the government of empires when 
 surrounding nations are not similarly imbued ; there were 
 secessions among his tributaries, and the fighting in Syria 
 became general. Akh-na-ten refused help, and Egypt lost 
 her Syrian territory ; his health, never robust, gave way, 
 and he died in 1358 B.C. 1 with the fall of his Empire. 
 His cult of Aten went with him ; he left a family of 
 girls, but no son to carry on his ideals. The court of his 
 successor, Heru-em-heb, returned to Thebes. Akh-na-ten's 
 new city was destroyed, and, by the irony of fate, its 
 stones were rebuilt into the temple of Amun. His 
 memory was persecuted, his name obliterated from the 
 monuments, and the priesthood, as is usual in such cases, 
 prevailed. But the bones of Akh-na-ten (which were 
 discovered at Thebes in 1907) still exist, and his memory 
 will be honoured as the first man to give the world a 
 religion of ideals and to act up to them. The priests of 
 Amun who sought to blot out his memory are forgotten. 
 
 § 3. Chaldaa and Hammurabi 
 
 Mention has already been made of the Code of Ham- 
 murabi and its bearing upon the laws ascribed to Moses 
 (p. 68). Hammurabi was an historical personage who 
 lived about 2000 B.C., and is fully entitled to rank as one 
 of the world's great teachers. He united the Babylonian 
 States under one rule, and gave to his subjects the 
 celebrated code of laws known by his name. These are 
 inscribed upon a basalt pillar, discovered at Susa in 1901, 
 and now in the Louvre. This monument is the original 
 
 1 The dates given follow thoso of Weigall. See Bibliography.
 
 INDIA— BRAHMANISM 203 
 
 code, and the laws upon it are far-reaching and precise, 
 covering the whole field of life as then existing. Com- 
 parison with the laws affecting civil life contained in the 
 Pentateuch proves beyond a doubt that these were 
 derived from the Code of Hammurabi ; and this, with the 
 evidence existing that the code must have been known 
 in Canaan as early as 1400 B.C., completely disposes of 
 the reputation of Moses as a law-giver. 1 
 
 There is no need to give many extracts here from the 
 Code of Hammurabi, but the following may be taken as 
 specimens of its wise and just nature : — 
 
 " If a man has struck another man in a dispute and 
 wounded him, that man shall swear : ' I did not strike 
 him knowingly '; and he shall pay for the doctor." 
 
 "If a man has given his goods on deposit, and in the 
 place of deposit, either by breaking in or by climbing 
 over, anything has been lost, together with the property 
 of the householder, then the householder in question 
 shall make good all that was deposited with him and lost, 
 and shall restore it to the owner. The householder shall 
 pursue his stolen goods, and recover from the thief." 
 
 § 4. India — Brahmanism 
 
 The present population of India is about 315,000,000, 
 the religion of three-fourths of which is Hinduism, or 
 Brahmanism. This faith is a remarkable labyrinth of 
 temples, shrines, deities both male and female, and 
 rituals of praise and prayer, the result of the growth of 
 centuries from the primitive religion of the Aryan invaders 
 of India, mixed with Animism. It is unique among the 
 great religious systems of the world in that it had no 
 personal founder or hard-and-fast creed. From it sprang 
 Zoroastrianism and Buddhism, faiths to be considered 
 later. 
 
 It would be beside the purpose of this book to attempt 
 
 1 Chilpcric Edwards, The Old Testament, p. 73.
 
 204 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 an enumeration of the multitude of deities of all grades 
 that form its varied pantheon, and the reader is referred 
 to other works upon the subject. 1 One divinity must, 
 however, be mentioned in Krishna, a solar-deity from 
 whose cult, far more ancient than Christianity, much 
 myth material has been assimilated by the latter. 2 Like 
 most other great religions, Brahmanism has its Trinity, 
 comprising Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, 
 and Siva the destroyer. 
 
 The sacred books of the Hindus are the Vedas, to 
 which reference has already been made (p. 69), and the 
 name of which means "knowledge," or "science," akin 
 to our word "wisdom." These books contain over a 
 thousand hymns of great beauty, which are believed to 
 have been composed some 2,400 years before the Christian 
 Era. As in all other great religions, the Vedas are 
 venerated as " inspired," the Brahmans believing them 
 to be entirely the work of God. 
 
 The following extracts will give the reader some idea 
 of their beauty : — 
 
 " In the beginning there arose the source of golden 
 light." 
 
 " He who gives life, He who gives strength ; whose 
 blessing all the bright gods desire ; whose shadow is 
 immortality; whose shadow is death." 
 
 " He through whom the heaven was established — nay, 
 the highest heaven ; He who measured out the light in 
 the air." 
 
 "Purity of body comes by water; purity of mind 
 by truthfulness. The lamp of truth is a lamp of the 
 wise." 
 
 " Let him not do evil to others who desires not that 
 sorrows should pursue himself" (The Golden Rule). 
 
 1 An excellent short sketch will be found in E. Clodd's Childhood of 
 Religions. 
 a J. M. Robertson, Christianity and Mythology.
 
 INDIA— BUDDHISM 205 
 
 From the hymn to Varuna : — 
 
 " If a man stands or walks or hides, if he goes to lie 
 down or to get up, what two people sitting together 
 whisper, King Varuna knows it ; he is there as the 
 third." 
 
 " He who should flee far beyond the sky, even he would 
 not be rid of Varuna the King. His spies proceed from 
 heaven towards this world ; with thousand eyes they 
 overlook this earth." 
 
 These passages may be compared with Psalm cxxxix, 
 3, 7-12. 
 
 The following are from prayers beseeching pardon 
 from sin : — 
 
 " Do not deliver us unto death, nor to the blow of the 
 furious, nor to the wrath of the spiteful ! " 
 
 "Absolve us from the sins of our fathers, and from 
 those which we have committed with our own bodies." 
 
 " Through want of strength, thou strong and bright god, 
 have I gone wrong ; have mercy, almighty, have mercy." 
 
 "Whenever we men, Varuna! commit an offence 
 before the heavenly host, whenever we break the law 
 through thoughtlessness ; punish us not, God, for that 
 offence." 
 
 § 5. India — Buddhism 
 
 Buddhism claims more devotees than any other faith, 
 if, indeed, what is a philosophy of life rather than a 
 religion can be called a faith. 
 
 The exact origin of Buddhism is difficult to trace, 
 but it probably began in a slowly growing revolt against 
 the heavy burdens which Brahmanism laid upon its 
 adherents — the call for something simpler and easier to 
 understand ; just as Protestantism grew from the Mediaeval 
 Church and the later Dissenters from the Church of 
 England. The reputed beginning of Buddhism was, 
 however, briefly as follows : — 
 
 Its founder was a young man of princely descent, born
 
 206 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 at Kapilavasti, north of Oudh, between 560 and 557 B.C., 
 the date of his birth being as uncertain as that of Jesus. 
 His tribal name was Gautama, and he received that of 
 Sidddrtha, meaning "He in whom wishes are fulfilled," 
 from his father Suddhodana. His other name, or rather 
 title, The Buddha— i.e., "The Enlightened "—was not 
 bestowed upon him until much later. As with other 
 founders of great religious systems, a large number of 
 legends grew up around his birth ; for instance, it was 
 said that the mystic Bo tree sprang from the ground, 
 and that a venerable prophet 1 present at his birth pre- 
 dicted his wonderful career. Then " Maya is said to 
 have conceived him after a dream in which she beheld 
 the future Buddha descending from the heaven and 
 entering her womb in the form of a white elephant," 2 
 a guise singularly appropriate for the founder of a new 
 religion. 
 
 The name of his mother, Maya, is a variant of that of 
 Mary, 3 which is found with such remarkable frequency 
 among the mothers of saviour-gods (see p. 145). She 
 died a few days after Gautama's birth, and he grew up 
 under the care of his aunt, Prajapati. Although ever a 
 serious youth, prone to meditation and contemplation, 
 he could apparently hold his own in sports and games of 
 skill. His father, fearing that he would develop into an 
 unpractical dreamer unfit to succeed him, married him, 
 when not more than nineteen years old, to Yasodhara, 
 a princess of great beauty. He lived happily with his 
 wife, but still showed a preference for contemplating the 
 futility of existence and the means of liberating the world 
 from woe. Every attempt was made to divert him from 
 his serious methods of thought ; but, according to tradi- 
 tion, a god appeared to him in four successive guises — a 
 feeble old man, a stern tyrant, a dead body, and a 
 
 1 Compare Simeon in the birth-story of Jesus. 
 
 2 Geden ; art. Buddha, Encyc. of Religion and Ethics, vol. ii, p. 881. 
 8 J. M. Robertson, Christianity and Mythology, p. 297.
 
 INDIA— BUDDHISM 207 
 
 reverend hermit. The birth of his son Kahula, ten years 
 after marriage, seemed to him a new bond to chain him 
 to the world, and he determined to fly from his home. 
 At dead of night he stole away from wife and child and 
 repaired to Kajagriha, where he joined certain holy 
 hermits. Their Brahman teachings, however, failed to 
 satisfy his craving, and he retired to a small village, where 
 he gained some reputation for sanctity and lived with 
 five disciples for six years, surpassing them in the severity 
 of his penances. But so selfish and inactive a life brought 
 Gautama no satisfaction, and he reverted to a more 
 cheerful method of existence, although without relin- 
 quishing his habits of deep thought and contemplation. 
 At last, as he sat beneath the shade of a spreading tree, 
 there came enlightenment, and he found suddenly that 
 he was a "Buddha." 
 
 At the time he left his wife, Gautama was met, 
 according to legend, by a tempter, who offered him the 
 sovereignty over all kingdoms of the earth if he would 
 not leave his home. Now, when enlightenment had 
 come, he was again assailed by the tempter, after he had 
 fasted for forty-nine days and nights. He gained the 
 victory by means of the ten great virtues of Buddha. 
 The reader can scarcely help noting the strong myth- 
 parallel in the story of Jesus, the writers of which, as 
 Buddhism was some six hundred years older, probably 
 borrowed it therefrom together with the items of the 
 Krishna myth already mentioned. 
 
 After the crisis, the Buddha is said to have founded 
 his great cult. He first preached at the Holy City of 
 Benares, meeting with much opposition from the Brah- 
 mans. Undeterred, however, he made many converts, 
 and finally died in peace, as he sat under a tree, in his 
 eighty-fifth year (480-77 B.C.). 1 
 
 1 The date appears to be uncertain. Some authorities give Buddha's 
 life as from 628 to 543.
 
 208 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 Shortly after the Buddha's death a general council of 
 his disciples is said to have been held to determine the 
 rules and doctrines of the cult. Two later councils are 
 also reported for the correction of errors and the sending 
 out of missionaries, the last being held (according to 
 tradition) in 251 B.C. 
 
