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PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING 
 
RECENT BOOKS BY EDWARD CjHiPENTER 
 
 THE HEALING OF NATIONS. 
 
 Crown 8vo. Cloth 3s. 6d. net. Paper 2s. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 MY DAYS AND DREAMS: Autobiogra¬ 
 phical 
 
 With Portraits. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 TOWARDS INDUSTRIAL FREEDOM. 
 
 Crown 8vo. Cloth 3s. 6d. net. Paper 2s. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN, LTD. 
 
PAGAN &> CHRIS¬ 
 TIAN CREEDS: 
 
 THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING 
 
 By EDWARD CARPENTER 
 
 LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. 
 RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1 
 
First published in IQ20 
 
 (All tights reserved) 
 

 “ The different religions being lame attempts to represent under 
 various guises this one root-fact of the central universal life, men 
 have at all times clung to the religious creeds and rituals and cere- 
 * monials as symbolising in some rude way the redemption and 
 fulfilment of their own most intimate natures—and this whether 
 consciously understanding the interpretations, or whether (as most 
 often ) only doing so in an unconscious or quite subconscious way ” 
 
 The Drama of Love and Death , p. 96. 
 
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 V 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY . ... 9 
 
 II. SOLAR MYTHS AND CHRISTIAN FESTIVALS . . 1 9 
 
 III. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC . . . 36 
 
 IV. TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS . . 54 
 
 V. FOOD AND VEGETATION MAGIC . . .69 
 
 VI. MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS . . .86 
 
 VII. RITES OF EXPIATION AND REDEMPTION . . IOO 
 
 VIII. PAGAN INITIATIONS AND THE SECOND BIRTH . II7 
 
 'IX. MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE .... 137 
 
 X. THE SAVIOUR-GOD AND THE VIRGIN-MOTHER . 154 
 
 XI. RITUAL DANCING . . . . *163 
 
 XII. THE SEX-TABOO ..... 180 
 
 XIII. THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY . . . 198 
 
 XIV. THE MEANING OF IT ALL .... 222 
 
 XV. THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES .... 239 
 
 XVI. THE EXODUS OF CHRISTIANITY . . . 257 
 
 XVII. CONCLUSION ...... 2 JI 
 
 APPENDIX ON THE TEACHINGS OF THE UPANISHADS : 
 
 I. REST ...... 283 
 
 II. THE NATURE OF THE SELF . . . 295 
 
 INDEX ...... 309 
 
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS: 
 
 THEIR ORIGIN ANI) MEANING 
 
 I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 The subject of Religious Origins is a fascinating one, as 
 the great multitude of books upon it, published in late 
 years, tends to show. Indeed the great difficulty to-day 
 in dealing with the subject, lies in the very mass of the 
 material to hand—and that not only on account of the 
 labour involved in sorting the material, but because the 
 abundance itself of facts opens up temptation to a student 
 in this department of Anthropology (as happens also in 
 other branches of general Science) to rush in too hastily 
 with what seems a plausible theory. The more facts, 
 statistics, and so forth, there are available in any investi¬ 
 gation, the easier it is to pick out a considerable number 
 which will fit a given theory. The other facts being 
 neglected or ignored, the views put forward enjoy for a 
 time a great vogue. Then inevitably, and at a later time, 
 new or neglected facts alter the outlook, and a new 
 perspective is established. 
 
 There is also in these matters of Science (though many 
 scientific men would doubtless deny this) a great deal of 
 ‘ Fashion ’. Such has been notoriously the case in Poli- 
 
 9 
 
10 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 tical Economy, Medicine, Geology, and even in such definite 
 studies as Physics and Chemistry. In a comparatively 
 recent science, like that with which we are now concerned, 
 one would naturally expect variations. A hundred and 
 fifty years ago, and since the time of Rousseau, the “ Noble 
 Savage ” was extremely popular ; and he lingers still in 
 the story books of our children. Then the reaction from 
 this extreme view set in, and of late years it has been 
 the popular cue (largely, it must be said, among “ arm¬ 
 chair ” travelers and explorers) to represent the religious 
 rites and customs of primitive folk as a senseless mass 
 of superstitions, and the early man as quite devoid of 
 decent feeling and intelligence. Again, when the study 
 of religious origins first began in modern times to be 
 seriously taken up—say in the earlier part of last century 
 —there was a great boom in Sungods. Every divinity 
 in the Pantheon was an impersonation of the Sun—unless 
 indeed (if feminine) of the Moon. Apollo was a sungod, 
 of course ; Hercules was a sungod ; Samson was a sun- 
 god ; Indra and Krishna, and even Christ, the same. 
 C. F. Dupuis in France [Origine de_ tons les Cultes, 1795), 
 F. Nork in Germany (. Biblische Mythologie, 1842), Richard 
 Taylor in England ( The Devil’s Pulpit / 1830), were among 
 the first in modern times to put forward this view. A 
 little later the phallic explanation of everything came into 
 fashion. The deities were all polite names for the organs 
 and powers of procreation. R. P. Knight ( Ancient Art 
 and Mythology, 1818) and Dr. Thomas Inman {Ancient 
 Faiths and Ancient Names, 1868) popularised this idea 
 in England ; so did Nork in Germany. Then again there 
 was a period of what is sometimes called Euhemerism 
 
 1 This extraordinary book, though carelessly composed, and con¬ 
 taining many unproven statements, was on the whole on the right 
 lines. But it raised a storm of opposition—the more so because 
 its author was a clergyman ! He was ejected from the ministry, 
 of course, and was sent to prison twice. 
 
11 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 —the theory that the gods and goddesses had actually 
 once been men and women, historical characters round 
 whom a halo of romance and remoteness had gathered. 
 Later still, a school has arisen which thinks little of sun- 
 gods, and pays more attention to Earth and Nature spirits, 
 to gnomes and demons and vegetation-sprites, and to 
 the processes of Magic by which these (so it was supposed) 
 could be enlisted in man’s service if friendly, or exorcised 
 if hostile. 
 
 It is easy to see of course that there is some truth in 
 all these explanations; but naturally each school for 
 the time being makes the most of its own contention. 
 Mr. J. M. Robertson (Pagan Christs and Christianity and 
 Mythology) , who has done such fine work in this field, 1 
 relies chiefly on the solar and astronomical origins, though 
 he does not altogether deny the others ; Dr. Frazer, on 
 the other hand—whose great work. The Golden Bough, 
 is a monumental collection of primitive customs, and will 
 be an inexhaustible quarry for all future students—is 
 apparently very little concerned with theories about the 
 Sun and the stars, but concentrates his attention on the 
 collection of innumerable details 2 of rites, chiefly magical, 
 connected with food and vegetation. Still later writers, 
 like S. Reinach, Jane Harrison and E. A. Crowley, being 
 mainly occupied with customs of very primitive peoples, 
 like the Pelasgian Greeks or the Australian aborigines, have 
 confined themselves (necessarily) even more to Magic and 
 Witchcraft. 
 
 Meanwhile the Christian Church from these speculations 
 has kept itself severely apart—as of course representing 
 a unique and divine revelation little concerned or inter¬ 
 ested in such heathenisms ; and moreover (in this country 
 
 1 If only he did not waste so much time, and so needlessly, in 
 slaughtering opponents ! 
 
 2 To such a degree, indeed, that sometimes the connecting clue of 
 the argument seems to be lost. 
 
12 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 at any rate) has managed to persuade the general public 
 of its own divine uniqueness to such a degree that few 
 people, even nowadays, realise that it has sprung from just 
 the same root as Paganism, and that it shares by far the 
 most part of its doctrines and rites with the latter. Till 
 quite lately it was thought (in Britain) that only secularists 
 and unfashionable people took any interest in sungods ; 
 and while it was true that learned professors might point 
 to a belief in Magic as one of the first sources of Religion, 
 it was easy in reply to say that this obviously had nothing 
 to do with Christianity! The Secularists, too, rather 
 spoilt their case by assuming, in their wrath against the 
 Church, that all priests since the beginning of the world 
 have been frauds and charlatans, and that all the rites 
 of religion were merely devil’s devices invented by 
 them for the purpose of preying upon the superstitions of 
 the ignorant, to their own enrichment. They (the Secu¬ 
 larists) overleaped themselves by grossly exaggerating a 
 thing that no doubt is partially true. 
 
 Thus the subject of religious origins is somewhat 
 complex, and yields many aspects for consideration. It 
 is only, I think, by keeping a broad course, and admitting 
 contributions to the truth from various sides, that valu¬ 
 able results can be obtained. It is absurd to suppose 
 that in this or any other science neat systems can be found 
 which will cover all the facts. Nature and History do 
 not deal in such things, or supply them for a sop to Man’s 
 vanity. 
 
 It is clear that there have been three main lines, so far, 
 along which human speculation and study have run. One 
 connecting religious rites and observances with the move¬ 
 ments of the Sun and the planets in the sky, and leading 
 to the invention of and belief in Olympian and remote 
 gods dwelling in heaven and ruling the earth from a dis¬ 
 tance ; the second connecting religion with the changes 
 of the season, on the Earth and with such practical things 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 13 
 
 as the growth of vegetation and food, and leading to or 
 mingled with a vague belief in earth-spirits and magical 
 methods of influencing such spirits ; and the third con¬ 
 necting religion with man’s own body and the tremendous 
 force of sex residing in it—emblem of undying life and all 
 fertility and power. It is clear also—and all investigation 
 confirms it—that the second-mentioned phase of religion 
 arose on the whole before the first-mentioned—that is, 
 that men naturally thought about the very practical 
 questions of food and vegetation, and the magical or other 
 methods of encouraging the same, before they worried 
 themselves about the heavenly bodies and the laws of 
 their movements, or about the sinister or favorable influences 
 the stars might exert. And again it is extremely probable 
 that the third-mentioned aspect—that which connected 
 religion with the procreative desires and phenomena of 
 human physiology—really came first. These desires and 
 physiological phenomena must have loomed large on the 
 primitive mind long before the changes of the seasons or 
 of the sky had been at all definitely observed or con¬ 
 sidered. Thus we find it probable that, in order to under¬ 
 stand the sequence of the actual and historical phases of 
 religious worship, we must approximately reverse the 
 order above-given in which they have been studied, and 
 conclude that in general the Phallic cults came first, the 
 cult of Magic and the propitiation of earth-divinities and 
 spirits came second, and only last came the belief in definite 
 God-figures residing in heaven. 
 
 At the base of the whole process by which divinities 
 and demons were created, and rites for their propitiation 
 and placation established, lay Fear—fear stimulating the 
 imagination to fantastic activity. Primus in orbe deos 
 fecit Timor. And fear, as we shall see, only became a 
 mental stimulus at the time of, or after, the evolution 
 of s<?Z/-consciousness. Before that time, in the period of 
 simple consciousness, when the human mind resembled 
 
14 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 that of the animals, fear indeed existed, but its nature 
 was more that of a mechanical protective instinct. There 
 being no figure or image of self in the animal mind, there 
 were correspondingly no figures or images of beings who 
 might threaten or destroy that self. So it was that the 
 imaginative power of fear began with Self-consciousness, 
 and from that imaginative power was unrolled the whole 
 panorama of the gods and rites and creeds of Religion 
 down the centuries. 
 
 The immense force and domination of Fear in the first 
 self-conscious stages of the human mind is a thing which 
 can hardly be exaggerated, and which is even difficult 
 for some of us moderns to realize. But naturally as soon 
 as Man began to think about himself—a frail phantom 
 and waif in the midst of tremendous forces of whose nature 
 and mode of operation he was entirely ignorant—he was 
 beset with terrors ; dangers loomed upon him on all sides. 
 Even to-day it is noticed by doctors that one of the chief 
 obstacles to the cure of illness among some black or native 
 races is sheer superstitious terror; and Thanatomania is 
 the recognised word for a state of mind (" obsession of 
 death ”) which will often cause a savage to perish from a 
 mere scratch hardly to be called a wound. The natural 
 defence against this state of mind was the creation of 
 an enormous number of taboos —such as we find among 
 all races and on every conceivable subject—and these 
 taboos constituted practically a great body of warnings 
 which regulated the lives and thoughts of the community, 
 and ultimately, after they had been weeded out and to 
 some degree simplified, hardened down into very stringent 
 Customs and Laws. Such taboos naturally in the begin¬ 
 ning tended to include the avoidance not only of acts which 
 might reasonably be considered dangerous, like touching 
 a corpse, but also things much more remote and fanciful 
 in their relation to danger, like merely looking at a mother- 
 in-law, or passing a lightning-struck tree ; and (what is 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 15 
 
 especially to be noticed) they tended to include acts which 
 offered any special pleasure or temptation—like sex or 
 marriage or the enjoyment of a meal. Taboos surrounded 
 these things too, and the psychological connection is easy 
 to divine : but I shall deal with this general subject later. 
 
 It may be guessed that so complex a system of regu¬ 
 lations made life anything but easy to early peoples ; but, 
 preposterous and unreasonable as some of the taboos were, 
 they undoubtedly had the effect of compelling the growth 
 of self-control. Fear does not seem a very worthy motive, 
 but in the beginning it curbed the violence of the purely 
 animal passions, and introduced order and restraint among 
 them. Simultaneously it became itself, through the gradual 
 increase of knowledge and observation, transmuted and 
 etherialised into something more like wonder and awe, 
 and (when the gods rose above the horizon) into rever¬ 
 ence. Anyhow we seem to perceive that from the early 
 beginnings (in the Stone Age) of self-consciousness in 
 Man there has been a gradual development—from crass 
 superstition, senseless and accidental, to rudimentary 
 observation, and so to belief in Magic ; thence to Animism 
 and personification of nature-powers in more or less human 
 form, as earth-divinities or sky-gods or embodiments of 
 the tribe ; and to placation of these powers by rites like 
 Sacrifice and the Eucharist, which in their turn became 
 the foundation of Morality. Graphic representations made 
 for the encouragement of fertility—as on the walls of 
 Bushmen’s rock-dwellings or the ceilings of the caverns 
 of Altamira—became the nurse of pictorial Art ; obser¬ 
 vations of plants or of the weather or the stars, carried 
 on by tribal medicine-men for purposes of witchcraft or 
 prophecy, supplied some of the material of Science ; and 
 humanity emerged by faltering and hesitating steps on 
 the borderland of those finer perceptions and reasonings 
 which are supposed to be characteristic of Civilisation. 
 
 The process of the evolution of religious rites and cere- 
 
16 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 monies has in its main outlines been the same all over 
 the world, as the reader will presently see—and this 
 whether in connexion with the numerous creeds of 
 Paganism or the supposedly unique case of Christianity ; 
 and now the continuity and close intermixture of these 
 great streams can no longer be denied—nor is it indeed 
 denied by those who have really studied the subject. It 
 is seen that religious evolution through the ages has been 
 practically One thing—that there has been in fact a World- 
 religion, though with various phases and branches. 
 
 And so in the present day a new problem arises, namely 
 how to account for the appearance of this great Pheno¬ 
 menon, with its orderly phases of evolution, and its own 
 spontaneous 1 growths in all corners of the globe—this 
 phenomenon which has had such a strange sway over 
 the hearts of men, which has attracted them with so 
 weird a charm, which has drawn out their devotion, love 
 and tenderness, which has consoled them in sorrow and 
 affliction, and yet which has stained their history with 
 such horrible sacrifices and persecutions and cruelties ? 
 What has been the instigating cause of it ? 
 
 The answer which I propose to this question, and which 
 is developed to some extent in the following chapters, is 
 a psychological one. It is that the phenomenon proceeds 
 from, and • is a necessary accompaniment of, the growth 
 of human Consciousness itself—its growth, namely, through 
 the three great stages of its unfoldment. These stages 
 are (i) that of the simple or animal consciousness, (2) that 
 of Sf?//-consciousness, and (3) that of a third stage of con¬ 
 sciousness which has not as yet been effectively named, 
 but whose indications and precursive signs we here and 
 there perceive in the rites and prophecies and mysteries 
 of the early religions, and in the poetry and art and liter¬ 
 ature generally of the later civilisations. Though I do 
 not expect or wish to catch Nature and History in the 
 
 1 For the question of spontaneity see chap, x and elsewhere infra. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 17 
 
 careful net of a phrase, yet I think that in the sequence 
 from the above-mentioned first stage to the second, and 
 then again in the sequence from the second to the third, 
 there will be found a helpful explanation of the rites and 
 aspirations of human religion. It is this idea, illustrated 
 by details of ceremonial and so forth, which forms the 
 main thesis of the present book. In this sequence of growth, 
 Christianity enters as an episode, but no more than an 
 episode. It does not amount to a disruption or dislo- 
 cation of evolution. If it did, or if it stood as an unique 
 or unclassifiable phenomenon (as some of its votaries con¬ 
 tend), this would seem to be a misfortune—as it would 
 obviously rob us of at any rate one promise of progress in 
 the future. And the promise of something better than 
 Paganism and better than Christianity is very precious. 
 It is surely time that it should be fulfilled. 
 
 The tracing, therefore, of the part that human self- 
 consciousness has played, psychologically, in the evolution 
 of religion, runs like a thread through the following chapters, 
 and seeks illustration in a variety of details. The idea 
 has been repeated under different aspects; sometimes, 
 possibly, it has been repeated too often ; but different 
 aspects in such a case do help, as in a stereoscope, to give 
 solidity to the thing seen. Though the worship of Sun- 
 gods and divine figures in the sky came comparatively 
 late in religious evolution, I have put this subject early 
 in the book (chapters ii and iii), partly because (as I have 
 already explained) it was the phase first studied in modern 
 times, and therefore is the one most familiar to present- 
 day readers, and partly because its astronomical data 
 give great definiteness and ‘ proveability ' to it, in rebuttal 
 to the common accusation that the whole study of religious 
 origins is too vague and uncertain to have much value. 
 Going backwards in Time, the two next chapters (iv and v) 
 deal with Totem-sacraments and Magic, perhaps the earliest 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 forms of religion. And these four lead on (in chapters vi 
 to xi) to the consideration of rites and creeds common to 
 Paganism and Christianity. XII and xiii deal especially 
 with the evolution of Christianity itself; xiv and xv explain 
 the inner Meaning of the whole process from the beginning ; 
 and xvi and xvii look to the Future. 
 
 The appendix on the doctrines of the Upanishads may, 
 I hope, serve to give an idea, intimate even though in¬ 
 adequate, of the third Stage—that which follows on the 
 stage of self-consciousness ; and to .portray the mental 
 attitudes which are characteristic of that stage. Here in 
 this third stage, it would seem, one comes upon the real 
 facts of the inner life—in contradistinction to the fancies 
 and figments of the second stage ; and so one reaches the 
 final point of conjunction between Science and Religion. 
 
II 
 
 SOLAR MYTHS AND CHRISTIAN FESTIVALS 
 
 To the ordinary public—notwithstanding the immense 
 amount of work which has of late been done on this 
 subject—the connexion between Paganism and Christianity 
 still seems rather remote. Indeed the common notion is 
 that Christianity was really a miraculous interposition 
 into and dislocation of the old order of the world ; and 
 that the pagan gods (as in Milton’s Hymn on the Nativity) 
 fled away in dismay before the sign of the Cross, and at 
 the sound of the name of Jesus. Doubtless this was a 
 view much encouraged by the early Church itself—if only 
 to enhance its own authority and importance ; yet, as is 
 well known to every student, it is quite misleading and 
 contrary to fact. The main Christian doctrines and festi¬ 
 vals, besides a great mass of affiliated legend and cere¬ 
 monial, are really quite directly derived from, and related 
 to, preceding Nature worships ; and it has only been by 
 a good deal of deliberate mystification and falsification 
 that this derivation has been kept out of sight. 
 
 In these Nature-worships there may be discerned three 
 fairly independent streams of religious or quasi-religious 
 enthusiasm : (i) that connected with the phenomena of 
 
 the heavens, the movements of the Sun, planets and stars, 
 and the awe and wonderment they excited ; (2) that con¬ 
 nected with the seasons and the very important matter 
 of the growth of vegetation and food on the Earth ; and 
 
 19 
 
20 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 (3) that connected with the mysteries of Sex and reproduc¬ 
 tion. It is obvious that these three streams would mingle 
 and interfuse with each other a good deal; but as far as 
 they were separable the first would tend to create Solar 
 heroes and Sun-myths; the second Vegetation-gods and 
 personifications of Nature and the earth-life ; while the 
 third would throw its glamour over the other two and 
 contribute to the projection of deities or daemons wor¬ 
 shipped with all sorts of sexual and phallic rites. All three 
 systems would of course have their special rites and times 
 and ceremonies ; but, as I say, the rites and ceremonies 
 of one system would rarely be found pure and unmixed 
 with those belonging to the two others. The whole subject 
 is a very large one ; but for reasons given in the Intro¬ 
 duction I shall in this and the following chapter—while 
 not ignoring phases (2) and (3)—lay most stress on phase 
 (1) of the question before us. 
 
 At the time of the life or recorded appearance of Jesus 
 of Nazareth, and for some centuries before, the Mediter¬ 
 ranean and neighbouring world had been the scene of a 
 vast number of pagan creeds and rituals. There were 
 Temples without end dedicated to gods like Apollo or 
 Dionysus among the Greeks, Hercules among the Romans, 
 Mithra among the Persians, Adonis and Attis in Syria and 
 Phrygia, Osiris and Isis and Horus in Egypt, Baal and 
 Astarte among the Babylonians and Carthaginians, and 
 so forth. Societies, large or small, united believers and the 
 devout in the service or ceremonials connected with 
 their respective deities, and in the creeds which they 
 confessed concerning these deities. And an extraordin¬ 
 arily interesting fact, for us, is that notwithstanding great 
 geographical distances and racial differences between the 
 adherents of these various cults, as well as differences in 
 the details of their services, the general outlines of their 
 creeds and ceremonials were—if not identical—so markedly 
 similar as we find them. 
 
SOLAR MYTHS 
 
 21 
 
 I cannot of course go at length into these different cults, 
 but I may say roughly that of all or nearly all the deities 
 above-mentioned it was said and believed that : 
 
 (1) they were bom on or very near our Christmas Day. 
 
 (2) They were bom of a Virgin-Mother. 
 
 (3) And in a Cave or Underground Chamber. 
 
 (4) They led a life of toil for Mankind. 
 
 (5) And were called by the names of Light-bringer, 
 
 Healer, Mediator, Saviour, Deliverer. 
 
 (6) They were however vanquished by the Powers of 
 
 Darkness. 
 
 (7) And descended into Hell or the Underworld. 
 
 (8) They rose again from the dead, and became the 
 
 pioneers of mankind to the Heavenly world. 
 
 (9) They founded Communions of Saints, and Churches 
 
 into which disciples were received by Baptism. 
 
 (10) And they were commemorated by Eucharistic 
 
 meals. 
 
 Let me give a few brief examples. 
 
 Mithra was born in a cave, and on the 25th December. 1 2 
 He was born of a Virgin. 3 He traveled far and wide as 
 a teacher and illuminator of men. He slew the Bull 
 (symbol of the gross Earth which the sunlight fructifies). 
 His great festivals were the winter solstice and the Spring 
 equinox (Christmas and Easter). He had twelve com¬ 
 panions or disciples (the twelve months). He was buried 
 in a tomb, from which however he rose again ; and his 
 resurrection was celebrated yearly with great rejoicings. 
 He was called Saviour and Mediator, and sometimes figured 
 as a Lamb ; and sacramental feasts in remembrance of 
 him were held by his followers. This legend is apparently 
 
 1 The birthfeast of Mithra was held in Rome on the 8th day before 
 the Kalends of January, being also the day of the Circassian games, 
 which were sacred to the Sun. (See F. Nork, Der Mystagog, Leipzig.) 
 
 2 This at any rate was reported by his later disciples (see Robertson’s 
 
 Pagan Christs, p. 338). 
 
22 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 partly astronomical and partly vegetational; and the 
 same may be said of the following about Osiris. 
 
 , * Osiris was born (Plutarch tells us) on the 361st day of 
 the year, say the 27th December. He too, like Mithra 
 and Dionysus, was a great traveler. As King of Egypt 
 he taught men civil arts, and “ tamed them by music 
 and gentleness, not by force of arms ”; 1 he was the dis¬ 
 coverer of corn and wine. But he was betrayed by Typhon, 
 the power of darkness, and slain and dismembered. “ This 
 happened/' says Plutarch, “ on the 17th of the month 
 Athyr, when the sun enters into the Scorpion ” (the sign 
 of the Zodiac which indicates the oncoming of Winter). 
 His body was placed in a box, but afterwards, on the 19th, 
 came again to life, and, as in the cults of Mithra, Dionysus, 
 Adonis and others, so in the cult of Osiris, an image placed 
 in a coffin was brought out before the worshipers and 
 saluted with glad cries of ” Osiris is risen.” 1 “ His 
 
 sufferings, his death and his resurrection were enacted 
 year by year in a great mystery-play at Abydos.” z 
 
 The two following legends have more distinctly the 
 character of Vegetation myths. 
 
 Adonis or Tammuz, the Syrian god of vegetation, was 
 a very beautiful youth, born of a Virgin (Nature), and so 
 beautiful that Venus and Proserpine (the goddesses of 
 the Upper and Underworlds) both fell in love with him. 
 To reconcile their claims it was agreed that he should 
 spend half the year (summer) in the upper world, and the 
 winter half with Proserpine below. He was killed by a 
 boar (Typhon) in the autumn. And every year the maidens 
 “ wept for Adonis ” (see Ezekiel viii. 14). In the spring 
 a festival of his resurrection was held—the women set 
 out to seek him, and having found the supposed corpse 
 placed it (a wooden image) in a coffin or hollow tree, and 
 performed wild rites and lamentations, followed by even 
 
 1 See Plutarch on Isis and Osiris. 
 
 2 Ancient Art and Ritual, by Jane E. Harrison, chap. i. 
 
SOLAR MYTHS 
 
 23 
 
 wilder rejoicings over his supposed resurrection. At 
 Apliaca in the North of Syria, and halfway between Byblus 
 and Baalbec, there was a famous grove and temple of 
 Astarte, near which was a wild romantic gorge full of trees, 
 the birthplace of a certain river Adonis—the water rushing 
 from a Cavern, under lofty cliffs. Here (it w r as said) every 
 year the youth Adonis was again wounded to death, and 
 the river ran red with his blood, 1 while the scarlet anemone 
 bloomed among the cedars and the walnuts. 
 
 The story of Attis is very similar. He was a fair young 
 shepherd or herdsman of Phrygia, beloved by Cybele (or 
 Demeter), the Mother of the gods. He was born of a Virgin 
 —Nana—who conceived by putting a ripe almond or 
 pomegranate in her bosom. He died, either killed by a 
 boar, the symbol of winter, like Adonis, or self-castrated 
 (like his own priests) ; and he bled to death at the foot 
 of a pine tree (the pine and pine-cone being symbols of 
 fertility). The sacrifice of his blood renewed the fertility 
 of the earth, and in the ritual celebration of his death 
 and resurrection his image was fastened to the trunk of 
 a pine-tree (compare the Crucifixion). But I shall return 
 to this legend presently. The worship of Attis became 
 very widespread and much honoured, and was ultimately 
 incorporated with the established religion at Rome some¬ 
 where about the commencement of our Era. 
 
 The following two legends (dealing with Hercules and 
 with Krishna) have rather more of the character of the 
 solar, and less of the vegetational myth about them. Both 
 heroes were regarded as great benefactors of humanity; 
 but the former more on the material plane, and the latter 
 on the spiritual. 
 
 Hercules or Heracles was, like other Sun-gods and bene- 
 
 1 A discoloration caused by red earth washed by rain from the 
 mountains, and which has been observed by modern travelers. For 
 the whole story of Adonis and of Attis see Frazer’s Golden Bough, 
 part iv. 
 
24 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 factors of mankind, a great Traveler. He was known in 
 many lands, and everywhere he was invoked as Saviour. 
 
 He was miraculously conceived from a divine Father; 
 even in the cradle he strangled two serpents sent to destroy 
 him. His many labours for the good of the world were 
 ultimately epitomised into twelve, symbolised by the 
 signs of the Zodiac. He slew the Nemsean Lion and the 
 Hydra (offspring of Typhon) and the Boar. He overcame 
 the Cretan Bull, and cleaned out the Stables of Augeas ; 
 he conquered Death and, descending into Hades, brought 
 Cerberus thence and ascended into Heaven. On all sides 
 he was followed by the gratitude and the prayers of mortals. 
 
 As to Krishna, the Indian god, the points of agreement 
 with the general divine career indicated above are too 
 salient to be overlooked, and too numerous to be fully 
 recorded. He also was born of a Virgin (Devaki) and in 
 a Cave, 1 and his birth announced by a Star. It was sought 
 to destroy him, and for that purpose a massacre of infants 
 
 * 
 
 was ordered. Everywhere he performed miracles, raising 
 the dead, healing lepers, and the deaf and the blind, and 
 championing the poor and oppressed. He had a beloved 
 disciple, Arjuna, (cf. John) before whom he was trans¬ 
 figured. 2 His death is differently related—as being shot 
 by an arrow, or crucified on a tree. He descended into 
 hell; and rose again from the dead, ascending into heaven 
 in the sight of many people. He will return at the last 
 day to be the judge of the quick and the dead. 
 
 Such are some of the legends concerning the pagan and 
 pre-Christian deities—only briefly sketched now, in order 
 that we may get something like a true perspective of the 
 whole subject ; but to most of them, and more in detail, 
 
 m 
 
 I shall return as the argument proceeds. 
 
 What we chiefly notice so far are two points ; on the 
 one hand the general similarity of these stories with that 
 
 1 Cox’s Myths of the Aryan Nations, p. 107. 
 
 2 Bhagavat Gita, ch. xi. 
 
SOLAR MYTHS 
 
 25 
 
 of Jesus Christ; on the other their analogy with the yearly 
 phenomena of Nature as illustrated by the course of the 
 Sun in heaven and the changes of Vegetation on the earth. 
 
 (i) The similarity of these ancient pagan legends and 
 beliefs with Christian traditions w r as indeed so great that 
 it excited the attention and the undisguised wrath of the 
 early Christian fathers. They felt no doubt about the 
 similarity, but not knowing how to explain it fell back 
 upon the innocent theory that the Devil—in order to 
 confound the Christians—had, centuries before, caused the 
 pagans to adopt certain beliefs and practices ! (Very 
 crafty, we may say, of the Devil, but also very innocent 
 of the Fathers to believe it !) Justin Martyr for instance 
 describes 1 the institution of the Lord's Supper as narrated 
 in the Gospels, and then goes on to say : “ Which the 
 wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithra, 
 commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread 
 and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations 
 in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated you either 
 know or can learn." Tertullian also says 2 3 that “ the devil 
 by the mysteries of his idols imitates even the main part 
 of the divine mysteries." . . . “ He baptises his wor¬ 
 shippers in water and makes them believe that this purifies 
 them from their crimes." . . . “ Mithra sets his mark 
 on the forehead of his soldiers ; he celebrates the oblation 
 of bread ; he offers an image of the resurrection, and presents 
 at once the crown and the sword ; he limits his chief priest 
 to a single marriage ; he even has his virgins and ascetics." 3 
 Cortez, too, it will be remembered complained that the 
 Devil had positively taught to the Mexicans the same 
 things which God had taught to Christendom. 
 
 1 i Apol. c. 66. 
 
 2 De Prcescriptione Hereticorum, c. 40 ; De Bapt. c. 3 ; De Corona, 
 
 c. 15. 
 
 3 For reference to both these examples see J. M. Robertson’s Pagan 
 Christs, pp. 321, 322. 
 
26 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Justin Martyr again, in the Dialogue with Trypho says 
 that the Birth in the Stable was the prototype (!) of the 
 birth of Mithra in the Cave of Zoroastrianism ; and boasts 
 that Christ was born when the Sun takes^ its birth in the 
 Augean Stable, 1 coming as a second Hercules to cleanse 
 a foul world; and St. Augustine says “ we hold this 
 (Christmas) day holy, not like the pagans because of the 
 birth of the Sun, but because of the birth of him who made 
 it.” There are plenty of other instances in the Early 
 Fathers of their indignant ascription of these similarities 
 
 iM-nn.u HTp! m il I»JH M II i m —,JLU ' J"> «n-»n » " r -— - --* 
 
 to the work of devils ; but we need not dwell over them. 
 There is no need for us to be indignant. On the contrary 
 we can now see that these animadversions of the Christian 
 writers are the evidence of how and to what extent in the 
 spread of Christianity over the world it had become fused 
 with the Pagan cults previously existing. 
 
 It was not till the year a.d. 530 or so—five centuries 
 after the supposed birth of Christ—that a Scythian Monk, 
 Dionysius Exiguus, an abbot and astronomer of Rome, 
 was commissioned to fix the day and the year of that birth. 
 A nice problem, considering the historical science of the 
 period ! For year he assigned the date which we now 
 adopt, 2 and for day and month he adopted the 25th Dec¬ 
 ember—a date which had been in popular use since about 
 350 b.c., and the very date, within a day or two, of the 
 supposed birth of the previous Sungods .3 From that 
 
 1 The Zodiacal sign of Capvicovnus, see infra (iii. 49). 
 
 2 See Encycl. Brit. art. “ Chronology.” 
 
 3 “ There is however a difficulty in accepting the 25th December 
 as the real date of the Nativity, December being the height of the 
 rainy season in Judaea, when neither flocks nor shepherds could have 
 been at night in the fields of Bethlehem ” (!). Encycl. Brit. art. 
 “ Christmas Day.” According to Hastings’s Encyclopedia, art. 
 “ Christmas,” “ Usener says that the Feast of the Nativity was held 
 originally on the 6th January (the Epiphany), but in 353-4 the Pope 
 Liberius displaced it to the 25th December . . . but there is no 
 evidence of a Feast of the Nativity taking place at all, before the 
 fourth century a.d.” It was not till 534 a.d. that Christmas Day 
 and Epiphany were reckoned by the law-courts as dies non. 
 
SOLAR MYTHS 
 
 27 
 
 fact alone we may fairly conclude that by the year 530 
 or earlier the existing Nature-worships had become largely 
 fused into Christianity. In fact the dates of the main 
 pagan religious festivals had by that time become so 
 popular that Christianity was obliged to accommodate itself 
 to them. 1 
 
 This brings us to the second point mentioned a few 
 pages back—the analogy between the Christian festivals 
 and the yearly phenomena of Nature in the Sun and the 
 Vegetation. 
 
 Let us take Christmas Day first. Mithra, as we have 
 seen, was reported to have been born on the 25th December 
 (which in the Julian Calendar was reckoned as the day 
 of the Winter Solstice and of the Nativity of the Sun) ; 
 Plutarch says (Isis and Osiris, c. 12) that Osiris was born 
 on the 361st day of the year, when a Voice rang out pro¬ 
 claiming him Lord of All. Horns, he says, was born on 
 the 362nd day. Apollo on the same. 
 
 Why was all this ? Why did the Druids at Yule Tide 
 light roaring fires ? Why was the cock supposed to crow 
 all Christmas Eve (" The bird of dawning singeth all night 
 long ”) ? Why was Apollo bom with only one hair (the 
 young Sun with only one feeble ray) ? Why did Samson 
 (name derived from Shemesh, the sun) lose all his strength 
 when he lost his hair ? Why were so many of these gods 
 —Mithra, Apollo, Krishna, Jesus, and others, born in 
 caves or underground chambers ? 3 Why, at the Easter 
 
 1 As, for instance, the festival of John the Baptist in June took 
 the place of the pagan midsummer festival of water and bathing ; 
 the Assumption of the Virgin in August the place of that of Diana 
 in the same month ; and the festival of All Souls early in November, 
 that of the world-wide pagan feasts of the dead and their ghosts at 
 the same season. 
 
 2 This same legend of gods (or idols) being born in caves has, 
 curiously enough, been reported from Mexico, Guatemala, the Antilles, 
 and other places in Central America. See C. F. P. von Martius, 
 Ethnographie Amerika, etc. (Leipzig, 1867), vol. i, p. 758. 
 
28 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Eve festival of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem is a light 
 brought from the grave and communicated to the candles 
 of thousands who wait outside, and who rush forth rejoicing 
 to carry the new glory over the world ? 1 Why indeed ? 
 except that older than all history and all written records 
 has been the fear and wonderment of the children of men 
 over the failure of the Sun's strength in Autumn—the 
 decay of their God ; and the anxiety lest by any means 
 he should not revive or reappear ? 
 