 Such is the legend of the founder of Buddhism. Like 
 the biographies of similar persons, it has become sur- 
 rounded by a thick crust of myth. A large part of this 
 myth comes from Krishna sources, or even earlier, the 
 lore of Krishna being prehistoric. The Buddha was 
 deified, and his cult therefore became corrupt, much being 
 added to his teaching which it is admitted he never 
 taught. As a matter of fact, his movement was atheistic, 
 for he is reported to have said : " There may be a future 
 world, but we know nothing concerning it. Do not 
 waste time over gods, but build in love — a love like that 
 of a mother for her child." 1 
 
 1 The most complete information concerning Gautama Buddha is to be 
 found in the works of Rhys Davids, Buddhism and General Introduction 
 to the Buddhist Sutras (vol. xi of " Sacred Books of the East " Series). It 
 must be mentioned that the historicity of the Buddha has been questioned, 
 partly upon the ground of the myths surrounding him and their similarity 
 to those round other religious figures, partly because (1) Buddha wrote 
 nothing ; (2) none of his disciples or contemporaries wrote anything ; 
 (3) some of the Buddhist doctrines are suspected as fictitious, and others 
 are admitted to be literary creations ; and (4) much of the teaching put 
 into Buddha's mouth is of a nature known to be current before his period. 
 Societies such as Buddha formed were in existence before him, and the 
 very title of Buddha (= the Enlightened) was rather an acknowledgment 
 of continuance in established ideals than a claim to something new. The 
 great Buddhist doctrines are the Four Noble Truths (1, that pain exists ; 
 2, that it is due to desire ; 3, pain and desire can be ended by " Nirvana " ; 
 and 4, Buddha shows the right way to Nirvana) and the Noble Eightfold 
 Path — viz., 1, Right Views; 2, Right Aspirations; 3, Right Speech; 
 4, Right Conduct; 5, Right Livelihood; 6, Right Effort; 7, Right 
 Mindedness ; 8, Right Rapture. These doctrines are simply a statement 
 of the rules of self-repression by which the disciple can attain inward 
 peace ("Nirvana"), or deliverance from blind desires. They "were not 
 only the teaching of Gautama himself, but were the contral and most 
 essential part of it" (Rhys Davids, General Introduction, etc., p. xxi), and 
 were current before his time. According to Rhys Davids {Buddhism, 
 pp. 214-21), Buddha is always used in the Pali and Sanskrit texts "as a 
 title and not a name," and Gautama "is reprcsontod to have taught that 
 he was only one of a long series of Buddhas who appear at intervals in the
 
 INDIA— BUDDHISM 209 
 
 It was in the reign of Asoka (264-27 B.C.) that Bud- 
 dhism became really historical. He acted towards the 
 cult as did Constantine towards Christianity (see p. 156), 
 possibly not without political reasons, since he was the 
 grandson of Chandragupta, who drove the Greek power 
 from India and himself began as a robber chief in the 
 time of Alexander. Both he and his followers were men 
 of low caste, and it is possible therefore that Asoka 
 favoured Buddhism because it was an organization 
 which, while deprecating caste, was not in direct oppo- 
 sition to Brahmanism, and offered a middle course 
 which pleased the men of low caste without offending 
 the priesthood. 
 
 The sacred writings of Buddhism are the Tripitaka, 
 or "Three Baskets," written in Pali, an ancient dialect 
 whose relation to the Sanskrit of the Vedas is as that of 
 Italian to Latin. The three parts deal, the first with 
 rules of discipline, the second with the discourses of 
 Buddha, and the third with doctrinal matters. The 
 following are examples of the precepts contained in this 
 ancient scripture : — 
 
 " Conquer anger by mildness, evil by good, falsehood 
 by truth." 
 
 "Be not desirous of discovering the faults of others, 
 but zealously guard against your own." 
 
 "To the virtuous all is pure. Therefore think not 
 that going unclothed, fasting, or lying on the ground 
 can make the impure pure, for the mind will still remain 
 the same." 
 
 "To be pure, temperate, to persevere in good deeds : 
 these are excellences." 
 
 " The gem of the sky is the sun ; the gem of the house 
 
 world, and who all teach the same system." The names of twenty-four 
 Buddhas have been handed down as appearing previous to Gautama. 
 Much of the doctrine ascribed to the latter was built up long after his 
 time. It may be that the sect appeared first, and the story of its founder 
 was made later as a " Myth of Doctrine."
 
 210 LIVES OF GKEAT TEACHERS 
 
 is the child ; in the assembly shines the brow of the 
 
 wise man." 
 
 " He is a more noble warrior who subdues himself 
 than he who in battle conquers thousands." This may 
 be compared with Proverbs xvi, 32 : " He that is slow to 
 anger is better than the mighty ; and he that ruleth his 
 spirit than he that taketh a city." 
 
 § 6. Persia — Zarathustra 
 
 Of Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, the reputed founder of 
 the religion of the Parsis, there is no single trustworthy 
 biographical detail ; Greek, Roman, and Persian legends 
 there are in plenty, but they contain mere myth and 
 miracle. Indeed, there has been some dispute as to his 
 historicity, and those who have contended for his 
 existence rely upon the support of tradition alone and 
 the probability that a personal influence lay behind the 
 development of the noble religion which is known by his 
 name. In the oldest portion of the Zend-Avesta, known 
 as the Gathas, Zarathustra appears as a simple individual, 
 while in the later Avesta his personality is completely 
 shrouded in myth. 
 
 Zarathustra is stated to have been born in Bactria, at 
 what date is uncertain. He died, according to the best 
 authorities, about 583 B.C. His name indicates that he 
 was a priest attending on the sacred fire, which possibly 
 indicates that Zarathustra was not so much a person as 
 the title of a kind of king-priest. It is said that he 
 retired as a young man to spend years of contemplation, 
 that he began to teach at the age of thirty, and that he 
 lived to the age of seventy-seven. 
 
 His religion was certainly founded before the conquest 
 of Bactria by the Assyrians. Its teaching is based upon 
 the dual conception of a good principle, personified as 
 Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd), in constant conflict with an 
 evil principle in the person of Aura Mainyu (Ahriman),
 
 PERSIA— ZARATHUSTRA 21 1 
 
 which contest must continue until the end of the world, 
 when evil will be finally overcome. Zarathustra's doctrine 
 was the essence of practical ethics : not in abstract con- 
 templation or in separation from the world can man 
 look for spiritual deliverance, but in active charity, in 
 useful deeds, in kindness to animals, in everything that 
 tends to make the world a well-ordered place to live in, 
 in courage, and all uprightness. Than such a creed 
 there can be nothing nobler or more uplifting. 
 
 The Jews came in contact with Zoroastrianism at the 
 period of the Exile, and from it obtained the ideas of a 
 future life and of a personified principle of evil. From 
 the latter was evolved the conception of Satan. 
 
 The teachings of Zarathustra are preserved in the 
 Zend-Avesta, the authorship of which is ascribed to him. 
 It is believed that its contents were revealed to him by 
 the God in conversations. The following are extracts : — 
 
 " Now I shall proclaim to all who have come to listen, 
 the praises of thee, the all-wise Lord, and the hymns of 
 the good Spirit." 
 
 " Hear with your ears what is best, perceive with your 
 mind what is pure, so that every man may for himself 
 choose his tenets before the great doom. May the wise 
 be on our side ! " 
 
 " Those old spirits who are twins made known what 
 is good and what is evil in thoughts, words, and deeds. 
 Those who are good distinguished between the two, not 
 those who are evil-doers." 
 
 " Let us, then, be of those who further this world : oh, 
 Ahuramazda; oh, bliss-conferring Asha ! (truth). Let 
 our mind be there where wisdom abides." 
 
 "Purity is for man, next to life the greatest good. 
 That purity is procured by the law of Mazda to him who 
 cleanses his own self with Good Thoughts, Words, and 
 Deeds." 
 
 " Thou shouldest not become presumptuous through 
 any happiness of the world, for the happiness of the
 
 212 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 world is such like as a cloud that comes on a rainy day, 
 which one does not ward off by any hill." 
 
 § 7. China — Lao-Tsze and Kung-Foo-Tsze 
 
 It has already been mentioned (p. 68) that the myriads 
 of China have three systems, none of which can be strictly 
 called religions. They are Buddhism, Taoism, and Con- 
 fucianism. Taoism was founded by Lao-Tsze, but has 
 little credit now among Chinese. Its priesthood is very 
 ignorant, it has become a chaotic mixture of magic 
 and animism, and, as might be expected when the 
 evolution of religious ideas is borne in mind, is the creed 
 only of the uneducated. 
 
 Lao-Tsze ("The Venerable Master") lived between 
 500 and 600 B.C., and was a noted sage of China. A 
 great thinker, he contemplated, like Buddha, the futility 
 of human life and the best way to cope with it. He was 
 rather a didactic moralist than an active reformer. 
 According to tradition, Kung-Foo-Tsze (Confucius) visited 
 him, and does not appear either to have understood him 
 or to have been received with the courtesy or humility 
 upon which the older sage was so insistent in his teaching. 
 His sayings, which formed the nucleus of Taoism, were 
 called the Tao (meaning "The Way," or "Reason"— 
 i.e., identical with the "Logos"), and contained much 
 that was current long before his time. To those who 
 hold that humility is essentially a Christian teaching, it 
 may be interesting to note that Lao-Tsze cites "that 
 ancient saying, 'He that humbles himself shall be preserved 
 entire,' " and adds : " Oh, it is no vain saying." He seems, 
 however, to have preached rather than practised this 
 virtue. 
 
 The following passages from Lao-Tsze's teachings are 
 worth quotation as being current in ancient civilization 
 long before the New Testament was compiled : — 
 
 " He who is self-displaying does not shine."
 
 CHINA— LAO-TSZE A$D KUNG-FOO-TSZE 213 
 
 11 He who is self-approving is not held in esteem." 
 
 "He who is self-praising has no merit." 
 
 "He who is self-exalting docs not stand high." 
 
 " I have three precious things which I hold fast and 
 praise. The first is called compassion, the second is 
 called economy, and the third is called humility." 
 
 " When in the world beauty is recognized to be 
 beautiful, straightway there is ugliness. When in the 
 world goodness is recognized to be good, straightway 
 there is evil." 
 
 " The good I would meet with goodness. The not- 
 good I would also meet with goodness. Virtue is good." 
 
 "The faithful I would meet with faith. The not- 
 faithful I would also meet with faith. Virtue is faithful." 
 
 "Recompense injury with virtue (kindness)." 
 
 In point of fact, the teachings of Lao-Tsze, being 
 merely passive, were overshadowed by those of Kung- 
 Foo-Tsze ("Kung the Master"), the great teacher and 
 law-giver of the Chinese. Better known to Western 
 learning by his Latinized name of Confucius, this truly 
 great man was never deified, and his teachings have 
 therefore never suffered from the corrupting influence of 
 a priesthood, although, as will be seen, a certain amount 
 of myth has been introduced around his birth. His 
 memory is venerated as that of a man of great and pure 
 mind and integrity; his descendants are honoured, and 
 his precepts hold a prominent place in Chinese education, 
 being learned by heart. 
 
 Confucius was born 551 B.C. His father dying in 548, 
 he was carefully trained by his mother, and early dis- 
 played a love for learning, laws, and country. Owing to 
 the general disorder and corruption of public affairs in 
 his time, he resigned the offices he held and became a 
 public teacher, giving instruction in morality and living 
 up to the ideals he taught. When fifty years old he 
 returned to public life and became a Minister of State, 
 ruling with wisdom and success until the corruption of 
 
 p
 
 214 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 the court forced him again to resign. In poverty he 
 wandered, unheeded or reviled, and devoted his remain- 
 ing years to editing and adding to the Chinese sacred 
 books (see p. 69). He died about 478 B.C., in the seventy- 
 third year of his age. 
 
 His teachings are ethical ; he did not pretend to any 
 knowledge of God or a future life, saying to a disciple : 
 " While you do not know life, how can you know about 
 death?" His whole endeavour was to teach his fellow 
 men how to live. 
 