 Think for a moment of a time far back when there were 
 absolutely no Almanacs or Calendars, either nicely printed 
 or otherwise, when all that timid mortals could see was 
 that their great source of Light and Warmth was daily 
 failing, daily sinking lower in the sky. As everyone now 
 knows there are about three weeks at the fag end of the 
 year when the days are at their shortest and there is very 
 little change. What was happening ? Evidently the god 
 had fallen upon evil times. Typhon, the prince of dark¬ 
 ness, had betrayed him ; Delilah, the queen of Night, had 
 shorn his hair; the dreadful Boar had wounded him; 
 Hercules was struggling with Death itself ; he had fallen 
 under the influence of those malign constellations—the 
 Serpent and the Scorpion. Would the god grow weaker 
 and weaker, and finally succumb, or would he conquer 
 after all ? We can imagine the anxiety with which those 
 early men and women watched for the first indication of 
 a lengthening day ; and the universal joy when the Priest 
 (the representative of primitive science) having made some 
 simple observations, announced from the Temple steps 
 that the day was lengthening—that the Sun was really born 
 again to a new and glorious career. 2 
 
 1 Compare the Aztec ceremonial of lighting a holy fire and com¬ 
 municating it to the multitude from the wounded breast of a human 
 victim, celebrated every 52 years at the end of one cycle and the 
 beginning of another—the constellation of the Pleiades being in 
 the Zenith (Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico, Bk. I, ch. 4). 
 
 2 It was such things as these which doubtless gave the Priesthood 
 its power. 
 
SOLAR MYTHS 
 
 29 
 
 Let us look at the elementary science of those days a 
 little closer. How without Almanacs or Calendars could 
 the day, or probable day, of the Sun's rebirth be fixed ? 
 Go out next Christmas Evening, and at midnight you will 
 see the brightest of the fixed stars, Sirius, blazing in the 
 southern sky—not however due south from you, but some¬ 
 what to the left of the Meridian line. Some three thousand 
 years ago (owing to the Precession of the Equinoxes) that 
 star at the winter solstice did not stand at midnight where 
 you now see it, but almost exactly on the meridian line. 
 The coming of Sirius therefore to the meridian at midnight 
 became the sign and assurance of the Sun having reached 
 the very lowest point of his course, and therefore of having 
 arrived at the moment of his re-birth. Where then was 
 the Sun at that moment ? Obviously in the underworld 
 beneath our feet. Whatever views the ancients may 
 have had about the shape of the earth, it was evident to 
 the mass of people that the Sungod, after illuminating the 
 world during the day, plunged down in the West, and 
 remained during the hours of darkness in some cavern 
 under the earth. Here he rested and after bathing in the 
 great ocean renewed his garments before reappearing in 
 the East next morning. 
 
 But in this long night of his greatest winter weakness, 
 when all the world was hoping and praying for the renewal 
 of his strength, it is evident that the new birth would come 
 —if it came at all—at midnight. This then was the sacred 
 hour when in the underworld (the Stable or the Cave or 
 whatever it might be called) the child was born who was 
 destined to be the Saviour of men. At that moment Sirius 
 stood on the southern meridian (and in more southern 
 lands than ours this would be more nearly overhead) ; 
 and that star—there is little doubt—is the Star in the East 
 mentioned in the Gospels. 
 
 To the right, as the supposed observer looks at Sirius 
 on the midnight of Christmas Eve, stands the magnificent 
 
30 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Orion, the mighty hunter. There are three stars in his 
 belt which, as is well known, lie in a straight line pointing 
 to Sirius. They are not so bright as Sirius, but they are 
 sufficiently bright to attract attention. A long tradition 
 gives them the name of the Three Kings. Dupuis 1 says : 
 “ Orion a trois belles etoiles vers le milieu, qui sont de 
 seconde grandeur et posees en ligne droite, Tune pres de 
 Tautre, le peuple les appelle les trots rots. On donne aux 
 trois rois Magis les noms de Magalat, Galgalat, Saraim ; 
 et Athos, Satos, Paratoras. Les Catholiques les appellent 
 Gaspard, Melchior, et Balthasar.” The last-mentioned 
 group of names comes in the Catholic Calendar in con¬ 
 nexion with the feast of the Epiphany (6th January) ; 
 and the name “ Trois Rois ” is commonly to-day given 
 to these stars by the French and Swiss peasants. 
 
 Immediately after Midnight then, on the 25th December, 
 the Beloved Son (or Sun-god) is born. If we go back in 
 thought to the period, some three thousand years ago, 
 when at that moment of the heavenly birth Sirius, coming 
 from the East, did actually stand on the Meridian, we 
 shall come into touch with another curious astronomical 
 coincidence. For at that same moment we shall see the 
 Zodiacal constellation of the Virgin in the act of rising, 
 and becoming visible in the East divided through the 
 middle by the line of the horizon. 
 
 The constellation Virgo is a Y-shaped group, of which 
 a, the star at the foot, is the well-known Spica, a star of 
 the first magnitude. The other principal stars, y at the 
 centre, and jS and e at the extremities, are of the second 
 magnitude. The whole resembles more a cup than the 
 human figure ; but when we remember the symbolic mean¬ 
 ing of the cup, that seems to be an obvious explanation 
 of the name Virgo, which the constellation has borne since 
 
 1 Charles F. Dupuis (Origine de Tous les Cultes, Paris, 1822) was 
 one of the earliest modern writers on these subjects. 
 
SOLAR MYTHS 
 
 31 
 
 the earliest times. [The three stars j 3 , y and a, lie very 
 nearly on the Ecliptic, that is, the Sun’s path—a fact to 
 which we shall return presently.] 
 
 At the moment then when Sirius, the star from the East, 
 by coming to the Meridian a^ midnight signalled the Sun’s 
 new birth, the Virgin was seen just rising on the Eastern 
 sky—the horizon line passing through her centre. And 
 many people think that this astronomical fact is the explan¬ 
 ation of the very widespread legend of the Virgin-birth. I 
 
 << 
 
 do not think that it is the sole explanation—for indeed in 
 all or nearly all these cases the acceptance of a myth seems 
 to depend not upon a single argument but upon the con¬ 
 vergence of a number of meanings and reasons in the same 
 symbol. But certainly the fact mentioned above is curious, 
 and its importance is accentuated by the following con¬ 
 siderations. 
 
 In the Temple of Denderah in Egypt, and on the inside 
 of the dome, there is or was an elaborate circular repre¬ 
 sentation of the Northern hemisphere of the sky and the 
 
32 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Zodiac. 1 Here Virgo the constellation is represented, as 
 in our star-maps, by a woman with a spike of corn in her 
 hand (Spica). But on the margin close by there is an 
 annotating and explicatory figure—a figure of Isis with 
 the infant Horus in her arms, and quite resembling in 
 style the Christian Madonna and Child, except that she 
 is sitting and the child is on her knee. This seems to show 
 that—whatever other nations may have done in associ¬ 
 ating Virgo with Demeter, Ceres, Diana, 2 3 etc.—the Egyptians 
 made no doubt of the constellation's connexion with Isis 
 and Horus. But it is well known as a matter of history 
 that the worship of Isis and Horus descended in the early 
 Christian centuries to Alexandria, where it took the form 
 of the worship of the Virgin Mary and the infant Saviour, 
 and so passed into the European ceremonial. We have 
 therefore the Virgin Mary connected by linear succession 
 and descent with that remote Zodiacal cluster in the sky ! 
 Also it may be mentioned that on the Arabian and Persian 
 globes of Abenezra and Abuazar a Virgin and Child are 
 figured in connexion with the same constellation .3 
 
 A curious confirmation of the same astronomical con¬ 
 nexion is afforded by the Roman Catholic Calendar. For 
 if this be consulted it will be found that the festival of the 
 Assumption of the Virgin is placed on the 15th August, 
 while the festival of the Birth of the Virgin is dated the 
 8th September. I have already pointed out that the 
 stars, a, /3 and y of Virgo are almost exactly on the Ecliptic, 
 or Sun's path through the sky ; and a brief reference to 
 the Zodiacal signs and the star-maps will show that the 
 Sun each year enters the sign of Virgo about the first-men¬ 
 tioned date, and leaves it about the second date. At the 
 present day the Zodiacal signs (owing to precession) have 
 
 1 Carefully described and mapped by Dupuis, see op. cit. 
 
 2 For the harvest-festival of Diana, the Virgin, and her parallelism 
 with the Virgin Mary, see The Golden Bough, vol. i, 14 and ii, 121. 
 
 3 See F. Nork, Dev Mystagog (Leipzig, 1838). 
 
SOLAR MYTHS 
 
 33 
 
 shifted some distance from the constellations of the same 
 name. But at the time when the Zodiac was constituted 
 and these names were given, the first date obviously would 
 signalise the actual disappearance of the cluster Virgo 
 in the Sun's rays—i.e. the Assumption of the Virgin into 
 the glory of the God—while the second date would signalise 
 the reappearance of the constellation or the Birth of the 
 Virgin. The Church of Notre Dame at Paris is supposed 
 to be on the original site of a Temple of Isis; and it is 
 said (but I have not been able to verify this myself) that 
 one of the side entrances—that, namely, on the left in 
 entering from the North (cloister) side—is figured with 
 the signs of the Zodiac except that the sign Virgo is replaced 
 by the figure of the Madonna and Child. 
 
 So strange is the scripture of the sky ! Innumerable 
 legends and customs connect the rebirth of the Sun with 
 a Virgin parturition. Dr. J. G. Frazer in his Part IV 
 of The Golden Bough 1 says : “If we may trust the evidence 
 of an obscure scholiast the Greeks [in the worship of 
 Mithras at Rome] used to celebrate the birth of the lumin¬ 
 ary by a midnight service, coming out of the inner shrines 
 and crying, ‘ The Virgin has brought forth! The light 
 is waxing ! ’ ( f H TrapOlvoQ tetokev, av^ei (jiCog-)” In 
 Elie Reclus’ little book Primitive Folk 3 it is said of the 
 Esquimaux that “ On the longest night of the year two 
 angakout (priests), of whom one is disguised as a woman, 
 go from hut to hut extinguishing all the lights, rekindling 
 them from a vestal flame, and crying out, ‘ From the new 
 sun cometh a new light \ ” 
 
 All this above-written on the Solar or Astronomical 
 origins of the myths does not of course imply that the 
 Vegetational origins must be denied or ignored. These 
 latter were doubtless the earliest, but there is no reason 
 —as said in the Introduction (ch. i)—why the two elements 
 
 1 Book II, ch. vi. 
 
 3 In the Contemporary Science Series, p. 92. 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 should not to some extent have run side by side, or been 
 fused with each other. In fact it is quite clear that they 
 must have done so ; and to separate them out too rigidly, 
 or treat them as antagonistic, is a mistake. The Cave or 
 Underworld in which the New Year is born is not only 
 the place of the Sun's winter retirement, but also the hidden 
 chamber beneath the Earth to which the dying Vegetation 
 goes, and from which it re-arises in Spring. The amours 
 of Adonis with Venus and Proserpine, the lovely goddesses 
 of the upper and under worlds, or of Attis with Cybele, 
 the blooming Earth-mother, are obvious vegetation-symbols ; 
 but they do not exclude the interpretation that Adonis 
 (Adonai) may also figure as a Sun-god. The Zodiacal 
 constellations of Aries and Taurus (to which I shall return 
 presently) rule in heaven just when the Lamb and the 
 Bull are in evidence on the earth ; and the yearly sacrifice 
 of those two animals and of the growing Corn for the good 
 of mankind runs parallel with the drama of the sky, as 
 it affects not only the said constellations but also Virgo 
 (the Earth-mother who bears the sheaf of corn in her 
 hand). 
 
 I shall therefore continue (in the next chapter) to point 
 out these astronomical references—which are full of signi¬ 
 ficance and poetry ; but with a recommendation at the 
 same time to the reader not to forget the poetry and signi¬ 
 ficance of the terrestrial interpretations. 
 
 Between Christmas Day and Easter there are several 
 minor festivals or holy days—such as the 28th December 
 (the Massacre of the Innocents), the 6th January (the 
 Epiphany), the 2nd February (Candlemas 1 Day), the 
 period of Lent (German Lenz, the Spring), the Annunci- 
 
 1 This festival of the Purification of the Virgin corresponds with 
 the old Roman festival of Juno Februata (i.e. purified) which was 
 held in the last month (February) of the Roman year, and which 
 included a candle procession of Ceres, searching for Proserpine. (F. 
 Nork, Der Mystagog.) 
 
SOLAR MYTHS 
 
 35 
 
 ation of the Blessed Virgin, and so forth—which have 
 been commonly celebrated in the pagan cults before Chris¬ 
 tianity, and in which elements of Star and Nature worship 
 can be traced ; but to dwell on all these would take too 
 long; so let us pass at once to the period of Easter itself. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC 
 
 The Vernal Equinox has all over the ancient world, and 
 from the earliest times, been a period of rejoicing and of 
 festivals in honour of the Sungod. It is needless to labour 
 a point which is so well known. Everyone understands 
 and appreciates the joy of finding that the long darkness 
 is giving way, that the Sun is growing in strength, and 
 that the days are winning a victory over the nights. The 
 birds and flowers reappear, and the promise of Spring is 
 in the air. But it may be worth while to give an elemen¬ 
 tary explanation of the astronomical meaning of this period, 
 because this is not always understood, and yet it is very 
 important in its bearing on the rites and creeds of the 
 early religions. The priests who were, as I have said, 
 the early students and inquirers, had worked out this 
 astronomical side, and in that way were able to fix dates 
 and to frame for the benefit of the populace myths and 
 legends, which were in a certain sense explanations of the 
 order of Nature, and a kind of “ popular science.” 
 
 The Equator, as everyone knows, is an imaginary line 
 or circle girdling the Earth half-way between the North 
 and South poles. If you imagine a transparent Earth 
 with a light at its very centre, and also imagine the shadow 
 of this equatorial line to be thrown on the vast concave 
 of the Sky, this shadow would in astronomical parlance 
 
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38 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 coincide with the Equator of the Sky—forming an imaginary 
 circle half-way between the North and South celestial poles. 
 
 The Equator, then, may be pictured as cutting across 
 the sky either by day or by night, and always at the same 
 elevation—that is, as seen from any one place. But the 
 Ecliptic (the other important great circle of the heavens) 
 can only be thought of as a line traversing the constel¬ 
 lations as they are seen at night. It is in fact the Sun's 
 path among the fixed stars. For (really owing to the 
 Earth’s motion in its orbit) the Sun appears to move round 
 the heavens once a year—traveling, always to the left, 
 from constellation to constellation. The exact path of 
 the sun is called the Ecliptic ; and the band of sky on 
 either side of the Ecliptic which may be supposed to include 
 the said constellations is called the Zodiac. How then— 
 it will of course be asked—seeing that the Sun and the Stars 
 can never be seen together—were the Priests able to map 
 out the path of the former among the latter ? Into that 
 question we need not go. Sufficient to say that they 
 succeeded ; and their success—even with the very primitive 
 instruments they had—shows that their astronomical 
 knowledge and acuteness of reasoning were of no mean 
 order. 
 
 To return to our Vernal Equinox. Let us suppose that 
 the Equator and Ecliptic of the sky, at the Spring season, 
 are represented by the two lines Eq. and Eel. crossing each 
 other at the point P. The Sun, represented by the small 
 circle, is moving slowly and in its annual course along the 
 Ecliptic to the left. When it reaches the point P (the 
 dotted circle) it stands on the Equator of the sky, and 
 then for a day or two, being neither North nor South, it 
 shines on the two terrestrial hemispheres alike, and day 
 and night are equal. Before that time, when the sun is 
 low down in the heavens, night has the advantage, and the 
 days are short; afterwards, when the Sun has traveled 
 more to the left, the days triumph over the nights. 
 
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC 39 
 
 It will be seen then that this point P where the Sun’s 
 path crosses the Equator is a very critical point. It is 
 the astronomical location of the triumph of the Sungod 
 and of the arrival of Spring. 
 
 How was this location defined ? Among what stars 
 was the Sun moving at that critical moment ? (For of 
 course it was understood, or supposed, that the Sun was 
 deeply influenced by the constellation through which it 
 was, or appeared to be, moving.) It seems then that at 
 the period when these questions were occupying men’s 
 minds—say about three thousand years ago—the point 
 where the Ecliptic crossed the Equator was, as a matter 
 of fact, in the region of the constellation Aries or the he- 
 
 Lamb. The triumph of the Sungod was therefore, and 
 quite naturally, ascribed to the influence of Aries. The 
 Lamb became the symbol of the risen Saviour, and of his passage 
 from the underworld into the height of heaven. At first such 
 an explanation sounds hazardous ; but a thousand texts 
 and references confirm it ; and it is only by the accumu¬ 
 lation of evidence in these cases that the student becomes 
 convinced of a theory’s correctness. It must also be 
 remembered (what I have mentioned before) that these 
 myths and legends were commonly adopted not only for 
 one strict reason but because they represented in a general 
 way the convergence of various symbols and inferences. 
 
 Let me enumerate a few points with regard to the Vernal 
 Equinox. In the Bible the festival is called the Pass- 
 
40 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 over, and its supposed institution by Moses is related in 
 Exodus, ch. xii. In every house a he-lamb was to be 
 slain, and its blood to be sprinkled on the doorposts of 
 the house. Then the Lord would pass over and not smite 
 that house. The Hebrew word is pasach, to pass. 1 The 
 lamb slain was called the Paschal Lamb. But what was 
 that lamb ? Evidently not an earthly lamb—(though 
 certainly the earthly lambs on the hillsides were just then 
 ready to be killed and eaten)—but the heavenly Lamb, 
 which was slain or sacrificed when the Lord * passed over * 
 the equator and obliterated the constellation Aries. This 
 was the Lamb of God which was slain each year, and “ slain 
 since the foundation of the world.” This period of the 
 Passover (about the 25th March) was to be 2 3 the beginning 
 of a new year. The sacrifice of the Lamb, and its blood, 
 were to be the promise of redemption. The door-frames 
 of the houses—symbols of the entrance into a new life— 
 were to be sprinkled with blood .3 Later, the imagery of 
 the saving power of the blood of the Lamb became more 
 popular, more highly coloured. (See St. Paul’s epistles, 
 and the early Fathers.) And we have the expression 
 “ washed in the blood of the Lamb ” adopted into the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 In order fully to understand this extraordinary expression 
 and its origin we must turn for a moment to the worship 
 
 1 It is said that pasach sometimes means not so much to pass over, 
 as to hover over and so protect. Possibly both meanings enter in 
 here. See Isaiah xxxi. 5. 
 
 = See Exodus xii. 1. 
 
 3 It is even said (see The Golden Bough, vol. iii, 185) that the 
 doorways of houses and temples in Peru were at the Spring festival 
 daubed with blood of the first-born children—commuted afterwards 
 to the blood of the sacred animal, the Llama. And as to Mexico, 
 Sahagun, the great Spanish missionary, tells us that it was a custom 
 of the people there to “ smear the outside of their houses and doors 
 with blood drawn from their own ears and ankles, in order to pro¬ 
 pitiate the god of Harvest” (Kingsborough’s Mexican Antiquities, 
 vol. vi, p. 235). 
 
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC 41 
 
 both of Mithra, the Persian Sungod, and of Attis the Syrian 
 god, as throwing great light on the Christian cult and 
 ceremonies. It must be remembered that in the early 
 centuries of our era the Mithra-cult was spread over the 
 whole Western world. It has left many monuments of 
 itself even here in Britain. At Rome the woiship was 
 extremely popular, and it may almost be said to have 
 been a matter of chance whether Mithraism should over¬ 
 whelm Christianity, or whether the younger religion by 
 adopting many of the rites of the older one should establish 
 itself (as it did) in the face of the latter. 
 
 Now we have already mentioned that in the Mithra 
 cult the slaying of a Bull by the Sungod occupies the same 
 sort of place as the slaying of the Lamb in the Christian 
 cult. It took place at the Vernal Equinox and the blood 
 of the Bull acquired in men’s minds a magic virtue. 
 Mithraism was a greatly older religion than Christianity ; 
 but its genesis was similar. In fact, owing to the Pre¬ 
 cession of the Equinoxes, the crossing-place of the Ecliptic 
 and Equator was different at the time of the establishment 
 of Mithra-worship from what it was in the Christian period ; 
 and the Sun instead of standing in the He-lamb, or Aries , 
 at the Vernal Equinox stood, about two thousand years 
 earlier (as indicated by the dotted line in the diagram, 
 p. 39), in this very constellation of the Bull. 1 The bull 
 therefore became the symbol of the triumphant God, and 
 the sacrifice of the bull a holy mystery. (Nor must we 
 
 1 With regard to this point, see an article in the Nineteenth Century 
 for September 1900, by E. W. Maunder of the Greenwich Observatory 
 on “The Oldest Picture Book" (the Zodiac). Mr. Maunder calcu¬ 
 lates that the Vernal Equinox was in the centre of the Sign of the 
 Bull 5,000 years ago. [It would therefore be in the centre of Aries 
 2,845 years ago—allowing 2,155 years for the time occupied in passing 
 from one Sign to another.] At the earlier period the Summer solstice 
 was in the centre of Leo, the Autumnal equinox in the centre of 
 Scorpio, and the Winter solstice in the centre of Aquarius—corre- 
 pondingly roughly, Mr. Maunder points out, to the positions of the 
 four * Royal Stars,’ Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut. 
 
42 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 overlook here the agricultural appropriateness of the bull 
 as the emblem of Spring-plowings and of service to man.) 
 
 The sacrifice of the Bull became the image of redemption. 
 In a certain well-known Mithra-sculpture or group, the 
 Sungod is represented as plunging his dagger into a bull, 
 while a scorpion, a serpent, and other animals are sucking 
 the latter’s blood. From one point of view this may be 
 taken as symbolic of the Sun fertilising the gross Earth 
 by plunging his rays into it and so drawing forth its blood 
 for the sustenance of all creatures ; while from another 
 more astronomical aspect it symbolises the conquest of 
 the Sun over winter in the moment of * passing over ’ the 
 sign of the Bull, and the depletion of the generative power 
 of the Bull by the Scorpion —which of course is the autum¬ 
 nal sign of the Zodiac and herald of winter. One such 
 Mithraic group was found at Ostia, where there was a large 
 subterranean Temple “ to the invincible god Mithras.” 
 
 In the worship of Attis there were (as I have already 
 indicated) many points of resemblance to the Christian 
 cult. On the 22nd March (the Vernal Equinox) a pine- 
 tree was cut in the woods and brought into the Temple 
 of Cybele. It was treated almost as a divinity, was decked 
 with violets, and the effigy of a young man tied to the 
 stem (cf. the Crucifixion). The 24th was called the “ Day 
 of Blood ” ; the High Priest first drew blood from his own 
 arms ; and then the others gashed and slashed themselves, 
 and spattered the altar and the sacred tree with blood ; 
 while novices made themselves eunuchs “ for the kingdom 
 of heaven’s sake.” The effigy was afterwards laid in a 
 tomb. But when night fell, says Dr. Frazer, 1 sorrow was 
 turned to joy. A light was brought, and the tomb was 
 found to be empty. The next day, the 25th, was the 
 festival of the Resurrection ; and ended in carnival and 
 license (the Hilaria). Further, says Dr. Frazer, these 
 
 1 See Adonis, Attis and Osiris, Part IV of The Golden Bough, by 
 J. G. Frazer, p. 229. 
 
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC 43 
 
 mysteries “ seem to have included a sacramental meal 
 and a baptism of blood.” 
 
 “ In the baptism the devotee, crowned with gold and 
 wreathed with fillets, descended into a pit, the mouth of 
 which was covered with a wooden grating. A bull, adorned 
 with garlands of flowers, its forehead glittering with gold 
 leaf, was then driven on to the grating and there stabbed 
 to death with a consecrated spear. Its hot reeking blood 
 poured in torrents through the apertures, and was received 
 with devout eagerness by the worshiper on every part of 
 his person and garments, till he emerged from the pit, 
 drenched, dripping, and scarlet from head to foot, to 
 receive the homage, nay the adoration, of his fellows—as 
 one who had been born again to eternal life and had washed 
 away his sins in the blood of the bull.” 1 And Frazer 
 continuing says : “ That the bath of blood derived from 
 slaughter of the bull (tauro-bolium) was believed to regen¬ 
 erate the devotee for eternity is proved by an inscription 
 found at Rome, which records that a certain Sextilius 
 Agesilaus Aedesius, who dedicated an altar to Attis and 
 the mother of the gods (Cybele) was taarobolio criobolio que 
 in aeternum renatus .” 3 “In the procedure of the Tauro- 
 bolia and Criobolia,” says Mr. J. M. Robertson ,3 “ which 
 grew very popular in the Roman world, we have the literal 
 and original meaning of the phrase ‘ washed in the blood 
 of the lamb *; the doctrine being that resurrection and 
 eternal life were secured by drenching or sprinkling with 
 the actual blood of a sacrificial bull or ram.” For the 
 popularity of the rite we may quote Franz Cumont, who 
 says 4 :—“ Cette douche sacree ( taurobolium ) parait avoir 
 ete administree en Cappadoce dans un grand nombre de 
 
 1 Adonis, Attis and Osiris, p. 229. References to Prudentius, and 
 to Firmicus Maternus, De errore 28. 8. 
 
 2 That is, “ By the slaughter of the bull and the slaughter of the ram 
 born again into eternity 
 
 3 Pagan Christs, p. 315. 
 
 4 Mystdres de Mithra, Bruxelles, 1902, p. 153. 
 
44 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 sanctuaires, et en particulier dans ceux de Ma la grande 
 divinite indigene, et dans ceux de Anahit a.” 
 
 Whether Mr. Robertson is right in ascribing to the 
 priests (as he appears to do) so materialistic a view of the 
 potency of the actual blood is, I should say, doubtful. I 
 do not myself see that there is any reason for supposing 
 that the priests of Mithra or Attis regarded baptism by 
 blood very differently from the way in which the Christian 
 Church has generally regarded baptism by water—namely, 
 as a symbol of some inner regeneration. There may cer¬ 
 tainly have been a little more of the magical view and a 
 little less of the symbolic, in the older religions ; but the 
 difference was probably on the whole more one of degree 
 than of essential disparity. But however that may be, 
 we cannot but be struck by the extraordinary analogy 
 between the tombstone inscriptions of that period " born 
 again into eternity by the blood of the Bull or the Ram,” 
 and the corresponding texts in our graveyards to-day. 
 F. Cumont in his elaborate work, Textes et Monuments 
 relatifs aux Mysteres de Mithra (2 vols., Brussels, 1899) 
 gives a great number of texts and epitaphs of the same 
 character as that above-quoted, 1 and they are well worth 
 studying by those interested in the subject. Cumont, it 
 may be noted (vol. i, p. 305); thinks that the story of Mithra 
 and the slaying of the Bull must have originated among 
 some pastoral people to whom the bull was the source of 
 all life. The Bull in heaven—the symbol of the trium¬ 
 phant Sungod—and the earthly bull, sacrificed for the 
 good of humanity were one and the same ; the god, in 
 fact, sacrificed himself or his representative. And Mithra 
 was the hero who first won this conception of divinity 
 for mankind—though of course it is in essence quite similar 
 to the conception put forward by the Christian Church. 
 
 As illustrating the belief that the Baptism by Blood 
 was accompanied by a leal regeneration of the devotee, 
 
 1 See vol. i, pp. 334 fp. 
 
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC 45 
 
 Frazer quotes an ancient writer 1 who says that for some 
 time after the ceremony the fiction of a new birth was 
 kept up by dieting the devotee on milk, like a new-born 
 babe. And it is interesting in that connexion to find 
 that even in the present day a diet of absolutely nothing 
 but milk for six or eight weeks is by many doctors recom¬ 
 mended as the only means of getting rid of deep-seated 
 illnesses and enabling a patient’s organism to make a 
 completely new start in life. 
 
 “ At Rome,” he further says (p. 230), “ the new birth 
 and the remission of sins by the shedding of bull’s blood 
 appear to have been carried out above all at the sanctuary 
 of the Phrygian Goddess (Cybele) on the Vatican Hill, 
 at or near the spot where the great basilica of St. Peter’s 
 now stands ; for many inscriptions relating to the rites 
 were found when the church was being enlarged in 1608 
 or 1609. From the Vatican as a centre,” he continues, 
 “ this barbarous system of superstition seems to have 
 spread to other parts of the Roman empire. Inscriptions 
 found in Gaul and Germany prove that provincial sanc¬ 
 tuaries modelled their ritual on that of the Vatican.” 
 
 It would appear then that at Rome in the quite early 
 days of the Christian Church, the rites and ceremonials 
 of Mithra and Cybele, probably much intermingled and 
 blended, were exceedingly popular. Both religions had 
 been recognised by the Roman State, and the Christians, 
 persecuted and despised as they were, found it hard to 
 make any headway against them—the more so perhaps 
 because the Christian doctrines appeared in many respects 
 to be merely faint replicas and copies of the older creeds. 
 Robertson maintains 3 that a he-lamb was sacrificed in 
 the Mithraic mysteries, and he quotes Porphyry as saying 3 
 that “ a place near the equinoctial circle was assigned to 
 Mithra as an appropriate seat ; and on this account he 
 
 1 Sallustius philosophus. See Adonis, Attis and Osiris, note, p. 229. 
 
 3 Pagan Christs, p. 336. 3 Da Antro, xxiv. 
 
46 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 bears the sword of the Ram [Aries] which is a sign of Mars 
 [Ares]/’ Similarly among the early Christians, it is said, 
 a ram or lamb was sacrificed in the Paschal mystery. 
 
 Many people think that the association of the Lamb- 
 god with the Cross arose from the fact that the constel¬ 
 lation Aries at that time was on the heavenly cross (the 
 crossways of the Ecliptic and Equator—see diagram, 
 ch. iii, p. 39 supra), and in the very place through which 
 the Sungod had to pass just before his final triumph. And 
 it is curious to find that Justin Martyr in his Dialogue 
 with Trypho 1 (a Jew) alludes to an old Jewish practice of 
 roasting a Lamb on spits arranged in the form of a Cross. 
 “ The lamb,” he says, meaning apparently the Paschal 
 lamb, “ is roasted and dressed up in the form of a cross. 
 For one spit is transfixed right through the lower parts 
 up to the head, and one across the back, to which are 
 attached the legs [forelegs] of the lamb.” 
 
 To-day in Morocco at the festival of Eid-el-Kebir, corre¬ 
 sponding to the Christian Easter, the Mohammedans sacrifice 
 a young ram and hurry it still bleeding to the precincts 
 of the Mosque, while at the same time every household 
 slays a lamb, as in the Biblical institution, for its family 
 feast. 
 
 But it will perhaps be said, * You are going too fast 
 and proving too much. In the anxiety to show that 
 the Lamb-god and the sacrifice of the Lamb were honoured 
 by the devotees of Mithra and Cybele in the Rome of the 
 Christian era, you are forgetting that the sacrifice of the 
 Bull and the baptism in bull’s blood were the salient 
 features of the Persian and Phrygian ceremonials some 
 centuries earlier. How can you reconcile the existence 
 side by side of divinities belonging to such different periods, 
 or ascribe them both to an astronomical origin ? ” The 
 answer is simple enough. As I have explained before, 
 
 1 Ch. xl. 
 
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC 
 
 47 
 
 the Precession of the Equinoxes caused the Sun, at its 
 moment of triumph over the powers of darkness, to stand 
 at one period in the constellation of the Bull, and at a 
 period some two thousand years later in the constellation 
 of the Ram. It was perfectly natural therefore that a 
 change in the sacred symbols should, in the course of time, 
 take place ; yet perfectly natural also that these symbols, 
 having once been consecrated and adopted, should con¬ 
 tinue to be honoured and clung to long after the time of 
 their astionomical appropriateness had passed, and so 
 to be found side by side in later centuries. The devotee 
 of Mithra or Attis on the Vatican Hill at Rome in the year 
 200 a.d. probably had as little notion or comprehension of 
 the real origin of the sacred Bull or Ram which he adored, 
 as the Christian in St. Peter’s to-day has of the origin of 
 the Lamb-god whose vicegerent on earth is the Pope. 
 
 It is indeed easy to imagine that the change from the 
 worship of the Bull to the worship of the Lamb which 
 undoubtedly took place among various peoples as time 
 went on, was only a ritual change initiated by the priests 
 in order to put on record and harmonise with the astrono¬ 
 mical alteration. Anyhow it is curious that while Mithra 
 in the early times was specially associated with the bull, 
 his association with the lamb belonged more to the Roman 
 period. Somewhat the same happened in the case of 
 Attis. In the Bible we read of the indignation of Moses 
 at the setting up by the Israelites of a Golden Calf, after 
 the sacrifice of the ram-lamb had been instituted—as if 
 indeed the rebellious people were returning to the earlier 
 cult of Apis which they ought to have left behind them 
 in Egypt. In Egypt itself, too, we find the worship of 
 Apis, as time went on, yielding place to that of the Ram¬ 
 headed god Amun, or Jupiter Ammon. 1 So that both 
 
 1 Tacitus (Hist. v. 4) speaks of a ram-sacrifice by the Jew9 in 
 honour of Jupiter Ammon. See also Herodotus (ii. 42) on the same 
 in Egypt. 
 
48 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 from the Bible and from Egyptian history we may con¬ 
 clude that the worship of the Lamb or Ram succeeded 
 to the worship of the Bull. 
 
 Finally it has been pointed out, and there may be some 
 real connexion in the coincidence, that in the quite early 
 years of Christianity the Fish came in as an accepted symbol 
 of Jesus Christ. Considering that after the domination 
 of Taurus and Aries, the Fish ( Pisces ) comes next in suc¬ 
 cession as the Zodiacal sign for the Vernal Equinox, and 
 is now the constellation in which the Sun stands at that 
 period, it seems not impossible that the astronomical change 
 has been the cause of the adoption of this new symbol. 
 
 Anyhow, and allowing for possible errors or exagger¬ 
 ations, it becomes clear that the travels of the Sun through 
 the belt of constellations which forms the Zodiac must 
 have had, from earliest times, a profound influence on 
 the generation of religious myths and legends. To say 
 that it was the only influence would certainly be a mistake. 
 Other causes undoubtedly contributed. But it was a 
 main and important influence. The origins of the Zodiac 
 are obscure ; we do not know with any certainty the reasons 
 why the various names were given to its component sections, 
 nor can we measure the exact antiquity of these names ; 
 but—pre-supposing the names of the signs as once given 
 —it is not difficult to imagine the growth of legends con¬ 
 nected with the Sun’s course among them. 
 
 Of all the ancient divinities perhaps Hercules is the one 
 whose role as a Sungod is most generally admitted. The 
 helper of gods and men, a mighty Traveler, and invoked 
 everywhere as the Saviour, his labours for the good of the 
 world became ultimately defined and systematised as 
 twelve and corresponding in number to the signs of the 
 Zodiac. It is true that this systematisation only took 
 place at a late period, probably in Alexandria ; also that 
 the identification of some of the Labours with the actual 
 signs as we have them at present is not always clear. But 
 
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC 49 
 
 considering the wide prevalence of the Hercules myth 
 over the ancient world and the very various astronomical 
 systems it must have been connected with in its origin, 
 this lack of exact correspondence is hardly to be wondered at. 
 
 The Labours of Hercules which chiefly interest us are : 
 (i) The capture of the Bull, (2) the slaughter of the Lion, 
 (3) the destruction of the Hydra, (4) of the Boar, (5) the 
 cleansing of the stables of Augeas, (6) the descent into 
 Hades and the taming of Cerberus. The first of these is 
 in line with the Mithraic conquest of the Bull; the Lion is 
 of course one of the most prominent constellations of the 
 Zodiac, and its conquest is obviously the work of a Saviour 
 of mankind; while the last four labours connect them¬ 
 selves very naturally with the Solar conflict in winter 
 against the powers of darkness. The Boar (4) we have 
 seen already as the image of Typhon, the prince of dark¬ 
 ness ; the Hydra (3) was said to be the offspring of Typhon ; 
 the descent into Hades (6)—generally associated with 
 Hercules’ struggle with and victory over Death—links 
 on to the descent of the Sun into the underworld, and its 
 long and doubtful strife with the forces of winter ; and 
 the cleansing of the stables of Augeas (5) has the same 
 signification. It appears in fact that the stables of Augeas 
 was another name for the sign of Capricorn through which 
 the Sun passes at the Winter solstice 1 —the stable of 
 course being an underground chamber—and the myth 
 was that there, in this lowest tract and backwater of the 
 Ecliptic all the malarious and evil influences of the sky 
 were collected, and the Sungod came to wash them away 
 (December was the height of the rainy season in Judsea) 
 and cleanse the year towards its rebirth. 
 