 A certain amount of myth grew up later concerning 
 Confucius. The cave-birth idea, so frequent in mythology, 
 was grafted on to his biography, and it was stated that 
 his mother, in obedience to a vision, went to a cave in 
 Mount Ne, where she gave him birth ; that genii had 
 announced to her the honour her son would bring her ; 
 that the events were heralded by miraculous portents ; 
 and that fairies attended his nativity. 1 
 
 The sayings of Confucius contain the highest concep- 
 tions of ethic ; they are essentially rationalist and 
 humanist. There can be no better definition of the 
 Golden Rule than : — 
 
 "Tsze-Kung asked, saying, Is there one word which 
 may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life ? The 
 Master said, Is not eecipeocity such a word ? What 
 you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others." 
 
 Confucius accepted religion as a convention, but not as 
 a guide to conduct : — : 
 
 " Ke Loo asked about serving spirits of the dead. The 
 Master said : While you are not able to serve men, how 
 can you serve spirits ? " 
 
 His rationalism is shown by the following : — 
 
 "When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; 
 and when you do not know a thing, to acknowledge that 
 you do not know it — this is knowledge." 
 
 1 Douglas, Confucianism, p. 25.
 
 THE WISDOM OF ANCIENT GREECE 215 
 
 Other notable sayings are : — 
 
 " To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of 
 courage." 
 
 " Pursue the study of virtue as though you could never 
 reach your goal, and were afraid of losing the ground 
 already gained." 
 
 " The real fault is to have faults and not try to amend 
 them." 
 
 § 8. The Wisdom of Ancient Greece 
 
 To contemplate the wisdom of Ancient Greece is to 
 wonder how men could have been so foolish as to permit 
 so much knowledge to be lost during the Dark Ages, and to 
 speculate upon what might have been had the pursuit of 
 science not have been interrupted by that miserable period. 
 
 The history of Greek philosophy is of enthralling 
 interest, for it shows of what the human mind is capable 
 when unfettered by a powerful class whose interest it is 
 to keep it in subjection. It must, therefore, be given in 
 some detail. Philosophic 1 speculation flourished because, 
 while the Greek religion (which was Animistic) possessed 
 plenty of priests, it had no powerful priestly class " accus- 
 tomed," as Benn 2 remarks, " to identify the truth of their 
 opinions about the gods with the preservation of their 
 corporate property." The systematic Greek mythology 
 was, therefore, chiefly the creation of the poets, and its 
 gods were nature-gods. Further, as Professor Bury has 
 said, 3 "the Greeks, fortunately, had no Bible." 
 
 During the first half of the sixth century B.C. the 
 Greeks were largely rationalistic, and their commerce 
 brought them into close contact with the great Oriental 
 civilizations, which necessarily enlarged their sphere of 
 thought and prevented intellectual stagnation. Their 
 intelligence being of a high order and untrammelled by 
 
 1 A philosopher is one who studies nature ; a scholar one who studies 
 history and literature. 
 
 2 Early Greek Philosophy, p. G. 8 History of Freedom of Thought, p. 24.
 
 216 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 either a powerful priesthood or a sacred " inspired " 
 scripture, they picked the useful in Oriental science out 
 of its bed of superstition. The stimulus which started 
 their speculations seems to have come from Egypt. 
 
 The Greek philosophy originated in the early sixth 
 century among the Ionians ; and Thales, of Miletus, was 
 its founder. The school thus inaugurated was called the 
 " Milesian," after his native city. The Ionians were the 
 most intellectual of the whole Hellenic race, and had 
 early evolved a religious scepticism, substituting for 
 the superstitious teaching which had hitherto prevailed a 
 serious scientific explanation of the world. Thales taught 
 that water was the fundamental element, from which all 
 things came ; a conception not so far from the truth, 
 since it has been shown that it was in water that life first 
 began. He wrote nothing, but certain of his sayings 
 have been preserved, among which is that " All things 
 are full of gods " — meaning that everything belonged to 
 the realm of Nature. Anaxlmander, a pupil of Thales, 
 born 610 B.C., wrote a book of which fragments remain. 
 Discarding the water theory, he taught that the primary 
 substance was an indefinite something, without limit in 
 space or time. He made the first map, and conceived 
 the earth as hanging unsupported in space. In his 
 saying that land animals were originally developed from 
 aquatic creatures, and that " man was born from animals 
 of a different species" (because, while other animals 
 quickly find food for themselves, man alone requires a 
 prolonged period of suckling ; hence, had he been 
 originally such as he is now, he could never have sur- 
 vived "), he foreshadowed the doctrine of Evolution. His 
 successor was Anaximenes, who taught that the elementary 
 substance was air : " that which is our soul and consti- 
 tutive principle also holds the universe together." In 
 his explanations he was often in error ; but, as Benn 1 
 
 1 Loc. tit., p. 23.
 
 THE WISDOM OF ANCIENT GREECE 217 
 
 points out, " to ask questions and answer them wrongly 
 helps progress incomparably more than not to ask them 
 at all." 
 
 After the third generation, the Milesian philosophy 
 came to an end in the religious revival which occurred ; 
 but the colonizing tendency of the Ionians spread philo- 
 sophy and multiplied intellectual centres elsewhere. To 
 appreciate this religious revival it must be realized that 
 the Greeks had two systems of religion : the Olympian, 
 whose gods were associated with the sun and sky, the 
 mythology developed by the poets ; and the Chthonian, 
 which comprised the earth gods, with their chief, Pluto, 
 and the vegetation gods. From the latter came the 
 belief in an underworld, a dying, redeeming god, and 
 human immortality, with its conception of future rewards 
 and punishments. The causes of the great religious 
 movement which began in the sixth century were two : 
 the terror and feeling of insecurity due to the wave of 
 Persian conquest, and the growth of democracy, which 
 gave new prominence to popular faiths. Again to quote 
 Benn 1 : " It is a common experience to find the belief in 
 another world utilized by a particular class to further 
 their own interests by working on the superstitious 
 imagination of the vulgar ; and such seems to have been 
 also the case in Greece." To this movement has been 
 given the name " Orphicism," after the mythical Orpheus, 
 embodying the worship of a dying god and the hope of 
 a blessed hereafter. 
 
 Between the Milesian philosophy and the religious 
 revival Pythagoras, who lived during the greater part of 
 the sixth century, came as a connecting link. With him 
 began the Metaphysicians. Pythagoras was born at 
 Samos, and he associated the Orphic belief in immortality 
 with the old Oriental doctrine of " Metempsychosis," or 
 reincarnation, in which each incarnation of the soul 
 
 1 Loc. cit., p. 28.
 
 218 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 depended upon its purity. He also seems to have started 
 the speculation which resulted, two or three centuries 
 later, in the theory that the earth revolves on its own 
 axis and is itself carried round the sun as a central body 
 — a theory to be revived by Copernicus (1473-1543 c.e.) 
 from Greek science. 
 
 With Heracleitus of Ephesus, at the end of the sixth 
 century, came the separation of philosophy from science 
 in the strict sense. Following the Milesian method, he 
 sought for a universal principle, and this he assumed to 
 be fire, which lives by struggling with and assimilating 
 its own opposites, perishing at the moment of its complete 
 triumph. Thus everything is for ever flowing, and every- 
 thing is relative. " Health, goodness, satiety, and rest 
 are made pleasant by sickness, evil, hunger, and fatigue." 
 From his doctrine of fire as the universal principle and 
 his dogma of relativity, Heracleitus evolved his third 
 and greatest idea — that of universal law and order. 
 This he called the "Logos," or reason. It is the same 
 " Logos " as that which we encountered in the Christian 
 faith — the " Logos " of the fourth Gospel, incarnate in 
 Jesus. John probably derived it from Philo of Alexandria, 
 who obtained it from the Stoics, who in turn derived it 
 from Heracleitus. 
 
 Other sayings of Heracleitus are : — 
 
 " Eyes and Ears are bad witnesses to men if they have 
 souls that understand not their language." 
 
 " Wisdom is one thing. It is to know the thought by 
 which all things are steered through all things." 
 
 " Men pray to images, as if one were to talk with a 
 man's house, knowing not what gods or heroes are." 
 
 Mention must be made of Xeiiophanes, the Ionian poet- 
 philosopher, who believed in an infinite source of existence 
 which he identified with the earth ; and of Parmenides of 
 Elea, an Ionian colony in Southern Italy (early fifth 
 century), who recognized the earth to be a sphere, and 
 exercised a great influence over Greek thought. He
 
 THE WISDOM OF ANCIENT GKEECE 219 
 
 considered the whole of being as one uniform, unchange- 
 able, limited, luminous sphere, without parts, beginning, 
 or end : — 
 
 " The whole extends continuously, 
 
 Being by Being set, immovable, 
 
 Subject to the restraint of mighty bonds, 
 
 Both increate and indestructible, 
 
 Since birth and death have wandered far away, 
 
 By true conviction into exile driven. 
 
 The same in self-same place and by itself 
 
 Abiding doth abide most firmly fixed, 
 
 And bounded round by strong Necessity. 
 
 Wherefore a holy law forbids that Being 
 
 Should be without a bound, else want were these, 
 
 And want of that would be a want of all." 
 
 The only disciple of Parmenides was Zeno of Elea, who 
 endeavoured to support his master's denial of motion by 
 such arguments as the famous puzzle of Achilles and the 
 tortoise. With him began the Analytical Philosophers, 
 among whom were the following : — 
 
 Empedocles of Acragas, in Sicily, an original and pro- 
 gressive thinker. He flourished about 444 B.C. He 
 divined the velocity of light, centrifugal and centripetal 
 force, and the non-survival of the unfit, and recognized 
 the sexual reproduction of plants. Among his sayings 
 are : — 
 
 " Blessed is the man who has gained the riches of 
 divine wisdom." 
 
 "By Love do we see Love, and Hate by grievous 
 Hate." 
 
 Melissus (440 B.C.), who wrote a treatise reproducing 
 and varying the main ideas of Parmenides. 
 
 Leucippus, the real founder of the atomic theory, who 
 said: "Nothing happens by chance, everything by law 
 and necessity." 
 
 Democritus, who adopted the atomic theory of Leu-
 
 220 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 cippus and explained theology as a primitive personifica- 
 tion of natural objects. He declared the highest end to 
 be a contented mind, and that sins are to be avoided not 
 from fear, but from a sense of duty. 
 
 Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (born 500 B.C.), who was a 
 link between the earlier schools and those of Athens. 
 He taught that the sun was a red-hot mass of stone, and 
 that the moon was an earthy body shining by reflected 
 light. At Athens, however, speculative freedom was not 
 so complete as elsewhere in Greece, and, as sun and moon 
 were deities, Anaxagoras had to fly the city. 
 
 In ancient Athens education was free, and every citizen 
 was taught to read. The Athenians were placed in the 
 enviable position of having no lawyers, every one pleading 
 his own cause. Philosophy and rhetoric therefore formed 
 the higher education of the citizens, and the demand 
 for this called into existence the teachers known as 
 " Sophists." The first and most famous of these was 
 Protagoras (480-411 B.C.), a great and original thinker. 
 He first discovered the doctrine of human development. 
 To him morality was the very foundation of human life, 
 and punishment was justified as a moralizing agency. 
 Two of his best known sayings are : — 
 
 " As to the gods, I do not know whether they exist or 
 not. Life is too short for such difficult inquiries." 
 
 " Man is the measure of all things, determining what 
 does and what does not exist." 
 
 Among other teachers at Athens were : — 
 
 Hippias the Naturalist, who set a high value upon 
 truth as a virtue. 
 
 Prodicus, who explained the animistic origin of religion. 
 
 Both Hippias and Prodicus taught that nature was the 
 source of law, the contrary of which was held by another 
 great Sophist, 
 
 Gorgias, the Anti-Naturalist, who tried to show that 
 nature did not exist, and taught that virtue is relative to 
 the age and social position of the person concerned.
 
 THE WISDOM OF ANCIENT GREECE 221 
 
 Alcidamas, who taught, with reverence for human law, 
 the abolition of slavery, saying : " God sent all men to be 
 free ; Nature made none a slave." 
 
 These names bring us to one of the greatest of Greek 
 minds, 
 
 Socrates, born near Athens in 469 B.C. In his youth 
 he followed the calling of his father Sophroniscus, a 
 statuary. Healthy and robust, but ugly of face, he 
 possessed great physical endurance and strong moral 
 courage. He was a member of the Senate in 406, but 
 most of his middle and late life was self-devoted to 
 teaching, and he endeavoured to awaken the moral 
 consciousness of men and the impulse after knowledge 
 respecting the end and value of actions. He was not, 
 however, a Sophist. He fought steadfastly against false 
 appearance and conceit of knowledge, and was therefore 
 attacked by Aristophanes and other comic writers. 
 Keeping clear of political parties, he was suspected and 
 persecuted in consequence by all. Falsely accused of 
 corrupting youth and despising the gods, he made a 
 defence the substance of which has been preserved by 
 his disciple Plato. Condemned to death, he drank the 
 poison draught of hemlock, and died with composure and 
 cheerfulness in the seventieth year of his age (399 B.C.). 
 Socrates laid the foundation of formal logic : — 
 
 " Know thyself." 
 
 " To him who has an eye to see there can be no fairer 
 sight than that of a man who combines moral beauty of 
 soul with outward beauty of form." 
 
 " You should be to others what you think I should be 
 to you " (the Golden Rule again). 
 
 " This is most excellent, and will ever continue to be 
 said, that whatever is useful is honourable, and whatever 
 is hurtful is worthless." 
 
 This brief sketch of the wisdom of ancient Greece may 
 be concluded with three other great names. 
 
 Plato, born at Athens 429 B.C., was an ardent admirer
 
 222 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 and follower of Socrates. After the latter's death he 
 withdrew to Megara, and travelled in the pursuit of 
 knowledge. Returning later to Athens, he taught there, 
 and wrote many works on philosophy of great purity of 
 language and elegance of style. He died 347. 
 
 " In every man there are two parts : the better and 
 superior part, which rules, and the worse and inferior 
 part, which serves ; and the ruler is always to be preferred 
 to the servant." 
 
 " The temperate man is the friend of God, for he is 
 like to him." 
 
 Aristotle was born at Staglra in 384 B.C., and studied 
 at Athens under Plato. After the death of his teacher 
 twenty years later, he left Athens, and became, by the 
 wish of Philip of Macedon, instructor to Alexander. In 
 such estimation did Philip hold him that at Aristotle's 
 request he rebuilt the city of his birth. In 335 he returned 
 to Athens and taught philosophy in the Lyceum, dying in 
 322 in his sixty-third year. Here are two of his 
 sayings : — 
 
 " In justice are comprehended all the virtues." 
 
 " The worst man is he who works evil as regards both 
 himself and others ; the best is he who works good not 
 only for himself, but for others — truly a hard task." 
 
 Callimachus, born at Cyrene, was a prolific writer of 
 philosophy, and his works had a great influence. From 
 260 to his death in 240 he was chief librarian at the 
 famous library at Alexandria, where he numbered many 
 distinguished men among his pupils, including Eratos- 
 thenes, who succeeded to his office. 
 
 " Not to every one doth Apollo manifest himself, but 
 only to the good." 
 
 | 9. The Wisdom of Ancient Borne 
 
 If Greece was eminently ideal in her worship of beauty, 
 Rome was eminently practical in her love of law and
 
 THE WISDOM OF ANCIENT ROME 223 
 
 order. But in her later development the direction of 
 thought of her citizens was largely moulded by Greek 
 influence. The following have been selected as represen- 
 tative of her most famous writers : — 
 
 Cicero, the great orator, was born near Arpinum in 
 106 B.C. He received the best possible education in 
 Rome, under the most noted men, and became a pleader 
 in the forum. In 79, having offended Sulla, he went 
 for two years to Athens, and on his return he gained the 
 highest distinction as an orator and held many important 
 offices. He became Consul in 63. Having no sympathy 
 with the popular party, he allied himself to the aristocracy, 
 and, by his prudence and energy, the conspiracy of 
 Cataline was crushed, for which he received great honour. 
 But by his opposition to the popular party he lost 
 support, and when Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus formed 
 the Triumvirate, again retired to Greece. He then 
 became involved in the civil war between Caesar and 
 Pompey, espousing the losing cause of the latter, for 
 which Caesar pardoned him. When the great Caesar 
 was assassinated, Cicero attacked Mark Anthony, and so 
 ruined himself. He was proscribed and beheaded in 43, 
 at the age of sixty-three. As a statesman he was weak, 
 changeful, and vain ; but as an author he shone for 
 eloquence and perfect Latin. 
 
 " The unruly passions of anger and desire are contrary 
 and inimical to reason." 
 
 " Pythagoras thought that there was a soul mingling 
 with^nd pervading all things." 
 
 " My own conscience is of more importance to me 
 than what men say." 
 
 "Nature ordains that a man should wish the good of 
 every man, whoever he may be, and for this very reason — 
 that he is a man." 
 
 Lucretius, a contemporary of Caesar and Cicero, was 
 born 99 B.C., and died in his forty-fourth year. Very 
 little is known of his life, and he probably took no part
 
 224 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 in public affairs, prefering study and retirement. By 
 tradition he is alleged to have suffered from fits of insanity, 
 and to have committed suicide. His name is immor- 
 talized by his (unfinished) poem, De Berum Natura, 
 written to extol the Epicurean system of philosophy, 
 which taught that virtue should be practised because it 
 leads to happiness, in contradistinction to the Stoics, 
 who insisted that it should be cultivated for its own sake. 
 "Apply to true reason unbusied ears and a keen mind 
 withdrawn from cares." 
 
 " But this I charge thee : Suffer not the thought that 
 Reason's creed will lure thee impiously to the steep path 
 of sin." 
 
 " Wilt thou hesitate and think it a hardship to die — 
 thou for whom life is well nigh dead while yet thou 
 
 livest and seest the light when thou art sore 
 
 pressed on all sides with full many cares ?" 
 
 •' So invariably is truth found to make head against 
 false reason and to cut off all retreat from the assailant, 
 and by a two-fold refutation to put falsehood to rout." 
 
 " Violence and wrong enclose all who commit them 
 in their meshes, and do mostly recoil on him from whom 
 they began." 
 
 " For nothing is harder than to separate manifest facts 
 from doubtful, which the mind without hesitation adds 
 on of itself." 
 
 Seneca was born at Cordova in 3 B.C., the son of 
 Seneca the rhetorician, himself a writer. He was weak 
 in body but studious of mind. He became a pleader, and 
 by his ability excited the hatred of the Emperor Caligula, 
 so that he was banished to Corsica, where he remained 
 for eight years. Recalled to Rome, he was appointed 
 praetor and tutor to the young Domitius. When the 
 latter became the odious Emperor Nero, Seneca remained 
 his adviser, and did his best to check his excesses. Seeing 
 that he was becoming irksome to Nero, who coveted the 
 wealth that he had amassed, he asked leave to retire.
 
 THE WISDOM OF ANCIENT ROME 225 
 
 This was granted, and for a time Seneca lived in seclusion. 
 In 65 c.e., however, Nero ordered his death ; he opened 
 his veins, but, death not coming quickly enough, he was 
 finally suffocated in a vapour stove, expiring with the 
 courage of a Stoic. He wrote much upon moral, physical, 
 and philosophical questions. The similarity of his trend 
 of thought to that of the writer of the Pauline Epistles 
 has already been noted (p. 185). 
 
 "He who means to do an injury has already done it." ' 
 " It is enough for God that he be worshipped and 
 loved." 
 
 " God comes to men : nay, what is closer, he comes 
 into them." 
 
 " You must live for another if you wish to live for 
 yourself." 
 
 " So live with men as if God saw you ; so speak with 
 God as if men heard you." 
 
 Epictetus (40-120 c.e.), a celebrated Stoic philosopher, 
 was born in Phrygia, and was a freedman of Epaphro- 
 ditus, himself the freedman of Nero. Very little is 
 known of his life, but he was expelled from Rome by the 
 Emperor Domitian, and retired to Nicopolis. He wrote 
 nothing, but a short manual was compiled from his 
 discourses by his pupil Arrian. 
 
 " Now, if virtue promises good fortune and tranquillity 
 and happiness, certainly also the progress towards virtue 
 is progress towards each of these things." 
 
 " Man, you ought not to be affected contrary to nature 
 by the bad things of another. Pity him rather ; drop 
 this readiness to be offended and to hate." 
 
 " What ought not to be done, do not even think of 
 doing." 
 
 "God is within you." 
 
 When asked how a man could grieve his enemy, 
 
 1 Compare Shakespeare : " How oft the means to do ill deeds mikes ill 
 deeds done."
 
 22G LIVES OP GBEAT TEACHERS 
 
 Epictetus answered : " By preparing himself to act in the 
 noblest way." 
 
 Milan (Claudius iElianus) flourished in the second 
 century c.e., and wrote Varice Histories (or Miscellanies) 
 and De Natura Animalium (or Natural History). 
 
 " Not only is he who does evil bad, but also he who 
 thinks to do evil." 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, one of the finest men in thought and 
 practice of any age, was born 121 c.e. His real name 
 was M. Annius Verus, and he was of noble descent. His 
 father, Annius Verus, held high offices in Rome, and his 
 grandfather was thrice Consul. The latter adopted him 
 when his parents died young. Fortunate in his upbring- 
 ing, his fine character attracted the Emperor Hadrian, 
 who said he was not Verus, but Verissimus — more 
 truthful than his own name. His aunt Faustina was 
 the wife of Antoninus Pius, afterwards Emperor, who 
 adopted him, changed his name to M. Aurelius Antoninus, 
 and betrothed him to his daughter Faustina. He placed 
 him under able teachers, who trained him in the strict 
 doctrine of the Stoic philosophy. His education was 
 eminently adapted to ensure a sane mind in a healthy 
 body. After becoming Consul in 140, and marrying in 
 145, he succeeded to the Imperial State on the death of 
 Antoninus Pius in 161. Soon engaged in war with 
 Parthia and several frontier tribes, he was obliged to 
 make an unsatisfactory peace owing to the revolt of 
 Cassius, whom he would have forgiven had that rebel 
 not been assassinated. He had several children, but 
 only one, the worthless and vile Commodus, survived 
 him. He died in Pannonia in 180. Marcus Aurelius 
 was a successful and capable soldier and a prudent and 
 conscientious administrator, making laws to protect the 
 weak and to lighten the lot of slaves, and endowing 
 charitable institutions for the rearing and education of 
 poor children. His "Golden Book" of Meditations 
 contains many fine and noble thoughts : —
 
 MOHAMMED AND HIS TEACHING 227 
 
 " Men exist for one another. Teach them then, or 
 bear with them. Not to do likewise is the best revenge." 
 