 It should not be forgotten too that even as a child in 
 the cradle Hercules slew two serpents sent for his destruc¬ 
 tion—the serpent and the scorpion as autumnal constel¬ 
 lations figuring always as enemies of the Sungod—to which 
 
 1 See diagram of Zodiac, supra, p. 37. 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 may be compared the power given to his disciples by 
 Jesus 1 “ to tread on serpents and scorpions." Hercules 
 also as a Sungod compares curiously with Samson (men¬ 
 tioned above, ii, p. 27), but we need not dwell on all the 
 elaborate analogies that have been traced 2 between these 
 two heroes. 
 
 The Jesus-story, it will now be seen, has a great number 
 of correspondences with the stories of former Sungods 
 and with the actual career of the Sun through the heavens 
 —so many indeed that they cannot well be attributed to 
 mere coincidence or even to the blasphemous wiles of the 
 Devil! Let us enumerate some of these. There are 
 (1) the birth from a Virgin mother ; (2) the birth in a stable 
 (cave or underground chamber) ; and (3) on the 25th 
 December (just after the winter solstice). There is (4) 
 the Star in the East (Sirius) and (5) the arrival of the Magi 
 (the “ Three Kings ”) ; there is (6) the threatened Massacre 
 of the Innocents, and the consequent flight into a distant 
 country (told also of Krishna and other Sungods). There 
 are the Church festivals of (7) Candlemas (2nd February), 
 with processions of candles to symbolise the growing 
 light; of (8) Lent, or the arrival of Spring ; of (9) Easter | 
 Day (normally oh the 25th March) to celebrate the crossing 
 of the Equator by the Sun ; and (10) simultaneously the 
 outburst of lights at the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. 
 There is (11) the Crucifixion and death of the Lamb-God, 
 on Good Friday, three days before Easter ; there are (12) , 
 the nailing to a tree, (13) the empty grave, (14) the glad 
 Resurrection (as in the cases of Osiris, Attis and others) ; 
 there are (15) the twelve disciples (the Zodiacal signs) ; 
 and (16) the betrayal by one of the twelve. Then later 
 there is (17) Midsummer Day, the 24th June, dedicated 
 to the birth of the beloved disciple John, and corresponding 
 
 1 Luke x. 19. 
 
 2 See Doane’s Bible Myths, ch. viii. (New York, 1882). 
 
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC 51 
 
 to Christmas Day; there are the festivals of (18) the 
 Assumption of the Virgin (15th August) and of (19) the 
 Nativity of the Virgin (8th September), corresponding 
 to the movement of the god through Virgo ; there is the 
 conflict of Christ and his disciples with the autumnal 
 asterisms, (20) the Serpent and the Scorpion ; and finally 
 there is the curious fact that the Church (21) dedicates 
 the very day of the winter solstice (when any one may 
 very naturally doubt the rebirth of the Sun) to St. Thomas, 
 who doubted the truth of the Resurrection ! 
 
 These are some of, and by no means all, the coincidences 
 in question. But they are sufficient, I think, to prove 
 —even allowing for possible margins of error—the truth 
 of our general contention. To go into the parallelism 
 of the careers of Krishna, the Indian Sungod, and Jesus 
 would take too long ; because indeed the correspondence 
 is so extraordinarily close and elaborate. 1 I propose, 
 however, at the close of this chapter, to dwell now for a 
 moment on the Christian festival of the Eucharist, partly 
 on account of its connexion with and derivation from 
 the astronomical rites and Nature-celebrations already 
 alluded to, and partly on account of the light which the 
 festival generally, whether Christian or Pagan, throws 
 on the origins of Religious Magic—a subject I shall have 
 to deal with in the next chapter. 
 
 I have already (Ch. II, p. 25) mentioned the Eucharistic 
 rite held in commemoration of Mithra, and the indignant 
 ascription of this by Justin Martyr to the wiles of the 
 Devil. Justin Martyr clearly had no doubt about the 
 resemblance of the Mithraic to the Christian ceremony. 
 A Sacramental meal, as mentioned a few pages back, seems 
 to have been held by the worshipers of Attis 2 in com¬ 
 memoration of their god; and the ‘ mysteries ’ of the 
 
 1 See Robertson’s Christianity and, Mythology, Part IT, pp. 129-302 ; 
 also Doane’s Bible Myths, ch. xxviii, p. 278. 
 
 3 See Frazer’s Golden Bough, Part IV, p. 229. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 IWUVERSffif OF ?UWO!$ 
 
52 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Pagan cults generally appear to have included rites— 
 sometimes half-savage, sometimes more aesthetic—in which 
 a dismembered animal was eaten, or bread and wine (the 
 spirits of the Com and the Vine) were consumed, as repre¬ 
 senting the body of the god whom his devotees desired 
 to honour. But the best example of this practice is 
 afforded by the rites of Dionysus, to which I will devote 
 a few lines. Dionysus, like other Sun or Nature deities, 
 was born of a Virgin (Semele or Demeter) untainted by any 
 earthly husband ; and born on the 25th December. He 
 was nurtured in a Cave, and even at that early age was 
 identified with the Ram or Lamb, into whose form he 
 was for the time being changed. At times also he was 
 worshiped in the form of a Bull. 1 He traveled far and 
 wide ; and brought the great gift of wine to mankind. 2 
 He was called Liberator, and Saviour. His grave “ was 
 shown at Delphi in the inmost shrine of the temple of 
 Apollo. Secret offerings were brought thither, w’hile the 
 women who were celebrating the feast woke up the new¬ 
 born god. . . . Festivals of this kind in celebration of 
 the extinction and resurrection of the deity, were held 
 (by women and girls only) amid the mountains at night, 
 every third year, about the time of the shortest day. The 
 rites, intended to express the excess of grief and joy at 
 the death and reappearance of the god, were wild even 
 to savagery, and the women who performed them were 
 hence known by the expressive names of Bacchae , Mcenads, 
 and Thyiades. They wandered through woods and moun¬ 
 tains, their flying locks crowned with ivy or snakes, brand¬ 
 ishing wands and torches, to the hollow sounds of the 
 drum, or the shrill notes of the flute, with wild dances 
 and insane cries and jubilation. The victims of the sacrifice, 
 
 1 The Golden Bough, Part II, Book II, p. 164. 
 
 2 “ I am the true Vine,” says the Jesus of the fourth gospel, perhaps 
 with an implicit and hostile reference to the cult of Dionysus—in 
 which Robertson suggests (Christianity and Mythology, p. 357) there 
 was a ritual miracle of turning water into wine. 
 
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC 53 
 
 oxen, goats, even fawns and roes from the forest, were 
 killed, torn in pieces, and eaten raw. This in imitation of 
 the treatment of Dionysus by the Titans ” 1 —who it was 
 supposed had torn the god in pieces when a child. 
 
 Dupuis, one of the earliest writers (at the beginning of 
 last century) on this subject, says, describing the mystic 
 rites of Dionysus 2 : “ The sacred doors of the Temple in 
 which the initiation took place were opened only once a 
 year, and no stranger might ever enter. Night lent to 
 these august mysteries a veil which was forbidden to 
 be drawn aside—for whoever it might be .3 It was the 
 sole occasion for the representation of the passion of 
 Bacchus [Dionysus] dead, descended into hell, and rearisen 
 —in imitation of the representation of the sufferings of 
 Osiris which, according to Herodotus, were commemorated 
 at Sais in Egypt. It was in that place that the partition 
 took place of the body of the god, 4 which was then eaten— 
 the ceremony, in fact, of which our Eucharist is only a 
 reflection; whereas in the mysteries of Bacchus actual 
 raw flesh was distributed, which each of those present had 
 to consume in commemoration of the death of Bacchus 
 dismembered by the Titans, and whose passion, in Chios 
 and Tenedos, was renewed each year by the sacrifice of 
 a man who represented the god. 5 Possibly it is this last 
 fact which made people believe that the Christians (whose 
 hoc est corpus meum and sharing of an Eucharistic meal 
 were no more than a shadow of a more ancient rite) did 
 really sacrifice a child and devour its limbs/* 
 
 That Eucharistic rites were very very ancient is plain 
 from the Totem-sacraments of savages; and to this subject 
 we shall now turn. 
 
 1 See art. Dionysus Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, Nettleship 
 and Sandys (3rd edn., London, 1898). 
 
 3 See Charles F. Dupuis, “ Traite des Mysteres,” ch. i. 
 
 3 Pausan, Corinth, ch. 37. 4 Clem. Prot. Eur. Bacck. 
 
 5 See Porphyry, De Ahstinentia, lii, § 56. 
 
IV 
 
 TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS 
 
 Much has been written on the origin of the Totem-system 
 -—the system, that is, of naming a tribe or a portion of 
 a tribe (say a clan) after some animal —or sometimes also 
 after some plant or tree or Nature-element, like fire or 
 rain or thunder ; but at best the subject is a difficult one 
 for us moderns to understand. A careful study has been 
 made of it by Salamon Reinach in his Cultes, Mythes et 
 Religions , 1 2 where he formulates his conclusions in twelve 
 statements or definitions ; but even so—though his sug¬ 
 gestions are helpful—he throws very little light on the 
 real origin of the system. - 
 
 There are three main difficulties. The first is to under¬ 
 stand why primitive Man should name his Tribe after 
 an animal or object of nature at all; the second, to under¬ 
 stand on what principle he selected the particular name 
 (a lion, a crocodile, a lady bird, a certain tree) ; the third, 
 why he should make of the said totem a divinity, and 
 pay honour and worship to it. It may be worth while 
 to pause for a moment over these. 
 
 1 See English translation of certain chapters (published by David 
 Nutt in 1Q12) entitled Cults, Myths and Religions, pp. 1-25. The 
 French original is in three large volumes. 
 
 2 The same maybe said of the formulated statement of the subject 
 in Morris Jastrow's Handbooks of the History of Religion, vol. iv. 
 
 54 
 
TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS 55 
 
 (1) The fact that the Tribe was one of the early things 
 for which Man found it necessary to have a name is inter¬ 
 esting, because it shows how early the solidarity and psycho¬ 
 logical actuality of the tribe was recognised ; and as to 
 the selection of a name from some animal or concrete 
 object of Nature, that w r as inevitable, for the simple reason 
 that there was nothing else for the savage to choose from. 
 Plainly to call his tribe “ The Wayfarers ” or “ The Pion¬ 
 eers ” or the “ Pacifists ” or the " Invincibles,” or by any 
 of the thousand and one names which modern associations 
 adopt, would have been impossible, since such abstract 
 terms had little or no existence in his mind. And again 
 to name it after an animal was the most obvious thing to 
 do, simply because the animals were by far the most im¬ 
 portant features or accompaniments of his own life. As 
 I am dealing in this book largely with certain psychological 
 conditions of human evolution, it has to be pointed out 
 that to primitive man the animal was the nearest and 
 most closely related of all objects. Being of the same 
 order of consciousness as himself, the animal appealed to 
 him very closely as his mate and equal. He made with 
 regard to it little or no distinction from himself. We see 
 this very clearly in the case of children, who of course 
 represent the savage mind, and who regard animals simply 
 as their mates and equals, and come quickly into rapport 
 with them, not differentiating themselves from them. 
 
 (2) As to the particular animal or other object selected 
 in order to give a name to the Tribe, this would no doubt 
 be largely accidental. Any unusual incident might super- 
 stitiously precipitate a name. We can hardly imagine 
 the Tribe scratching its congregated head in the deliberate 
 effort to think out a suitable emblem for itself. That is 
 not the way in which nicknames are invented in a school 
 or anywhere else to-day. At the same time the heraldic 
 appeal of a certain object of nature, animate or inanimate, 
 would be deeply and widely felt. The strength of the 
 
56 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 lion, the fleetness of the deer, the food-value of a bear, the 
 flight of a bird, the awful jaws of a crocodile, might easily 
 mesmerise a whole tribe. Reinach points out, with great 
 justice, that many tribes placed themselves under the 
 protection of animals which were supposed (rightly or 
 wrongly) to act as guides and augurs, foretelling the future. 
 “ Diodorus/' he says, “ distinctly states that the hawk, 
 in Egypt, was venerated because it foretold the future." 
 [Birds generally act as weather-prophets.] “ In Australia 
 and Samoa the kangaroo, the crow and the owl premonish 
 their fellow clansmen of events to come. At one time 
 the Samoan warriors went so far as to rear owls for their 
 prophetic qualities in war." [The jackal, or ‘ pathfinder ' 
 —whose tracks sometimes lead to the remains of a food- 
 animal slain by a lion, and many birds and insects, have 
 a value of this kind.] “ This use of animal totems for 
 purposes of augury is, in all likelihood, of great antiquity. 
 Men must soon have realised that the senses of animals 
 were acuter than their own ; nor is it surprising that they 
 should have expected their totems—that is to say, their 
 natural allies—to forewarn them both of unsuspected 
 dangers and of those provisions of nature, wells especially, 
 which animals seem to scent by instinct." 1 And again, 
 beyond all this, I have little doubt that there are sub¬ 
 conscious affinities which unite certain tribes to certain 
 animals or plants, affinities whose origin we cannot now 
 trace, though they are very real—the same affinities that 
 we recognise as existing between individual persons and 
 certain objects of nature. W. H. Hudson—himself in 
 many respects having this deep and primitive relation to 
 nature—speaks in a very interesting and autobiographical 
 volume z of the extraordinary fascination exercised upon 
 him as a boy, not only by a snake, but by certain trees, 
 and especially by a particular flowering-plant “ not more 
 
 1 See Reinach, Eng. trans., op. cit., pp. 20, 21. 
 
 3 Far away and Long ago (1918) chs. xvi and xvii. 
 
TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS 57 
 
 than a foot in height, with downy soft pale green leaves, 
 and clusters of reddish blossoms, something like valerian/* 
 
 . . . One of my sacred flowers,” he calls it, and insists 
 on the “ inexplicable attraction ” which it had for him. 
 In various ways of this kind one can perceive how parti¬ 
 cular totems came to be selected by particular peoples. 
 
 (3) As to the tendency to divinise these totems, this 
 arises no doubt partly out of question (2). The animal 
 or other object admired on account of its strength or swift¬ 
 ness, or adopted as guardian of the tribe because of its 
 keen sight or prophetic quality, or infinitely prized on 
 account of its food-value, or felt for any other reason to 
 have a peculiar relation and affinity to the tribe, is by 
 that fact set apart. It becomes taboo. It must not be 
 killed—except under necessity and by sanction of the 
 whole tribe—nor injured ; and all dealings with it must 
 be fenced round with regulations. It is out of this taboo 
 or system of taboos that, according to Reinach, religion 
 arose. " I propose (he says) to define religion as: A 
 sum of scruples ( taboos) which impede the free exercise of 
 our faculties . 1 Obviously this definition is gravely defi¬ 
 cient, simply because it is purely negative, and leaves 
 out of account the positive aspect of the subject. In 
 Man, the positive content of religion is the instinctive 
 sense—whether conscious or subconscious—of an inner unity 
 and continuity with the world around. This is the stuff 
 out of which religion is made. The scruples or taboos 
 which “ impede the freedom ” of this relation are the 
 negative forces which give outline and form to the relation. 
 These are the things which generate the rites and ceremonials 
 of religion ; and as far as Reinach means by religion merely 
 rites and ceremonies he is correct; but clearly he only 
 covers half the subject. The tendency to divinise the 
 totem is at least as much dependent on the positive sense 
 of unity with it, as on the negative scruples which limit 
 1 See Orpheus by S. Reinach, p. 3. 
 
58 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 the relation in each particular case. But I shall return 
 to this subject presently, and more than once, with the 
 view 7 of clarifying it. Just now it will be best to illustrate 
 the nature of Totems generally, and in some detail. 
 
 As would be gathered from what I have just said, there 
 is found among all the more primitive peoples, and in 
 all parts of the world, an immense variety of totem-names. 
 The Dinkas, for instance, are a rather intelligent well- 
 grown people inhabiting the upper reaches of the Nile 
 in the vicinit)/ of the great swamps. According to Dr. 
 Seligman their clans have for totems the lion, the ele¬ 
 phant, the crocodile, the hippopotamus, the fox, and the 
 hyaena, as well as certain birds which infest and damage 
 the corn, some plants and trees, and such things as rain, 
 fire, etc. “ Each clan speaks of its totem as its ancestor, 
 and refrains [as a rule] from injuring or eating it.” 1 The 
 members of the Crocodile clan call themselves “ brothers 
 of the crocodile.” The tribes of Bechuana-land have a 
 very similar list of totem-names—the buffalo, the fish, 
 the porcupine, the wild vine, etc. They too have a 
 Crocodile clan, but they call the crocodile their father ! 
 The tribes of Australia much the same again, with the 
 differences suitable to their country ; and the Red Indians 
 of North America the same. Garcilasso della Vega, the 
 Spanish historian, son of an Inca princess by one of the 
 Spanish conquerors of Peru and author of the well-known 
 book Commentarias Reales, says in that book (i, 75), speak¬ 
 ing of the pre-Inca period, “ An Indian (of Peru) was not 
 considered honorable unless he was descended from a 
 fountain, river or lake, or even from the sea, or from a wild 
 animal, as a bear, lion, tiger, eagle, or the bird they call 
 cuntur (condor), or some other bird of prey.” 3 According 
 
 1 See The Golden Bough, vol. iv, p. 31. 
 
 2 See Andrew Lang, Custom and Myth, p. 104, also Myth , Ritual 
 and Religion, vol. i, pp. 71, 76, etc. 
 
TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS 59 
 
 to Lewis Morgan, the North American Indians of various 
 tribes had for totems the wolf, bear, beaver, turtle, deer, 
 snipe, heron, hawk, crane, loon, turkey, muskrat ; pike, 
 catfish, carp; buffalo, elk, reindeer, eagle, hare, rabbit, 
 snake ; reed-grass, sand, rock, and tobacco-plant. 
 
 So w r e might go on rather indefinitely. I need hardly 
 say that in more modern and civilised life, relics of the 
 totem system are still to be found in the forms of the 
 heraldic creatures adopted for their crests by different 
 families, and in the bears, lions, eagles, the sun, moon and 
 stars and so forth, which still adorn the flags and are 
 flaunted as the insignia of the various nations. The names 
 may not have been originally adopted from any definite 
 belief in blood-relationship wdth the animal or other object 
 in question ; but when, as Robertson says {Pagan Christs, 
 p. 104), a “ savage learned that he w T as ‘a Bear' and that 
 his father and grandfather and forefathers were so before 
 him, it was really impossible, after ages in which totem- 
 names thus passed current, that he should fail to assume 
 that his folk w r ere descended from a bear/' 
 
 As a rule, as may be imagined, the savage tribesman 
 will on no account eat his tribal totem-animal. Such 
 would naturally be deemed a kind of sacrilege. Also it 
 must be remarked that some totems are hardly suitable 
 for eating. Yet it is important to observe that occasion¬ 
 ally, and guarding the ceremony with great precautions, 
 it has been an almost universal custom for the tribal elders 
 to call a feast at which an animal (either the totem or 
 some other) is killed and communally eaten—and this in 
 order that the tribesmen may absorb some virtue belonging 
 to it, and may confirm their identity with the tribe and 
 wdth each other. The eating of the bear or other animal, 
 the sprinkling with its blood, and the general ritual in 
 which the participants shared its flesh, or dressed and 
 disguised themselves in its skin, or otherwise identified 
 themselves wdth it, was to them a symbol of their com- 
 
60 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 munity of life with each other, and a means of their 
 renewal and salvation in the holy emblem. And this 
 custom, as the reader will perceive, became the origin of 
 the Eucharists and Holy Communions of the later religions. 
 
 Professor Robertson-Smith's celebrated Camel affords 
 an instance of this. 1 It appears that St. Nilus (fifth century) 
 has left a detailed account of the occasional sacrifice in 
 his time of a spotless white camel among the Arabs of the 
 Sinai region, which closely resembles a totemic communion- 
 feast. The uncooked blood and flesh of the animal had 
 to be entirely consumed by the faithful before daybreak. 
 “ The slaughter of the victim, the sacramental drinking 
 of the blood, and devouring in wild haste of the pieces of 
 still quivering flesh, recall the details of the Dionysiac 
 and other festivals." 3 Robertson-Smith himself says :— 
 “ The plain meaning is that the victim was devoured before 
 its life had left the still warm blood and flesh . . . and 
 that thus in the most literal way, all those who shared 
 in the ceremony absorbed part of the victim's life into 
 themselves. One sees how much more forcibly than 
 any ordinary meal such a rite expresses the establishment 
 or confirmation of a bond of common life between the 
 worshipers, and also, since the blood is shed upon the 
 altar itself, between the worshipers and their god. In 
 this sacrifice, then, the significant factors are two : the 
 conveyance of the living blood to the godhead, and the 
 absorption of the living flesh and blood into the flesh and 
 blood of the worshipers. Each of these is effected in 
 the simplest and most direct manner, so that the meaning 
 of the ritual is perfectly transparent." 
 
 It seems strange, of course, that men should eat their 
 totems ; and it must not by any means be supposed that 
 this practice is (or was) universal; but it undoubtedly 
 
 1 See his Religion of the Semites, p. 320. 
 
 3 They also recall the rites of the Passover—though in this latter 
 the blood was no longer drunk, nor the flesh eaten raw. 
 
TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS 61 
 
 obtains in some cases. As Miss Harrison says ( Themis , 
 p. 123), " yon do not as a rule eat your relations/’ and 
 as a rule the eating of a totem is tabu and forbidden, but 
 (Miss Harrison continues) “ at certain times and under 
 certain restrictions a man not only may, but must , eat of 
 his totem, though only sparingly, as of a thing sacrosanct.” 
 The ceremonial carried out in a communal way by the 
 tribe not only identifies the tribe with the totem (animal), 
 but is held, according to early magical ideas, and when 
 the animal is desiied for food, to favour its multiplication. 
 The human tribe partakes of the mana or life-force of the 
 animal, and is strengthened ; the animal tribe is sympa¬ 
 thetically renewed by the ceremonial and multiplies exceed¬ 
 ingly. The slaughter of the sacred animal and (often) 
 the simultaneous outpouring of human blood seals the 
 compact and confirms the magic. This is well illustrated 
 by a ceremony of the ‘ Emu ’ tribe referred to by Dr. 
 Frazer:— 
 
 ” In order to multiply Emus which are an important 
 article of food, the men of the Emu totem in the Arunta 
 tribe proceed as follows : They clear a small spot of level 
 ground, and opening veins in their arms they let the blood 
 stream out until the surface of the ground for a space of 
 about three square yards is soaked with it. When the 
 blood has dried and caked, it forms a hard and fairly im¬ 
 permeable surface, on which they paint the sacred design 
 of the emu totem, especially the parts of the bird which 
 they like best to eat, namely, the fat and the eggs. Round 
 this painting the men sit and sing. Afterwards performers 
 wearing long head-dresses to represent the long neck and 
 small head of the emu, mimic the appearance of the bird 
 as it stands aimlessly peering about in all directions.” 1 
 
 Thus blood sacrifice comes in ; and—(whether this has 
 ever actually happened in the case of the Central Australians 
 
 1 The Golden Bough i, 85—with reference to Spencer and Gillen's 
 Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 179, 189. 
 
62 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 I know not)—we can easily imagine a member of the Emu 
 tribe, and disguised as an actual emu, having been cere¬ 
 monially slaughtered as a firstfruits and promise of the 
 expected and prayed-for emu-crop ; just as the same 
 certainly has happened in the case of men wearing beast- 
 masks of Bulls or Rams or Bears being sacrificed in propi¬ 
 tiation of Bull-gods, Ram-gods or Bear-gods or simply in 
 pursuance of some kind of magic to favour the multipli¬ 
 cation of these food-animals. 
 
 “ In the light of totemistic ways of thinking we see plainly 
 enough the relation of man to food-animals. You need 
 or at least desire flesh food, yet you shrink from slaughtering 
 ‘ your brother the ox'; you desire his mana, yet you 
 respect his tabu, for in you and him alike runs the common 
 life-blood. On your own individual responsibility you 
 would never kill him ; but for the common weal, on great 
 occasions, and in a fashion conducted with scrupulous 
 care, it is expedient that he die for his people, and that 
 they feast upon his flesh/' 1 
 
 In her little book Ancient Art and Ritual 2 Jane Harrison 
 describes the dedication of a holy Bull, as conducted in 
 Greece at Elis, and at Magnesia and other cities. “ There 
 at the annual fair year by year the stewards of the city 
 bought a Bull ‘ the finest that could be got,’ and at the 
 new moon of the month at the beginning of seed-time 
 [? April] they dedicated it for the city’s welfare. . . . The 
 Bull was led in procession at the head of which went the 
 chief priest and priestess of the city. With them went 
 a herald and the sacrificer, and two bands of youths and 
 maidens. So holy was the Bull that nothing unlucky 
 might come near him. The herald pronounced aloud a 
 prayer for ‘ the safety of the city and the land, and the 
 citizens, and the women and children, for peace and wealth, 
 and for the bringing forth of grain and all other fruits, 
 
 1 Themis, p. 140. 
 
 3 Home University Library, p 87. 
 
TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS 63 
 
 and of cattle/ All this longing for fertility, for food and 
 children, focuses round the holy Bull, whose holiness is 
 his strength and fruitfulness.” The Bull is sacrificed. 
 The flesh is divided in solemn feast among those who 
 take part in the procession. “ The holy flesh is not offered 
 to a god, it is eaten—to every man his portion—by each 
 and every citizen, that he may get his share of the strength 
 of the Bull, of the luck of the State.” But at Athens the 
 Bouphonia, as it was called, was followed by a curious 
 ceremony. “ The hide was stuffed with straw and sewed 
 up, and next the stuffed animal was set on its feet and 
 yoked to a plough as though it were ploughing. The Death 
 is followed by a Resurrection. Now this is all important. 
 We are so accustomed to think of sacrifice as the death, 
 the giving up, the renouncing of something. But sacrifice 
 does not mean ‘ death ’ at all. It means making holy, 
 sanctifying : and holiness was to primitive man just special 
 strength and life. What they wanted from the Bull was 
 just that special life and strength which all the year long 
 they had put into him, and nourished and fostered. That 
 life was in his blood. They could not eat that flesh nor 
 drink that blood unless they killed him. So he must die. 
 But it was not to give him up to the gods that they killed 
 him, not to ‘ sacrifice ' him in our sense, but to have him, 
 keep him, eat him, live by him and through him, by his 
 grace.” 
 
 We have already had to deal with instances of the 
 ceremonial eating of the sacred he-Lamb or Ram, immolated 
 in the Spring season of the year, and partaken of in a kind 
 of communal feast—not without reference (at any rate 
 in later times) to a supposed Lamb-god. Among the 
 Ainos in the North of Japan, as also among the Gilyaks 
 in Eastern Siberia, the Bear is the great food-animal, and 
 is worshiped as the supreme giver of health and strength. 
 There also a similar ritual of sacrifice occurs. A perfect 
 Bear is caught and caged. He is fed up and even 
 
64 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 pampered to the day of his death. “ Fish, brandy and 
 other delicacies are offered to him. Some of the people 
 prostrate themselves before him ; his coming into a house 
 brings a blessing, and if he sniffs at the food that brings 
 a blessing too.” Then he is led out and slain. A great 
 feast takes place, the flesh is divided, cupfuls of the blood 
 are drunk by the men ; the tribe is united and strengthened, 
 and the Bear-god blesses the ceremony—the ideal Bear 
 that has given its life for the people. 1 
 
 That the eating of the flesh of an animal or a man 
 conveys to you some of the qualities, the life-force, the 
 mana, of that animal or man, is an idea which one often 
 meets with among primitive folk. Hence the common 
 tendency to eat enemy warriors slain in battle against 
 your tribe. By doing so you absorb some of their valour 
 and strength. Even the enemy scalps which an Apache 
 Indian might hang from his belt were something magical 
 to add to the Apache’s power. As Gilbert Murray says, 2 
 “ you devoured the holy animal to get its mana, its swift¬ 
 ness, its strength, its great endurance, just as the savage 
 now will eat his enemy’s brain or heart or hands to get 
 some particular quality residing there.” Even—as he 
 explains on an earlier page—mere contact was often con¬ 
 sidered sufficient—“ we have holy pillars whose holiness 
 consists in the fact that they have been touched by the 
 blood of a bull.” And in this connexion we may note 
 that nearly all the Christian Churches have a great belief 
 in the virtue imparted by the mere ‘ laying on of hands.’ 
 
 In quite a different connexion—we read 3 that among the 
 Spartans a warrior-boy would often beg for the love of 
 the elder warrior whom he admired (i.e. the contact with 
 
 1 See Art and Ritual, pp. 92-98 ; The Golden Bough, ii, 375 seq. ; 
 Themis, pp. 140, 141 ; etc. 
 
 a Four Stages oj Greek Religion, p. 36. 
 
 3 Aelian VII, iii, 12 : avroi yovv (ot irdid^Q) SeovraL tGjv tpaaratv 
 d<T7rvuv avroig. See also E. Bethe on “ Die Dorische Knabenliebe ” 
 in the Rheinisches Museum, vol. 26, iii, 461. 
 
TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS 65 
 
 his body) in order to obtain in that way a portion of the 
 latter’s courage and prowess. That through the mediation 
 of the lips one’s spirit may be united to the spirit of another 
 person is an idea not unfamiliar to the modern mind; 
 while the exchange of blood, clothes, locks of hair, etc., 
 by lovers is a custom known all over the world. 1 
 
 To suppose that by eating another you absorb his or 
 her soul is somewhat naive certainly. Perhaps it is more 
 native, more primitive. Yet there may be seme truth 
 even in that idea. Certainly the food that one eats has 
 a psychological effect, and the flesh-eaters among the 
 human race have a different temperament as a rule from 
 the fruit and vegetable eaters, while among the animals 
 (though other causes may come in here) the Carnivora 
 are decidedly more cruel and less gentle than the Herbivora. 
 
 To return to the rites of Dionysus, Gilbert Murray, 
 speaking of Orphism—a great wave of religious reform 
 which swept over Greece and South Italy in the sixth 
 century B.c. —says : 2 “A curious relic of primitive super¬ 
 stition and cruelty remained firmly imbedded in Orphism, 
 a doctrine irrational and unintelligible, and for that very 
 reason wrapped in the deepest and most sacred mystery : 
 a belief in the sacrifice of Dionysus himself, and the purifi¬ 
 cation of man by his blood. It seems possible that the 
 savage Thracians, in the fury of their worship on the 
 mountains, when they were possessed by the god and 
 became ‘ wild beasts,’ actually tore with their teeth and 
 hands any hares, goats, fawns or the like that they came 
 across. . . . The Orphic congregations of later times, in 
 their most holy gatherings, solemnly partook of the blood 
 of a bull, which was by a mystery the blood of Dionysus- 
 Zagreus himself, the Bull of God, slain in sacrifice for the 
 purification of man.” 3 
 
 1 See Crawley’s Mystic Rose, pp. 238, 242. 
 
 3 See Notes to his translation of the Bacchce of Euripides. 
 
 3 For a description of this orgy see Theocritus, Idyll xxvi; also 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Such instances of early communal feasts, which fulfilled 
 the double part of confirming on the one hand the solid¬ 
 arity of the tribe, and on the other of bringing the tribe, 
 by the shedding of the blood of a divine Victim into close 
 relationship with the very source of its life, are plentiful 
 to find. “ The sacramental rite/’ says Professor Robertson- 
 Smith, 1 " is also an atoning rite, which brings the com¬ 
 munity again into harmony with its alienated god— 
 atonement being simply an act of communion designed 
 to wipe out all memory of previous estrangement. With 
 this subject I shall deal more specially in chapter vii below. 
 Meanwhile as instances of early Eucharists we may mention 
 the following cases, remembering always that as the blood 
 is regarded as the Life, the drinking or partaking of, or 
 sprinkling with, blood is always an acknowledgment of 
 the common life ; and that the juice of the grape being 
 regarded as the blood of the Vine, wine in the later cere¬ 
 monials quite easily and naturally takes the place of the 
 blood in the early sacrifices. 
 
 Thus P. Andrada La Crozius, a French missionary, 
 and one of the first Christians who went to Nepaul and 
 Thibet, says in his History of India : " Their Grand Lama 
 celebrates a species of sacrifice with bread and wine, in 
 which, after taking a small quantity himself, he distributes 
 the rest among the Lamas present at this ceremony.” - 
 
 for explanations of it, Lang’s Myth, Ritual and Religion, vol. ii, 
 pp. 24T-260, on Dionysus. The Encyclopedia Brit., article '‘Orpheus,” 
 says •—“ Orpheus, in the manner of his death, was considered to 
 personate the god Dionysus, and was thus representative of the god 
 torn to pieces every year—a ceremony enacted by the Bacchae in the 
 earliest times with a human victim, and afterwards with a bull, to 
 represent the bull-formed god. A distinct feature of this ritual was 
 u)/io(payia (eating the flesh of the victim raw), whereby the com¬ 
 municants imagined that they consumed and assimilated the god 
 represented by the victim, and thus became filled with the divine 
 ecstasy.” Compare also the Hindu doctrine of Prajapati, the dis¬ 
 membered Lord of Creation. 
 
 1 Religion of the Semites t p. 302. 2 See Doane’s Bible Myths, p. 306. 
 
TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS 67 
 
 " The old Egyptians celebrated the resurrection of Osiris 
 by a sacrament, eating the sacred cake or wafer after it 
 had been consecrated by the priest, and thereby becoming 
 veritable flesh of his flesh.” 1 As is well known, the eating 
 of bread or dough sacramentally (sometimes mixed with 
 blood or seed) as an emblem of community of life with 
 the divinity, is an extremely ancient practice or ritual. 
 Dr. Frazer 3 says of the Aztecs, that “ twice a year, in May 
 and December, an image of the great god Huitzilopochtli 
 was made of dough, then broken in pieces and solemnly 
 eaten by his worshipers.” And Lord Kingsborough in 
 his Mexican Antiquities (vol. vi, p. 220) gives a record of 
 a “ most Holy Supper ” in which these people ate the 
 flesh of their god. It was a cake made of certain seeds, 
 “ and having made it, they blessed it in their manner, 
 and broke it into pieces, which the high priest put into 
 certain very clean vessels, and took a thorn of maguey 
 which resembles a very thick needle, with which he took 
 up with the utmost reverence single morsels, which he 
 put into the mouth of each individual in the manner of 
 a communion.” Acosta 3 confirms this and similar accounts. 
 The Peruvians partook of a sacrament consisting of a 
 pudding of coarsely ground maize, of which a portion 
 had been smeared on the idol. The priest sprinkled it 
 with the blood of the victim before distributing it to the 
 people.” Priest and people then all took their shares 
 in turn, “ with great care that no particle should be allowed 
 to fall to the ground—this being looked upon as a great 
 sin.” 4 
 
 Moving from Peru to China (instead of * from China 
 to Peru ’) we find that “ the Chinese pour wine (a very 
 
 t 
 
 * From The Great Law, of religious origins : by W. Williamson 
 (1899), p. 177. 
 
 2 The Golden Bough, vol. ii, p. 79. 
 
 3 Natural and Moral History of the Indies. London (1604). 
 
 4 See Markham's Rites and laws of the Incas, p. 27. 
 
68 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 general substitute for blood) on a straw image of Confucius, 
 and then all present drink of it, and taste the sacrificial 
 victim, in order to participate in the grace of Confucius." 
 [Here again the Corn and Wine are blended in one rite.] 
 And of Tartary Father Grueber thus testifies : “ This only 
 I do affirm, that the devil so mimics the Catholic Church 
 there, that although no European or Christian has ever 
 been there, still in all essential things they agree so com¬ 
 pletely with the Roman Church, as even to celebrate the 
 Host with bread and wine : with my own eyes I have seen 
 it” 1 These few instances are sufficient to show the 
 extraordinarily wide diffusion of Totem-sacraments and 
 Eucharistic rites all over the world. 
 
 1 For these two quotations see Jevons’ Introduction to the History 
 of Religion, pp. 148 and 219. 
 
V 
 
 FOOD AND VEGETATION MAGIC 
 
 I have wandered, in pursuit of Totems and the Eucharist, 
 some way from the astronomical thread of Chapters II 
 and III, and now it would appear that in order to under¬ 
 stand religious origins we must wander still farther. The 
 chapters mentioned were largely occupied with Sungods 
 and astronomical phenomena, but now we have to consider 
 an earlier period when there were no definite forms of 
 gods, and when none but the vaguest astronomical know¬ 
 ledge existed. Sometimes in historical matters it is best 
 and safest to move thus backwards in Time, from the things 
 recent and fairly well known to things more ancient and 
 less known. In this w r ay we approach more securely to 
 some understanding of the dim and remote past. 
 