 " No mere talk of what the good man should be. 
 Be it." 
 
 " Never esteem anything as profitable which shall 
 ever constrain thee either to break thy faith or to lose 
 thy modesty." 
 
 " Let nothing be done rashly and at random, but all 
 things according to the most exact and perfect rules 
 of art." 
 
 " To desire things impossible is the part of a madman." 
 
 " That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be 
 good for the bee." 
 
 " The true joy of a man is to do that which properly 
 belongs unto a man." 
 
 " Beget thyself by continual pains and endeavours to 
 true liberty with charity, and true simplicity and 
 modesty." 
 
 " He that is unjust is also impious." 
 
 11 If it be not fitting, do it not. If it be not true, 
 speak it not. Ever maintain thine own purpose and 
 resolution free from all compulsion and necessity." 
 
 § 10. Mohammed and his Teaching 
 
 Mohammed, the founder of Islam, 1 occupies an unique 
 position among the founders of the great religions ; he is 
 known to be a real person, who made no claim to 
 divinity, but merely acclaimed an already established 
 God. Yet even he, who died less than thirteen centuries 
 ago, has during that time received a coating of legend. 
 Nearly all the facts of Mohammed's life are known, and 
 it can be seen how in the course of the evolution which 
 
 1 The meaning of Islam is "to be at rest" — i.e., submission to the will 
 and commandments of God. Moslem, or Muslim, is derived from Islam, 
 and signifies "a righteous man."
 
 228 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 is inevitable to all creeds the religion which he proclaimed 
 has been crusted over with myth and superstition. 
 
 Mohammed was born at Mecca in 571 C.E., of Abdallah 
 and Amina. One of the myths that seem inseparable 
 from the birth of such men solemnly states that the 
 infant was taken from his mother's arms by angels who, 
 carefully abstracting his heart from his breast, squeezed 
 from it the black drop of sin which lurks in every 
 descendant of the mythical Adam. Mohammed's father 
 died when the child was but two months old, his mother 
 when he was six, his grandfather Abdal Motalleb when 
 he was nine ; and he was brought up by his uncle Abu 
 Talleb. He was a delicate lad, and is said to have been 
 subject to epilepsy. This has been stigmatized by Gibbon 1 
 as " an absurd calumny of the Greeks," but certain 
 passages in the prophet's life seem to support it. He 
 was of a contemplative nature, and lived a simple life. 
 When twenty-four years old he entered the service of 
 Cadijah, a rich widow, whom he shortly afterwards 
 married. In person he was handsome and inspired con- 
 fidence, although he could not look any one straight in 
 the face. 
 
 At forty (610) he retired to a cave in Mount Hera, 
 three miles from Mecca, where he experienced dreams 
 and visions — possibly the hallucinations of sight and 
 hearing not uncommon to epileptics — which caused him 
 to proclaim himself the Prophet of God. 2 
 
 The Arab religion at this period was an animistic 
 polytheism, including the worship of stones. The famous 
 black stone, called the "Kaaba," a huge meteorite supposed 
 to have fallen to earth from Paradise with Adam, was a 
 special object of adoration at Mecca. The Mohammedans 
 
 1 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Everyman ed., vol. v, p. 270. 
 Gibbon appears to have regarded Mohammed with reverence, and would 
 not allow anything to his disparagement. 
 
 2 Asylum experience shows that religious mania is very common in 
 epileptic insanity, the sufferers from which are fond of preaching in odd 
 corners.
 
 MOHAMMED AND HIS TEACHING 229 
 
 borrowed much from the Jews, with whom they came 
 into frequent contact. Mohammed preached the "religion 
 of Abraham," so presumably the Allah of the Moslem is 
 identical with the Yahweh of the Jew ; the one seems as 
 self-laudatory in the Koran as is the other in the Old 
 Testament. Indeed, much of the sayings of Allah in the 
 sacred book of Islam reads somewhat like the proclama- 
 tion of a vain-glorious Eastern monarch. According to 
 Mohammed, Allah had sent six prophets to earth to 
 acclaim him : Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and 
 himself. The last Prophet of God enjoined men to 
 live a good life and to strive to please Allah by the 
 triple effort of prayer, charity, and fasting. He sternly 
 forbade the fashioning of images of any living thing 
 (hence the Mohammedans have no pictorial or sculp- 
 tured art of that kind), ordained mercy for the feeble 
 and the fatherless, and abstinence from gambling, 
 tobacco, and intoxicants. He was uncompromisingly 
 monotheistic, and condemned the doctrine of the trinity 
 as infidel. 1 
 
 Mohammed's first converts were his personal friends, 
 and for some time he was derided, reviled, and bitterly 
 attacked. His wife Cadijah died, he fell into poverty, 
 and a plot was formed to take his life. A spy (according 
 to tradition, an angel) revealed the conspiracy, and he 
 fled from Mecca to Medina. This flight, which occurred 
 in 622, was the turning-point in his career. The year 
 is called that of the Hegira, and from it the Moslems 
 compute their dates. Welcomed at Medina, he made 
 many converts, and became a warrior. Ten years later 
 he returned to Mecca at the head of an army, and 
 henceforth he enforced his faith with the sword. He 
 subjugated Mecca, a place which, as the cradle of the 
 
 1 "They surely are infidels who say, 'God is the third of three'; for 
 there is no God but one God : and if they refrain not from what they say, 
 a grievous chastisement shall light on such of them as arc infidels " (Koran, 
 Sura v, "The Table," v. lxxvii). 
 
 Q
 
 230 LIVES OF GEEAT TEACHEES 
 
 Arab race, was a holy city long before Mohammed was 
 born. Later he returned to Medina, and in 632 died, in 
 his sixty-second year, from a fever which he himself 
 believed was due to poison. His death was the occasion 
 of deep grief and some consternation, as numbers of his 
 people believed him to be immortal. He was buried at 
 Medina. 
 
 The Koran, the sacred book of Islam, was wholly the 
 work of Mohammed, and is regarded by the Moslems 
 as inspired and eternal. It consists of 114 chapters (or 
 "Suras"), dictated by him to scribes, and contains the 
 revelations he believed he had received when in the cave 
 at Mount Hera. He guarded against the possible later 
 corruption of his text by such warnings as : — 
 
 " Woe to those who with their own hands transcribe 
 the Book corruptly, and then say, ' This is from God,' 
 that they may sell it for some mean price ! Woe then 
 to them for that which their hands have written ! and, 
 Woe to them for the gains which they have made ! " 
 
 The Koran suffers in translation from the pure and 
 magnificent Arabic in which it is written. It is difficult 
 to select passages for quotation here, but the following 
 will give some conception of the vigour of its language 
 and the soundness of its ethic : — 
 
 " Woe to those who stint the measure : who, when 
 they take by measure from others, exact the full ; but 
 when they mete to them or weight to them, minish — 
 What ! have they no thought that they shall be raised 
 again for the great day ? " 
 
 "Perish the liars, who are bewildered in the depths of 
 ignorance ! " 
 
 " My Lord ! bestow on me wisdom, and join me to the 
 just, and give me a good name among posterity." 
 
 " What ! Canst thou then make the deaf to hear, or 
 guide the blind and him who is in palpable error ? " 
 
 " Man prayeth for evil as he prayeth for good ; for 
 man is hasty."
 
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 231 
 
 " The fate of every man have I bound about his neck." 
 
 " And touch not the substance of the orphan, unless in 
 an upright way, till he attain his age of strength ; and 
 perform your covenant. Verily the covenant shall be 
 inquired of." 
 
 " Give freely for the cause of God, and throw not 
 yourselves with your own hands into ruin ; and do good, 
 for God loveth those who do good." 
 
 " Verily, they who give alms, both men and women, 
 and they who lend a generous loan to God — doubled shall 
 it be to them ; and they shall have a noble compromise." 
 
 " Believers ! avoid frequent suspicions, for some sus- 
 picions are a crime ; and pry not : neither let the one of 
 you traduce another in his absence. Would any one of 
 you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother ? Surely ye 
 would loathe it. And fear ye God : for God is ready to 
 turn, merciful." 
 
 Finally, comparison may be made between the saying 
 of Abou Bekr, Mohammed's son-in-law, with the practice 
 of a country, professedly Christian, which recently incurred 
 the disgust and condemnation of its opponents : — 
 
 " Be just : the unjust never prosper. Be valiant : die 
 rather than yield. Be merciful : slay neither old men, 
 children, nor women. Destroy neither fruit trees, grain, 
 nor cattle. Keep your word, even to your enemies." 
 
 § 11. Summary and Conclusion 
 
 A brief summary must now be made of the foregoing 
 pages. Therein the world's great religious systems have 
 been surveyed, and some account has been given of the 
 evolution of the religious ideas which led up to them. 
 First came Naturism, in which there is merely a vague 
 conception of some mysterious, impalpable, impersonal 
 power behind every event of life. Then man passed 
 through Animism, which assigns to every object, animate 
 and inanimate, a personal spirit — the only explanation of
 
 232 LIVES OF GKEAT TEACHEKS 
 
 natural phenomena possible to the slowly developing mind 
 of primitive man. From these beginnings emerged later 
 the elaborate systems of Egypt, Chaldaea, India, and the 
 other mighty civilizations of the past. From what has 
 been said in Chapters I to IV it will be gathered that the 
 mental processes of man have been no more exempt from 
 the influence of evolution than has his body or have the 
 bodies of other animals. The gradual unfolding process 
 of religious ideas has been the result of the evolution of 
 man's psychic faculties, and can be traced, by the com- 
 parison of what is known of his past history with the 
 results of the study of existing primitive races, prac- 
 tically from the dawn of speech through man's dominant 
 characteristic of inquiry. 
 
 It will also have been gathered that the general line 
 of thought has been much the same all over the world, 
 and that certain leading ideas have been prominently 
 developed. These leading ideas are : — 
 
 1. The conception of the sun as the controlling power, 
 or deity. 
 
 2. The conception of vegetation-gods, and, through 
 these by natural thought sequence, the sacrifice of 
 saviour gods for the special benefit of mankind. 
 
 3. The conception of a life after death. 
 
 Side by side with these has gone on the accumulation 
 of what may be called " stock myths," which have been 
 applied repeatedly in every great religion— e.g., imma- 
 culate conceptions, virgin births, cave births, miracles, etc. 
 
 In many cases the acquisition of certain arts and crafts, 
 the origin of which had become lost sight of in a few 
 generations (for antiquity does not stand for a very long 
 period of time with primitive man), has been ascribed to 
 certain gods or culture heroes, who may have been 
 wholly fabulous in some instances, or may have actually 
 existed as great teachers who became deified. These 
 benefactors were regarded as teaching gods, and in many 
 cases they have been amalgamated with saviour gods.
 
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 233 
 
 All religions have two aspects — ceremonial and ethical. 
 The ceremonial part consists of ritual, prayer, and 
 sacrifice. This aspect of religion has generally passed 
 into the control of a special priesthood, which has, for 
 interested reasons not unconnected with lust for power 
 and revenue, exploited it as a potent instrument for 
 playing upon the superstitious fears of the uneducated 
 and unthinking mass of the people by appealing to their 
 sensuous feelings. This part of a religion has often 
 become its greatest blot, allowing free play to the most 
 gross intolerance, cruelty, and oppression. 1 To it, on the 
 other hand, music, drama, and other arts have owed in 
 great part their development. 
 
 It may be said with justice that a powerful priesthood 
 has never worked for the good of humanity. Reform 
 has always come from the outside, either by the efforts 
 of a powerful and enlightened ruler (in which case, as 
 in that of Akh-na-ten, it has not always been permanent), 
 or from the evolution of public opinion. It was the 
 growth of public opinion and not the efforts of the Church 
 that reformed the poor law, just as it was the growth 
 of public opinion that abolished the terrible human 
 sacrifices of the South American religions in the face of 
 a bloodthirsty priesthood. It is only when it realizes 
 that its power is seriously threatened that a priesthood 
 bows to reform. An historical case of comparatively 
 recent date may be cited as an example. It was not the 
 Church, the supposed instrument for the teaching of a 
 gospel of love and mercy, that abolished torture in 
 England ; it was the intrepid courage of a fanatic. When 
 John Felton had assassinated Buckingham in 1628, he 
 was questioned by Archbishop Laud in order to make 
 him incriminate others. Threatened impatiently by the 
 minister of Jesus with " You must confess or go to the 
 
 1 "So great the evils to which religion could prompt ! " says Lucretius 
 (book i).
 
 234 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 rack," Felton coolly replied : " If I am racked, my Lord, 
 I may happen to incriminate your Lordship." The 
 Primate, alarmed, referred the matter to the king, who 
 ordered Felton to be tortured to the full extent the law 
 allowed ; and it was found that torture did not come 
 within the power of English law. From that time, the 
 rack and other instruments in the Tower lay idle and 
 rusting. 1 It should be remembered that it was from the 
 Church that the greatest opposition to the doctrine of 
 Evolution and the introduction of chloroform came, and 
 that, finding itself powerless to stay progress, it is now, 
 in the case of Evolution, in the process of performing 
 a solemn volte face. 
 
 The ethical part of religion has been due less to the 
 religion itself than to the carefully reasoned thoughts of 
 men of higher intellect. What is especially noteworthy 
 is that the highest ethic runs upon practically similar 
 lines in all ages and in all quarters of the globe. The 
 greatest ethic of all is the Golden Rule of reciprocity, 
 and this is traceable from very early historic times as 
 the product of the social faculty. The ethic of Ancient 
 Egypt, as has been shown by quotations from the Book 
 of the Dead, was as sublime as any belonging to modern 
 times. 
 
 The next point for attention is the development of 
 sacred writings, or " scriptures," and the fact that every 
 such writing has been claimed to be " inspired." The 
 only inspiration comes from the best of man's thought, 
 the product of his brain cells. It may be said truly, 
 therefore, that intellect and inspiration are one and the 
 same, and that every great thinker is inspired, whether 
 his writings be " sacred " or " profane." There are as 
 great thoughts in the following lines of Shakespeare and 
 Tennyson as any to be found in the Bible or in the quota- 
 tions already given from the various scriptures : — 
 
 1 General Yoimghusband, The Tower of London from Within, p. 231.
 
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 235 
 
 This above all : to thine own self be true, 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man. 
 
 (Hamlet.) 
 
 To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
 Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 
 To the last syllable of recorded time ; 
 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
 The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle ! 
 Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, 
 That struts and frets his hour upon the stage 
 And then is heard no more. 
 
 (Macbeth.) 
 
 I hold it truth of him who sings 
 To one clear harp, in divers tones, 
 That men may rise, on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves, to higher things. 
 
 (In Memoriam) 
 
 In Chapters V to VIII were traced the processes by 
 which the Old and New Testaments, which together 
 form our Bible, were built up. For this purpose the 
 early history of the Jews and of the rise and progress 
 of Christianity required to be sketched, and some inquiry 
 was made in addition into the myths of other peoples. 
 The conclusions necessarily drawn from this study may 
 be thus set out : — 
 
 In the case of the Old Testament it was shown that 
 the books of which it is composed were drawn from 
 different sources at different ages, and that the materials 
 were so badly edited that numerous contradictions and 
 discrepancies are apparent even to a casual observer. 
 It was also shown that the contents of the books 
 comprise the history (often falsified to suit the purposes 
 of a powerful priesthood), traditions, laws, and poetry 
 of the Jews, together with certain myth material 
 borrowed from the civilizations with which they came 
 in contact.
 
 236 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 In the case of the New Testament there were indica- 
 tions of two separate parts — a teaching section and a 
 biographical section ; the former containing the exposition 
 of a metaphysical dogma of belief (the "Logos") which 
 reflected largely the general direction of thought of the 
 age in which it was written, interpolated freely by later 
 authors in order to reconcile its teachings with subsequent 
 developments. This teaching was adapted rather to the 
 intellectual minority than to the uneducated majority. 
 For the latter there was the biographical section, repre- 
 sented by the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. 
 This was proved to be dubious as to its history, to contain 
 discrepancies both of narrative and of chronology when 
 compared with contemporary records, together with 
 many of the stock myths alluded to above and passages 
 adapted wholesale from earlier Jewish literature. 
 
 In addition there was an apocalyptic book of evident 
 Jewish origin, but showing ample traces of adaptation to 
 Christian needs. 
 
 Before the results of such an inquiry all claim to 
 inspiration in the sense in which the theologian under- 
 stands the word completely disappears. The Bible is no 
 more " inspired " than the Koran, the Zendavesta, or 
 any other sacred book ; no more, indeed, than the 
 Odyssey or "Evangeline." The question, therefore, 
 inevitably arises : In what way can the Bible be studied 
 in order that it may yield pleasure and profit to the 
 earnest student ? The reply is simple. It can be studied 
 with delight for its simple, rugged beauty, and as the 
 poetic literature of a great people with whose history 
 the world would be but scantily acquainted had its 
 scriptures not been preserved. It can be studied as a 
 mine of folklore, myth, tradition, and ancient social 
 laws, and as an example of the evolution of religion. 
 Finally, it can be studied for the edification afforded by 
 its ethical teachings, and, making due allowance for 
 discrepancies and contradictions in the light of social
 
 SUMMAKY AND CONCLUSION 237 
 
 evolution, as a guide to right living ; especially if it be 
 thus taken in the same broad way that one would pursue 
 with the ethical teachings in other writings, whether 
 religious or secular ; that is to say, such a study must be 
 made upon strict lines of comparative ethics. 
 
 It may be thought that criticism of the kind which has 
 been followed in these pages is wholly destructive ; that, 
 leaving nothing in its stead, it deprives mankind of a 
 religion which should be a shining light to guide them 
 in their search for better things, and to indicate the way 
 to the highest form of right living. Emphatically this is 
 not so. Eather does it clear away the briars and weeds 
 in which man's best work has been entangled and too 
 often choked, and point the high road to future progress. 
 The blood-stained records of Christianity show, unfortu- 
 nately, that its most ardent professors have too often 
 been intolerant, ruthless, narrow — in a word, grossly 
 unethical. 
 
 The only royal road for human progress lies in the 
 disentanglement of man from the rank growth of degrad- 
 ing superstitions which have so long impeded him, and 
 in the uncompromising search after truth, as exemplified 
 in the methods of science and the clear comprehension of 
 the highest ethic. Such an ideal may not be immediately 
 obtainable, but its realization at no very distant date 
 is reasonably certain if the right means be adopted. 
 When the slow and gradual evolution of humanity 
 during long ages is remembered, there is, indeed, good 
 ground for optimism. " Those million years of early 
 human development were only a prelude Accord- 
 ing to the best estimates of mathematicians, man 
 will remain on this earth for something more than 
 ten million years yet. At the rate at which we have 
 gone for the last hundred years, this period of time 
 opens out a prospect of such happy developments as are 
 beyond the capacity of the liveliest imagination. We 
 are the factors of evolution to-day. "We are the masters
 
 238 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHEES 
 
 and the creators. Let us get the plan right and forge 
 ahead." l 
 
 What is the plan that must be got right in order that 
 mankind must forge ahead ? If one may be allowed to 
 prophesy, it will be that man must treat religion as he 
 treats an ore. When the latter is dealt with, the metal 
 is separated from the matrix, and refined again and again 
 until the pure element alone remains, free from dross. 
 By the application of this process to religion, the ores of 
 different creeds and faiths, analysed by criticism, will be 
 smelted in the furnace of reason. Thus the gold of ethic 
 will be separated from the matrix of primitive dross, 
 formed of anthropomorphic gods, superstition, and magic, 
 and held together by sacerdotalism; and it will be refined 
 by the use of experience. For such a development in the 
 ages yet left to man there must be right education. 
 Right education will lie in the universal teaching of the 
 truth about things ; the instruction of all youth, without 
 distinction of classes, in the true knowledge of the things 
 around them, of the making of the earth, of their relation 
 to other forms of life, and of the evolution of the race both 
 bodily and mental. Finally, there will be instruction in 
 ethics, not in theory alone, but in theory concurrently 
 with practice. Only in such perfect knowledge can be 
 found perfect happiness ; and such education must be 
 international. The old destructive and obstructive pro- 
 fessions will no longer be the ruling ones ; they will 
 disappear, giving place to the two callings which, being 
 constructive, must be reckoned as the highest — the 
 Teaching and the Healing. When it is recognized that 
 the vast sums now wasted upon armaments and churches 
 could be better employed upon right education and charity, 
 the goal will be in sight, even though far off. 
 
 To those who argue that we would deprive man of 
 God and the hope of eternal life, it may be answered : 
 
 ' Joseph McCabe, The ABC of Evolution, p. 106.
 
 SUMMAKY AND CONCLUSION 239 
 
 First, that man's best claim to immortality lies in works 
 that bring with them the blessings and acclamations of 
 his fellows; and, second, that man may both profess and 
 live up to the finest creed without bringing a Deity into 
 question. That man can die, and die willingly and 
 composedly, without the supposed blessings of religion 
 and the " sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrec- 
 tion," has been proved by Socrates, Seneca, and many 
 another great mind before and since ; aye, and by men 
 of humbler intellect than they. In modern times there 
 can be no more striking example than that to be found 
 in the noble letters of the gentle lady whose eloquent 
 and modest Words in Pain 1 were written during years 
 of hopeless suffering, and with the full knowledge that 
 they were penned under the slowly deepening shadow of 
 death. Men have lived good and blameless lives in 
 spite of religion ; as witness the following passage from 
 Mr. McCabe's " Creed of a Eationalist " 2 :— 
 
 " Let your life be as happy and sunshiny as you can 
 make it. Have the good sense to find a joy in work as 
 well as in play. Hurt no man — especially no girl or 
 child, or you deserve the cat. Be sober. Do not invite 
 headaches on the morrow. Kesent injustice and lying, 
 for the good of all. Smite humbugs and sordid and 
 selfish people joyfully, until the brood is extinct. Be 
 honourable, truthful, and kind ; for honour, truth, and 
 kindness are basic conditions of a healthy and happy 
 time for the human family. Cultivate refinement, for it 
 doubles one's capacity for happiness. Cherish wisdom 
 and dread illusion ; for the paths of life are slippery with 
 the blood and tears of the unwise. Beware of verbiage. 
 Keep a strong and self-conscious personality ; for there 
 are too many people ready to exploit it. Fear neither God 
 nor devil nor priest nor bogy-man, but help to make your 
 
 1 Now issued by Watts & Co.; 3s. 3d. 
 
 2 The Literary Guide, No. 291, p. 129.
 
 240 LIVES OF GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 fellows such that you can walk cheerfully and helpfully 
 with them to the end of the road. Do unto others as 
 you would that they would do unto you." 
 