 It is clear that before any definite speculations on 
 heaven-dwelling gods or divine beings had arisen in the 
 human mind—or any clear theories of how the sun and 
 moon and stars might be connected with the changes of 
 the seasons on the earth—there were still certain obvious 
 things which appealed to everybody, learned or unlearned 
 alike. One of these was the return of Vegetation, bringing 
 with it the fruits or the promise of the fruits of the earth, 
 for human food, and also bringing with it increase of animal 
 life, for food in another form ; and the other was the return 
 of Light and Warmth, making life easier in all w T ays. Food 
 
 69 
 
70 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 delivering from the fear of starvation ; Light and Warmth 
 delivering from the fear of danger and of cold. These 
 were three glorious things which returned together and 
 brought salvation and renewed life to man. The period 
 of their return was ‘ Spring/ and though Spring and its 
 benefits might fade away in time, still there was always 
 the hope of its return—though even so it may have been 
 a long time in human evolution before man discovered 
 that it really did always return, and (with certain 
 allowances) at equal intervals of time. 
 
 Long then before any Sun or Star gods could be called 
 in, the return of the Vegetation must have enthralled 
 man's attention, and filled him with hope and joy. Yet 
 since its return was somewhat variable and uncertain 
 the question, What could man do to assist that return ? 
 naturally became a pressing one. It is now generally held 
 that the use of Magic—sympathetic magic—arose in this 
 way. Sympathetic magic seems to have been generated 
 by a belief that your own actions cause a similar response 
 in things and persons around you. Yet this belief did not 
 rest on any philosophy or argument, but was purely 
 instinctive and sometimes of the nature of a mere corporeal 
 reaction. Every schoolboy knows how in watching a 
 comrade’s high jump at the Sports he often finds himself 
 lifting a knee at the moment 4 to help him over ’ ; at football 
 matches quarrels sometimes arise among the spectators 
 by reason of an ill-placed kick coming from a too enthu¬ 
 siastic on-lookcr, behind one; undergraduates running 
 on the tow-path beside their College boat in the races 
 will hurry even faster than the boat in order to increase 
 its speed; there is in each case an automatic bodily 
 response increased by one's own desire. A person acts 
 the part which he desires to be successful. He thinks to 
 transfer his energy in that way. Again, if by chance one 
 witnesses a painful accident, a crushed foot or what-not, 
 it commonly happens that one feels a pain in the same 
 
FOOD AND VEGETATION MAGIC 
 
 71 
 
 part oneself—a sympathetic pain. What more natural 
 than to suppose that the pain really is transferred from 
 the one person to the other ? and how easy the inference 
 that by tormenting a wretched scape-goat or crucifying 
 a human victim in some cases the sufferings of people 
 may be relieved or their sins atoned for ? 
 
 Simaetha, it will be remembered, in the second Idyll 
 of Theocritus, curses her faithless lover Delphis, and as 
 she melts his waxen image she prays that he too may melt. 
 All this is of the nature of Magic, and is independent of 
 and generally more primitive than Theology or Philosophy. 
 Yet it interests 11s because it points to a firm instinct in 
 early man—to which I have already alluded—the instinct 
 of his unity and continuity with the rest of creation, and 
 of a common life so close that his lightest actions may 
 cause a far-reaching reaction in the world outside. 
 
 Man, then, independently of any belief in gods, may 
 assist the arrival of Spring by magic ceremonies. If you 
 want the Vegetation to appear you must have rain ; and 
 the rain-maker in almost all primitive tribes has been a 
 most important personage. Generally he based his rites 
 on quite fanciful associations, as when the rain-maker 
 among the Mandans wore a raven’s skin on his head (bird 
 of the storm) or painted his shield with red zigzags of 
 lightning 1 ; but partly, no doubt, he had observed actual 
 facts, or had had the knowledge of them transmitted to 
 him—as, for instance that when rain is impending loud 
 noises will bring about its speedy downfall, a fact we 
 moderns have had occasion to notice on battlefields. He 
 had observed perhaps that in a storm a specially loud 
 clap of thunder is generally followed by a greatly increased 
 downpour of rain. He had even noticed (a thing which 
 I have often verified in the vicinity of Sheffield) that the 
 copious smoke of fires will generate rain-clouds—and so 
 quite naturally he concluded that it was his smoking 
 1 See Gatlin's North American Indians, Letter 19. 
 
72 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 sacrifices which had that desirable effect. So far he was 
 on the track of elementary Science. And so he made 
 " bull-roarers ” to imitate the sound of wind and the 
 blessed rain-bringing thunder, or clashed great bronze 
 cymbals together with the same object. Bull-voices and 
 thunder-drums and the clashing of cymbals were used in 
 this connexion by the Greeks, and are mentioned by 
 Aeschylus 1 ; but the bull-roarer, in the form of a rhombus 
 of wood whirled at the end of a string, seems to be known, 
 or to have been known, all over the world. It is described 
 with some care by Mr. Andrew Lang in his Custom and 
 Myth (pp. 29-44), where he says “it is found always as 
 a sacred instrument employed in religious mysteries, in 
 New Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, ancient Greece, 
 and Africa/' 
 
 Sometimes, of course, the rain-maker was successful; 
 but of the inner causes of rain he knew next to nothing ; 
 he was more ignorant even than we are ! His main idea 
 was a more specially ' magical' one—namely, that the 
 sound itself would appeal to the spirits of rain and thunder 
 and cause them to give a response. For of course the 
 thunder (in Hebrew Bath-Kol, " the daughter of the Voice ") 
 was everywhere regarded as the manifestation of a spirit. 2 3 
 To make sounds like thunder would therefore naturally 
 call the attention of such a spirit; or he, the rain-maker, 
 might make sounds like rain. He made gourd-rattles 
 (known in ever so many parts of the world) in which he 
 rattled dried seeds or small pebbles with a most beguiling 
 and rain-like insistence; or sometimes, like the priests 
 of Baal in the Bible ,3 he would cut himself with knives 
 
 1 Themis, p. 61. 
 
 2 See A. Lang, op. cit.'. “ The muttering of the thunder is said to be 
 his voice calling to the rain to fall and make the grass grow up green." 
 Such are the very words of Umbara, the minstrel of the Tribe (Aus* 
 tralian). 
 
 3 1 Kings xviii. 
 
FOOD AND VEGETATION MAGIC 
 
 73 
 
 till the blood fell upon the ground in great drops suggestive 
 of an oncoming thunder-shower. “ In Mexico the rain- 
 god was propitiated with sacrifices of children. If the 
 children wept and shed abundant tears, they who carried 
 them rejoiced, being convinced that rain would also be 
 abundant.” 1 Sometimes he, the rain-maker, would whistle 
 for the wind, or, like the Omaha Indians, flap his blankets 
 for the same purpose. 
 
 In the ancient myth of Demeter and Persephone— 
 which has been adopted by so many peoples under so 
 many forms—Demeter the Earth-mother loses her daughter 
 Persephone (who represents of course the Vegetation), 
 carried down into the underworld by the evil powers of 
 Darkness and Winter. And in Greece there was a yearly 
 ceremonial and ritual of magic for the purpose of restoring 
 the lost one and bringing her back to the world again. 
 Women carried certain charms, " fir-cones and snakes 
 and unnameable objects made of paste, to ensure fertility ; 
 there was a sacrifice of pigs, who were thrown into a deep 
 cleft of the earth, and their remains afterwards collected 
 and scattered as a charm over the fields.” 2 Fir-cones 
 and snakes from their very forms were emblems of male 
 fertility ; snakes, too, from their habit of gliding out of 
 their own skins with renewed brightness and colour were 
 suggestive of resurrection and re-vivification; pigs and 
 sows by their exceeding fruitfulness would in their hour 
 of sacrifice remind old mother Earth of what was expected 
 from her! Moreover, no doubt it had been observed 
 that the scattering of dead flesh over the ground or mixed 
 with the seed, did bless the ground to greater fertility ; 
 and so by a strange mixture of primitive observation with 
 a certain child-like belief that by means of symbols and 
 
 1 Quoted from Sahagun II, 2, 3 by A. Lang in Myth, Ritual and 
 Religion, vol. ii, p. 102. 
 
 2 See Gilbert Murray’s Four Stages of Greek Religion, p. 29. 
 
74 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 suggestions Nature could be appealed to and induced to 
 answer to the desires and needs of her children this sort 
 of ceremonial Magic arose. It was not exactly Science, 
 and it was not exactly Religion ; but it was a naive, and 
 perhaps not altogether mistaken, sense of the bond between 
 Nature and Man. 
 
 For we can perceive that earliest man was not yet con¬ 
 sciously differentiated from Nature'. Not only do we see 
 that the tribal life was so strong that the individual seldom 
 regarded himself as different or separate or opposed to 
 the rest of the tribe ; but that something of the same 
 kind was true with regard to his relation to the Animals 
 and to Nature at large. This outer world was part of 
 himself, was also himself. His sub-conscious sense of 
 unity was so great that it largely dominated his life. That 
 brain-cleverness and brain-activity which causes modern 
 man to perceive such a gulf between him and the animals, 
 or between himself and Nature, did not exist in the early 
 man. Hence it was no difficulty to him to believe that 
 he was a Bear or an Emu. Sub-consciously he was wiser 
 than we are. He knew that he was a bear or an emu, or 
 any other such animal as his totem-creed led him to fix 
 his mind upon. Hence we find that a familiarity and 
 common consent existed between primitive man and many 
 of his companion animals such as has been lost or much 
 attenuated in modern times. Elisee Reclus in his very 
 interesting paper La Grande Famille 1 gives support to the 
 idea that the so-called domestication of animals did not 
 originally arise from any forcible subjugation of them 
 by man, but from a natural amity with them which grew 
 up in the beginning from common interests, pursuits and 
 affections. Thus the chetah of India (and probably the 
 puma of Brazil) from far-back times took to hunting in 
 the company of his two-legged and bow-and-arrow-armed 
 
 1 Published originally in Le Magazine Internationale, January 
 1896. 
 
FOOD AND VEGETATION MAGIC 
 
 friend, with whom he divided the spoil. W. H. Hudson 1 
 declares that the Puma, wild and fierce though it is, and 
 capable of killing the largest game, will never even to-day 
 attack man, but w r hen maltreated by the latter submits 
 to the outrage, unresisting, with mournful cries and every 
 sign of grief. The Llama, though domesticated in a sense, 
 has never allowed the domination of the whip or the bit, 
 but may still be seen walking by the side of the Brazilian 
 peasant and carrying his burdens in a kind of proud com¬ 
 panionship. The mutual relations of Woman and the 
 Cow, or of Man and the Horse 2 (also the Elephant) reach 
 so far into the past that their origin cannot be traced. 
 The Swallow still loves to make its home under the cottage 
 eaves and still is welcomed by the inmates as the bringer 
 of good fortune. Elisee Reclus assures us that the Dinka 
 man on the Nile calls to certain snakes by name and shares 
 with them the milk of his cows. 
 
 And so with Nature. The communal sense, or sub¬ 
 conscious perception, which made primitive men feel their 
 unity with other members of their tribe, and their obvious 
 kinship with the animals around them, brought them also 
 so close to general Nature that they looked upon the trees, 
 the vegetation, the rain, the warmth of the sun, as part 
 of their bodies, part of themselves. Conscious differenti¬ 
 ation had not yet set in. To cause rain or thunder you 
 had to make rain- or thunder-like noises ; to encourage 
 Vegetation and the crops to leap out of the ground, you 
 had to leap and dance. “ In Swabia and among the 
 Transylvanian Saxons it is a common custom (says Dr. 
 Frazer) for a man who has some hemp to leap high in the 
 field in the belief that this will make the hemp grow tall.” 3 
 
 1 See The Naturalist in La Plata . ch. ii. 
 
 3 “ It is certain that the primitive Indo-European reared droves 
 of tame or half-tame horses for generations, if not centuries, before 
 it ever occurred to him to ride or drive them " (F. B. Jevons, Introd. 
 to Hist. Religion, p. 119). 
 
 3 See The Golden Bough, i, 139 seq. Also Art and Ritual, p. 31. 
 
76 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Native May-pole dances and Jacks in the Green have 
 hardly yet died out—even in this most civilized England. 
 The bower of green boughs, the music of pipes, the leaping 
 and the twirling, were all an encouragement to the arrival 
 of Spring, and an expression of Sympathetic Magic. When 
 you felt full of life and energy and virility in yourself you 
 naturally leapt and danced, so why should you not sympa¬ 
 thetically do this for the energising of the crops ? In 
 every country of the world the vernal season and the 
 resurrection of the Sun has been greeted with dances and 
 the sound of music. But if you wanted success in hunting 
 or in warfare then you danced before-hand mimic dances 
 suggesting the successful hunt or battle. It was no more 
 than our children do to-day, and it all was, and is, part 
 of a natural-magic tendency in human thought. 
 
 Let me pause here for a moment. It is difficult for us 
 with our academical and somewhat school-boardy minds 
 to enter into all this, and to understand the sense of (un¬ 
 conscious or sub-conscious) identification with the world 
 around which characterised the primitive man—or to 
 look upon Nature with his eyes. A Tree, a Snake, a Bull, 
 an Ear of Corn. We know so well from our botany and 
 natural history books what these things are. Why should 
 our minds dwell on them any longer or harbour a doubt 
 as to our perfect comprehension of them ? 
 
 And yet (one cannot help asking the question) : Has 
 any one of us really ever seen a Tree ? I certainly do not 
 think that I have—except most superficially. That very 
 penetrating observer and naturalist, Henry D. Thoreau, 
 tells us that he would often make an appointment to visit 
 a certain tree, miles away—but what or whom he saw 
 when he got there, he does not say. Walt Whitman, also 
 a keen observer, speaks of a tulip-tree near which he some¬ 
 times sat—“ the Apollo of the woods—tall and graceful, 
 yet robust and sinewy, inimitable in hang of foliage and 
 
FOOD AND VEGETATION MAGIC 
 
 77 
 
 throwing-out of limb ; as if the beauteous, vital, leafy 
 creature could walk, if it only would ” ; and mentions that 
 in a dream-trance he actually once saw his “ favorite trees 
 step out and promenade up, down and around, very 
 curiously ” 1 Once the present writer seemed to have a 
 partial vision of a tree. It was a beech, standing somewhat 
 isolated, and still leafless in quite early Spring. Suddenly 
 I was aware of its skyward-reaching arms and up-turned 
 finger-tips, as if some vivid life (or electricity) was streaming 
 through them far into the spaces of heaven, and of its 
 roots plunged in the earth and drawing the same energies 
 from below. The day was quite still and there was no 
 movement in the branches, but in that moment the tree 
 was no longer a separate or separable organism, but a vast 
 being ramifying far into space, sharing and uniting the 
 life of Earth and Sky, and full of a most amazing- 
 activity. 
 
 The reader of this will probably have had some similar 
 experiences. Perhaps he will have seen a full-foliaged 
 Lombardy poplar swaying in half a gale in June—the 
 wind and the sun streaming over every little twig and 
 leaf, the tree throwing out its branches in a kind of 
 ecstasy and bathing them in the passionately boisterous 
 caresses of its two visitants ; or he will have heard the 
 deep glad murmur of some huge sycamore with ripening 
 seed clusters when after weeks of drought the steady warm 
 rain brings relief to its thirst; and he will have known that 
 these creatures are but likenesses of himself, intimately 
 and deeply-related to him in their love and hunger longing, 
 and, like himself too, unfathomed and unfathomable. 
 
 It would be absurd to credit early man with conscious 
 speculations like these, belonging more properly to the 
 twentieth century ; yet it is incontrovertible, I think, that 
 in some ways the primitive peoples, with their swift sub¬ 
 conscious intuitions and their minds unclouded by mere 
 1 Specimen Days , 1882-3 Edition, p. m. 
 
78 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 book knowledge, perceived truths to which we modems 
 are blind. Like the animals they arrived at their per¬ 
 ceptions without (individual) brain effort; they knew 
 things without thinking. When they did think of course 
 they went wrong. Their budding science easily went 
 astray. Religion with them had as yet taken no definite 
 shape ; science was equally protoplasmic ; and all they 
 had was a queer jumble of the two in the form of Magic. 
 When at a later time Science gradually defined its outlook 
 and its observations, and Religion, from being a vague 
 subconscious feeling, took clear shape in the form of gods 
 and creeds, then mankind gradually emerged into the 
 stage of evolution in which we now are. Our scientific 
 laws and doctrines are of course only temporary formulae, 
 and so also are the gods and the creeds of our own and 
 other religions; but these things, with their set and 
 angular outlines, have served in the past and will serve 
 in the future as stepping-stomes towards another kind 
 of knowledge of which at present we only dream, and 
 will lead us on to a renewed power of perception which 
 again will not be the laborious product of thought but a 
 direct and instantaneous intuition like that of the animals 
 —and the angels. 
 
 To return to our Tree. Though primitive man did not 
 speculate in modern style on these things, I yet have no 
 reasonable doubt that he felt (and feels , in those cases 
 where we can still trace the workings of his mind) his 
 essential relationship to the creatures of the forest more 
 intimately, if less analytically, than we do to-day. 
 If the animals with all their wonderful gifts are (as we 
 readily admit) a veritable part of Nature—so that they 
 live and move and have their being more or less submerged 
 in the spirit of the great world around them—then Man, 
 when he first began to differentiate himself from them, 
 must for a long time have remained in this subconscious 
 
FOOD AND VEGETATION MAGIC 
 
 T9 
 
 unity, becoming only distinctly conscious of it when he 
 was already beginning to lose it. That early dawn of 
 distinct consciousness corresponded to the period of belief 
 in Magic. In that first mystic illumination almost every 
 object was invested with a halo of mystery or terror or 
 adoration. Things were either tabu , in which case they 
 were dangerous, and often not to be touched or even looked 
 upon—or they were overflowing with magic grace and 
 influence, in which case they were holy, and any rite which 
 released their influence was also holy. William Blake, 
 that modern prophetic child, beheld a Tree full of angels ; 
 the Central Australian native believes certain bushes to 
 be the abode of spirits which leap into the bodies of passing 
 women and are the cause of the conception of children ; 
 Moses saw in the desert a bush (perhaps the mimosa) like 
 a flame of fire, with Jehovah dwelling in the midst of it, 
 and he put off his shoes for he felt that the place was holy ; 
 Osiris was at times regarded as a Tree-spirit 1 ; and in 
 inscriptions is referred to as “ the solitary one in the 
 acacia ”—which reminds us curiously of the " burning 
 bush.” The same is true of others of the gods; in the old 
 Norse mythology Ygdrasil was the great branching World- 
 Ash, abode of the soul of the universe ; the Peepul or Bo- 
 tree in India is very sacred and must on no account be cut 
 down, seeing that gods and spirits dwell among its branches. 
 It is of the nature of an Aspen, and of little or no practical 
 use,- but so holy that the poorest peasant will not disturb 
 it. The Burmese believe the things of nature, but especially 
 the trees, to be the abode of spirits. “ To the Burman 
 of to-day, not less than to the Greek of long ago, all nature 
 is alive. The forest and the river and the mountains are 
 full of spirits, whom the Burmans call Nats. There are 
 all kinds of Nats, good and bad, great and little, male and 
 female, now living round about us. Some of them live 
 
 1 The Golden Bough, iv, 339. 
 
 3 Though its sap is said to contain caoutchouc. 
 
80 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 in the trees, especially in the huge figtree that shades 
 half-an-acre without the village ; or among the fern-like 
 fronds of the tamarind." 1 2 3 
 
 There are also in India and elsewhere popular rites of 
 marriage of women (and men) to Trees; which suggest 
 that trees were regarded as very near akin to human 
 beings! The Golden Bough 3 mentions many of these, 
 including the idea that some trees are male and others 
 female. The well-known Assyrian emblem of a Pine 
 cone being presented by a priest to a Palm-tree is supposed 
 by E. B. Tylor to symbolise fertilisation—the Pine cone 
 being masculine and the Palm feminine. The ceremony 
 of the god Krishna’s marriage to a Basil plant is still cele¬ 
 brated in India down to the present day; and certain 
 trees are clasped and hugged by pregnant women—the 
 idea no doubt being that they bestow fertility on those 
 who embrace them. In other cases apparently it is the 
 trees which are benefited, since it is said that men some¬ 
 times go naked into the Clove plantations at night in order 
 by a sort of sexual intercourse to fertilise them .3 
 
 One might go on multiplying examples in this direction 
 quite indefinitely. There is no end to them. They all 
 indicate—what was instinctively felt by early man, and 
 is perfectly obvious to all to-day who are not blinded by 
 ‘ civilisation ’ (and Herbert Spencer!) that the world 
 outside us is really most deeply akin to ourselves, that 
 it is not dead and senseless but intensely alive and instinct 
 with feeling and intelligence resembling our own. It is 
 this perception, this conviction of our essential unity with 
 the whole of creation, which lay from the first at the base 
 of all Religion ; yet at first, as I have said, was hardly a 
 conscious perception. Only later, when it gradually became 
 
 1 The Soul of a People, by H. Fielding (1902), p. 250. 
 
 2 Vol. i, p. 40, vol. ii, pp. 24 sq. 
 
 3 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 98. 
 
FOOD AND VEGETATION MAGIC 
 
 81 
 
 more conscious, did it evolve itself into the definite forms 
 of the gods and the creeds—but of that process I will speak 
 more in detail presently. 
 
 The Tree therefore was a most intimate presence to the 
 Man. It grew in the very midst of his Garden of Eden. 
 It had a magical virtue, which his tentative science could 
 only explain by chance analogies and assimilations. 
 Attractive and beloved and worshiped by reason of its 
 many gifts to mankind—its grateful shelter, its abounding 
 fruits, its timber, and other invaluable products—why 
 should it not become the natural emblem of the female, 
 to whom through sex man’s worship is ever drawn ? If 
 the Snake has an unmistakable resemblance to the male 
 organ in its active state, the foliage of the tree or bush 
 is equally remindful of the female. What more clear 
 than that the conjunction of Tree and Serpent is the ful¬ 
 filment in nature of that sex-mystery which is so potent 
 in the life of man and the animals ? and that the magic 
 ritual most obviously fitted to induce fertility in the tribe 
 or the herds (or even the crops) is to set up an image of 
 the Tree and the Serpent combined, and for all the tribe- 
 folk in common to worship and pay it reverence. In the 
 Bible with more or less veiled sexual significance we have 
 this combination in the Eden-garden, and again in the 
 brazen Serpent and Pole which Moses set up in the wilder¬ 
 ness (as a cure for the fiery serpents of lust) ; illustrations 
 of the same are said to be found in the temples of Egypt 
 and of South India, and even in the ancient temples of 
 Central America.. 1 In the myth of Hercules the golden 
 apples of the Hesperides garden are guarded by a dragon. 
 The Etruscans, the Persians and the Babylonians had 
 also legends of the Fall of man through a serpent tempting 
 him to taste of the fruit of a holy Tree. And De Gubernatis, 2 
 
 1 See Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism, by Thomas 
 Inman (Triibner, 1874), p. 55. 
 
 2 Zoological Mythology, vol. ii, pp. 410 sq. 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 pointing out the phallic meaning of these stories, says 
 “ the legends concerning the tree of golden apples or figs 
 which yields honey or ambrosia, guarded by dragons, 
 in which the life, the fortune, the glory, the strength and 
 the riches of the hero have their beginning, are numerous 
 among every people of Aryan origin : in India, Persia, 
 Russia, Poland, Sweden, Germany, Greece and Italy.” 
 
 Thus we see the natural-magic tendency of the human 
 mind asserting itself. To some of us indeed this tendency 
 is even greater in the case of the Snake than in that of the 
 Tree. W. H. Hudson, in Far Away and Long Ago, speaks 
 of “ that sense of something supernatural in the serpent, 
 w r hich appears to have been universal among peoples in 
 a primitive state of culture, and still survives in 
 some barbarous or semi-barbarous countries.” The 
 fascination of the Snake—the fascination of its mysteriously 
 gliding movement, of its vivid energy, its glittering eye, 
 its intensity of life, combined with its fatal dart of Death 
 —is a thing felt even more by women than by men—and 
 for a reason (from what we have already said) not far to 
 seek. It was the Woman who in the story of the Fall 
 was the first to listen to its suggestions. No wonder that, 
 as Professor Murray says, 1 the Greeks worshiped a gigantic 
 Snake (Meilichios) the lord of Death and Life, with cere¬ 
 monies of appeasement, and sacrifices, long before they 
 arrived at the worship of Zeus and the Olympian gods. 
 
 Or let us take the example of an Ear of Corn. Some 
 people wonder—hearing nowadays that the folk of old 
 used to worship a Corn-spirit or Corn-god—wonder that 
 any human beings could have been so foolish. But probably 
 the good people who wonder thus have never really looked 
 (with their town-dazed eyes) at a growing spike of wheat. 3 
 
 1 Four Stages of Greek Religion, p. 28. 
 
 a Even the thrice-learned Dr. Farnell quotes apparently with 
 approval the scornful words of Hippolytus, who (he says) “speaks 
 
FOOD AND VEGETATION MAGIC 
 
 83 
 
 Of all the wonderful things in Nature I hardly know any 
 that thrills one more with a sense of wizardry than just this 
 very thing—to observe, each year, this disclosure of the Ear 
 within the Blade—-first a swelling of the sheath, then a trans¬ 
 parency and a whitey-green face within a hooded shroud, and 
 then the perfect spike of grain disengaging itself and spiring 
 upward towards the sky —“ the resurrection of the wheat 
 with pale visage appearing out of the ground.” 
 
 If this spectacle amazes one to-day, what emotions must 
 it not have aroused in the breasts of the earlier folk, whose 
 outlook on the world was so much more direct than ours 
 •—more ‘ animistic * if you like ! What wonderment, what 
 gratitude, what deliverance from fear (of starvation), what 
 certainty that this being who had been ruthlessly cut 
 down and sacrificed last year for human food had indeed 
 arisen again as a saviour of men, what readiness to make 
 some human sacrifice in return, both as an acknowledg¬ 
 ment of the debt, and as a gift of something which would 
 no doubt be graciously accepted !—(for was it not well 
 known that where blood had been spilt on the ground the 
 future crop was so much the more generous ?)—what 
 readiness to adopt some magic ritual likely to propitiate 
 the unseen power—even though the outline and form of 
 the latter were vague and uncertain in the extreme ! Dr. 
 Frazer, speaking of the Egyptian Osiris as one out of many 
 corn-gods of the above character, says 1 : “ The primitive 
 
 conception of him as the corn-god comes clearly out in 
 the festival of his death and resurrection, which was cele¬ 
 brated in the month of Cholak, and at a later period in 
 
 the month of Athyr. That festival appears to have been 
 essentially a festival of sowing, which properly fell at the 
 time when the husbandman actually committed the seed 
 
 of the Athenians imitating people at the Eleusinian mysteries and 
 showing to the epoptae (initiates) that great and marvelous mystery 
 of perfect revelation—in solemn silence—a cut cornstalk (riOepiofuvov 
 cTaxoi').’'—Cults oj the Greek States, vol. iii, p. 182. 
 
 1 The Golden Bough, iv, p. 330. 
 
84 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 to the earth. On that occasion an effigy of the corn-god, 
 moulded of earth and corn, was buried with funeral rites 
 in the ground in order that, dying there, he might come 
 to life again with the new crops. The ceremony was in 
 fact a charm to ensure the growth of the corn by sympa¬ 
 thetic magic, and we may conjecture that as such it was 
 practised in a simple form by every Egyptian farmer on 
 his fields long before it was adopted and transfigured by 
 the priests in the stately ritual of the temple/' 1 
 
 The magic in this case was of a gentle description ; the 
 clay image of Osiris sprouting all over with the young 
 green blade was pathetically poetic; but, as has been 
 suggested, bloodthirsty ceremonies were also common 
 enough. Human sacrifices, it is said, had at one time 
 been offered at the grave of Osiris. We hear that the 
 Indians in Ecuador used to sacrifice men’s hearts and 
 pour out human blood on their fields when they sowed 
 them ; the Pawnee Indians used a human victim the same, 
 allowing his blood to drop on the seed-corn. It is said 
 that in Mexico girls were sacrificed, and that the Mexicans 
 wnuld sometimes grind their (male) victim, like corn, 
 between two stones. (“ I’ll grind his bones to make me 
 bread.”) Among the Khonds of East India—who were 
 particularly given to this kind of ritual—the very tears 
 of the sufferer w-ere an incitement to more cruelties, for 
 tears of course were magic for Rain. 2 3 
 
 And so on. We have referred to the Bull many times, 
 both in his astronomical aspect as pioneer of the Spring- 
 Sun, and in his more direct rdle as plougher of the fields, and 
 provider of food from his own body. “ The tremendous 
 mana of the wild bull,” says Gilbert Murray, “ occupies 
 almost half the stage of pre-Olympic ritual.” 3 Even to 
 us there is something mesmeric and overwhelming in the 
 
 1 See ch. xv infra, p. 5. 
 
 2 The Golden Bough, vol. vii, “ The Corn-Si)irit/' pp. 236 sq. 
 
 3 Four Stages, p. 34. 
 
FOOD AND VEGETATION MAGIC 
 
 85 
 
 sense of this animal’s glory of strength and fury and sexual 
 power. No wonder the primitives worshiped him, or 
 that they devised rituals which should convey his power 
 and vitality by mere contact, or that in sacramental feasts 
 they ate his flesh and drank his blood as a magic symbol 
 and means of salvation. 
 
VI 
 
 MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS 
 
 It is perhaps necessary, at the commencement of this chapter, 
 to say a few more words about the nature and origin of 
 the belief in Magic. Magic represented on one side, and 
 clearly enough, the beginnings of Religion—i.e. the in¬ 
 stinctive sense of Man's inner continuity with the world 
 around him, taking shape : a fanciful shape it is true, but 
 with very real reaction on his practical life and feelings. 1 2 
 On the other side it represented the beginnings of Science. 
 It was his first attempt not merely to feel but to under¬ 
 stand the mystery of things. 
 
 Inevitably these first efforts to understand were very 
 puerile, very superficial. As E. B. Tylor says 3 of primi¬ 
 tive folk in general, “ they mistook an imaginary for a 
 real connexion.” And he instances the case of the in¬ 
 habitants of the City of Ephesus, w’ho laid down a rope, 
 seven furlongs in length, from the City to the temple of 
 Artemis, in order to place the former under the protection 
 of the latter ! We should lay down a telephone wire, and 
 consider that we had established a much more efficient 
 connexion; but in the beginning, and quite naturally, 
 men, like children, rely on surface associations. Among 
 the Dyaks of Borneo ,3 when the men are away fighting, 
 
 1 For an excellent account of the relation of Magic to Religion 
 see W. McDougall, Social Psychology (1908), pp, 317-320. 
 
 2 Primitive Culture, vol. i, p. 106. 
 
 3 See The Golden Bough, i, 127. 
 
 86 
 
MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS 87 
 
 the women must use a sort of telepathic magic in order 
 to safeguard them—that is, they must themselves rise 
 early and keep awake all day (lest darkness and sleep 
 should give advantage to the enemy) ; they must not 
 oil their hair (lest their husbands should make any slips) ; 
 they must eat sparingly and put aside rice at every meal 
 (so that the men may not want for food). And so on. 
 Similar superstitions are common. But they gradually 
 lead to a little thought, and then to a little more, and so 
 to the discovery of actual and proveable influences. 
 Perhaps one day the cord connecting the temple with 
 Ephesus was drawn tight and it was found that messages 
 could be, by tapping, transmitted along it. That way 
 lay the discovery of a fact. In an age which worshiped 
 fertility, whether in mankind or animals, Twins were 
 ever counted especially blest, and were credited with a 
 magic power. (The Constellation of the Twins was thought 
 peculiarly lucky.) Perhaps after a time it was discovered 
 that twins sometimes run in families, and in such cases 
 really do bring fertility with them. In cattle it is known 
 nowadays that there are more twins of the female sex 
 than of the male sex. 1 
 
 Observations of this kind were naturally made by the 
 ablest members of the tribe—who were in all probability 
 the medicine-men and wizards—and brought in conse¬ 
 quence power into their hands. The road to power in 
 fact—and especially was this the case in societies which 
 had not yet developed wealth and property—lay through 
 Magic. As far as magic represented early superstition 
 and religion it laid hold of the hearts of men—their hopes 
 and fears ; as far as it represented science and the begin¬ 
 nings of actual knowledge, it inspired their minds with 
 a sense of power, and gave form to their lives and customs. 
 We have no reason to suppose that the early magicians 
 
 1 See Evolution of Sex, by Geddes and Thomson (1901), p. 41, 
 note. 
 
88 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 and medicine-men were peculiarly wicked or bent on mere 
 self-aggrandisement—any more than we have to think 
 the same of the average country vicar or country doctor 
 of to-day. They were merely men a trifle wiser or more 
 instructed than their flocks. But though probably in 
 most cases their original intentions were decent enough, 
 they were not proof against the temptations which the 
 possession of power always brings, and as time went on 
 they became liable to trade more and more upon this 
 power for their own advancement. In the matter of 
 Religion the history of the Christian priesthood through 
 the centuries shows sufficiently to what misuse such power 
 can be put; and in the matter of Science it is a warning 
 to us of the dangers attending the formation of a scientific 
 priesthood, such as we see growing up around us to-day. 
 In both cases—whether Science or Religion—vanity, 
 personal ambition, lust of domination and a hundred other 
 vices, unless corrected by a real devotion to the public 
 good, may easily bring as many evils in their train as those 
 they profess to cure. 
 
 The Medicine-man, or Wizard, or Magician, or Priest, 
 slowly but necessarily gathered power into his hands, and 
 there is much evidence to show that in the case of many 
 tribes at any rate, it was he who became ultimate chief 
 and leader and laid the foundations of Kingship. The 
 Basileus was always a sacred personality, and often united 
 in himself as head of the clan the offices of chief in warfare 
 and leader in priestly rites—like Agamemnon in Homer, 
 or Saul or David in the Bible. As a magician he had 
 influence over the fertility of the earth and, like the blame¬ 
 less king in the Odyssey, under his sway 
 
 “ the dark earth beareth in season 
 Barley and wheat, and the trees are laden with fruitage, and 
 alway 
 
 Yean unfailing the flocks, and the sea gives fish in abun¬ 
 dance.” 1 
 
 1 Odyssey xix, 109 sq. Translation by H. B. Cotterill. 
 
MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS 
 
 89 
 
 As a magician too he was trusted for success in warfare ; 
 and Schoolcraft, in a passage quoted by Andrew Lang, 1 
 says of the Dacotah Indians “ the war-chief who leads 
 the party to war is always one of these medicine-men.” 
 This connexion, however, by which the magician is trans¬ 
 formed into the king has been abundantly studied, and 
 need not be further dwelt upon here. 
 
 And what of the transformation of the king into a god— 
 or of the Magician or Priest directly into the same ? 
 Perhaps in order to appreciate this, one must make a 
 further digression. 
 
 For the early peoples there were, as it would appear, 
 two main objects in life : (i) to promote fertility in cattle 
 and crops, for food ; and (2) to placate or ward off Death ; 
 and it seemed very obvious—even before any distinct 
 figures of gods, or any idea of prayer, had arisen—to attain 
 these objects by magic ritual. The rites of Baptism, of 
 Initiation (or Confirmation) and the many ceremonies 
 of a Second Birth, which we associate with fully-formed 
 religions, did belong also to the age of Magic ; and they 
 all implied a belief in some kind of re-incarnation—in a 
 life going forward continually and being renewed in birth 
 again and again. It is curious that we find such a belief 
 among the lowest savages even to-day. Dr. Frazer, 
 speaking of the Central Australian tribes, says the belief 
 is firmly rooted among them “ that the human soul under¬ 
 goes an endless series of re-incarnations—the living men 
 and women of one generation being nothing but the spirits 
 of their ancestors come to life again, and destined them¬ 
 selves to be reborn in the persons of their descendants. 
 During the interval between two re-incarnations the souls 
 five in their nanja spots, or local totem-centres, which 
 are always natural objects such as trees or rocks. Each 
 totem-clan has a number of such totem-centres scattered 
 over the country. There the souls of the dead men and 
 1 Myth, Ritual and Religion , vol. i, p. 113. 
 