 No faith can offer a better creed than this. But, as 
 Huxley said, "it is an error to imagine that evolution 
 signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection," 1 
 and man may retrogress, as he has, to some extent, done 
 before. Yet, even if one adopts this more pessimistic 
 view of things, the uncompromising pursuit of truth still 
 offers the best prospect for mankind. To educate our youth 
 as has been suggested, to inculcate the Golden Rule as 
 a line of conduct far above the theology of the " two-and- 
 seventy jarring sects," cannot but make for their greater 
 health and happiness. 
 
 Evolution and Ethics (Macmillan ; 1903), p. 199.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ABOU Bekr, 231 
 Abraham. 74, 109 ; and 
 
 Isaac, 109 
 Achilles, 219 
 Acts, 173, 179, 182 
 Adam, 100 
 Adonis, 141, 146, 150, 
 
 161, 165 
 JElian, 226 
 iEsculapius, 162, 166 
 Age, Bronze, 15 ; Copper, 
 
 15 ; Iron, 16 ; Patriar- 
 chal, 75 ; Stone, 14, 17 
 Ahikar, 121 ; sayings of, 
 
 121 
 Akh-na-ten, 67,68,200/., 
 
 233 
 Akkado - Sumerians, 73, 
 
 101 
 Alcidanius. 221 
 Alexander the Great, 80, 
 
 222 
 Alpha and Omega, 157 
 Amphibians, 11 
 Amphioxus, 10 
 Amun-hotep III, 200 ; 
 
 IV. See Akh-na-teu 
 Analytical philosophers, 
 
 the, 219 
 Anaxagoras, 220 
 Animism, 29. 193 
 Ankh, 132, 164 
 Antiochus Epiphanes. 80, 
 
 122, 124 
 Apes, 11, 13 
 Apion, 172 
 
 Apocalypse, 157, 164, 173 
 Apocrypha, 96, 190 
 Apostles, 163 
 Aristotle, 222 
 Astrology, 102 
 Astronomy, 3 
 Athens, 165, 220, 222 
 Attis, 141, 146. 150, 161, 
 
 162 
 
 BABEL, Tower of, 107 
 Bacchanalia, 125, 146 
 Bacchus, 49 ; Saint, 148 
 Balder, 165 
 
 Baptism, 137, 141, 161 
 
 Baruch, 173 
 
 Benn, A. W., 215 
 
 Bethels, 129 
 
 Bible, 70 ; as a sacred 
 
 book, 71 ; Hebrew, 82 ; 
 
 literary beauties, 98 
 Birds, 11 
 Blagden, 33, 105 
 Bless, to, 115n. 
 Borrow, Geo., 71 
 Brahmanism, 69, 203/f. 
 Buddha, 70, 120, 143, 
 
 161, 175, 205/. 
 Buddhism, 68, 70, 203, 
 
 205/. 
 Bullen, F., 126 
 Bury, Prof., 215 
 
 CALLLMACHUS, 222 
 
 Cambyses, 80 
 
 Cannibalism, 109 
 
 Canon, 96, 177 
 
 Captivity, the, 78 
 
 Cardinall, 31 
 
 Carpenter, Ed., 158u. 
 
 Caxton, 62 
 
 Cell, 8 
 
 Celsus, 177 
 
 Chaldasa, 73, 202 
 
 Chamisso, 30 
 
 China, 68, 212 
 
 Christ, 157 
 
 Christianity, failure of, 
 194 ; organization of, 
 155 ; origin and rise of, 
 133/.; reasons for sur- 
 vival of, 152 ; what it 
 absorbed, 156 
 
 Christmas, 140 
 
 Chronicles, 93, 168 
 
 Cicero, 223 
 
 Clement, 172 
 
 Clodd,E.,37,6S».,117H., 
 159;i.,204u. 
 
 Colossians, ISO 
 
 Confucianism, 6S, 69, 
 213/. 
 
 Confucius, 65, 69, 175, 
 213/. 
 
 241 
 
 Copernicus, 72, 218 
 
 Constantine, the Em- 
 peror, 156 
 
 Conybeare, F. C, 186 
 
 Corinthians, 162, 172, 
 177, 179 
 
 Coster, 62 
 
 Creation, Bible story of, 
 99/.; other stories of, 
 101/. 
 
 Criobolia, 162 
 
 Cronia, 125 
 
 Cross, the, 141, 164 
 
 Crucifixion, 147, 164 
 
 Crustacea, 10 
 
 Culture-heroes, 56 
 
 Cumont, 139n. 
 
 Cuneiform writing, 67 
 
 Cybele, 161, 162, 167 
 
 Cymon and Iphigenia, 
 111 
 
 Cyrus, 78, 79 
 
 Daniel, 91, 93, 122, 172 
 
 Daniel, story of, 122 
 
 Darius, 57 
 
 Darwin, Chas., 7, 72 
 
 David, 77 
 
 Davids, Khys, 208n. 
 
 Dead, Book of tlie, 68, 
 
 107n., 132, 157, 196/. 
 Death, 31 ; origin of, 45 
 Delilah, 116 
 Demeter, 150, 161, 165, 
 
 167 
 Demetrius, Saint, 143 
 Democritus, 219 
 Deuteronomy, 84,88, 131, 
 
 145 
 Devil, the, 163, 165 
 Devil-doctors, 39 
 Didaclif, the, 163, 169 
 Dionysius, Saint, 143 
 Dionysus, 49, 115, 141. 
 
 143, 146, 150, 163, 165 
 Disciples, the, 162 
 Dipnoids, 11 
 Doctors, origin of, 41 
 Dog, 14 
 Domesticated animals, 14
 
 242 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Dramas, mystery, 150 
 Drawings, bushman, 56 ; 
 prehistoric, 13, 56 
 
 EARTH, age of, 3 
 Easter, 140 
 Ebionites, 153 
 Ecclesiastes, 94, 120 
 Ecclesiasticus, 168, 169 
 Echidna, 11 
 Echinoderms, 10 
 Edwards, Chilperic, 123u. , 
 
 203». 
 Egypt, 68, 76, 196 
 Elea, 218, 219 
 Eleutherius, Saint, 143 
 Empedocles, 219 
 Enoch, 172, 173 
 Eolithic age, 14 
 Ephesicms, 179 
 Epictetus, 172, 225 
 Epicureans, 224 
 Eratosthenes, 222 
 Essenes, 137 
 Esther, 91, 94 
 Esther, story of, 124/. 
 Eucharists, 110 
 Evolution, laws of, 7 ; 
 
 theory of, 7, 72 
 Exile, the. See Captivity 
 Exodus, 88, 127,130, 131, 
 
 169 
 Ezekiel, 90, 164 
 Ezra, 93, 123, 124, 131 
 
 PALL of man, 45, 102/. 
 
 Fasting, 40 
 
 Fear, 38, 4S 
 
 Felix, 183 
 
 Felton, John, 233 
 
 Fire, 13 
 
 Fischer, E. L., 141n. 
 
 Flood, Deucalion's, 105, 
 
 107; Noah's, 104/.; 
 
 Ogyges's, 105 ; stories 
 
 compared, 106 
 Forty, the number, 76 
 Fossils, 6 
 Frazer, Sir J. ,37, 38, 44, 
 
 101, 105, 107, 125, 126, 
 
 145, 147 
 Future, the, 237 
 
 Galatians, 179 
 Galileo, 72 
 
 Gautama. See Buddha 
 Genesis, 88, 127 
 Geology, 5 
 
 Ghost, Holy, 159 
 
 Ghosts, 21$. 
 
 Gilgal, 114 
 
 Gilgamesh, epic of, 67 
 
 Gnostics, the, 179re. 
 
 Gods, 50 ; anthropomor- 
 phic, 51 ; saviour, 50, 
 145 ; sun, 141, 145 ; 
 teaching, 56, 166 ; vege- 
 tation, 141, 145 
 
 Golden Rule, the, 194, 
 204. 214, 234, 240 
 
 Good Shepherd, the, 159 
 
 Gorgias, 220 
 
 Gospels, the, 167, 178, 
 185/; Apocryphal, 190 
 
 Gould, F. J., 171, 173»., 
 177, 189u., 192 
 
 Greece, 136, 215 
 
 Gutenburg, 62 
 
 HADFIELD, E., 127n. 
 Hagiographa, 81, 92 
 Hammurabi, 67, 104, 
 
 202/.; Code of, 67 
 Hardwicke, Dr. W. W., 
 
 165n. 
 Harnack, Prof., 186 
 Harrison, Benj., 14 
 Hawkins, Sir J. C, 187 
 Hebrews, 181 
 Hegira, 229 
 
 Hell, descent into, 165^ 
 Heracleitus. 218 
 Herakles, 160, 161, 162, 
 
 165 
 Herodotus, 57, 121, 124 
 Hezekiah, 78 
 Hierology, comparative, 2 
 Hilkiah, 86, 131 
 Hinduism, 69, 203/. 
 Hippias, 220 
 Holy cities, 79 
 Horeb, Mount, 76 
 Horus, 40, 159, 161 
 Huitzilopochtli, 161 
 Human sacrifice, 109 
 Huxley, T. H., 72, 239 
 
 IMPLEMENTS, prehisto- 
 ric, 12 ; stone, 12, 17 
 Insects, 10 
 Inspiration, 64 
 Isaac, 110 
 
 Isaiah, 90, 153, 168, 195 
 Islam, 70, 121 ff. 
 Isis, 150, 159, 161, 169 
 
 JABBOK, ford of, 111 
 
 Jacob, 110, 111 
 
 James, 181 
 
 James I, 118 
 
 Jehovah. See Yahweh 
 
 Jephthah's daughter, 111 
 
 Jeremiah, 89, 123 
 
 Jerome, Saint, 82 
 
 Jesus, 110, 145, 152, 165, 
 172, 174, 175, 185 ; as 
 Messiah, 148 ; attri- 
 butes and titles, 157 ; 
 birth of, 160 ; life in- 
 cidents of, 160 ; mira- 
 cles of, 165 ; problem, 
 the, 191 ; teachings of, 
 166/. 
 
 Jesus ben Pandira, 133«. 
 
 Jews, early history of, 73 
 
 Job, 94 
 
 John, 181 
 
 John, gospel of, 147, 179, 
 188, 218 
 
 John the Baptist, 161 
 
 Jonah, story of, 126 
 
 Josaphet, Saint, 143 
 
 Josephus, 172 
 
 Josiah, 78, S6, 87, 131 
 
 Joshua, 88, 131 
 
 Joshua, 113/., 144; and 
 Jesus, 153 ; parallels 
 with Moses, 115, 145 
 
 Jude, 181 
 
 Judges, 88, 116, 130 
 
 Julian, the Emperor, 142, 
 156 
 
 Jovian, the Emperor, 142 
 
 Juvenal, 171 
 
 Kadish, the, 168 
 
 Ke'gemni, 198/. 
 
 Keith, Sir Arthur, 12, 17, 
 20, 21 
 
 Kenyon, Sir F. G.. 177n. 
 