90 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 women of the totem, but no others, congregate, and are 
 born again in human form when a favorable opportunity 
 presents itself/’ 1 
 
 And what the early people believed of the human spirit, 
 they believed of the corn-spirits and the tree and vegetation 
 spirits also. At the- great Spring-ritual among the primi¬ 
 tive Greeks “ the tribe and the growing earth were 
 renovated together : the earth arises afresh from her dead 
 seeds, the tribe from its dead ancestors/’ And the whole 
 process projects itself in the idea of a spirit of the year, 
 who “ in the first stage is living, then dies with each year, 
 and thirdly rises again from the dead, raising the whole 
 dead world with him. The Greeks called him in this stage 
 ' The Third One ’ [ Tritos Soter ] or the * Saviour ’ ; arid 
 the renovation ceremonies were accompanied by a casting- 
 off of the old year, the old garments, and everything that 
 is polluted by the infection of death.” 2 3 Thus the multi¬ 
 plication of the crops and the renovation of the tribe, and 
 at the same time the evasion and placation of death, 
 were all assured by similar rites and befitting ceiemonial 
 magic. 3 
 
 In all these cases, and many others that I have not 
 mentioned—of the magical worship of Bulls and Bears 
 and Rams and Cats and Emus and Kangaroos, of Trees 
 and Snakes, of Sun and Moon and Stars, and the spirit of 
 the Corn in its yearly and miraculous resurrection out of 
 the ground—there is still the same idea or moving inspir¬ 
 ation, the sense mentioned in the foregoing chapter, the 
 feeling (hardly yet conscious of its own meaning) of 
 
 1 The Golden Bough, vol. i, p. 96. 
 
 3 Gilbert Murray, Four Stages, p. 46. 
 
 3 It is interesting to find, with regard to the renovation of the 
 tribe, that among the Central Australians the foreskins or male 
 members of those who died w r ere deposited in the above-mentioned 
 nanja spots—the idea evidently being that like the seeds of the corn 
 the seeds of the human crop must be carefully and ceremonially 
 preserved for their re-incamation. 
 
MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS 
 
 91 
 
 intimate relationship and unity with all this outer world, 
 the instinctive conviction that the world can be swayed 
 by the spirit of Man, if the man can only find the right 
 ritual, the right w r ord, the right spell, wherewith to move 
 it. An aura of emotion surrounded everything—of terror, 
 of tabu, of fascination, of desire. The world, to these 
 people, was transparent vnth presences related to them¬ 
 selves ; and though hunger and sex may have been the 
 dominant and overwhelmingly practical needs of their 
 life, yet their outlook on the w^orld was essentially poetic 
 and imaginative. 
 
 Moreover it will be seen that in this age of magic and 
 the belief in spirits, though there was an intense sense of 
 every thing being alive, the gods, in the more modern 
 sense of the world, hardly existed 1 —that is, there was 
 no very clear vision, to these people, of supra-mundane 
 beings, sitting apart and ordaining the affairs of earth, 
 as it w r ere from a distance. Doubtless this conception 
 was slowdy evolving, but it w r as only incipient. For the 
 time being—though there might be orders and degrees of 
 spirits (and of gods)—every such bein£f was only con¬ 
 ceived of, and could only be conceived of, as actually 
 a part of Nature, dwelling in and interlaced with some 
 phenomenon of Earth and Sky, and having no separate 
 existence. 
 
 How was it then, it will be asked, that the belief in 
 separate and separable gods and goddesses—each with 
 his or her well-marked outline and character and function, 
 like the divinities of Greece, or of India, or of the Egyptian 
 or Christian religions, ultimately arose ? To this question 
 Jane Harrison (in her Themis and other books) gives an 
 ingenious answer, which as it chimes in with my own 
 speculations (in the Art of Creation and elsewhere) I am 
 inclined to adopt. It is that the figures of the supra- 
 
 1 For a discussion of the evolution of religion out of magic, see 
 Westermarck’s Origin of Moral Ideas, ch. 47. 
 
92 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 natural gods arose from a process in the human mind 
 similar to that which the photographer adopts when by 
 photographing a number of faces on the same plate, and 
 so superposing their images on one another, he produces 
 a so-called " composite ” photograph or image. Thus, in 
 the photographic sphere, the portraits of a lot of members 
 of the same family superposed upon one another may 
 produce a composite image or ideal of that family type, 
 or the portraits of a number of Aztecs or of a number of 
 Apache Indians the ideals respectively of the Aztec or of 
 the Apache types. And so in the mental sphere of each 
 member of a tribe the many images of the well-known 
 Warriors or Priests or wise and gracious Women of that 
 tribe did inevitably combine at last to composite figures 
 of gods and goddesses—on whom the enthusiasm and 
 adoration of the tribe was concentrated. 1 Miss Harrison 
 has ingeniously suggested how the leading figures in the 
 magic rituals of the past—being the figures on which all 
 eyes would be concentrated ; and whose importance would 
 be imprinted on every mind—lent themselves to this 
 process. The suffering Victim, bound and scourged and 
 crucified, recurring year after year as the centre-figure 
 of a thousand ritual processions, would at last be drama¬ 
 tised and idealised in the general race-consciousness into 
 the form of a Suffering God—a Jesus Christ or a Dionysus 
 or Osiris—dismembered or crucified for the salvation of 
 mankind. The Priest or Medicine-Man—or rather the 
 succession of Priests or Medicine-Men—whose figures 
 would recur again and again as leaders and ordainers of 
 the ceremonies, would be glorified at last into the composite- 
 image of a God in whom were concentrated all magic 
 powers. “ Recent researches,” says Gilbert Murray, “ have 
 shown us in abundance the early Greek medicine-chiefs 
 making thunder and lightning and rain.” Here is the 
 
 1 See The Art of Creation, ch. viii, “ The Gods as Apparitions of 
 the Race-Life." 
 
MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS 
 
 93 
 
 germ of a Zeus or a Jupiter. The particular medicine-man 
 may fail ; that does not so much matter ; he is only the 
 individual representative of the glorified and composite 
 being who exists in the mind of the tribe (just as a present- 
 day King may be unworthy, but is surrounded all the 
 same by the agelong glamour of Royalty). “ The real 
 ©eos, tremendous, infallible, is somewhere far away, hidden 
 in clouds perhaps, on the summit of some inaccessible 
 mountain. If the mountain is once climbed the god will 
 move to the upper sky. The medicine-chief meanwhile 
 stays on earth, still influential. He has some connexion 
 with the great god more intimate than that of other 
 men ... he knows the rules for approaching him and 
 making prayers to him/' 1 Thus did the Medicine-man, 
 or Priest, or Magician (for these are but three names 
 for one figure) represent one step in the evolution of 
 the god. 
 
 And farther back still in the evolutionary process we 
 may trace (as in chapter iv above) the divinisation or 
 deification of four-footed animals and birds and snakes 
 and trees and the like, from the personification of the 
 collective emotion of the tribe towards these creatures. 
 For people whose chief food was bear-meat, for instance, 
 whose totem was a bear, and who believed themselves 
 descended from an ursine ancestor, there would grow T up 
 in the tribal mind an image surrounded by a halo of 
 emotions—emotions of hungry desire, of reverence, fear, 
 gratitude and so forth—an image of a divine Bear in whom 
 they lived and moved and had their being. For another 
 tribe or group in whose yearly ritual a Bull or a Lamb or 
 a Kangaroo played a leading part there would in the same 
 way spring up the image of a holy bull, a divine lamb, or 
 a sacred kangaroo. Another group again might come 
 to worship a Serpent as its presiding genius, or a particular 
 kind of Tree, simply because these objects were and had 
 
 1 The Four Stages, p. 140. 
 
94 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 been for centuries prominent factors in its yearly and 
 seasonal Magic. As Reinach and others suggest, it was 
 the Taboo (bred by Fear) which by first forbidding contact 
 with the totem-animal or priest or magician-chief gradually 
 invested him with Awe and Divinity. 
 
 According to this theory the god—the full-grown god in 
 human shape, dwelling apart and beyond the earth—did 
 not come first, but was a late and more finished product 
 of evolution. He grew up by degrees and out of the 
 preceding animal-worships and totem-systems. And this 
 theory is much supported and corroborated by the fact 
 that in a vast number of early cults the gods are repre¬ 
 sented by human figures with animal heads. The Egyptian 
 religion was full of such divinities—the jackal-headed 
 Anubis, the ram-headed Ammon, the bull-fronted Osiris, 
 or Muth, queen of darkness, clad in a vulture's skin ; Minos 
 and the Minotaur in Crete ; in Greece, Athena with an 
 owl’s head, or Herakles masked in the hide and jaws of 
 a monstrous lion. What could be more obvious than that, 
 following on the tribal worship of any totem-animal, the 
 priest or medicine-man or actual king in leading the magic 
 ritual should don the skin and head of that animal, and 
 wear the same as a kind of mask—this partly in order to 
 appear to the people as the true representative of the 
 totem, and partly also in order to obtain from the skin 
 the magic virtues and mana of the beast, which he could 
 then duly impart to the crowd ? Zeus, it must be remem¬ 
 bered, wears the cagis, or goat-skin —said to be the hide 
 of the goat Amaltheia who suckled him in his infancy ; 
 there are a number of legends which connected the Arcadian 
 Artemis with the worship of the bear, Apollo with the 
 wolf, and so forth. And, most curious as showing simil¬ 
 arity of rites between the Old and New W'orlds, there are 
 found plenty of examples of the wearing of beast-masks 
 in religious processions among the native tribes of both 
 North and South America. In the Atlas of Spix and 
 
MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS 
 
 95 
 
 Martins (who travelled together in the Amazonian forests 
 about 1820) there is an interesting and characteristic 
 picture of the men (and some women) of the tribe of the 
 Tecunas moving in procession through the woods, mostfy 
 naked, except for wearing animal heads and masks— 
 the masks representing Cranes of various kinds, Ducks, 
 the Opossum, the Jaguar, the Parrot, etc., probably sym¬ 
 bolic of their respective clans. 
 
 By some such process as this, it may fairly be supposed, 
 the forms of the Gods were slowly exhaled from the actual 
 figures of men and women, of youths and girls, who year 
 after year took part in the ancient rituals. Just as the 
 Oueen of the May or Father Christmas with us are idealised 
 forms derived from the many happy maidens or white- 
 bearded old men who took leading parts in the May or 
 December mummings and thus gained their apotheosis 
 in our literature and tradition—so doubtless Zeus with 
 his thunderbolts and arrows of lightning is the idealisation 
 into Heaven of the Priestly r'ain-maker and storm-con¬ 
 troller ; Ares the god of War, the similar idealisation of 
 the leading warrior in the ritual war-dance preceding an 
 attack on a neighboring tribe ; and Mercury of the foot- 
 running Messenger whose swiftness in those days (devoid 
 of steam or electricity) was so precious a tribal possession. 
 
 And here it must be remembered that this explanation 
 of the genesis of the gods only applies to the shapes and 
 figures of the various deities. It does not apply to the 
 genesis of the widespread belief in spirits or a Great Spirit 
 generally; that, as I think will become clear, has quite 
 another source. Some people have jeered at the ‘ animistic ’ 
 or ‘ anthropomorphic ’ tendency of primitive man in his 
 contemplation of the forces of Nature or his imaginations 
 of religion and the gods. With a land of superior pity 
 they speak of “ the poor Indian whose untutored mind 
 sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind.” But I 
 must confess that to me the “ poor Indian ” seems on the 
 
96 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 whole to show more good sense than his critics, and to 
 have aimed his rude arrows at the philosophic mark more 
 successfully than a vast number of his learned and scien¬ 
 tific successors. A consideration of what we have said 
 above would show that early people felt their unity with 
 Nature so deeply and intimately that—like the animals 
 themselves—they did not think consciously or theorise 
 about it. It was just their life to be—like the beasts of 
 the field and the trees of the forest—a part of the whole 
 flux of things, non-differentiated so to speak. What more 
 natural or indeed more logically correct than for them to 
 assume (when they first began to think or differentiate 
 themselves) that these other creatures, these birds, beasts 
 and plants, and even the sun and moon, were of the same 
 blood as themselves, their first cousins, so to speak, and 
 having the same interior nature ? What more reasonable 
 (if indeed they credited themselves with having some kind 
 of soul or spirit) than to credit these other creatures with 
 a similar soul or spirit ? Im Thurn, speaking of the Guiana 
 Indians, says that for them “ the whole world swarms with 
 beings.” Surely this could not be taken to indicate an 
 untutored mind—unless indeed a mind untutored in the 
 nonsense of the Schools—but rather a very directly per¬ 
 ceptive mind. And again what more reasonable (seeing 
 that these people themselves were in the animal stage of 
 evolution) than that they should pay great reverence to 
 some ideal animal—first cousin or ancestor—who played 
 an important part in their tribal existence, and make of 
 this animal a totem emblem and a symbol of their common 
 life? 
 
 And, further still, what more natural than that when 
 the tribe passed to some degree beyond the animal stage 
 and began to realise a fife more intelligent and emotional 
 —more specially human in fact—than that of the beasts 
 of the field, that it should then in its rituals and ceremonies 
 throw off the beast-mask and pay reverence to the interior 
 
MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS 
 
 97 
 
 and more human spirit. Rising to a more enlightened 
 consciousness of its own intimate quality, and still deeply 
 penetrated with the sense of its kinship to external nature, 
 it would inevitably and perfectly logically credit the latter 
 with an inner life and intelligence, more distinctly human 
 than before. Its religion in fact would become more 
 ‘ anthropomorphic * instead of less so ; and one sees that 
 this is a process that is inevitable ; and inevitable not¬ 
 withstanding a certain parenthesis in the process, due 
 to obvious elements in our * Civilisation * and to the 
 temporary and fallacious domination of a leaden-eyed 
 so-called ‘ Science/ According to this view the true 
 evolution of Religion and Man’s outlook on the world has 
 proceeded not by the denial by man of his unity with the 
 world, but by his seeing and understanding that unity 
 more deeply. And the more deeply he understands him¬ 
 self the more certainly he will recognise in the external 
 world a Being or beings resembling himself. 
 
 W. H. Hudson—whose mind is certainly not of a 
 quality to be jeered at—speaks of Animism as “ the pro¬ 
 jection of ourselves into nature : the sense and apprehension 
 of an intelligence like our own, but more powerful, in all 
 visible things ” ; and continues, “ old as I am this same 
 primitive faculty which manifested itself in my early 
 boyhood, still persists, and in those early years was so 
 powerful that I am almost afraid to say how deeply I was 
 moved by it.” 1 Nor will it be quite forgotten that Shelley 
 once said :— 
 
 The moveless pillar of a mountain’s weight 
 Is active living spirit. Every grain 
 Is sentient both in unity and part, 
 
 And the minutest atom comprehends 
 A world of loves and hatreds. 
 
 The tendency to animism and later to anthropomorphism 
 1 Fay Away and Long Ago, ch, xiii, p. 225. 
 
 7 
 
98 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 is I say inevitable, and perfectly logical. But the great 
 value of the work done by some of those investigators 
 whom I have quoted has been to show that among quite 
 primitive people (whose interior life and ‘ soul-sense ’ 
 was only very feeble) their projections of intelligence into 
 Nature were correspondingly feeble. The reflections of 
 themselves projected into the world beyond could not 
 reach the stature of eternal ‘ gods,' but were rather of the 
 quality of ephemeral phantoms and ghosts; and the 
 ceremonials and creeds of that period are consequently 
 more properly described as Magic than as Religion. There 
 have indeed been great controversies as to whether there 
 has or has not been, in the course of religious evolution, 
 a ^>re-animistic stage. Probably of course human evolu¬ 
 tion in this matter must have been perfectly continuous 
 from stages presenting the very feeblest or an absolutely 
 deficient animistic sense to the very highest manifestations 
 of anthropomorphism ; but as there is a good deal of 
 evidence to show that animals (notably dogs and horses) 
 see ghosts, the inquiry ought certainly to be enlarged so 
 far as to include the pre-human species. Anyhow it must 
 be remembered that the question is one of consciousness 
 '-that is, of how far and to what degree consciousness of 
 self has been developed in the animal or the primitive man 
 or the civilised man, and therefore how far and to what 
 degree the animal or human creature has credited the out¬ 
 side world with a similar consciousness. It is not a question 
 of whether there is an inner life and s«6-consciousness 
 common to all these creatures of the earth and sky, because 
 that, I take it, is a fact beyond question ; they all emerge 
 or have emerged from the same matrix, and are rooted in 
 identity ; but it is a question of how far they are aware 
 of this, and how far by separation (which is the genius 
 of evolution) each individual creature has become con¬ 
 scious of the interior nature both of itself and of the other 
 creatures and of the great whole which includes them all. 
 
99 
 
 MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS 
 
 Finally, and to avoid misunderstanding, let me say 
 that Anthropomorphism, in man’s conception of the gods, 
 is itself of course only a stage and destined to pass away! 
 In so far, that is, as the term indicates a belief in divine 
 beings corresponding to our present conception of ourselves 
 —that is as separate personalities having each a separate 
 and limited character and function, and animated by 
 the separatist motives of ambition, possession, power 
 vainglory, superiority, patronage, self-greed, self-satis¬ 
 faction, etc. in so far as anthropomorphism is the ex¬ 
 pression of that kind of belief it is of course destined, with 
 the illusion from which it springs, to pass away. When 
 man arrives at the final consciousness in which the idea 
 of such a self, superior or inferior or in any way antago¬ 
 nistic to others, ceases to operate, then he will return to 
 his first and primal condition, and will cease to need any 
 special religion or gods, knowing himself and all his fellows 
 to be divine and the origin and perfect fruition of all. 
 
VII 
 
 RITES OF EXPIATION AND REDEMPTION 
 
 There is a passage in Richard Jefferies’ imperishably 
 beautiful book The Story oj my Heart —a passage well- 
 known to all lovers of that prose-poet—in which he figures 
 himself standing " in front of the Royal Exchange where 
 the wide pavement reaches out like a promontory,” and 
 pondering on the vast crowd and the mystery of life. “ Is 
 there any theory, philosophy, or creed,” he says, “ is there 
 any system of culture, any formulated method, able to 
 meet and satisfy each separate item of this agitated pool 
 of human life ? By which they may be guided, by which 
 they may hope, by which look forward ? Not a mere 
 illusion of the craving heart—something real, as real as 
 the solid walls of fact against which, like seaweed, they 
 are dashed ; something to give each separate personality 
 sunshine and a flower in its own existence now; some¬ 
 thing to shape this million-handed labour to an end and 
 outcome that will leave more sunshine and more flowers 
 to those who must succeed ? Something real now, and 
 not in the spirit-land ; in this hour now, as I stand and 
 the sun burns. . . . Full well aware that all has failed, 
 yet, side by side with the sadness of that knowledge, 
 there lives on in me an unquenchable belief, thought 
 
 burning like the sun, that there is yet something to be 
 
 100 
 
RITES OF EXPIATION 
 
 101 
 
 found. ... It must be dragged forth by the might of 
 thought from the immense forces of the universe/’ 
 
 In answer to this passage we may say “ No—a thousand 
 times No ! there is no theory, philosophy, creed, system 
 or formulated method which will meet or ever satisfy 
 the demand of each separate item of the human whirl¬ 
 pool.” And happy are we to know there is no such thing ! 
 How terrible if one of these bloodless ‘ systems ’ which 
 strew the history of religion and philosophy and the political 
 and social paths of human endeavour had been found 
 absolutely correct and universally applicable—so that 
 every human being would be compelled to pass through 
 its machine-like maw, every personality to be crushed 
 under its Juggernath wheels ! No, thank Heaven ! there 
 is no theory or creed or system ; and yet there is some¬ 
 thing—as Jefferies prophetically felt and with a great 
 longing desired—that can satisfy ; and that, the root of 
 all religion, has been hinted at in the last chapter. It 
 is the consciousness of the world-life burning, blazing, deep 
 down within us : it is the Soul’s intuition of its roots in 
 Omnipresence and Eternity. 
 
 The gods and the creeds of the past, as shown in the 
 last chapter—whatever they may have been, animistic 
 or anthropomorphic or transcendental, whether grossly 
 brutish or serenely ideal and abstract—are essentially 
 projections of the human mind ; and no doubt those who 
 are anxious to discredit the religious impulse generally 
 will catch at this, saying “ Yes, they are mere forms and 
 phantoms of the mind, ephemeral dreams, projected on 
 the background of Nature, and having no real substance 
 or solid value. The history of Religion (they will say) 
 is a history of delusion and illusion ; why waste time over 
 it ? These divine grizzly Bears or Aesculapian Snakes, 
 these cat-faced Pashts, this Isis, queen of heaven, and 
 Astarte and Baal and Indra and Agni and Kali and 
 Demeter and the Virgin Mary and Apollo and Jesus Christ 
 
102 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 and Satan and the Holy Ghost, are only shadows cast 
 outwards onto a screen ; the constitution of the human 
 mind makes them all tend to be anthropomorphic ; but 
 that is all; they each and all inevitably pass away. Why 
 waste time over them ? ” 
 
 And this is in a sense a perfectly fair way of looking 
 at the matter. The gods and creeds are only projections 
 of the human mind. But all the same it misses, does 
 this view, the essential fact. It misses the fact that there 
 is no shadow without a fire, that the very existence of 
 a shadow argues a light somewhere (though we may not 
 directly see it) as well as the existence of a solid form which 
 intercepts that light. Deep, deep in the human mind 
 there is that burning blazing light of the world-conscious¬ 
 ness—so deep indeed that the vast majority of individuals 
 are hardly aware of its existence. Their gaze turned 
 outwards is held and riveted by the gigantic figures and 
 processions passing across their sky; they are unaware 
 that the latter are only shadows—silhouettes of the forms 
 inhabiting their own minds. 1 The vast majority of people 
 have never observed their own minds; their own mental 
 forms. They have only observed the reflections cast 
 by these. Thus it may be said, in this matter, that there 
 are three degrees of reality. There are the mere shadows 
 —the least real and most evanescent; there are the actual 
 mental outlines of humanity (and of the individual), much 
 more real, but themselves also of course slowly changing ; 
 and most real of all, and permanent, there is the light 
 “ which lighteth every man that cometh into the world ” 
 —the glorious light of the world-consciousness. Of this 
 last it may be said that it never changes. Every thing 
 is known to it—even the very impediments to its shining. 
 But as it is from the impediments to the shining of a light 
 that shadows are cast, so we now may understand that 
 
 1 See, iu the same connexion, Plato’s allegory of the Cave, Republic, 
 Book vii. 
 
RITES OF EXPIATION 
 
 103 
 
 the things of this world and of humanity, though real 
 in their degree, have chiefly a kind of negative value ; 
 they are opaquenesses, clouds, materialisms, ignorances, 
 and the inner light falling upon them gradually reveals 
 their negative character and gradually dissolves them 
 away till they are lost in the extreme and eternal Splendour. 
 
 I think Jefferies, when he asked that question with which 
 I have begun this chapter, was in some sense subcon¬ 
 sciously, if not quite consciously, aware of the answer. 
 His frequent references to the burning blazing sun through¬ 
 out The Story of my Heart seem to be an indication of his 
 real deep-down attitude of mind. 
 
 The shadow-figures of the creeds and theogonies pass 
 away truly like ephemeral dreams ; but to say that time 
 spent in their study is wasted, is a mistake, for they have 
 value as being indications of things much more real than 
 themselves, namely, of the stages of evolution of the human 
 mind. The fact that a certain god-figure, however 
 grotesque and queer, or a certain creed, however childish, 
 cruel, and illogical, held sway for a considerable time over 
 the hearts of men in any corner or continent of the world 
 is good evidence that it represented a real formative urge 
 at the time in the hearts of those good people, and a definite 
 stage in their evolution and the evolution of humanity. 
 Certainly it was destined to pass away, but it was a step, 
 and a necessary step in the great process; and certainly 
 it was opaque and brutish, but it is through the opaque 
 things of the world, and not through the transparent, 
 that we become aware of the light. 
 
 It may be worth while to give instances of how some 
 early rituals and creeds, in themselves apparently bar¬ 
 barous or preposterous, were really the indications of 
 important moral and social conceptions evolving in the 
 heart of man. Let us take, first, the religious customs 
 connected with the ideas of Sacrifice and of Sin, of which 
 such innumerable examples are now to be found in the 
 
104 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 modern books on Anthropology. If we assume, as I have 
 done more than once, that the earliest state of Man was 
 one in which he did not consciously separate himself from 
 the world, animate and inanimate, which surrounded 
 him, then (as I have also said) it was perfectly natural 
 for him to take some animal which bulked large on his 
 horizon—some food-animal for instance—and to pay 
 respect to it as the benefactor of his tribe, its far-back 
 ancestor and totem-symbol; or, seeing the boundless 
 blessing of the cornfields, to believe in some kind of spirit 
 of the corn (not exactly a god but rather a magical ghost) 
 which, reincarnated every year, sprang up to save man¬ 
 kind from famine. But then no sooner had he done this 
 than he was bound to perceive that in cutting down the 
 corn or in eating his totem-bear or kangaroo he was slaying 
 his own best self and benefactor. In that instant the 
 consciousness of disunity, the sense of sin in some undefined 
 yet no less disturbing and alarming form would come in. 
 If, before, his ritual magic had been concentrated on the 
 simple purpose of multiplying the animal or vegetable 
 forms of his food, now in addition his magical endeavour 
 would be turned to averting the just wrath of the spirits 
 who animated these forms—just indeed, for the rudest 
 savage would perceive the wrong done and the probability 
 of its retribution. Clearly the wrong done could only be 
 expiated by an equivalent sacrifice of some kind on the 
 part of the man, or the tribe—that is by the offering to 
 the totem-animal or to the corn-spirit of some victim 
 whom these nature powers in their turn could feed upon 
 and assimilate. In this way the nature-powers would 
 be appeased, the sense of unity would be restored, and 
 the first At-one-ment effected. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to recite in any detail the cruel 
 and hideous sacrifices which have been perpetrated in 
 this sense all over the world, sometimes in appeasement 
 of a wrong committed or supposed to have been com- 
 
RITES OF EXPIATION 
 
 105 
 
 mitted by the tribe or some member of it, sometimes in 
 placation or for the averting of death, or defeat, or plague, 
 sometimes merely in fulfilment of some long-standing 
 custom of forgotten origin—the flayings and floggings 
 and burnings and crucifixions of victims without end, 
 carried out in all deliberation and solemnity of established 
 ritual. I have mentioned some cases connected with the 
 sowing of the corn. The Bible is full of such things, from 
 the intended sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham, 
 to the actual crucifixion of Jesus by the Jews. The first¬ 
 born sons were claimed by a god who called himself 
 " jealous,” and were only to be redeemed by a substitute. 1 
 Of the Canaanites it was said that “ even their daughters 
 they have burnt in the fire to their gods ” ; 2 and of the 
 King of Moab, that when he saw his army in danger of 
 defeat, “ he took his eldest son that should have reigned 
 in his stead and offered him for a burnt-offering on the 
 wall ! ” 3 Dr. Frazer 4 mentions the similar case of the 
 Carthaginians (about b.c. 300) sacrificing two hundred 
 children of good family as a propitiation to Baal and to 
 save their beloved city from the assaults of the Sicilian 
 tyrant Agathocles. And even so we hear that on that 
 occasion three hundred more young folk volunteered to 
 die for the fatherland. 
 
 The awful sacrifices made by the Aztecs in Mexico to 
 their gods Huitzilopochtli, Texcatlipoca, and others are 
 described in much detail by Sahagun, the Spanish mission¬ 
 ary of the sixteenth century. The victims were mostly 
 prisoners of war or young children ; they were numbered 
 by thousands. In one case Sahagun describes the huge 
 Idol or figure of the god as largely plated with gold and 
 holding his hands palm upward and in a downward sloping 
 position over a cauldron or furnace placed below. The 
 
 1 Exodus xxxiv. 20. 
 
 a Deut. xii. 31. 3 2 Kings iii. 27. 
 
 4 The Golden Bough, vol. “ The Dying God," p. 167. 
 
106 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 children, who had previously been borne in triumphal 
 state on litters over the crowd and decorated with every 
 ornamental device of feathers and flowers and wings, were 
 placed one by one on the vast hands and rolled down into 
 the flames—as if the god were himself offering them. 1 2 
 As the procession approached the temple, the members 
 of it wept and danced and sang, and here again the abun¬ 
 dance of tears was taken for a good augury of rain. 3 
 
 Bernal Diaz describes how he saw one of these monstrous 
 figures—that of Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, all inlaid 
 with gold and precious stones; and beside it were 
 " braziers, wherein burned the hearts of three Indians, 
 torn from their bodies that very day, and the smoke of 
 them and the savour of incense were the sacrifice.” 
 
 Sahagun again (in Book II, ch. 5) gives a long account 
 of the sacrifice of a perfect youth at Easter-time—which 
 date Sahagun connects with the Christian festival of the 
 Resurrection. For a whole year the youth had been held 
 in honour and adored by the people as the very image 
 of the god (Tetzcatlipoca) to whom he was to be sacrificed. 
 Every luxury and the fulfilment of his last wish (including 
 such four courtesans as he desired) had been granted him. 
 At the last and on the fatal day, leaving his companions 
 and his worshipers behind, he slowly ascended the Temple 
 staircase, stripping on each step the ornaments from his 
 body, and breaking and casting away his flutes and other 
 
 1 It is curious to find that exactly the same story (of the sloping 
 hands and the children rolled down into the flames) is related con¬ 
 cerning the above-mentioned Baal image at Carthage (see Diodorus 
 Siculus, xx. 14 ; also Baring Gould’s Religions Belief, vol i, p. 375). 
 
 2 “ A los ninos que mataban, componianlos en muchos atavios 
 para llevarlos al sacrificio, y llev&banlos en unas literas sobre los 
 hombros, estas literas iban adornadas con plumages y con flores : 
 iban tafiendo, cantando y bailando delante de ellos . . . Cuando 
 
 llev&ban los nifios a matar, si llev&ban y echaban muchos lagrimas, 
 alegrabansi los que los llev&ban porque tomaban pronostico de que 
 habian de tener muchas aguas en aquel afio.” Sahagun, Historia 
 Nueva Espana, Bk. II, ch. i. 
 
RITES OF EXPIATION 
 
 107 
 
 musical instruments; till, reaching the summit, he was 
 stretched, curved on his back, and belly upwards, over the 
 altar stone, while the priest with obsidian knife cut his 
 breast open and, snatching the heart out, held it up, yet 
 beating, as an offering to the Sun. In the meantime, and 
 while the heart still lived, his successor for the next year 
 was chosen. 
 
 In Book II, ch. 7 of the same work Sahagun describes 
 the similar offering of a woman to a goddess. In both 
 cases (he explains) of young man or young woman, the 
 victims were richly adorned in the guise of the god or 
 goddess to whom they were offered, and at the same time 
 great largesse of food was distributed to all who needed. 
 [Here we see the connexion in the general mind between 
 the gift of food (by the gods) and the sacrifice of precious 
 blood (by the people).] More than once Sahagun mentions 
 that the victims in these Mexican ceremonials not infre¬ 
 quently offered themselves as a voluntary sacrifice ; and 
 Prescott says 1 that the offering of one’s life to the gods 
 was “ sometimes voluntarily embraced, as a most glorious 
 death opening a sure passage into Paradise.” 
 
 Dr. Frazer describes 3 the far-back Babylonian festival 
 of the Sacaea in which “ a prisoner, condemned to death, 
 was dressed in the king's robes, seated on the king’s throne, 
 allowed to issue whatever commands he pleased, to eat, 
 drink and enjoy himself, and even to lie with the king’s 
 concubines.” But at the end of the five days he was 
 stripped of his royal robes, scourged, and hanged or im¬ 
 paled. It is certainly astonishing to find customs so 
 similar prevailing among peoples so far removed in space 
 and time as the Aztecs of the sixteenth century a.d. and 
 the Babylonians perhaps of the sixteenth century b.c. 
 But we know that this subject of the yearly sacrifice of 
 
 1 Conquest of Mexico, Bk. I, ch. 3. 
 
 3 Golden Bough, “The Dying God," p. 114. See also S. Reinach, 
 Cults, Myths and Religion, p. 94, on the martyrdom of St. Dasius. 
 
108 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 a victim attired as a king or god is one that Dr. Frazer 
 has especially made his own, and for further information 
 on it his classic work should be consulted. 
 
 Andrew Lang also, with regard to the Aztecs, quotes 
 largely from Sahagun, and summarises his conclusions 
 in the following passage : “ The general theory of worship 
 was the adoration of a deity, first by innumerable human 
 sacrifices, next by the special sacrifice of a man for the 
 male gods, of a ‘woman for each goddess. 1 The latter 
 victims were regarded as the living images or incarnations 
 of the divinities in each case ; for no system of worship 
 carried farther the identification of the god with the 
 sacrifice [? victim], and of both with the officiating priest. 
 The connexion was emphasized by the priests wearing 
 the newly-flayed skins of the victims—just as in Greece, 
 Egypt and Assyria, the fawn-skin or bull-hide or goat-skin 
 or fish-skin of the victims is worn by the celebrants. 
 Finally, an image of the god was made out of paste, and 
 this was divided into morsels and eaten in a hideous 
 sacrament by those who communicated.” 2 
 
 Revolting as this whole picture is, it represents as we 
 know a mere thumbnail sketch of the awful practices of 
 human sacrifice all over the world. We hold up our hands 
 in horror at the thought of Huitzilopochtli dropping children 
 from his fingers into the flames, but we have to remember 
 that our own most Christian Saint Augustine was content 
 to describe unbaptized infants as crawling for ever about 
 the floor of Hell! What sort of god, we may ask, did 
 
 1 Compare the festival of Tharge.Ua at Athens, originally connected 
 with the ripening of the crops. A procession was formed and the 
 firstfruits of the year offered to Apollo, Artemis and the Horae. It 
 was an expiatory feast, to purify the State from all guilt and avert 
 the wrath of the god [the Sun]. A man and a woman, as representing 
 the male and female population, were led about with a garland of 
 figs [fertility] round their necks, to the sound of flutes and singing. 
 They were then scourged, sacrificed, and their bodies burned by the 
 seashore. (Nettleship and Sandys.) 
 
 2 A. Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, vol. ii, p. 97. 
 
HITES OF EXPIATION 109 
 
 Augustine worship ? The Being who could condemn 
 children to such a fate was certainly no better than the 
 Mexican Idol. 
 
 And yet Augustine was a great and noble man, with 
 some by no means unworthy conceptions of the greatness 
 of his God. In the same way the Aztecs were in many 
 respects a refined and artistic people, and their religion 
 was not all superstition and bloodshed. Prescott says of 
 them 1 that they believed in a supreme Creator and Lord 
 “ omnipresent, knowing all thoughts, giving all gifts, 
 without whom Man is as nothing—invisible, incorporeal, 
 one God, of perfect perfection and purity, under whose 
 wings we find repose and a sure defence.” How can we 
 reconcile St. Augustine with his own devilish creed, or 
 the religious belief of the Aztecs with their unspeakable 
 cruelties ? Perhaps we can only reconcile them by 
 remembering out of what deeps of barbarism and what 
 nightmares of haunting Fear, man has slowly emerged— 
 and is even now only slowly emerging ; by remembering 
 also that the ancient ceremonies and rituals of Magic and 
 Fear remained on and vyere cultivated by the multitude 
 in each nation long after the bolder and nobler spirits had 
 attained to breathe a purer air; by remembering that 
 even to the present day in each individual the Old and the 
 New are for a long period thus intricately intertangled. 
 It is hard to believe that the practice of human and animal 
 sacrifice (with whatever revolting details) should have been 
 cultivated by nine-tenths of the human race over the globe 
 out of sheer perversity and without some reason which 
 at any rate to the perpetrators themselves appeared com¬ 
 manding and convincing. To-day [1918] we are witnessing 
 in the Great European War a carnival of human slaughter 
 which in magnitude and barbarity eclipses in one stroke 
 all the accumulated ceremonial sacrifices of historical 
 ages ; and when we ask the why and wherefore of this 
 1 Conquest o* Mexico, Bk. I, ch, 5. 
 
110 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 horrid spectacle we are told, apparently in all sincerity, 
 and by both the parties engaged, of the noble objects and 
 commanding moralities which inspire and compel it. We 
 can hardly, in this last case, disbelieve altogether in the 
 genuineness of the plea, so why should we do so in the 
 former case ? In both cases we perceive that underneath 
 the surface pretexts and moralities Fear is and was the great 
 urging and commanding force. 
 
 The truth is that Sin and Sacrifice represent—if you 
 once allow for the overwhelming sway of fear—perfectly 
 reasonable views of human conduct, adopted instinctively 
 by mankind since the earliest times. If in a moment of 
 danger or an access of selfish greed you deserted your 
 brother tribesman or took a mean advantage of him, you 
 ‘ sinned * against him ; and naturally you expiated the 
 sin by an equivalent sacrifice of some kind made to the 
 one you had wronged. Such an idea and such a practice 
 were the very foundation of social life and human morality, 
 and must have sprung up as soon as ever, in the course 
 of evolution, man became capable of differentiating himself 
 from his fellows and regarding his own conduct as that 
 of a * separate self.’ It was in the very conception of a 
 separate self that ‘ sin ’ and disunity first began ; and it 
 was by * sacrifice * that unity and harmony were restored, 
 appeasement and atonement effected. 
 
 But in those earliest times, as I have already indicated 
 more than once, man felt himself intimately related not 
 only to his brother tribesman, but to the animals and to 
 general Nature. It was not so much that he thought thus 
 as that he never thought otherwise ! He felt subconsciously 
 that he was a part of all this outer world. And so he adopted 
 for his totems or presiding spirits every possible animal, 
 as we have seen, and all sorts of nature-phenomena, such 
 as rain and fire and water and clouds, and sun, moon and 
 stars—which we consider quite senseless and inanimate. 
 Towards these apparently senseless things therefore he 
 
RITES OF EXPIATION 
 
 111 
 
 felt the same compunction as I have described him feeling 
 towards his brother tribesmen. He could sin against 
 them too. He could sin against his totem-animal by 
 eating it; he could sin against his ‘ brother the ox ’ by 
 consuming its strength in the labour of the plough ; he 
 could sin against the corn by cutting it down and grinding 
 it into flour, or against the precious and beautiful pine- 
 tree by laying his axe to its roots and converting it into 
 mere timber for his house. Further still, no doubt he 
 could sin against elemental nature. This might be more 
 difficult to be certain of, but when the signs of elemental 
 displeasure were not to be mistaken—when the rain with¬ 
 held itself for months, or the storms and lightning dealt 
 death and destruction, when the crops failed or evil plagues 
 afflicted mankind—then there could be little uncertainty 
 that he had sinned ; and Fear, which had haunted him 
 like a demon from the first day when he became conscious 
 of his separation from his fellows and from Nature, stood 
 over him and urged to dreadful propitiations. 
 
 In all these cases some sacrifice in reparation was the 
 obvious thing. We have seen that to atone for the 
 cutting-down of the corn a human victim would often 
 be slaughtered. The corn-spirit clearly approved of this, 
 for wherever the blood and the remains of the victim were 
 strewn the corn always sprang up more plentifully. The 
 tribe or human group made reparation thus to the corn ; 
 the corn-spirit signified approval. The ‘ sin ’ was expiated 
 and harmony restored. Sometimes the sacrifice was volun¬ 
 tarily offered by a tribesman ; sometimes it was enforced, 
 by lot or otherwise ; sometimes the victim was a slave, 
 or a captive enemy; sometimes even an animal. All 
 that did not so much matter. The main thing was that 
 the formal expiation had been carried out, and the wrath 
 of the spirits averted. 
 
 It is known that tribes whose chief food-animal was 
 the bear felt it necessary to kill and eat a bear occasionally ; 
 
112 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 but they could not do this without a sense of guilt, and 
 some fear of vengeance from the great Bear-spirit. So 
 they ate the slain bear at a communal feast in which the 
 tribesmen shared the guilt and celebrated their community 
 with their totem and with each other. And since they could 
 not make any reparation directly to the slain animal itself 
 after its death, they made their reparation before, bringing 
 all sorts of presents and food to it for a long anterior period, 
 and paying every kind of worship and respect to it. The 
 same with the bull and the ox. At the festival of the 
 Bouphonia, in some of the cities of Greece as I have already 
 mentioned, the actual bull sacrificed was the handsomest 
 and most carefully nurtured that could be obtained ; it 
 was crowned with flowers and led in procession with every 
 mark of reverence and worship. And when—as I have 
 already pointed out—at the great Spring festival, instead 
 of a bull or a goat or a ram, a human victim was immolated, 
 it was a custom (which can be traced very widely over 
 the world) to feed and indulge and honour the victim to 
 the last degree for a whole year before the final ceremony, 
 arraying him often as a king and placing a crown 
 upon his head, by w r ay of acknowledgment of the 
 noble and necessary work he was doing for the general 
 good. 
 
 What a touching and beautiful ceremony was that— 
 belonging especially to the North of Syria, and lands where 
 the pine is so beneficent and beloved a tree—the mourning 
 ceremony of the death and burial of Attis ! when a pine- 
 tree, felled by the axe, was hollowed out, and in the hollow 
 an image (often itself carved out of pinewood) of the young 
 Attis was placed. Could any symbolism express more 
 tenderly the idea that the gracious youth—who repre¬ 
 sented Spring, too soon slain by the rude tusk of Winter— 
 was himself the very human soul of the pine-tree P 1 At 
 
 1 See Julius Firmicus, who says (De Err ore, c. 28): “In sacris 
 Phrygiis, quae Matris deum dicunt, per annos singulos arbor pinea 
 
RITES OF EXPIATION 
 
 113 
 
 some earlier period, no doubt, a real youth had been sacri¬ 
 ficed and his body bound within the pine ; but now it was 
 deemed sufficient for the maidens to sing their wild songs 
 of lamentation ; and for the priests and male enthusiasts 
 to cut and gash themselves with knives, or to sacrifice 
 (as they did) to the Earth-mother the precious blood 
 offering of their virile organs—symbols of fertility in 
 return for the promised and expected renewal of Nature 
 and the crops in the coming Spring. For the ceremony, 
 as we have already seen, did not end with death and 
 lamentation, but led on, perfectly naturally, after a day or 
 two to a festival of resurrection, when it was discovered 
 —just as in the case of Osiris—that the pine-tree coffin 
 was empty, and the immortal life had flown. How strange 
 the similarity and parallelism of all these things to the 
 story of Jesus in the Gospels—the sacrifice of a life made 
 in order to bring salvation to men and expiation of sins, 
 the crowning of the victim, and arraying in royal attire, 
 the scourging and the mockery, the binding or nailing to 
 a tree, the tears of Mary, and the resurrection and the 
 empty coffin !—or how not at all strange when we consider 
 in what numerous forms and among how many peoples, 
 this same parable and ritual had as a matter of fact been 
 celebrated, and how it had ultimately come down to 
 bring its message of redemption into a somewhat obscure 
 Syrian city, in the special shape with which we are 
 familiar. 
 
 Though the parable or legend in its special Christian 
 form bears with it the consciousness of the presence of 
 beings whom we may call gods, it is important to remember 
 
 caeditur, et in media arbore simulacrum juvenis subligatur. In 
 Isiacis sacris de pinea arbore caeditur truncus ; hujus trunei media 
 pars subtiliter excavatur, illis de segminibus factum idolum Osiridis 
 sepelitur. In Proserpinae sacris cassa arbor in effigiem virginis 
 formamque componitur, et cum intra civitatem i'uerit illata, 
 quadraginta noctibus plangitur, quadragesima vero nocte 
 comburitur.’' 
 
 8 
 
114 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 that in many or most of its earlier forms, though it dealt 
 in * spirits '—the spirit of the corn, or the spirit of the 
 Spring, or the spirits of the rain and the thunder, or the 
 spirits of totem-animals—it had not yet quite risen to 
 the idea of gods. It had not risen to the conception of 
 eternal deities sitting apart and governing the world in 
 solemn conclave—as from the slopes of Olympus or the 
 recesses of the Christian Heaven. It belonged, in fact, 
 in its inception, to the age of Magic. The creed of Sin 
 and Sacrifice, or of Guilt and Expiation—whatever we 
 like to call it—was evolved perfectly naturally out of 
 the human mind (when brought face to face with Life 
 and Nature) at some early stage of its self-consciousness. 
 It was essentially the result of man’s deep, original and 
 instinctive sense of solidarity with Nature, now denied 
 and belied and to some degree broken up by the growth 
 and conscious insistence of the self-regarding impulses. 
 It was the consciousness of disharmony and disunity, 
 causing men to feel all the more poignantly the desire 
 and the need of reconciliation. It was a realisation of 
 union made clear by its very loss. It assumed of course, 
 in a subconscious way as I have already indicated, that 
 the external world was the habitat of a mind or minds 
 similar to man’s own ; but that being granted, it is evident 
 that the particular theories current in this or that place 
 about the nature of the world—the theories, as we should 
 say, of science or theology—did not alter the general out¬ 
 lines of the creed ; they only coloured its details and gave 
 its ritual different dramatic settings. The mental attitudes, 
 for instance, of Abraham sacrificing the ram, or of the 
 Siberian angakout slaughtering a totem-bear, or of a modern 
 and pious Christian contemplating the Saviour on the Cross 
 are really almost exactly the same. I mention this because 
 in tracing the origins or the evolution of religions it is 
 important to distinguish clearly what is essential and 
 universal from that which is merely local and temporary. 
 
RITES OF EXPIATION 
 
 115 
 
 Some people, no doubt, would be shocked at the com¬ 
 parisons just made ; but surely it is much more inspiriting 
 and encouraging to think that whatever progress has been 
 made in the religious outlook of the world has come about 
 through the gradual mental growth and consent of the 
 peoples, rather than through some unique and miraculous 
 event of a rather arbitrary and unexplained character— 
 which indeed might never be repeated, and concerning 
 which it would perhaps be impious to suggest that it should 
 be repeated. 
 
 The consciousness then of Sin (or of alienation from 
 the life of the whole), and of restoration or redemption 
 through Sacrifice, seems to have disclosed itself in the human 
 race in very very far-back times, and to have symbolised 
 itself in some most ancient rituals ; and if we are shocked 
 sometimes at the barbarities which accompanied those 
 rituals, yet we must allow' that these barbarities show 
 how intensely the early people felt the solemnity and 
 importance of the whole matter; and we must allow too 
 that the barbarities did sear and burn themselves into 
 rude and ienorant minds with the sense of the need of 
 Sacrifice, and with a result perhaps which could not have 
 been compassed in any other way. 
 
 For after all we see now that sacrifice is of the very 
 essence of social life. “It is expedient that one man 
 should die for the people ” ; and not only that one man 
 should actually die, but (what is far more important) 
 that each man should be ready and willing to die in that 
 cause, when the occasion and the need arises. Taken 
 in its larger meanings and implications Sacrifice, as con¬ 
 ceived in the ancient world, was a perfectly reasonable 
 thing. It should pervade modem life more than it does. 
 All we have or enjoy flows from, or is implicated with, 
 pain and suffering in others, and—if there is any justice 
 in Nature or Humanity—it demands an equivalent readiness 
 to suffer on our part. If Christianity has any real 
 
116 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 essence, that essence is perhaps expressed in some such 
 ritual or practice of Sacrifice, and we see that the dim 
 beginnings of this idea date from the far-back customs 
 of savages coming down from a time anterior to all recorded 
 history. 
 
VIII 
 
 PAGAN INITIATIONS AND THE SECOND BIRTH 
 
 We have suggested in the last chapter how the conceptions 
 of Sin and Sacrifice coming down to us from an extremely 
 remote past, and embodied among the various peoples 
 of the world sometimes in crude and bloodthirsty rites, 
 sometimes in symbols and rituals of a gentler and more 
 gracious character, descended at last into Christianity 
 and became a part of its creed and of the creed of the 
 modem world. On the whole perhaps we may trace a 
 slow amelioration in this process and may flatter ourselves 
 that the Christian centuries exhibit a more philosophical 
 understanding of what Sin is, and a more humane con¬ 
 ception of what Sacrifice should be, than the centuries 
 preceding. But I fear that any very decided statement 
 or sweeping generalisation to that effect would be-—to 
 say the least—rash. Perhaps there is a very slow amelio¬ 
 ration ; but the briefest glance at the history of the 
 Christian churches—the horrible rancours and revenges 
 of the clergy and the sects against each other in the fourth 
 and fifth centuries a.d., the heresy-hunting crusades at 
 Beziers and other places and the massacres of the Albigenses 
 in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the witch-findings 
 and burnings of the sixteenth and seventeenth, the hideous 
 science-urged and bishop-blessed warfare of the twentieth 
 —horrors fully as great as any we can charge to the account 
 
 117 
 
118 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 of the Aztecs or the Babylonians—must give us pause. 
 Nor must we forget that if there is by chance a substantial 
 amelioration in our modern outlook with regard to these 
 matters the same had begun already before the advent 
 of Christianity and can by no means be ascribed to any 
 miraculous influence of that religion. Abraham was 
 prompted to slay a ram as a substitute for his son, long 
 before the Christians were thought of; the rather savage 
 Artemis of the old Greek rites was (according to Pausanias) 1 
 honoured by the yearly sacrifice of a perfect boy and girl, 
 but later it was deemed sufficient to draw a knife across 
 their throats as a symbol, with the result of spilling only 
 a few drops of their blood, or to flog the boys (with the 
 same result) upon her altar. Among the Khonds in old 
 days many victims (meriahs) were sacrificed to the gods, 
 “ but in time the man was replaced by a horse, the horse 
 by a bull, the bull by a ram, the ram by a kid, the kid 
 by fowls, and the fowls by many flowers.” 2 At one time, 
 according to the Yajur-Veda, there was a festival at which 
 one hundred and twenty-five victims, men and women, 
 boys and girls, were sacrificed ; “ but reform supervened, 
 and now the victims were bound as before to the stake, 
 but afterwards amid litanies to the immolated (god) 
 Narayana, the sacrificing priest brandished a knife and 
 —severed the bonds of the captives ! ” 3 At the Athenian 
 festival of the Thargelia, to which I referred in the last 
 chapter, it appears that the victims, in later times, instead 
 of being slain, were tossed from a height into the sea, and 
 after being rescued were then simply banished; while 
 at Leucatas at a similar festival the fall of the victim was 
 graciously broken by tying feathers and even living birds 
 to his body .4 
 
 With the lapse of time and the general progress of man- 
 
 1 vii. 19, and iii. 8, 16. 
 
 J Primitive Folk, by Elie Reclus (Contemp. Science Series), p. 330. 
 
 3 Ibid. 
 
 4 Muller’s Dorians, Book II, ch. ii, par 10. 
 
PAGAN INITIATIONS 
 
 119 
 
 kind we may, I think, perceive some such slow ameliorations 
 in the matter of the brutality and superstition of the old 
 religions. How far any later ameliorations were due to 
 the direct influence of Christianity might be a difficult 
 question ; but what I think we can clearly see—and what 
 especially interests us here—is that in respect to its main 
 religious ideas, and the matter underlying them (exclusive 
 of the manner of their treatment, which necessarily has 
 varied among different peoples) Christianity is of one piece 
 with the earlier pagan creeds and is for the most part a 
 re-statement and renewed expression of world-old doctrines 
 whose first genesis is lost in the haze of the past, beyond 
 all recorded history. 
 
 I have illustrated this view with regard to the doctrine 
 of Sin and Sacrifice. Let us take two or three other 
 illustrations. Let us take the doctrine of Re-birth or 
 Regeneration. The first few verses of St. John's Gospel 
 are occupied with the subject of salvation through rebirth 
 or regeneration. " Except a man be born again, he cannot 
 see the kingdom of God." ..." Except a man be born 
 of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom 
 of God." Our Baptismal Service begins by saying that 
 " forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin ; 
 and that our Saviour Christ saith, None can enter into 
 the kingdom of God except he be regenerate and born 
 anew of water and the Holy Ghost ”; therefore it is 
 desirable that this child should be baptised, " received 
 into Christ's Holy Church, and be made a lively member 
 of the same." That is to say, there is one birth, after 
 the flesh, but a second birth is necessary, a birth after 
 the Spirit and into the Church of Christ. Our Confirm¬ 
 ation Service is simply a service repeating and confirming 
 these views, at an age (fourteen to sixteen or so) when 
 the boy or girl is capable of understanding what is being 
 done. 
 
 But our Baptismal and Confirmation ceremonies com- 
 
120 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 bined are clearly the exact correspondence and parallel 
 of the old pagan ceremonies of Initiation, which are or 
 have been observed in almost every primitive tribe over 
 the world. “ The rite of the second birth,” says Jane 
 Harrison, 1 ” is widespread, universal, over half the savage 
 world. With the savage to be twice-born is the rule. By 
 his first birth he comes into the world ; by his second he 
 is born into his tribe. At his first birth he belongs to his 
 mother and the women-folk ; at his second he becomes 
 a full-fledged man and passes into the society of the 
 warriors of his tribe.” ...” These rites are very various, 
 but they all point one moral, that the former things are 
 passed away and that the new'-born man has entered upon 
 a new life. Simplest of all, and most instructive, is the 
 rite practised by the Kikuyu tribe of British East Africa, 
 who require that every boy, just before circumcision, 
 must be born again. The mother stands up with the boy 
 crouching at her feet ; she pretends to go through all the 
 labour pains, and the boy on being reborn cries like a babe 
 and is washed.” 2 
 
 Let us pause for a moment. An Initiate is of course 
 one who ” enters in.” He enters into the Tribe ; he enters 
 into the revelation of certain Mysteries ; he becomes an 
 associate of a certain Totem, a certain God ; a member 
 of a new Society, or Church—a church of Mithra, or 
 Dionysus or Christ. To do any of these things he must 
 be born again ; he must die to the old life ; he must pass 
 through ceremonials which symbolise the change. One 
 of these ceremonials is washing. As the new-born babe 
 is washed, so must the new-born initiate be washed; and 
 as by primitive man (and not without reason) blood was 
 considered the most vital and regenerative of fluids, the 
 very elixir of life, so in earliest times it was common to 
 wash the initiate in blood. If the initiate had to be born 
 
 1 Ancient Art and Ritual, p. 104. 
 
 3 See also Themis, p. 21. 
 
PAGAN INITIATIONS 
 
 121 
 
 anew, it would seem reasonable to suppose that he must 
 first die. So, not unfrequently, he was wounded, or 
 scourged, and baptised with his own blood, or, in cases, 
 one of the candidates was really killed and his blood used 
 as a substitute for the blood of the others. No doubt 
 human sacrifice attended the earliest initiations. But later 
 it was sufficient to be half-drowned in the blood of a Bull 
 as in the Mithra cult , 1 or ‘ washed in the blood of the 
 Lamb * as in the Christian phraseology. Finally, with a 
 growing sense of decency and aesthetic perception among 
 the various peoples, washing with pure water came in the 
 initiation-ceremonies to take the place of blood ; and our 
 baptismal service has reduced the ceremony to a mere 
 sprinkling with water . 2 
 
 To continue the quotation from Miss Harrison : “ More 
 often the new birth is simulated, or imagined, as a death 
 and a resurrection, either of the boys themselves or of 
 some one else in their presence. Thus at initiation among 
 some tribes of South-east Australia, when the boys are 
 assembled an old man dressed in stringy bark-fibre lies 
 down in a grave. He is covered up lightly with sticks 
 and earth, and the grave is smoothed over. The buried 
 man holds in his hand a small bush which seems to be 
 growing from the ground, and other bushes are stuck in 
 the ground round about. The novices are then brought 
 to the edge of the grave and a song is sung. Gradually, 
 as the song goes on, the bush held by the buried man begins 
 to quiver. It moves more and more, and bit by bit the 
 man himself starts up from the grave.” 
 
 Strange ! in our own Baptismal Service and just before 
 the actual christening we read these words, “ Then shall 
 the Priest say : O merciful God, grant that the old Adam 
 in this child may be so buried that the new man may be 
 
 1 See supra, ch. iii. p. 43. 
 
 3 For the virtue supposed to reside in blood see Westermarck’s 
 Moral Ideas, ch. 46. 
 
122 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 raised up in him: grant that all carnal affections may 
 die in him, and that all things belonging to the Spirit may 
 live and grow in him ! " Can we doubt that the Australian 
 medicine-man, standing at the graveside of the re-arisen 
 old black-fellow, pointed the same moral to the young 
 initiates as the priest does to-day to those assembled before 
 him in church—for indeed we know that among savage 
 tribes initiations have always been before all things the 
 occasions of moral and social teaching ? Can we doubt 
 that he said, in substance if not in actual words : “As 
 this man has arisen from the grave, so you must also arise 
 from your old childish life of amusement and self-gratifi¬ 
 cation and enter into the life of the tribe, the life of the 
 Spirit of the tribe." “ In totemistic societies," to quote 
 Miss Harrison again, “ and in the animal secret societies 
 that seem to grow out of them, the novice is born again 
 as the sacred animal. Thus among the Carrier Indians 1 
 when a man wants to become a Lulem or ' Bear,' however 
 cold the season he tears off his clothes, puts on a bear-skin 
 and dashes into the woods, where he will stay for three 
 or four days. Every night his fellow-villagers will go 
 out in search parties to find him. They cry out Yi! 
 Kelulem (come on, Bear), and he answers with angry growls. 
 Usually they fail to find him, but he comes back at last 
 himself. He is met, and conducted to the ceremonial 
 lodge, and there in company with the rest of the Bears 
 dances solemnly his first appearance. Disappearance and 
 reappearance is as common a rite in initiation as simulated 
 killing and resurrection, and has the same object. Both 
 are rites of transition, of passing from one state to another." 
 In the Christian ceremonies the boy or girl puts away 
 childish things and puts on the new man, but instead of 
 putting on a bear-skin he puts on Christ. There is not so 
 much difference as may appear on the surface. To be 
 identified with your Totem is to be identified with the 
 
 1 Golden Bough*, III, p. 438. 
 
PAGAN INITIATIONS 
 
 123 
 
 sacred being who watches over your tribe, who has given 
 his life for your tribe ; it is to be born again, to be washed 
 not only with water but with the Holy Spirit of all your 
 fellows. To be baptized into Christ ought to mean to 
 be regenerated in the Holy Spirit of all humanity ; and 
 no doubt in cases it does mean this, but too often unfor¬ 
 tunately it has only amounted to a pretence of religious 
 sanction given to the meanest and bitterest quarrels of 
 the Churches and the States. 
 
 This idea of a New Birth at initiation explains the 
 prevalent pagan custom of subjecting the initiates to 
 serious ordeals, often painful and even dangerous. If one 
 is to be born again, obviously one must be ready to 
 face death ; the one thing cannot be without the other. 
 One must be able to endure pain, like the Red Indian 
 braves ; to go long periods fasting and without food or 
 drink, like the choupan among the Western Inoits—who 
 wanders for whole nights over the ice-fields under the 
 moon, scantily clothed and braving the intense cold ; to 
 overcome the very fear of death and danger, like the 
 Australian novices who, at first terrified by the sound of 
 the bull-roarer and threats of fire and the knife, learn 
 finally to cast their fears away . 1 By so doing one puts 
 off the old childish things, and qualifies oneself by firmness 
 and courage to become a worthy member of the society 
 
 1 According to accounts of the Wiradthuri tribe of Western 
 Australia, in their initiations, the lads were frightened by a large 
 fire being lighted near them, and hearing the awful sound of the bull 
 roarers, while they were told that Dhuramoolan was about to burn 
 them ; the legend being that Dhuramoolan, a powerful being, whose 
 voice sounded like thunder, would take the boys away into the bush 
 and instruct them in all the laws, traditions and customs of the com¬ 
 munity. So he pretended that he always killed the boys, cut them 
 up, and burnt them to ashes, after which he moulded the ashes into 
 human shape, and restored them to life as new beings. (See R. H 
 Matthews, “ The Wiradthuri tribes,” Journal Anthrop. Inst., vol. xxv, 
 1S96, pp. 297 sq.) 
 
124 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 into which one is called. 1 The rules of social life are 
 taught—the duty to one’s tribe, and to oneself, truth¬ 
 speaking, defence of women and children, the care of cattle, 
 the meaning of sex and marriage, and even the mysteries 
 of such religious ideas and rudimentary science as the tribe 
 possesses. And by so doing one really enters into a new 
 life. Things of the spiritual world begin to dawn. Julius 
 Firmicus, in describing the mysteries of the resurrection 
 of Osiris, 2 3 4 says that when the worshipers had satiated 
 themselves with lamentations over the death of the god 
 then the priest would go round anointing them with oil 
 and whispering, “ Be of good cheer, O Neophytes of the 
 new-arisen God, for to us too from our pains shall come 
 salvation.” 3 
 
 It would seem that at some very early time in the history 
 of tribal and priestly initiations an attempt was made to 
 impress upon the neophytes the existence and over¬ 
 shadowing presence of spiritual and ghostly beings. Perhaps 
 the pains endured in the various 01 deals, the long fastings, 
 the silences in the depth of the forests or on the mountains 
 or among the ice-floes, helped to rouse the visionary faculty. 
 The developments of this faculty among the black and 
 coloured peoples—East-Indian, Burmese, African, American- 
 Indian, etc.-—are well known. Miss Alice Fletcher, who 
 lived among the Omaha Indians for thirty years, gives 
 a most interesting account 4 of the general philosophy of 
 that people and their rites of initiation. “ The Omahas 
 regard all animate and inanimate forms, all phenomena, 
 as pervaded by a common life, which was continuous with 
 and similar to the will-power they were conscious of in 
 
 1 See Catlin’s Norlh-Atnerican Indians, vol. i, for initiations and 
 
 ordeals among the Mandans. 
 
 3 De Err ore, c. 22. 
 
 3 Oappare, fivcrrai rov Oeov <7f.aujop.kvov, 
 
 Eorai yap t)plv ek itovuiv aujTijpia. 
 
 4 Summarised in Themis, pp. 68—71. 
 
PAGAN INITIATIONS 
 
 125 
 
 themselves. This mysterious power in all things they 
 called Wakonda, and through it all things were related 
 to man and to each other. In the idea of the continuity 
 of life a relation was maintained between the seen and 
 the unseen, the dead and the living, and also between 
 the fragment of anything and its entirety.” 1 Thus an 
 Omaha novice might at any time seek to obtain Wakonda 
 by what was called the rite of the vision. He would go 
 out alone, fast, chant incantations, and finally fall into 
 a trance (much resembling what in modern times has been 
 called cosmic consciousness) in which he would perceive 
 the inner relations of all things and the solidarity of the 
 least object with the rest of the universe. 
 
 Another rite in connexion with initiation, and common 
 all over the pagan world—in Greece, America, Africa, 
 Australia, New Mexico, etc.—w^as the daubing of the novice 
 all over with clay or chalk or even dung, and then after 
 a while removing the same. 2 3 The novice must have looked 
 a sufficiently ugly and uncomfortable object in this state ; 
 but later, when he was thoroughly washed , the ceremony 
 must have afforded a thrilling illustration of the idea of 
 a new birth, and one which would dwell in the minds of 
 the spectators. When the daubing was done as not in¬ 
 frequently happened with white clay or gypsum, and 
 the ritual took place at night, it can easily be imagined 
 that the figures of young men and boys moving about in 
 the darkness would lend support to the idea that they 
 were spirits belonging to some intermediate world—who 
 had already passed through death and were now waiting 
 for their second birth on earth (or into the tribe) which 
 would be signalised by their thorough and ceremonial 
 washing. It will be remembered that Herodotus (viii, 27) 
 gives a circumstantial account of how the Phocians in 
 
 1 A. C. Fletcher, The Significance of the Scalp-lock, Journal of 
 
 Anthropological Studies, xxvii (1897-8), p. 436. 
 
 3 See A. Lang’s Myth, Ritual and Religion, i, 274 sq . 
 
126 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 a battle with the Thessalians smeared six hundred of their 
 bravest warriors with white clay so that, looking like 
 supernatural beings, and falling upon the Thessalians 
 by night, they terrified the latter and put them to instant 
 flight. 
 
 Such then—though very scantily described—were some 
 of the rites of Initiation and Second Birth celebrated in 
 the old Pagan world. The subject is far too large for 
 adequate treatment within the present limits ; but even 
 so we cannot but be struck by the appropriateness in many 
 cases of the teaching thus giving to the young, the con¬ 
 creteness of the illustrations, the effectiveness of the 
 symbols used, the dramatic character of the rites, the 
 strong enforcement of lessons on the nature and duties 
 of the life into which the candidates were about to enter. 
 Christianity followed on, and inherited these traditions, 
 but one feels that in its ceremonies of Baptism and Con¬ 
 firmation, which of course correspond to the Pagan 
 Initiations, it falls far short of the latter. Its ceremonies 
 (certainly as we have them to-day in Protestant countries) 
 are of a very milk-and-watery character; all allusion to 
 and teaching on the immensely important subject of Sex 
 is omitted, the details of social and industrial morality 
 are passed by, and instruction is limited to a few rather 
 commonplace lessons in general morality and religion. 
 
 It may be appropriate here, before leaving the subject 
 of the Second Birth, to inquire how it has come about 
 that this doctrine—so remote and metaphysical as it might 
 appear—has been taken up and embodied in their creeds 
 and rituals by quite primitive people all over the world, 
 to such a degree indeed that it has ultimately been adopted 
 and built into the foundations of the later and more 
 intellectual religions, like Hinduism, Mithraism, and the 
 Egyptian and Christian cults. 1 think the answer to 
 this question must be found in the now-familiar fact that 
 
 
PAGAN INITIATIONS 
 
 127 
 
 the earliest peoples felt themselves so much a part of 
 Nature and the animal and vegetable world around them 
 that (whenever they thought about these matters at all) 
 they never for a moment doubted that the things which 
 were happening all round them in the external world were 
 also happening within themselves. They saw the Sun, 
 overclouded and nigh to death in winter, come to its birth 
 again each year; they saw the Vegetation shoot forth 
 anew in spring—the revival of the spirit of the Earth; 
 the endless breeding of the Animals, the strange trans¬ 
 formations of Worms and Insects ; the obviously new life 
 taken on by boys and girls at puberty ; the same at a 
 later age when the novice was transformed into the 
 medicine-man—the choupan into the angakok among the 
 Esquimaux, the Dacotah youth into the wakan among 
 the Red Indians; and they felt in their sub-conscious 
 way the same everlasting forces of rebirth and transform¬ 
 ation working within themselves. In some of the Greek 
 Mysteries the newly admitted Initiates were fed for some 
 time after on milk only “ as though we were being born 
 again.” (See Sallustius, quoted by Gilbert Murray.) When 
 sub-conscious knowledge began to glimmer into direct 
 consciousness one of the first aspects (and no doubt one 
 of the truest) under which people saw life was just thus : 
 as a series of rebirths and transformations. 1 The most 
 modern science, I need hardly say, in biology as well as 
 in chemistry and the field of inorganic Nature, supports 
 that view. The savage in earliest times felt the truth of 
 some things which we to-day are only beginning intel¬ 
 lectually to perceive and analyse. 
 
 Christianity adopted and absorbed—as it was bound 
 to do—this world-wide doctiine of the second birth. 
 Passing over its physiological and biological applications, 
 it gave to it a fine spiritual significance—or rather it insisted 
 
 1 The fervent and widespread belief in animal metamorphoses 
 among early peoples is well-known. 
 
128 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 especially on its spiritual significance, which (as we have 
 seen) had been widely recognised before. Only—as I 
 suppose must happen with all local religions—it narrowed 
 the application and outlook of the doctrine down to a 
 special case—“ As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all 
 be made alive/’ -The Universal Spirit which can give 
 rebirth and salvation to every child of man to whom it 
 comes, was offered only under a very special form—that 
 of Jesus Christ. 1 In this respect it was no better than 
 the religions which preceded it. In some respects—that 
 is, where it was especially fanatical, blinkered, and hostile 
 to other sects—it was worse. But to those who perceive 
 that the Great Spirit may bring new birth and salvation 
 to some under the form of Osiris, equally w r ell as to others 
 under the form of Jesus, or again to some under the form 
 of a Siberian totem-Bear equally as to others under the 
 form of Osiris, these questionings and narrowings fall 
 away as of no importance. We in this latter day can see 
 the main thing, namely that Christianity was and is just 
 one phase of a w r orld-old religion, slowly perhaps expanding 
 its scope, but whose chief attitudes and orientations 
 have been the same through the centuries^ 
 
 Many other illustrations might be taken of the truth 
 of this view, but I will confine myself to two or three more. 
 There is the instance of the Eucharist, and its exceedingly 
 widespread celebration (under very various forms) among 
 the pagans all over the world—as well as among Christians. 
 I have already said enough on this subject, and need not 
 delay over it. By partaking of the sacramental meal, 
 even in its wildest and crudest shapes, as in the mysteries 
 of Dionysus, one was identified with and united to the 
 
 1 The same happened with regard to another great Pagan doctrine 
 (to which I have just alluded), the doctrine of transformations and 
 metamorphoses ; and whereas the pagans believed in these things, 
 as the common and possible heritage of every man, the Christians 
 only allowed themselves to entertain the idea in the special and 
 unique instance of the Transfiguration of Christ. 
 
PAGAN INITIATIONS 
 
 129 
 
 god; in its milder and more spiritual aspects as in the 
 Mithraic, Egyptian, Hindu and Christian cults, one passed 
 behind the veil of maya and this ever-changing world, 
 and entered into the region of divine peace and power. 1 
 
 Or again the doctrine of the Saviour. That also is one 
 on which I need not add much to what has been said 
 already. The number of pagan deities (mostly virgin- 
 bom and done to death in some way or other in their efforts 
 to save mankind) is so great 2 3 as to be difficult to keep 
 account of. The god Krishna in India, the god Indra 
 in Nepaul and Thibet, spilt their blood for the salvation 
 of men ; Buddha said, according to Max Muller ,3 “ Let 
 all the sins that were in the world fall on me, that the world 
 may be delivered ” ; the Chinese Tien, the Holy One— 
 “ one with God and existing with him from all eternity " 
 —died to save the world; the Egyptian Osiris was called 
 Saviour, so was Horus ; so was the Persian Mithras ; so 
 was the Greek Hercules who overcame Death though his 
 body was consumed in the burning garment of mortality, 
 out of which he rose into heaven. So also was the Phrygian 
 Attis called Saviour, and the Syrian Tammuz or Adonis 
 likewise—both of whom, as we have seen, were nailed 
 or tied to a tree, and afterwards rose again from their 
 biers or coffins. Prometheus, the greatest and earliest 
 benefactor of the human race, was nailed by the hands 
 and feet, and with arms extended, to the rocks of Mount 
 Caucasus. Bacchus or Dionysus, bom of the virgin Semele 
 
 1 Baring Gould in his Orig. Relig. Belief, i. 401, says Among 
 the ancient Hindus Soma was a chief deity ; he is called the Giver 
 of Life and Health. . . . He became incarnate among men, was 
 
 taken by them and slain, and brayed in a mortar [a god of corn and 
 wine apparently]. But he rose in flame to heaven to be ‘ the Bene¬ 
 factor of the World ' and the ' Mediator between God and Man.’ 
 Through communion with him in his sacrifice, man (who partook 
 of this god) has an assurance of immortality, for by that sacrament 
 he obtains union with his divinity." 
 
 3 See for a considerable list Doane’s Bible Myths, ch. xx. 
 
 3 Hist . Sanskrit Literature, p. 80. , 
 
 9 
 
180 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 to be the Liberator of mankind (Dionysus Eleutherios as 
 he was called), was torn to pieces, not unlike Osiris. Even 
 in far Mexico Quetzalcoatl , the Saviour, was born of a virgin,' 
 was tempted, and fasted forty days, was done to death, 
 and his second coming looked for so eagerly that (as is well 
 known) when Cortes appeared, the Mexicans, poor things, 
 greeted him as the returning god ! 1 In Peru and among 
 the American Indians, North and South of' the Equator, 
 similar legends are, or were, to be found. 
 
 Briefly sketched as all this is, it is enough to prove quite 
 abundantly that the doctrine of the Saviour is world-wide 
 and world-old, and that Christianity merely appropriated 
 the same and (as the other cults did) gave it a special 
 colour. Probably the wide range of this doctrine would 
 have been far better and more generally known, had not 
 the Christian Church, all through, made the greatest of 
 efforts and taken the greatest precautions to extinguish 
 and snuff out all evidence of pagan claims on the subject. 
 There is much to show that the early Church took this 
 line with regard to pre-Christian saviours 2 ; and in later 
 times the same policy is remarkably illustrated by the 
 treatment in the sixteenth century of the writings of 
 Sahagun the Spanish missionary—to whose work I have 
 already referred. Sahagun was a wonderfully broad¬ 
 minded and fine man who, while he did not conceal the 
 barbarities of the Aztec religion, was truthful enough to 
 point out redeeming traits in the manners and customs 
 of the people and some resemblances to Christian doctrine 
 and practice. This infuriated the bigoted Catholics of 
 the newly formed Mexican Church. They purloined the 
 manuscripts of Sahagun’s Historia and scattered and hid 
 them about the country, and it was only after infinite 
 labour and an appeal to the Spanish Couit that he got them 
 together again. Finally, at the age of eighty, having 
 
 * See Kingsborough, Mexican Antiquities, vol. vi. 
 