 Kepler, 72 
 
 Kings, 89, 123, 126, 130 
 
 Kings, origin of, 38 
 
 Kipling, Rudyard, 151 
 j Koran, the, 70, 229,230/. 
 I Krishna, 160, 165, 204 
 j Kung-Foo-Tsze. See Con- 
 fucius ' 
 
 LAMB, the, 158 
 Lamentations, 95 
 Lancelet, 10 
 
 Lankestor, Sir Ray, 159u. 
 Lao-Tsze, 68, 158, 212
 
 INDEX 
 
 213 
 
 Laud, Archbishop, 233 
 Law of Deodand, 128 ; 
 
 primitive, 127 
 Law, the, 81 
 Lemuria, 13 
 Lemurs, 11 
 Leucippus, 219 
 Leviticus, 88 
 Life, chart of, 9 ; first : 
 
 appearance of, 8 
 Lightfoot, Dr., 3 
 Logos, the, 141, 158, 189, 
 
 218, 236 
 Lord's day, the, 140 
 Lucretius, 55, 223, 233n. 
 Luke, gospel of, 157, 1G0, 
 
 162, 163, 173, 17S, 187 
 
 MACCABEANS, the, 122 
 
 McCabe, Joseph, 238n., 
 239 
 
 Magic, 32/F., 47 ; contact, 
 36 ; homoeopathic, 36 ; 
 in names, 37, 113 ; sym- 
 pathetic, 36 
 
 Malidbhdrata, the, 70 
 
 Mammals, 11 
 
 Man, 11 ; antiquity of, 
 12, 16 
 
 Man's earliest questions, 
 22, 25 ; explanations, 
 26 ; fall, 45, 102/. 
 
 Manen, W. van, 182 
 
 Manu, institutes of, 70 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, 227$". 
 
 Maries, the mythical, 145 
 
 Mark, gospel of, 147, 149, 
 173, 178, 185, 187 
 
 Marsupials, 11 
 
 Martial, 172 
 
 Matthew, Gospel of, 149, 
 153, 160, 162, 168, 169, 
 173, 178, 185, 187 
 
 May festivals, 125 
 
 Melissus, 219 
 
 Memory, aids to, 57 
 
 Messiah, 122, 137, 143/., 
 148 
 
 Messianic literature, 144 
 
 Mesopotamia, 66 
 
 Metazoa, 8 
 
 Meteoric hypothesis, 4 
 
 Micah, 90, 195 
 
 Miracles, the, 165 
 
 Mishna, the, 97 
 
 Mithra, 68, 139/., 147, 
 150, 158, 165 
 
 Mohammed, 70, 227.//'. 
 
 Molluscs, 10 
 
 Moon, 4, 49 
 
 Morris, Harry, 14 
 
 Moses, 74, 76, 84, 110, 
 115, 145, 162, 166, 202 
 
 Motloy, 107 
 
 Musri, 76 
 
 Mysteries, 54 
 
 Myths, 17, 43, 105, 109, 
 125 ; and their trans- 
 mission, 52 ; classifica- 
 tion of, 52 ; of man's 
 origin, 43 
 
 NAMES, magic in, 37 
 Nature spirits, 27 
 Naturism, 28, 193 
 Nazarites, 153 
 Nebuchadrezzar, 78 
 Nebular hypothesis, 4 
 Nebulae, 4 
 
 Nehemiah, 78, 79, 87, 124 
 Nehemiah, 93 
 Neolithic age, 14 
 Notochord, 10 
 Nwnbcrs, 88 
 
 Odin, 56 
 Ogmios, 56 
 
 Onuphrius, Saint, 142 
 Osiris, 141, 142, 146, 150. 
 159, 164, 165, 166, 196 
 Ostraka, 60 
 Otanes, 121 
 Oxyrhynchus, 177, 190 
 
 Paleolithic age, 14 
 
 Palaeontology, 6 
 Palestine, 74 
 Parmenides, 218 
 Patriarchal age, 75 
 Paul, Saint, 167, 176, 
 
 182/. 
 Pausanias, 111, 157 
 Pedigrees, 91 
 Pentateuch, 82, 87 
 Persephone, 150 
 Persia, 68, 78, 80, 210 
 Peter, Saint, 142 
 Peter, 157, 181 
 Petronius, 171 
 Philemon, 180 
 Philippians, 180 
 Philo of Alexandria, 172, 
 
 218 
 Picture writing, 56, 58 
 Planets, 3 
 Planetismal hypothesis, 5 
 
 Planetoids, 4 
 
 Plato, 128, 157, 221 
 
 Pliny, 171, 172 
 
 Plutarch, 172 
 
 Pompey, 81 
 
 Pope, the, 143 
 
 Prayer, 38, 47; Book of 
 Common, 131 ; tho 
 Lord's, 167 
 
 Priests, origin of, 38 
 
 Printing, art of, 61 
 
 Prodicus, 220 
 
 Prophets, the, 81, 88 ; the 
 minor, 90 
 
 Protagoras, 220 
 
 Protoplasm, 8 
 
 Protozoa, 8 
 
 Proverbs, 94, 121 
 
 Psalms, 95, 169, 201 
 
 Ptah-hotep, 198/. ; say- 
 ings of, 68 
 
 Punchkin, 117 
 
 Pur anas, the, 69 
 
 Purim, feast of, 125, 147 
 
 "Q" source, 186 
 Questions, man's earliest, 
 
 22, 25 ; man's habit of 
 
 asking, 18, 42 
 Quipus, 57 
 Quintilian, 172 
 Quirinius, 160, 188 
 
 R A MAY AN A, the, 70 
 
 Rationalism, 72, 239 
 
 Reciprocity, 214 
 
 Redemption, 110 
 
 Religion, 38 ; based on 
 fear, 38, 48 
 
 Religious societies, 137 
 
 Reptiles, 11 
 
 Revelation. See Apoca- 
 lypse 
 
 Bevelation, 181, 190 
 
 Robertson, Rt. Hon. 
 J. M., 135, 138, 139?i., 
 148, 149;:., 151, 153, 
 155, 165n., 167n., 191, 
 20471,, 206n. 
 
 Romans, 179 
 
 Rome, 136, 222 
 
 Rosary, 57 
 
 Rusticus, Saint, 143 
 
 Ruth,Di 
 
 SAC.EA, 125, 146 
 Sacrament, 141 
 Sacrifice, 47; human, 109
 
 244 
 
 INDEX 
 
 St. Johnston, Lt. Col. 
 T. R., 127«. 
 
 Samaria, 78, 115 
 
 Samson, story of, 116 
 
 Samuel, 89 
 
 Sargon I, 74 
 
 Saturnalia, 125, 146 
 
 Savage survivals, 18, 127 
 
 Saviour, 145, 158 ; -gods, 
 50, 145 
 
 Sayce, Dr., 76 
 
 Scribes, 60 
 
 Scriptures, 61 ; character 
 of, 64 ; classification of, 
 65 ; of different peoples, 
 66, 193$'. ; supposed 
 inspiration of, 64 
 
 Seamless robe, 165 
 
 Semites, 43, 73 
 
 Seneca, 171, 185, 224 
 
 Septuagint, 80 
 
 Sermon on the Mount. 
 169 
 
 Shadows as spirits, 30 
 
 Shakespeare, 14, 234 
 
 Shamans, 39 
 
 Sheba, Queen of, 119 
 
 Shoo, the four, 69 
 
 Sinai, Mount, 76 
 
 Sinaitic code, 177 
 
 Skeat, 33, 105 
 
 Sleep and death, 31 
 
 Smith, Prof. Elliot, 21, 
 22 
 
 Socrates, 221 
 
 Solar system, 4 
 
 Solomon, 78, 79, 118/?".; 
 judgment of, 120; wis- 
 dom of, 118 
 
 Song of So7igs, 95, 120 
 
 Sophists, the, 220 
 
 Sorcerers, 39 
 
 Soul, external, 117 
 
 Specialization in animals, 
 20 
 
 Speech and thought, 19; 
 animal, 19 ; human, 19, 
 22, 23, 108 
 
 Spirit, meaning of, 160 
 
 Spirits, 21_f.; earth, 49; 
 nature, 27 ; vegetation, 
 49 ; water, 27, 34, 
 112 
 
 Spiritualism, 387i. 
 Stable-birth, 160 
 Stars, 4 
 
 Stellar system, 5 
 Stoics, the, 224, 226 
 Summary, 231#'. 
 Sun, 3 
 Sunday, 140 
 Supernatural, the, 48 
 Susannah, story of, 96?t. 
 Siltras, the, 69 
 Synoptics, the, 185 
 
 Tacitus, 172 
 
 Taheb, the, 144 
 
 Tallies, exchequer, 57 
 
 Talmud, the, 97, 168, 
 169 
 
 Tantras, the, 69 
 
 Taoism, 68, 212 
 
 Taurobolia, 162 
 
 Teachers, the great, 193^. 
 
 Temple, Solomon's, 79, 
 118 
 
 Temptation, the, 163 
 
 Tennyson, 234 
 
 Testament, New, 167, 
 171, 174 ; making of, 
 171; Greek MSS. of, 
 177 ; Old, 71, 167 ; 
 Old, how built up, 81 ; 
 Old, making of, 71^; 
 Old, some stories con- 
 sidered, 98$\; sources 
 of, 82 
 
 Thales, 216 
 
 Thessalonians, 180 
 
 Thoth, 56, 166 
 
 Thought in man and 
 animals, 18 
 
 Timothy, 180 
 
 Titus, 180 
 
 Titus, the Emperor, 150 
 
 Tom, tlie, 82 
 
 Torture, 233 
 
 Totems, 45 
 
 Traditions, sacred, 47, 53 
 
 Trance, 40 
 
 Transmigration of souls, 
 33 
 
 Trinity, the, 141, 159 
 
 Tripitaka, the, 70, 2Q9ff. 
 
 UR of the Chaldees, 74, 
 
 108 
 Usher, Archbishop, 3 
 
 VASHTI, 124 
 Vatican codex, 177 
 Vedas, the, 69, 204 
 Vertebra;, 10 
 Vertebrates, 10 
 Vine, the true, 166, 188 
 Virgin-birth, 160 
 Vulgate, the, 82 
 
 WAMPUM, 57 
 War, the Great, 195 
 Water, 6, 112 ; spirits, 
 
 27, 34, 112 
 Witchcraft, 35 
 Witch doctors, 39 
 Word, the. See Logos 
 Words in Pain, 239 
 Worship, savage, 35 
 Writing, art of, 16 ; cunei- 
 form, 67 ; Demotic, 58 ; 
 Hieratic, 58 ; hierogly- 
 phic, 58 ; ideographic, 
 58 ; influence of, 62 ; 
 phonetic, 58 ; pictorial, 
 56 ; origin of, 56 ; 
 spread of, 59 
 Writings, sacred, 56 
 
 XENOPHANES, 218 
 Xerxes, 124 
 
 YAHWEH, 71, 75, 79, 
 86, 109, 113, 120, 122, 
 128/.. 143, 152, 158, 
 174, 195 ; meaning of, 
 132 ; story of, 128 ; 
 titles of, 82, 129, 131 
 
 Younghusband, General, 
 234 
 
 ZARATHUSTRA, 68, 
 
 210//. 
 Zechariah, 90, 123, 148u., 
 
 153 
 Zend - Avesta, the, 68, 
 
 210/. 
 Zodiak, the, 140, 158, 163 
 Zoroaster. See Zarathus- 
 
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