 2 See Tertullian’s Apologia, c. 16; Ad Nationes, c. xii, 
 
PAGAN INITIATIONS 
 
 131 
 
 translated them into Spanish (from the original Mexican) 
 he sent them in two big volumes home to Spain for safety ; 
 but there almost immediately they disappeared, and could 
 not be found ! It was only after two centuries that they 
 ultimately turned up (1790) in a Convent at Tolosa in 
 Navarre. Lord Kingsborough published them in England 
 in 1830. 
 
 I have thus dwelt upon several of the main doctrines 
 of Christianity—namely, those of Sin and Sacrifice, the 
 Eucharist, the Saviour, the Second Birth, and Trans¬ 
 figuration—as showing that they are by 110 means unique 
 in our religion, but were common to nearly all the religions 
 of the ancient world. The list might be much further 
 extended, but there is no need to delay over a subject 
 which is now very generally understood. I will, however, 
 devote a page or two to one instance, which I think is 
 very remarkable, and full of deep suggestion. 
 
 There is no doctrine in Christianity which is more 
 reverenced by the adherents of that religion, or held in 
 higher estimation, than that God sacrificed his only Son 
 for the salvation of the world ; also that since the Son 
 was not only of like nature but of the same nature with 
 the Father, and equal to him as being the second Person 
 of the Divine Trinity, the sacrifice amounted to an 
 immolation of Himself for the good of mankind. The 
 doctrine is so mystical, so remote, and in a sense so absurd 
 and impossible, that it has been a favorite mark through 
 the centuries for the ridicule of the scoffers and enemies 
 of the Church ; and here, it might easily be thought, is 
 a belief which—whether it be considered glorious or whether 
 contemptible—is at any rate unique, and peculiar to that 
 Church. 
 
 And yet the extraordinary fact is that a similar belief 
 ranges all through the ancient religions, and can be traced 
 back to the earliest times. The word host which is used 
 
132 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 in the Catholic Mass for the bread and wine on the Altar, 
 supposed to be the transubstantiated body and blood of 
 Christ, is from the Latin Hostia which the dictionary 
 interprets as " an animal slain in sacrifice, a sin-offering.” 
 It takes us far far back to the Totem stage of folk-life, 
 when the tribe, as I have already explained, crowned a 
 victim-bull or bear or other animal with flowers, and 
 honoring it with every offering of food and worship, sacri¬ 
 ficed the victim to the Totem spirit of the tribe, and 
 consumed it in an Eucharistic feast—the medicine-man 
 or priest w r ho conducted the ritual wearing a skin of the 
 same beast as a sign that he represented the Totem- 
 divinity, taking part in the sacrifice of ‘ himself to him¬ 
 self.’ It reminds us of the Khonds of Bengal sacrificing 
 their meriahs crowned and decorated as gods and goddesses ; 
 of the Aztecs doing the same ; of Quetzalcoatl pricking 
 his elbows and fingers so as to draw blood, which he offered 
 on his own altar; or of Odin hanging by his own desire 
 upon a tree. “ I know I was hanged upon the tree shaken 
 by the winds for nine long nights. I was transfixed by 
 a spear; I was vowed to Odin, myself to myself.” And 
 so on. The instances are endless. “ I am the oblation,” 
 says the Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, 1 “ I am 
 the sacrifice, I the ancestral offering.” “ In the truly 
 orthodox conception of sacrifice,” says Elie Reclus, 3 “ the 
 consecrated offering, be it man, woman or virgin, lamb 
 or heifer, cock or dove, represents the deity himself. . . . 
 Brahma is the ‘ imperishable sacrifice ’; Indra, Soma, 
 Hari and the other gods, became incarnate in animals 
 to the sole end that they might be immolated. Purusha, 
 the Universal Being, caused himself to be slain by the 
 Immortals, and from his substance were born the birds 
 of the air, wild and domestic animals, the offerings of 
 butter and curds. The world, declared the Risliis, is a 
 series of sacrifices disclosing other sacrifices. To stop 
 1 Ch. ix, v. 16. » Primitive Folk, ch. vi. 
 
PAGAN INITIATIONS 
 
 188 
 
 them would be to suspend the life of Nature. The god 
 Siva, to whom the Tipperahs of Bengal are supposed to 
 have sacrificed as many as a thousand human victims 
 a year, said to the Brahmins : ' It is I that am the actual 
 offering ; it is I that you butcher upon my altars/ ” 
 
 It was in allusion to this doctrine that R. W. Emerson, 
 paraphrasing the Katha-Upanishad, wrote that immortal 
 verse of his :— 
 
 If the red slayer thinks he slays, 
 
 Or the slain thinks he is slain, 
 
 They know not well the subtle ways 
 I take, and pass, and turn again. 
 
 I say it is an astonishing thing to think and realise that 
 this profound and mystic doctrine of the eternal sacrifice 
 of Himself, ordained by the Great Spirit for the creation 
 and salvation of the world—a doctrine which has attracted 
 and fascinated many of the great thinkers and nobler minds 
 of Europe, which has also inspired the religious teachings 
 of the Indian sages and to a less philosophical degree the 
 writings of the Christian Saints—should have been seized 
 in its general outline and essence by rude and primitive 
 people before the dawn of history, and embodied in their 
 rites and ceremonials. What is the explanation of this 
 fact ? 
 
 It is very puzzling. The whole subject is puzzling. 
 The world-wide adoption of similar creeds and rituals 
 (and, we may add, legends and fairy tales) among early 
 peoples, and in far-sundered places and times is so remark¬ 
 able that it has given the students of these subjects 
 * furiously to think ’ 1 —yet for the most part without 
 great success in the way of finding a solution. The sup¬ 
 position that (i) the creed, rite or legend in question has 
 sprung up, so to speak, accidentally, in one place, and 
 
 1 See A. Lang’s Myth , Ritual and Religion, vol. ii. 
 
134 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 then has traveled (owing to some inherent plausibility) 
 over the rest of the world, is of course one that commends 
 itself readily at first ; but on closer examination the 
 practical difficulties it presents are certainly very great. 
 These include the migrations of customs and myths in 
 quite early ages of the earth across trackless oceans and 
 continents, and between races and peoples absolutely 
 incapable of understanding each other. And if to avoid 
 these difficulties it is assumed that the present human race 
 all proceeds from one original stock which radiating from 
 one centre—say in South-Eastern Asia 1 —overspread the 
 world, carrying its rites and customs with it, why, then 
 we are compelled to face the difficulty of supposing this 
 radiation to have taken place at an enormous time ago 
 (the continents being then all more or less conjoined) and 
 at a period when it is doubtful if any religious rites and 
 customs at all existed ; not to mention the further difficulty 
 of supposing all the four or five hundred languages now 
 existing to be descended from one common source. The 
 far tradition of the Island of Atlantis seems to afford a 
 possible explanation of the community of rites and customs 
 between the Old and New World, and this without 
 assuming in any way that Atlantis (if it existed) was the 
 original and sole cradle of the human race. 2 Anyhow it 
 is clear that these origins of human culture must be of 
 extreme antiquity, and that it would not be wise to be 
 put off the track of the investigation of a possible common 
 source merely by that fact of antiquity. 
 
 A second supposition, however, is (2) that the natural 
 psychological evolution of the human mind has in the 
 
 1 See Hastings, Encycl. Religion and Ethics, art. “ Ethnology.” 
 
 a E. J. Payne, History oj the New World called America (vol. i, 
 p. 93) says : ” It is certain that Europe and America once formed a 
 single continent,” but inroads of the sea “ left a vast island or 
 peninsula stretching from Iceland to the Azores—which gradually dis¬ 
 appeared.” Also he speaks (i. 93) of the ” Miocene Bridge ” between 
 Siberia and the New World. 
 
PAGAN INITIATIONS 
 
 135 
 
 various times and climes led folk of the most diverse 
 surroundings and heredity—and perhaps even sprung from 
 separate anthropoid stocks—to develop their social and 
 religious ideas along the same general lines—and that 
 even to the extent of exhibiting at times a remarkable 
 similarity in minute details. This is a theory which 
 commends itself greatly to a deeper and more philosophical 
 consideration; but it brings us up point-blank against 
 another most difficult question (which we have already 
 raised), namely, how to account for extremely rude and 
 primitive peoples in the far past, and on the very border¬ 
 land of the animal life, having been susceptible to the germs 
 of great religious ideas (such as we have mentioned) and 
 having been instinctively—though not of course by any 
 process of conscious reasoning—moved to express them 
 in symbols and rites and ceremonials, and (later no doubt) 
 in myths and legends, which satisfied their feelings and 
 sense of fitness—though they may not have known why — 
 and afterwards were capable of being taken up and embodied 
 in the great philosophical religions. 
 
 This difficulty almost compels us to a view of human 
 knowledge which has found supporters among some able 
 thinkers—the view, namely, that a vast store of knowledge 
 is already contained in the subconscious mind of man 
 (and the animals) and only needs the provocation of outer 
 experience to bring it to the surface ; and that in the second 
 stage of human psychology this process of crude and 
 piecemeal externalisation is taking place, in preparation 
 for the final or third stage in which the knowledge will be 
 re-absorbed and become direct and intuitional on a high 
 and harmonious plane—something like the present intuition 
 of the animals as we perceive it on the animal plane. 
 However this general subject is one on which I shall 
 touch again, and I do not propose to dwell on it at any 
 length now. 
 
 There is a third alternative theory (3)—a combination 
 
180 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 of (i) and (2)—namely, that if one accepts (2) and the 
 idea that at any given stage of human development there 
 is a predisposition to certain symbols and rites belonging 
 to that stage, then it is much more easy to accept theory 
 (ij as an important factor in the spread of such symbols 
 and rites ; for clearly, then, the smallest germ of a custom 
 or practice, transported from one country or people to 
 another at the right time, would be sufficient to wake the 
 development or growth in question and stimulate it into 
 activity. It will be seen, therefore, that the important 
 point towards the solution of this whole puzzling question 
 is the discussion of theory (2)—and to this theory, as 
 illustrated by the world-wide myth of the Golden Age, 
 I will now turn. 
 

 
 IX 
 
 MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 The tradition of a “ Golden Age ” is widespread over 
 the world, and it is not necessary to go at any length into 
 the story of the Garden of Eden and the other legends which 
 in almost every country illustrate this tradition. Without 
 indulging in sentiment on the subject we may hold it not 
 unlikely that the tradition-as justified by the remembrance, 
 among the people of every race, of a pre-civilisation period 
 of comparative harmony and happiness when two things, 
 which to-day we perceive to be the prolific causes of discord 
 and misery, were absent or only weakly developed—namely, 
 property and self-consciousness . 1 
 
 During the first century b.c. there was a great spread 
 of Messianic Ideas over the Roman world, and Virgil's 
 4th Eclogue, commonly called the Messianic Eclogue, 
 reflects very clearly this state of the public mind. The 
 expected babe in the poem was to be the son of Octavian 
 (Augustus) the first Roman emperor, and a messianic halo 
 surrounded it in Virgil’s verse. Unfortunately it turned 
 out to be a girl S However there is little doubt that Virgil 
 did—in that very sad age of the world, an age of “ misery 
 and massacre,” and in common with thousands of others 
 —look for the coming of a great ‘ redeemer.’ It was only 
 
 1 For a fuller working out of this, see Civilisation : its Cause and 
 Cure, by E. Carpenter, ch. i. 
 
 137 
 
188 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 a few years earlier—about B.c. 70—that the great revolt 
 of the shamefully maltreated Roman slaves occurred, 
 and that in revenge six thousand prisoners from Spartacus’ 
 army were nailed on crosses all the way from Rome to 
 Capua (150 miles). But long before this Hesiod had 
 recorded a past Golden Age when life had been gracious 
 in communal fraternity and joyful in peace, when human 
 beings and animals spoke the same language, when death 
 had followed on sleep, without old age or disease, and 
 after death men had moved as good daimones or genii 
 over the lands. Pindar, three hundred years after Hesiod, 
 had confirmed the existence of the Islands of the Blest, 
 where the good led a blameless, tearless, life. Plato the 
 same, 1 with further references to the fabled island of 
 Atlantis ; the Egyptians believed in a former golden age 
 under the god Ra to which they looked back with regret 
 and envy ; the Persians had a garden of Eden similar to 
 that of the Hebrews ; the Greeks a garden of the Hesperides, 
 in which dwelt the serpent whose head was ultimately 
 crushed beneath the heel of Hercules ; and so on. The 
 references to a supposed far-back state of peace and 
 happiness are indeed numerous. 
 
 So much so that latterly, and partly to explain their 
 prevalence, a theory has been advanced which may be 
 worth while mentioning. It is called the " Theory of 
 intra-uterine Blessedness,” and, remote as it may at first 
 appear, it certainly has some claim for attention. The 
 theory is that in the minds of mature people there still 
 remain certain vague memories of their pre-natal days 
 in the maternal womb—memories of a life which, though 
 full of growing vigour and vitality, was yet at that time 
 one of absolute harmony with the surroundings, and of 
 perfect peace and contentment, spent within the body of 
 the mother—the embryo indeed standing in the same 
 
 1 See arts, by Margaret Scholes, Socialist Review, Nov. and Dec. 
 1912. 
 
MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 130 
 
 relation to the mother as St. Paul says we stand to God, 
 “ in whom we live and move and have our being ” ; and 
 that these vague memories of the intra-uterine life in the 
 individual are referred back by the mature mind to a past 
 age in the life of the race. Though it would not be easy 
 at present to positively confirm this theory, yet one may 
 say that it is neither improbable nor unworthy of con¬ 
 sideration ; also that it bears a certain likeness to the 
 former ones about the Eden-gardens, etc. The well-known 
 parallelism of the Individual history with the Race-history, 
 the “ recapitulation " by the embryo of the development 
 of the race, does in fact afford an additional argument for 
 its favorable reception. 
 
 These considerations, and what we have said so often 
 in the foregoing chapters about the unity of the Animals 
 (and Early Man) with Nature, and their instinctive and 
 agelong adjustment to the conditions of the world around 
 them, bring us up hard and fast against the following 
 conclusions, which I think we shall find difficult to avoid. 
 
 We all recognise the extraordinary grace and beauty, 
 in their different ways, of the (wild) animals; and not 
 only their beauty but the extreme fitness of their actions 
 and habits to their surroundings—their subtle and pene¬ 
 trating Intelligence in fact. Only we do not generally 
 use the word “ Intelligence.” We use another word 
 (Instinct)—and rightly perhaps, because their actions are 
 plainly not the result of definite self-conscious reasoning, 
 such as we use, carried out by each individual; but are 
 (as has been abundantly proved by Samuel Butler and 
 others) the systematic expression of experiences gathered 
 up and sorted out and handed down from generation to 
 generation in the bosom of the race—an Intelligence in 
 fact, or Insight, of larger subtler scope than the other, 
 and belonging to the tribal or racial Being rather than to 
 the isolated individual—a super-consciousness in fact, 
 ramifying afar in space and time. 
 
140 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 But if we allow (as we must) this unity and perfection 
 of nature, and this somewhat cosmic character of the 
 mind, to exist among the Animals, we can hardly refuse 
 to believe that there must have been a period when Man, 
 too, hardly as ■ yet differentiated from them, did himself 
 possess these same qualities—perhaps even in greater 
 degree than the animals—of grace and beauty of body, 
 perfection of movement and action, instinctive perception 
 and knowledge (of course in limited spheres) ; and a 
 period when he possessed above all a sense of unity with 
 his fellows and with surrounding Nature which became 
 the ground of a common consciousness between himself 
 and his tribe, similar to that which Maeterlinck, in the 
 case of the Bees, calls the Spirit of the Hive. 1 It would 
 be difficult, nay impossible, to suppose that human beings 
 on their first appearance formed an entire exception in 
 the process of evolution, or that they were completely 
 lacking in the very graces and faculties wffiich we so admire 
 in the animals—only of course we see that (like the animals) 
 they would not be seZ/-conscious in these matters, and what 
 perception they had of their relations to each other or to 
 the world around them would be largely inarticulate and 
 sw6-conscious—though none the less real for that. 
 
 Let us then grant this preliminary assumption—and 
 it clearly is not a large or hazardous one—and what 
 follows ? It follows—since to-day discord is the rule, 
 and Man has certainly lost the grace, both physical and 
 mental, of the animals—that at some period a break must 
 have occurred in the evolution-process, a discontinuity— 
 similar perhaps to that which occurs in the life of a child 
 at the moment when it is born into the world. Humanity 
 took a new departure ; but a departure which for the 
 moment was signalised as a loss —the loss of its former 
 
 1 See The Life of the Bee by Maurice Maeterlinck ; and for numerous 
 similar cases among other animals, P. Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid i a 
 \actor in Evolution. 
 
MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 141 
 
 harmony and self-adjustment. And the cause or accom¬ 
 paniment of this change was the growth of Self-consciousness. 
 Into the general consciousness of the tribe (in relation to 
 its environment) which, in fact, had constituted the 
 mentality of the animals and of man up to this stage, 
 there now was intruded another kind of consciousness, 
 a consciousness centering round each little individual 
 self and concerned almost entirely with the interests of 
 the latter. Here was evidently a threat to the continuance 
 of the former happy conditions. It was like the appear¬ 
 ance of innumerable little ulcers in a human body—a 
 menace which if continued would inevitably lead to the 
 break-up of the body. It meant the loss of tribal harmony 
 and nature-adjustment. It meant instead of unity a 
 myriad conflicting centres ; it meant alienation from the 
 spirit of the tribe, the separation of man from man, discord, 
 recrimination, and the fatal unfolding of the sense of sin. 
 The process symbolised itself in the legend of the Fall. 
 Man ate of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 
 Sometimes people wonder why knowledge of any kind 
 —and especially the knowledge of good and evil—should 
 have brought a curse. But the reason is obvious. Into 
 the placid and harmonious life of the animal and human 
 tribes fulfilling their days in obedience to the slow 
 evolutions and age-long mandates of nature, Self-con¬ 
 sciousness broke with its inconvenient and impossible 
 query: “ How do these arrangements suit me ? Are 
 they good for me, are they evil for me ? I want to know. 
 I will know ” Evidently knowledge (such knowledge as 
 w r e understand by the word) only began, and could only 
 begin, by queries relating to the little local self. There 
 was no other way for it to begin. Knowledge and self- 
 consciousness w r ere born, as twins, together. Knowledge 
 therefore meant Sin 1 ; for self-consciousness meant sin 
 
 1 Compare also other myths, like Cupid and Psyche, Lohengrin, 
 etc., in which a fatal curiosity leads to tragedy. 
 
142 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 (and it means sin to-day). Sin is Separation. That is 
 probably (though disputed) the etymology of the word— 
 that which sunders .* The essence of sin is one's separation 
 from the whole (the tribe or the god) of which one is 
 a part. And knowledge—which separates subject from 
 object, and in its inception is necessarily occupied with 
 the ' good and evil * of the little local self, is the great 
 engine of this separation. [Mark ! I say nothing against 
 this association of Self-consciousness with ' Sin ' (so-called) 
 and ‘ Knowledge * (so-called). The growth of all three 
 together is an absolutely necessary part of human evolution, 
 and to rail against it would be absurd. But we may as 
 well open our eyes and see the fact straight instead of 
 blinking it.] The culmination of the process and the 
 fulfilment of the * curse ’ we may watch to-day in the 
 towering expansion of the self-conscious individualised 
 Intellect—science as the handmaid of human Greed 
 devastating the habitable world and destroying its un¬ 
 worthy civilisation. And the process must go on— 
 necessarily must go on—until Self-consciousness, ceasing 
 its vain quest (vain in both senses) for the separate domin¬ 
 ation of life, surrenders itself back again into the arms 
 of the Mother-consciousness from which it originally sprang 
 •—surrenders itself back, not to be merged in nonentity, 
 but to be affiliated in loving dependence on and harmony 
 with the cosmic life. 
 
 All this I have dealt with in far more detail in Civilisation : 
 its Cause and Cure, and in The Art of Creation ; but I have 
 only repeated the outline of it as above, because some 
 such outline is necessary for the proper ordering and 
 understanding of the points which follow. 
 
 We are not concerned now with the ultimate effects of 
 the ‘ Fall' of Man or with the present-day fulfilment of 
 
 1 German Siinde, sin, and sonder, separated ; Dutch zonde, sin ; 
 Latin sons, guilty. Not unlikely that the German root SUhn, ex¬ 
 piation, is connected ; Siihn-bock, a scape-goat 
 
MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 148 
 
 the Eden-curse. What we want to understand is how the 
 ' Fall * into self-consciousness led to that great panorama 
 of Ritual and Religion which we have very briefly 
 described and summarised in the preceding chapters of 
 this book. We want for the present to fix our attention 
 on the commencement of that process by which man lapsed 
 away from his living community with Nature and his 
 fellows into the desert of discord and toil, while the angels 
 of the flaming sword closed the gates of Paradise behind 
 him. 
 
 It is evident I think that in that ‘ golden ' stage when 
 man was simply the crown and perfection of the animals 
 —and it is hardly possible to refuse the belief in such a 
 stage—he possessed in reality all the essentials of Religion. 1 
 It is not necessary to sentimentalise over him ; he was 
 probably raw and crude in his lusts of hunger and of sex ; 
 he was certainly ignorant and superstitious; he loved 
 fighting with and persecuting ‘ enemies ’ (which things of 
 course all religions to-day—except perhaps the Buddhist 
 —love to do) ; he was dominated often by unreasoning Fear, 
 and was consequently cruel. Yet he w’as full of that 
 Faith which the animals have to such an admirable degree 
 —unhesitating faith in the inner promptings of his own 
 nature ; he had the joy which comes of abounding vitality, 
 springing up like a fountain whose outlet is free and un¬ 
 hindered ; he rejoiced in an untroubled and unbroken 
 sense of unity with his Tribe, and in elaborate social and 
 friendly institutions within its borders ; he had a marvelous 
 sense-acuteness towards Nature and a gift in that direction 
 verging towards “ second-sight ” ; strengthened by a 
 conviction—which had never become conscious because 
 it had never been questioned —of his own personal relation 
 
 1 See S. Reinach, Cults, Myths, etc., introduction : " The primitive 
 life of humanity, in so far as it is not purely animal, is religious. 
 Religion is the parent stem which has thrown off, one by one, art, 
 agriculture, law, morality, politics, etc." 
 
144 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 to the things outside him, the Earth, the Sky, the Vege¬ 
 tation, the Animals. Of such a Man we get glimpses in 
 the far past—though indeed only glimpses, for the simple 
 reason that all our knowledge of him comes through civilised 
 channels; and wherever civilisation has touched these 
 early peoples it has already withered and corrupted them, 
 even before it has had the sense to properly observe them. 
 It is sufficient, however, just to mention peoples like some 
 of the early Pacific Islanders, the Zulus and Kafirs of 
 South Africa, the Fans of the Congo Region (of whom 
 Winwood Reade 1 speaks so highly), some of the Malaysian 
 and Himalayan tribes, the primitive Chinese, and even 
 the evidence with regard to the neolithic peoples of Europe, 2 
 in order to show what I mean. 
 
 Perhaps one of the best ideas of the gulf of difference 
 between the semi-civilised and the quite primal man is 
 given by A. R. Wallace in his Life (vol. i, p. 288) : “ A most 
 unexpected sensation of surprise and delight was my first 
 meeting and living with man in a state of nature—with 
 absolute uncontaminated savages! This w T as on the 
 Uaupes river. . . . They were all going about their own 
 work or pleasure, which had nothing to do with the white 
 men or their ways ; they walked with the free step of 
 the independent forest-dweller . . . original and self-sus¬ 
 taining as the wild animals of the forests, absolutely inde¬ 
 pendent of civilisation . . . living their own lives in their 
 own way, as they had done for countless generations before 
 America was discovered. Indeed the true denizen of the 
 Amazonian forests, like the forest itself, is unique and 
 not to be forgotten/’ Elsewhere 3 Wallace speaks of 
 the quiet, good-natured, inoffensive character of these 
 copper-coloured peoples, and of their quickness of hand 
 and skill, and continues: “ their figures are generally 
 
 * Savage A,rica, ch. xxxvii. 
 
 3 See Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid, ch. iii. 
 
 3 Travels on the Amazon (1853), ch. xvii., 
 
MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 145 
 
 superb ; and I have never felt so much pleasure in gazing 
 at the finest statue as at these living illustrations of the 
 beauty of the human form.” 
 
 Though some of the peoples just mentioned may be 
 said to belong to different grades or stages of human 
 evolution and physically some no doubt were far superior 
 to others, yet they mostly exhibit this simple grace of the 
 bodily and mental organism, as well as that closeness of 
 tribal solidarity of which I have spoken. The immense 
 antiquity of the clan organisation , as shown by investi¬ 
 gations into early marriage, points to the latter conclusion. 
 Travelers among Bushmen, Hottentots, Fuegians, Esqui¬ 
 maux, Papuans and other peoples—peoples who have been 
 pushed aside into unfavorable areas by the invasion of 
 more warlike and better-equipped races, and who have 
 suffered physically in consequence—confirm this. Kropot¬ 
 kin, speaking of the Hottentots, quotes the German author 
 P. Kolben who traveled among them in 1725 or so. “ He 
 knew the Hottentots well and did not pass by their defects 
 in silence, but could not praise their tribal morality highly 
 enough. Their word is sacred, he wrote, they know nothing 
 of the corruption and faithless arts of Europe. They 
 live in great tranquillity and are seldom at war with their 
 neighbours, and are all kindness and goodwill to one 
 another.” 1 Kropotkin further says: “ Let me remark 
 that when Kolben says ‘ they are certainly the most friendly, 
 the most liberal 'and the most benevolent people to one 
 another that ever appeared on the earth’ he wrote a 
 sentence which has continually appeared since in the 
 description of savages. When first meeting with primitive 
 races, the Europeans usually make a caricature of their 
 life ; but when an intelligent man has stayed among them 
 
 1 P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, p. 90. W. J. Sollas also speaks in 
 terms of the highest praise of the Bushmen—“ their energy, patience, 
 courage, loyalty, affection, good manners and artistic sense " {Ancient 
 Hunters , 1915, p. 425). 
 
 10 
 
146 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 for a longer time he generally describes them as the 
 ‘ kindest' or the ' gentlest * race on the earth. These 
 very same words have been applied to the Ostyaks, the 
 Samoyedes, the Eskimos, the Dayaks, the Aleoutes, the 
 Papuas, and so on, by the highest authorities. I also 
 remember having read them applied to the Tunguses, 
 the Tchuktchis, the Sioux, and several others. The very 
 frequency of that high commendation already speaks 
 volumes in itself.” 1 2 
 
 Many of the tribes, like the Aleonts, Eskimos, Dyaks, 
 Papuans, Fuegians, etc., are themselves in the Neolithic 
 stage of culture—though for the reason given above 
 probably degenerated physically from the standard of 
 their neolithic ancestors ; and so the conclusion is forced 
 upon one that there must have been an immense period , 3 
 prior to the first beginnings of ‘ civilisation,’ in which the 
 human tribes in general led a peaceful and friendly life 
 on the earth, comparatively little broken up by dissensions, 
 in close contact with Nature and in that degree of sympathy 
 with and understanding of the Animals which led to the 
 establishment of the Totem system. Though it would 
 be absurd to credit these tribes with any great degree 
 of comfort and well-being according to our modern 
 standards, yet we may well suppose that the memory 
 of this long period lingered on for generations and gener¬ 
 ations and was ultimately idealised into the Golden Age, 
 in contrast to the succeeding period of everlasting warfare, 
 rancour and strife, which came in with the growth of 
 Property with its greeds and jealousies, and the accen- 
 
 1 Ibid, p. 91. 
 
 2 See for estimates of periods infra ch. xiii ; also, for the peaceful¬ 
 ness of these early peoples, Havelock Ellis on “ The Origin of War,” 
 where he says “ We do not find the weapons of warfare or the wounds 
 of warfare among these Palaeolithic remains ... it was with civi¬ 
 lisation that the art of killing developed, i.e. within the last 10,000 or 
 
 12,000 years when Neolithic men (who became our ancestors) were 
 just arriving.” 
 
MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE 147 
 
 tuation of Self-consciousness with all its vanities and 
 ambitions. 
 
 I say that each tribe at this early stage of development 
 had within it the essentials of what we call Religion—namely 
 a bedrock sense of its community with Nature, and of 
 the Common life among its members—a sense so intimate 
 and fundamental that it was hardly aware of itself (any 
 more than the fish is aware of the sea in which it lives), 
 but yet was really the matrix of tribal thought and the 
 spring of tribal action. It was this sense of unity which 
 was destined by the growth of self-consciousness to come 
 to light and evidence in the shape of all manner of rituals 
 and ceremonials ; and by the growth of the imaginative 
 intellect to embody itself in the figures and forms of all 
 manner of deities. 
 
 Let us examine into this a little more closely. A lark 
 soaring in the eye of the sun, and singing rapt between 
 its “ heaven and home ” realises no doubt in actuai fact 
 all that those two words mean to us ; yet its realisation 
 is quite subconscious. It does not define its own experi¬ 
 ence : it feels but it does not think. In order to come to 
 the stage of thinking it would perhaps be necessary that 
 the lark should be exiled from the earth and the sky, and 
 confined in a cage. Early Man felt the great truths and 
 realities of Life—often I believe more purely than we do 
 —but he could not give form to his experience. That 
 stage came when he began to lose touch with these realities ; 
 and it showed itself in rites and ceremonials. The inbreak 
 of self-consciousness brought out the facts of his inner 
 life into ritualistic and afterwards into intellectual forms. 
 
 Let me give examples. For a long time the Tribe is 
 all in all; the individual is completely subject to the 
 ' Spirit of the Hive ’ ; he does not even think of contra¬ 
 vening it. Then the day comes when self-interest, as 
 apart from the Tribe, becomes sufficiently strong to drive 
 him against some tribal custom. He breaks the tabu; 
 
148 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 he eats the forbidden apple ; he sins against the tribe, 
 and is cast out. Suddenly he finds himself an exile, lonely, 
 contemned and deserted. A horrible sense of distress 
 seizes him—something of which he had no experience 
 before. He tries to think about it all, to understand the 
 situation, but is dazed and cannot arrive at any conclusion. 
 His one necessity is Reconciliation, Atonement, He finds 
 he cannot live outside of and alienated from his tribe. He 
 makes a Sacrifice, an offering to his fellows, as a seal of 
 sincerity—an offering of his own bodily suffering or precious 
 blood, or the blood of some food-animal, or some valuable 
 gift or other—if only he may be allowed to return. The 
 offering is accepted. The ritual is performed; and he 
 is received back. I have already spoken of this perfectly 
 natural evolution of the twin-ideas of Sin and Sacrifice, 
 so I need not enlarge upon the subject. But two things 
 we may note here : (i) that the ritual, being so concrete 
 (and often severe), graves itself on the minds of those 
 concerned, and expresses the feelings of the tribe, with 
 an intensity and sharpness of outline which no words could 
 rival, and (2) that such rituals may have, and probably 
 did, come into use even while language itself was in an 
 infantile condition and incapable of dealing with the 
 psychological situation except by symbols. They, the 
 rituals, were the first effort of the primitive mind to get 
 beyond subconscious feeling and emerge into a world of 
 forms and definite thought. 
 
 Let us carry the particular instance, given above, a 
 stage farther, even to the confines of abstract Thought 
 and Philosophy. I have spoken of “ The Spirit of the 
 Hive ” as if the term were applicable to the Human as 
 well as to the Bee tribe. The individual bee obviously 
 has never thought about that ‘ Spirit/ nor mentally under¬ 
 stood what Maeterlinck means by it ; and yet in terms 
 of actual experience it is an intense reality to the bee 
 (ordaining for instance on some fateful day the slaughter 
 
MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 149 
 
 of all the drones), controlling bee-movements and bee- 
 moralitv generally. The individual tribesman similarly 
 steeped in the age-long human life of his fellows has never 
 thought of the Tribe as an ordaining being or Spirit, separate 
 from himself— till that day when he is exiled and outcast 
 from it. Then he sees himself and the tribe as two opposing 
 beings, himself of course an Intelligence or Spirit in his 
 own limited degree, the Tribe as a much greater Intelligence 
 or Spirit, standing against and over him. From that day 
 the conception of a god arises on him. It may be only 
 a totem-god—a divine Grizzly-Bear or what not—but 
 still a god or supernatural Presence, embodied in the life 
 of the tribe. This is what Sin has taught him . 1 This is 
 what Fear, founded on self-consciousness, has revealed to 
 him. The revelation may be true, or it may be fallacious 
 (I do not prejudge it) ; but there it is—the beginning of 
 that long series of human evolutions which we call Religion. 
 
 [For when the human mind has reached that stage of 
 consciousness in which each man realises his own * self * 
 as a rational and consistent being, “ looking before and 
 after/’ then, as I have said already, the mind projects 
 on the background of Nature similarly rational Presences 
 which we may call ‘ Gods ’ ; and at that stage ‘ Religion 9 
 begins. Before that, when the mind is quite unformed 
 and dream-like, and consists chiefly of broken and scattered 
 rays, and w-hen distinct self-consciousness is hardly yet 
 developed, then the presences imagined in Nature are 
 merely flickering and intermittent phantoms, and their 
 propitiation and placation comes more properly under 
 the head of * Magic.'] 
 
 So much for the genesis of the religious ideas of Sin 
 
 1 It is to be noted, in that charming idyll of the Eden garden, that 
 it is only after eating of the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve per¬ 
 ceive the Lord God walking in the garden, and converse with him 
 Genesis iii. 8). 
 
150 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 and Sacrifice, and the rites connected with these ideas— 
 their genesis through the in-break of self-consciousness 
 upon the corporate sub-consciousness of the life of the 
 Community. But an exactly similar process may be 
 observed in the case of the other religious ideas. 
 
 I spoke of the doctrine of the second birth , and the rites 
 connected with it both in Paganism and in Christianity. 
 There is much to show that among quite primitive peoples 
 there is less of shrinking from death and more of certainty 
 about a continued life after death than we generally find 
 among more intellectual and civilised folk. It is, or has 
 been, quite common among many tribes for the old and 
 decrepit, who are becoming a burden to their fellows, 
 to offer themselves for happy dispatch, and to take willing 
 part in the ceremonial preparations for their own extinc¬ 
 tion ; and this readiness is encouraged by their naive 
 and untroubled belief in a speedy transference to “ happy 
 hunting-grounds ” beyond the grave. The truth is that 
 when, as in such cases, the tribal life is very whole and 
 unbroken—each individual identifying himself completely 
 with the tribe—the idea of the individual’s being dropped 
 out at death, and left behind by the tribe, hardly arises. 
 The individual is the tribe, has no other existence. The 
 tribe goes on, living a life which is eternal, and only changes 
 its hunting-grounds ; and the individual, identified with 
 the tribe, feels in some subconscious way the same about 
 himself. 
 
 But when one member has broken faith with the tribe, 
 when he has sinned against it and become an outcast— 
 ah ! then the terrors of death and extinction loom large 
 upon him. “ The w r ages of sin is death.” There conies 
 a period in the evolution of tribal life when the primitive 
 bonds are loosening, when the tendency towards Stf//-will 
 and ^//-determination (so necessary of course in the long 
 run for the evolution of humanity) becomes a real danger 
 to the tribe, and a terror to the wise men and elders of 
 
MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 151 
 
 the community. It is seen that the children inherit this 
 tendency—even from their infancy. They are no longer 
 mere animals, easily herded ; it seems that they are bom 
 in sin—or at least in ignorance and neglect of their tribal 
 life and calling. The only cure is that they must be born 
 again. They must deliberately and of set purpose be 
 adopted into the tribe, and be made to realise, even severely, 
 in their own persons what is happening. They must go 
 through the initiations necessary to impress this upon 
 them. Thus a whole series of solemn rites spring up, 
 different no doubt in every locality, but all having the 
 same object and purpose. [And one can understand how 
 the necessity of such initiations and second birth may 
 easily have made itself felt in every race, at some stage 
 of its evolution—and that quite as a spontaneous growth, 
 and independently of any contagion of example caught 
 from other races.] 
 
 The same may be said about the world-wide practice 
 of the Eucharist. No more effective method exists for 
 impressing on the members of a body their community 
 of life with each other, and causing them to forget their 
 jangling self-interests, than to hold a feast in common. 
 It is a method which has been honoured in all ages as well 
 as to-day. But when the flesh partaken of at the feast 
 is that of the Totem—the guardian and presiding genius 
 of the tribe—or perhaps of one of its chief food-animals— 
 then clearly the feast takes on a holy and solemn character. 
 It becomes a sacrament of unity—of the unity of all with 
 the tribe, and with each other. Self-interests and self- 
 consciousnesses are for the time submerged, and the 
 common life asserts itself; but here again we see that a 
 custom like this would not come into being as a deliberate 
 rite until self-consciousness and the divisions consequent 
 thereon had grown to be an obvious evil. The herd- 
 animals (cows, sheep, and so forth) do not have Eucharists, 
 
152 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 simply because they are sensible enough to feed along the 
 same pastures without quarrelling over the richest tufts 
 of grass. 
 
 When the flesh partaken of (either actually or sym¬ 
 bolically) is not that of a divinised animal, but the flesh 
 of a human-formed god—as in the mysteries of Dionysus 
 or Osiris or Christ—then we are led to suspect (and of 
 course this theory is widely held and supported) that the 
 rites date from a very far-back period when a human 
 being, as representative of the tribe, was actually slain, 
 dismembered and partly devoured ; though as time went 
 on, the rite gradually became glossed over and mitigated 
 into a love-communion through the sharing of bread and 
 wine. 
 
 It is curious anyhow that the dismemberment or division 
 into fragments of the body of a god (as in the case of 
 Dionysus, Osiris, Attis, Prajapati and others) should be so 
 frequent a tenet of the old religions, and so commonly asso¬ 
 ciated with a love-feast of reconciliation and resurrection. 
 It may be fairly interpreted as a symbol of Nature-dismem¬ 
 berment in Winter and resurrection in Spring ; but we must 
 also not forget that it may (and indeed must) have stood 
 as an allegory of tribal dismemberment and reconciliation 
 —the tribe, conceived of as a divinity, having thus suffered 
 and died through the inbreak of sin and the self-motive, 
 and risen again into wholeness by the redemption of love 
 and sacrifice. Whatever view the rank and file of the 
 tribe may have taken of the matter, I think it is incon¬ 
 testable that the more thoughtful regarded these rites as 
 full of mystic and spiritual meaning. It is of the nature, 
 as I have said before, of these early symbols and ceremonies 
 that they held so many meanings in solution ; and it is 
 this fact which gave them a poetic or creative quality, 
 and their great hold upon the public mind. 
 
 I use the word ** tribe ” in many places here as a matter 
 of convenience; not forgetting however that in some 
 
MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 153 
 
 cases “ clan ” might be more appropriate, as referring to 
 a section of a tribe ; or “ people ” or “ folk ” as referring 
 to unions of several tribes. It is impossible of course to 
 follow out all the gradations of organisation from tribal 
 up to national life ; but it may be remembered that while 
 animal totems prevail as a rule in the earlier stages, human- 
 formed gods become more conspicuous in the later develop¬ 
 ments. All through, the practice of the Eucharist goes 
 on, in varying forms adapting itself to the surrounding 
 conditions; and where in the later societies a religion 
 like Mithraism or Christianity includes people of very 
 various race, the Rite loses quite naturally its tribal signi¬ 
 ficance and becomes a celebration of allegiance to a particular 
 god—of unity within a special Church, in fact. Ultimately 
 it may become- -as for a brief moment in the history of the 
 early Christians it seemed likely to do—a celebration of 
 allegiance to all Humanity, irrespective of race or creed 
 or colour of skin or of mind ; though unfortunately that 
 day seems still far distant and remains yet unrealised. 
 It must not be overlooked, however, that the religion of 
 the Persian Bab, first promulgated in 1845 to i850---and 
 a subject I shall deal with presently—-had as a matter of 
 fact this all embracing and universal scope. 
 
 To return to the Golden Age or Garden of Eden. Our 
 conclusion seems to be that there really was such a period 
 of comparative harmony in human life--to which later 
 generations were justified in looking back, and looking 
 back with regret. It corresponded in the psychology of 
 human Evolution to stage One. The second stage was 
 that of the Fall * and so one is inevitably led to the con¬ 
 jecture and the hope that a third stage will redeem the 
 earth and its inhabitants to a condition of comparative 
 blessedness. 
 
X 
 
 THE SAVIOUR-GOD AND THE VIRGIN-MOTHER 
 
 From the consideration of the world-wide belief in a past 
 Golden Age, and the world-wide practice of the Eucharist, 
 in the sense indicated in the last chapter, to that of the 
 equally widespread belief in a human-divine Saviour, is 
 a brief and easy step. Some thirty years ago, dealing 
 with this subject, 1 I wrote as follows :—“ The true Self 
 of man consists in his organic relation with the whole body 
 of his fellows ; and when the man abandons his true Self 
 he abandons also his true relation to his fellows. The 
 mass-Man must rule in each unit-man, else the unit-man 
 will drop off and die. But when the outer man tries to 
 separate himself from the inner, the unit-man from the 
 mass-Man, then the reign of individuality begins—a false 
 and impossible individuality of course, but the only means 
 of coming to the consciousness of the true individuality.” 
 And further, “ Thus this divinity in each creature, being 
 that which constitutes it and causes it to cohere together, 
 was conceived of as that creature's saviour, healer—healer 
 of wounds of body and wounds of heart—the Man within 
 the man, whom it was not only possible to know, but whom 
 to know and be united with was the alone salvation. This, 
 I take it, was the law of health—and of holiness—as 
 
 1 See Civilisation ; its Cause and Cuve , ch. i. 
 
 154 
 
SAVIOUR-GOD AND VIRGIN-MOTHER 155 
 
 accepted at some elder time of human history, and by 
 us seen as through a glass darkly." 
 
 I think it is impossible not to see—however much in 
 our pride of Civilisation (!) we like to jeer at the pettinesses 
 of tribal life—that these elder people perceived as a matter 
 of fact and direct consciousness the redeeming presence 
 (within each unit-member of the group) of the larger life 
 to which he belonged. This larger life was a reality— 
 " a Presence to be felt and known ” ; and whether he 
 called it by the name of a Totem-animal, or by the name 
 of a Nature-divinity, or by the name of some gracious 
 human-limbed God—some Hercules, Mithra, Attis, Orpheus, 
 or what-not—or even by the great name of Humanity 
 itself, it was still in any case the Saviour, the living 
 incarnate Being by the realisation of whose presence the 
 little mortal could be lifted out of exile and error and death 
 and suffering into splendour and life eternal. 
 
 It is impossible, I think, not to see that the myriad worship 
 of " Saviours ” all over the world, from China to Peru, 
 can only be ascribed to the natural working of some such 
 law of human and tribal psychology—from earliest times 
 and in all races the same—springing up quite spontaneously 
 and independently, and (so far) unaffected by the mere 
 contagion of local tradition. To suppose that the Devil, 
 tong before the advent of Christianity, put the idea into 
 the heads of all these earlier folk, is really to pay too great 
 a compliment both to the power and the ingenuity of 
 his Satanic Majesty—though the ingenuity with which 
 the early Church did itself suppress all information about 
 these pre-Christian Saviours almost rivals that w r hich it 
 credited to Satan ! And on the other hand to suppose 
 this marvellous and universal consent of belief to have 
 sprung by mere contagion from one accidental source 
 would seem equally far-fetched and unlikely. 
 
 But almost more remarkable than the world-encircling 
 belief in human-divine Saviours is the equally widespread 
 
156 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 legend of their birth from Virgin-mothers. There is hardly 
 a god—as we have already had occasion to see—whose 
 worship as a benefactor of mankind attained popularity 
 in any of the four continents, Europe, Asia, Africa and 
 America—who was not reported to have been bom from 
 a Virgin, or at least from a mother who owed the Child 
 not to any earthly father, but to an impregnation from 
 Heaven. And this seems at first sight all the more 
 astonishing because the belief in the possibility of such 
 a thing is so entirely out of the line of our modern thought. 
 So that while it would seem not unnatural that such a 
 legend should have sprung up spontaneously in some odd 
 benighted corner of the world, we find it very difficult to 
 understand how in that case it should have spread so 
 rapidly in every direction, or—if it did not spread—how 
 we are to account for its spontaneous appearance in all 
 these widely sundered regions. 
 
 I think here, and for the understanding of this problem, 
 we are thrown back upon a very early age of human 
 evolution—the age of Magic. Before any settled science 
 or philosophy or religion existed, there were still certain 
 Things—and consequently also certain Words—which had 
 a tremendous influence on the human mind, which in fact 
 affected it deeply. Such a word, for instance, is ‘ Thunder ’ ; 
 to hear thunder, to imitate it, even to mention it, are sure 
 ways of rousing superstitious attention and imagination. 
 Such another word is * Serpent,’ another ‘ Tree,’ and 
 so forth. There is no one who is insensible to the reverber¬ 
 ation of these and other such words and images 1 ; and 
 among them, standing prominently out, are the two 
 ‘ Mother ’ and ‘ Virgin.’ The word Mother touches the 
 deepest springs of human feeling. As the earliest word 
 
 1 Nor is it difficult to see how out of the discreet use of such words 
 and images, combined with elementary forms like the square, the 
 triangle and the circle, and elementary numbers like 3, 4, 5, etc., 
 quite a science, so to speak, of Magic arose. 
 
SAVIOUR-GOD AND VIRGIN-MOTHER 157 
 
 learnt and clung to by the child, it twines itself with the 
 heart-strings of the man even to his latest day. Nor 
 must we forget that in a primitive state of society (the 
 Matriarchate) that influence was probably even greater 
 than now ; for the father of the child being (often as not) 
 unknown the attachment to the mother was all the more 
 intense and undivided. The word Mother had a magic 
 about it which has remained even until to-day. But if 
 that word rooted itself deep in the heart of the Child, the 
 other word ‘ virgin 1 had an obvious magic for the full 
 grown and sexually mature Man—a magic which it, too, 
 has never lost. 
 
 There is ample evidence that one of the very earliest 
 objects of human worship was the Earth itself, conceived of 
 as the fertile Mother of all things. Gaia or Ge (the earth) 
 had temples and altars in almost all the cities of Greece. 
 Rhea or Cybele, sprung from the Earth, was mother of 
 all the gods.” Demeter (“ earth mother ”) was honoured 
 far and wide as the gracious patroness of the crops and 
 vegetation. Ceres, of course, the same. Maia in the 
 Indian mythology and Isis in the Egyptian are forms of 
 Nature and the Earth-spirit, represented as female ; and 
 so forth. The Earth, in these ancient cults, was the mystic 
 source of all life, and to it, as a propitiation, life of all kinds 
 was sacrificed. [There are strange accounts of a huge 
 fire being made, with an altar to Cybele in the midst, and 
 of deer and fawns and wild animals, and birds and sheep 
 and com and fruits being thrown pell-mell into the flames. 1 ] 
 It was, in a way, the most natural, as it seems to have been 
 the earliest and most spontaneous of cults—the worship 
 of the Earth-mother, the all-producing eternal source of 
 life, and on account of her never-failing ever-renewed 
 fertility conceived of as an immortal Virgin. 
 
 But when the Saviour-legend sprang up—as indeed I 
 think it must have sprung up, in tribe after tribe and 
 1 See Pausanias iv. 32. 6 ; and Lucian, De Syria Dea, 49. 
 
158 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 people after people, independently—then, whether it 
 sprang from the divinisation of some actual man who 
 showed the way of light and deliverance to his fellows 
 “ sitting in darkness,” or whether from the personification 
 of the tribe itself as a god, in either case the question of 
 the hero's parentage was bound to arise. If the ‘ saviour ' 
 was plainly a personification of the tribe, it was obviously 
 impossible to suppose him the son of a mortal mother. 
 In that case—and as the tribe was generally traced in 
 the legends to some primeval Animal or Mountain or thing 
 of Nature—it was probably easy to think of him (the 
 saviour) as also born out of Nature’s womb, descended 
 perhaps from that pure Virgin of the World who is the 
 Earth and Nature, who rules the skies at night, and stands 
 in the changing phases of the Moon, and is worshiped 
 (as we have, seen) in the great constellation Virgo. If, 
 on the other hand, he was the divinisation of some actual 
 man, more or less known either personally or by tradition 
 to his fellows, then in all probability the name of his mortal 
 mother would be recognised and accepted ; but as to his 
 father, that side of parentage being, as we have said, 
 generally very uncertain, it would be easy to suppose some 
 heavenly Annunciation, the midnight visit of a God, and 
 what is usually termed a Virgin-birth. 
 
 There are two elements to be remembered here, as 
 conspiring to this conclusion. One is the condition of 
 affairs in a remote matriarchal period, when descent was 
 reckoned always through the maternal line, and the 
 fatherhood in each generation was obscure or unknown 
 or commonly left out of account; and the other is the 
 fact—so strange and difficult for us to realise—that among 
 some very primitive peoples, like the Australian aborigines, 
 the necessity for a woman to have intercourse with a male, 
 in order to bring about conception and child-birth, was 
 actually not recognised. Scientific observation had not 
 always got as far as that, and the matter was still under 
 
SAVIOUR-GOD AND VIRGIN-MOTHER 159 
 
 the domain of Magic ! 1 * A Virgin-Mother was therefore 
 a quite imaginable (not to say * conceivable ’) thing; and 
 indeed a very beautiful and fascinating thing, combining 
 in one image the potent magic of two very wonderful 
 words. It does not seem impossible that considerations 
 of this kind led to the adoption of the doctrine or legend 
 of the virgin-mother and the heavenly father among so 
 many races and in so many localities—even without any 
 contagion of tradition among them. 
 
 Anyhow, and as a matter of fact, the world-wide dis¬ 
 semination of the legend is most remarkable. Zeus, Father 
 of the gods, visited Semele, it will be remembered, in the 
 form of a thunderstorm ; and she gave birth to the great 
 saviour and deliverer Dionysus. Zeus, again, impreg¬ 
 nated Danae in a shower of gold ; and the child was Perseus, 
 who slew the Gorgons (the powers of darkness) and saved 
 Andromeda (the human soul 3 ). Devaki, the radiant 
 Virgin of the Hindu mythology, became the wife of the 
 god Vishnu and bore Krishna, the beloved hero and proto¬ 
 type of Christ. With regard to Buddha St. Jerome says 3 
 “It is handed down among the Gymnosophists of India 
 that Buddha, the founder of their system, was brought 
 forth by a Virgin from her side.” The Egyptian I sis, 
 with the c hild Hor us on her knee, wa s honoured centuries 
 befo re the Christian era, and worshiped under the names 
 of “ Our Lady,” “ Queen of Heaven,” “Star of the Se a.” 
 “ Mother of God,” and so forth. Before her, Neith, the 
 
 1 Probably the long period (nine months) elapsing between co¬ 
 habitation and childbirth confused early speculation on the subject. 
 Then clearly cohabitation was not always followed by childbirth. 
 
 And, more important still, the number of virgins of a mature age in 
 primitive societies was so very minute that the fact of their child¬ 
 lessness attracted no attention—whereas in our societies the sterility 
 of the whole class is patent to everyone. 
 
 3 For this interpretation of the word Andromeda see The Perfect 
 Way by Edward Maitland, preface to First Edition, 1881. 
 
 3 Contra Jovian, Book I ; and quoted by Rhys Davids in his 
 Buddhism, p. 183. 
 
100 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Virgin of the World, whose figure bends from the sky over 
 the earthly plains and the children of men, was acclaimed 
 as mother of the great god Osiris. The saviour Mithra, 
 too, was born of a Virgin, as we have had occasion to 
 notice before ; and on the Mithraic monuments the 
 mother suckling her child is a not uncommon figure. 1 
 
 The old Teutonic goddess Hertha (the Earth) was a 
 Virgin, but was impregnated by the heavenly Spirit (the 
 Sky) ; and her image with a child in her arms was to be 
 seen in the sacred groves of Germany. 2 3 4 5 The Scandinavian 
 Frigga, in much the same way, being caught in the embraces 
 of Odin, the All-father, conceived and bore a son, the 
 blessed Balder, healer and saviour of mankind. Quetzaicoatl, 
 the (crucified)^ saviour of the^Aztecs, was the son of Chi- 
 malman, the Virgin Queen of Heaven .3 Even the Chinese 
 had a mother-goddess and virgin with child in her arms 4 : 
 and the ancient Etruscans the same .5 
 
 Finally, we have the curiously large number of black 
 virgin mothers who are or have been worshiped. Not 
 only cases like Devaki the Indian goddess, or Isis the 
 Egyptian, who would naturally appear black-skinned or 
 dark; but the large number of images and paintings 
 of the same kind, yet extant—especially in the Italian 
 churches—and passing for representations of Mary and 
 
 1 See Doane’s Bible Myths, p. 332, and Dupuis’ Origins of Religious 
 Beliefs. 
 
 2 R. P. Knight’s Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 21. 
 
 3 See Kingsborough’s Mexican Antiquities, vol. vi, p. 176, where 
 it is said “ an ambassador was sent from heaven on an embassy to 
 a Virgin of Tulan, called Chimalman . . . announcing that it was 
 the will of the God that she should conceive a son ; and having 
 delivered her the message he rose and left the house ; and as soon 
 as he had left it she conceived a son, without connexion with man, 
 who was called Quetzalcoatle, who they say is the god of air.” 
 Further, it is explained that Quetzaicoatl sacrificed himself, drawing 
 forth his own blood with thorns ; and that the word Quetzalcoatlo- 
 topitzin means ” our well-beloved son.” 
 
 4 Doane, p. 327. 
 
 5 See Inman’s Pagan and Christian Symbolism, p. 27. 
 
SAVIOUR-GOD AND VIRGIN-MOTHER 161 
 
 the infant Jesus. Such are the well-known image in the 
 chapel at Loretto, and images and paintings besides in 
 the churches at Genoa, Pisa, Padua, Munich and other 
 places. It is difficult not to regard these as very old Pagan 
 or pre-Christian relics which lingered on into Christian 
 times and were baptised anew—as indeed we know many 
 relics and images actually were—into the service of the 
 Church. “ Great is Diana of the Ephesians ” ; and there 
 is I believe more than one black figure extant of this 
 Diana, who, though of course a virgin, is represented with 
 innumerable breasts 1 —not unlike some of the archaic 
 statues of Artemis and Isis. At Paris, far on into Christian 
 times there was, it is said, on the site of the present 
 Cathedral of Notre Dame, a Temple dedicated to ‘ our 
 Lady’ Isis; and images belonging to the earlier shrine 
 would in all probability be preserved with altered name 
 in the latex. 
 
 All this illustrates not only the wide diffusion of the 
 doctrine of the Virgin-mother, but its extreme antiquity. 
 The subject is obscure, and worthy of more consideration 
 than has yet been accorded to it; and I do not feel able 
 to add anything to the tentative explanations given a 
 page or two back, except perhaps to suppose that the 
 vision of the Perfect Man hovered dimly over the mind 
 of the human race on its first emergence from the purely 
 animal stage ; and that a quite natural speculation with 
 regard to such a being was that he would be born from 
 a Perfect Woman—who according to early ideas would 
 necessarily be the Virgin Earth itself, mother of all things. 
 Anyhow it was a wonderful Intuition, slumbering as it 
 would seem in the breast of early man, that the Great 
 Earth after giving birth to all living creatures would at 
 last bring forth a Child who should become the Saviour 
 of the human race. 
 
 There is of course the further theory, entertained by 
 
 1 See illustration, p. 30, in Inman’s Pagan and Christian Symbolism. 
 
 11 
 
162 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 some, that virgin-parturition—a kind of Parthenogenesis— 
 has as a matter of fact occasionally occurred among mortal 
 women, and even still does occur. I should be the last 
 to deny the possibility of this (or of anything else in Nature), 
 but, seeing the immense difficulties in the way of proof 
 of any such asserted case, and the absence so far of any 
 thoroughly attested and verified instance, it would, I 
 think, be advisable to leave this theory out of account 
 at present. 
 
 But whether any of the explanations spoken of are right 
 or wrong, and whatever explanation we adopt, there 
 remains the fact of the universality over the world of this 
 legend—affording another instance of the practical solid¬ 
 arity and continuity of the Pagan Creeds with Christianity. 
 
XI 
 
 RITUAL DANCING 
 
 It is unnecessary to labour the conclusion of the last two 
 or three chapters, namely that Christianity grew out of 
 the former Pagan Creeds and is in its general outlook and 
 origins continuous and of one piece with them. I have 
 not attempted to bring together all the evidence in favour 
 of this contention, as such a work would be too vast, but 
 more illustrations of its truth will doubtless occur to readers, 
 or will emerge as we proceed. 
 
 I think we may take it as proved (i) that from the 
 earliest ages, and before History, a great body of religious 
 belief and ritual—first appearing among very primitive 
 and unformed folk, whom we should call ‘ savages ’—has 
 come slowly down, broadening and differentiating itself 
 on the way into a great variety of forms, but embodying 
 always certain main ideas which became in time the 
 accepted doctrines of the later Churches—the Indian, 
 the Egyptian, the Mithraic, the Christian, and so forth. 
 What these ideas in their general outline have been we 
 can perhaps best judge from our “ Apostles’ Creed,” as 
 it is recited every Sunday in our churches. 
 
 “ I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven 
 and earth : And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, 
 who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin 
 Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead 
 
 163 
 
164 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 and buried. He descended into Hell; the third day he 
 rose again from the dead, He ascended into heaven, and 
 sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty ; 
 from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. 
 I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy Catholic Church ; 
 the communion of Saints ; the Forgiveness of sins ; the 
 Resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. 
 Amen.” 
 
 Here we have the All-Father and Creator, descending 
 from the Sky in the form of a spirit to impregnate the 
 earthly Virgin-mother, who thus gives birth to a Saviour- 
 hero. The latter is slain by the powers of Evil, is buried 
 and descends into the lower world, but rises again as 
 God into heaven and becomes the leader and judge of 
 mankind. We have the confirmation of the Church (or, 
 in earlier times, of the Tribe) by means of a Eucharist 
 or Communion which binds together all the members, 
 living or dead, and restores errant individuals through 
 the Sacrifice of the hero and the Forgiveness of their sins ; 
 and we have the belief in a bodily Resurrection and con¬ 
 tinued life of the members within the fold of the Church 
 (or Tribe), itself regarded as eternal. 
 
 One has only, instead of the word ‘ Jesus/ to read 
 Dionysus or Krishna or Hercules or Osiris or Attis, and 
 instead of ‘ Mary ' to insert Semele or Devaki or Alcmene 
 or Neith or Nana, and for Pontius Pilate to use the name 
 of any terrestrial tyrant who comes into the corresponding 
 story, and lo ! the creed fits in all particulars into the 
 rites and worship of a pagan god. I need not enlarge 
 upon a thesis which is self-evident from all that has gone 
 before. I do not say, of course, that all the religious beliefs 
 of Paganism are included and summarised in our Apostles’ 
 Creed, for—as I shall have occasion to note in the next 
 chapter—I think some very important religious elements 
 are there omitted; but I do think that all the beliefs which 
 are summarised in the said creed had already been fully 
 
RITUAL DANCING 
 
 165 
 
 represented and elaborately expressed in the non-Christian 
 religions and rituals of Paganism. 
 
 Further (2) I think we may safely say that there is no 
 certain proof that the body of beliefs just mentioned sprang 
 from any one particular centre far back and radiated thence 
 by dissemination and mental contagion over the rest of 
 the world; but the evidence rather shows that these 
 beliefs were, for the most part, the spontaneous outgrowths 
 (in various localities) of the human mind at certain stages 
 of its evolution ; that they appeared, in the different races 
 and peoples, at different periods according to the degree 
 of evolution, and were largely independent of intercourse 
 and contagion, though of course, in cases, considerably 
 influenced by it; and that one great and all-important 
 occasion and provocative of these beliefs was actually 
 the rise of self-consciousness —that is, the coming of the 
 mind to a more or less distinct awareness of itself and of 
 its own operation, and the consequent development and 
 growth of Individualism, and of the Self-centred attitude 
 in human thought and action. 
 
 In the third place (3) I think we may see—and this is 
 the special subject of the present chapter—that at a very 
 early period, when humanity was hardly capable of 
 systematic expression in what we call Philosophy or Science, 
 it could not well rise to an ordered and literary expression 
 of its beliefs, such as we find in the later religions and 
 the ‘ Churches * (Babylonian, Jewish, East Indian, Christian, 
 or what-not), and yet that it felt these beliefs very intensely 
 and was urged, almost compelled, to their utterance in 
 some form or other. And so it came about that people 
 expressed themselves in *a vast mass of ritual and myth 
 —customs, ceremonies, legends, stories—which on account 
 of their popular and concrete form were handed down 
 for generations, and some of which linger on still in the 
 midst of our modern civilisation. These rituals and legends 
 were, many of them, absurd enough, rambling and childish 
 
166 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 in character, and preposterous in conception, yet they 
 gave the expression needed ; and some of them of course, 
 as we have seen, were full of meaning and suggestion. 
 
 A critical and commercial Civilisation, such as ours, 
 in which (notwithstanding much talk about Art) the 
 artistic sense is greatly lacking, or at any rate but little 
 diffused, does not as a rule understand that poetic rites , 
 in the evolution of peoples, came naturally before anything 
 like ordered poems or philosophy or systematised views 
 about life and religion—such as we love to wallow in ! 
 Things were felt before they were spoken. The loading 
 of diseases into disease-boats, of sins onto scapegoats, 
 the propitiation of the forces of nature by victims, human 
 or animal, sacrifices, ceremonies of re-birth, eucharistic 
 feasts, sexual communions, orgiastic celebrations of the 
 common life, and a host of other things—all said plainly 
 enough what was meant, but not in words. Partly no 
 doubt it was that at some early time words were more 
 difficult of command and less flexible in use than actions 
 (and at all times are they not less expressive ?). Partly 
 it was that mankind was in the child-stage. The Child 
 delights in ritual, in symbol, in expression through material 
 objects and actions : 
 
 See, at his feet some little plan or chart, 
 
 Some fragment from his dream of human life. 
 
 Shaped by himself with newly-learned art; 
 
 A wedding or a festival, 
 
 A mourning or a funeral ; 
 
 And this hath now his heart. 
 
 And primitive man in the child-stage felt a positive joy 
 in ritual celebrations, and indulged in expressions which 
 we but little understand ; for these had then his heart. 
 
 One of the most pregnant of these expressions was 
 Dancing. Children dance instinctively. They dance with 
 rage; they dance with joy, with sheer vitality; they 
 
RITUAL DANCING 
 
 167 
 
 dance with pain, or sometimes with savage glee at the 
 suffering of others; they delight in mimic combats, or 
 in animal plays and disguises. There are such things as 
 Courting-dances, when the mature male and female go 
 through a ritual together—not only in civilised ball-rooms 
 and the back-parlours of inns, but in the farmyards where 
 the rooster pays his addresses to the hen, or the yearling 
 bull to the cow—with quite recognised formalities ; there 
 are elaborate ceremonials performed by the Australian 
 bower-birds and many other animals. All these things— 
 at any rate in children and animals—come before speech ; 
 and anyhow we may say that love-rites, even in mature 
 and civilised man, hardly admit of speech. Words onty 
 vulgarise love and blunt its edge. 
 
 So Dance to the savage and the early man was not 
 merely an amusement or a gymnastic exercise (as the 
 books often try to make out), but it was also a serious 
 and intimate part of life, an expression of religion and 
 the relation of man to non-human Powers. Imagine a 
 young dancer—and the admitted age for ritual dancing 
 was commonly from about eighteen to thirty—-coming 
 forward on the dancing-ground or platform for the 
 invocation of Rain. We have unfortunately no kinematic 
 records, but it is not impossible or very difficult to imagine 
 the various gestures and movements which might be con¬ 
 sidered appropriate to such a rite in different localities 
 or among different peoples. A modern student of Dalcroze 
 Eurhythmies would find the problem easy. After a time 
 a certain ritual dance (for rain) would become stereotyped 
 and generally adopted. Or imagine a young Greek leading 
 an invocation to Apollo to stay some plague which was 
 ravaging the country. He might well be accompanied 
 by a small body of co-dancers ; but he would be the leader 
 and chief representative. Or it might be a war-dance — 
 as a more or less magical preparation for the raid or foray. 
 We are familiar enough with accounts of war-dances among 
 
168 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 American Indians. C. O. Muller in his History and Anti¬ 
 quities of the Doric Race 1 gives the following account of 
 the Pyrrhic dance among the Greeks, which was danced 
 in full armour:—“ Plato says that it imitated all the 
 attitudes of defence, by avoiding a thrust or a cast, retreat¬ 
 ing, springing up, and crouching—as also the opposite 
 movements of attack with arrows and lances, and also 
 of every kind of thrust. So strong was the attachment 
 to this dance at Sparta that, long after it had in the other 
 Greek states degenerated into a Bacchanalian revel, it 
 was still danced by the Spartans as a warlike exercise, 
 and boys of fifteen were instructed in it.” Of the Hunting- 
 dance I have already given instances. 1 2 It always had 
 the character of Magic about it, by which the game or 
 quarry might presumably be influenced ; and it can easily 
 be understood that if the Hunt was not successful the 
 blame might well be attributed to some neglect of the 
 usual ritual mimes or movements—no laughing matter 
 for the leader of the dance. 
 
 Or there were dances belonging to the ceremonies of 
 Initiation —dances both by the initiators and the initiated. 
 Jane E. Harrison in Themis (p. 24) says, “ Instruction 
 among savage peoples is always imparted in more or less 
 mimetic dances. At initiation you learn certain dances 
 which confer on you definite social status. When a man 
 is too old to dance, he hands over his dance to another 
 and a younger, and he then among some tribes ceases 
 to exist socially. . . . The dances taught to boys at 
 initiation are frequently if not alwa}/s armed dances. These 
 are not necessarily warlike. The accoutrement of spear 
 and shield was in part decorative, in part a provision for 
 making the necessary hubbub.” (Here Miss Harrison 
 
 1 Book IV, ch. 6, § 7. 
 
 2 See also Winwood Reade’s Savage Ajrica, ch. xviii, in which he 
 speaks of the ‘ gorilla dance/ before hunting gorillas, as a “ religious 
 festival.” 
 
RITUAL DANCING 
 
 169 
 
 reproduces a photograph of an Initiation dance among 
 the Akikuyu of British East Africa.) The Initiation- 
 dances blend insensibly and naturally with the Mystery 
 and Religion dances , for indeed initiation was for the most 
 part an instruction in the mysteries and social rites of 
 the Tribe. They were the expression of things which 
 would be hard even for us, and which for rude folk would 
 be impossible, to put into definite words. Hence arose 
 the expression—whose meaning has been much discussed 
 by the learned—“ to dance out a ntystery.” 1 
 
 Lucian, in a much-quoted passage , 2 3 observes: “You cannot 
 find a single ancient mystery in which there is not dancing 
 . . . and this much all men know, that most people say 
 of the revealers of the mysteries that they * dance them 
 out/ ” Andrew Lang, commenting on this passaged 
 continues : “ Clemens of Alexandria uses the same term 
 when speaking of his own * appalling revelations/ So 
 closely connected are mysteries with dancing among savages 
 that when Mr. Orpen asked Qing, the Bushman hunter, 
 about some doctrines in which Qing was not initiated, he said: 
 
 ‘ Only the initiated men of that dance know these things/ 
 To * dance ' this or that means to be acquainted with this 
 or that myth, which is represented in a dance or ballet 
 d’action. So widely distributed is the practice that Acosta 
 in an interesting passage mentions it as familiar to the 
 people of Peru before and after the Spanish conquest.” 
 [And we may say that when the ‘ mysteries ' are of a srexual 
 nature it can easily be understood that to ‘ dance them 
 out * is the only way of explaining them !] 
 
 Thus we begin to appreciate the serious nature and the 
 importance of the dance among primitive folk. To dub 
 a youth “ a good dancer ” is to pay him a great compliment. 
 
 1 Meaning apparently either simply to represent, or, sometimes 
 to divulge, a mystery. 
 
 2 t repi ’OpxiioeujQ, ch. xv. 277. 
 
 3 Myth, Ritual and Religion, i, 272. 
 
170 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Among the well-known inscriptions on the rocks in the 
 island of Thera in the iEgean sea there are many which 
 record in deeply graven letters the friendship and devotion 
 to each other of Spartan warrior-comrades ; it seems 
 strange at first to find how often such an epithet of praise 
 occurs as Bathycles dances well, Eumelos is a perfect dancer 
 (apiGTOQ opytaTciQ). One hardly in general expects one 
 warrior to praise another for his dancing! But when 
 one realises what is really meant—namely the fitness of 
 the loved comrade to lead in religious and magical rituals 
 •—then indeed the compliment takes on a new complexion. 
 Religious dances, in dedication to a god, have of course 
 been honoured in every country. Muller, in the work just 
 cited , 1 describes a lively dance called the hyporchema 
 which, accompanied by songs, was used in the worship 
 of Apollo. “ In this, besides the chorus of singers who 
 usually danced around the blazing altar, several persons 
 were appointed to accompany the action of the poem 
 with an appropriate pantomimic display.” It was pro¬ 
 bably some similar dance which is recorded in Exodus, 
 ch. xxxii, when Aaron made the Israelites a golden Calf 
 (image of the Egyptian Apis). There was an altar and a 
 fire and burnt offerings for sacrifice, and the people dancing 
 around. Whether in the Apollo ritual the dancers were 
 naked I cannot say, but in the affair of the golden Calf 
 they evidently were, for it will be remembered that it 
 was just this which upset Moses’ equanimity so badly— 
 “ when he saw that the people were naked ’*—and led to 
 the breaking of the two tables of stone and the slaughter 
 of some thousands of folk. It will be remembered also 
 that David on a sacrificial occasion danced naked before 
 the Lord . 3 
 
 It may seem strange that dances in honour of a god should 
 be held naked; but there is abundant evidence that this 
 
 1 Book II, ch. viii, § 14. 
 
 2 2 Sam. vi. 
 
RITUAL DANCING 
 
 171 
 
 was frequently the case, and it leads to an interesting 
 speculation. Many of these rituals undoubtedly owed 
 their sanctity and solemnity to their extreme antiquity. 
 They came down in fact from very far back times when 
 the average man or woman—as in some of the Central 
 African tribes to-day—wore simply nothing at all; and 
 like all religious ceremonies they tended to preserve their 
 forms long after surrounding customs and conditions had 
 altered. Consequently nakedness lingered on in sacri¬ 
 ficial and other rites into periods when in ordinary life it 
 had come to be abandoned or thought indecent and shame¬ 
 ful. This comes out very clearly in both instances above- 
 quoted from the Bible. For in Exodus xxxii. 25 it is said 
 that “ xAaron had made them (the dancers) naked unto 
 their shame among their enemies (read opponents),” and 
 in 2 Sam. vi. 20 we are told that Michal came out and 
 sarcastically rebuked the “ glorious king of Israel ” for 
 “ shamelessly uncovering himself, like a vain fellow ” 
 (for which rebuke, I am sorry to say, David took a mean 
 revenge on Michal). In both cases evidently custom had 
 so far changed that to a considerable section of the popu¬ 
 lation these naked exhibitions had become indecent, though 
 as parts of an acknowledged ritual they were still retained 
 and supported by others. The same conclusion may be 
 derived from the commands recorded in Exodus xx. 26 
 and xxviii. 42, that the priests be not “ uncovered ” before 
 the altar—commands which would hardly have been needed 
 had not the practice been in vogue. 
 
 Then there were dances (partly magical or religious) 
 performed at rustic and agricultural festivals, like the 
 Epilenios, celebrated in Greece at the gathering of the grapes. 1 
 Of such a dance we get a glimpse in the Bible (Judges xxi. 
 20) when the elders advised the children of Benjamin to 
 go out and lie in wait in the vineyards, at the time of the 
 yearly feast; and “ when the daughters of Shiloh come out 
 
 1 E7n\tiriot vjivoi: hymns sung over the winepress (Dictionary). 
 
172 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 to dance in the dances, then come ye out of the vineyards 
 and catch you every man a wife from the daughters of 
 Shiloh ”—a touching example apparently of early so-called 
 * marriage by capture * ! Or there were dances, also partly 
 or originally religious, of a quite orgiastic and Bacchan¬ 
 alian character, like the Bryallicha performed in Sparta 
 by men and women in hideous masks, or the Deimalea by 
 Sileni and Satyrs waltzing in a circle; or the Bibasis 
 carried out by both men and women—a quite gymnastic 
 exercise in which the performers took a special pride in 
 striking their own buttocks with their heels! or others 
 wilder still, which it would perhaps not be convenient to 
 describe. 
 
 - 
 
 We must see how important a part Dancing played in 
 that great panorama of Ritual and Religion (spoken of in 
 the last chapter) which, having originally been led up to 
 by the ‘Fall of Man/ has ever since the dawn of history 
 gradually overspread the world with its strange procession 
 of demons and deities, and its symbolic representations 
 of human destiny. When it is remembered that ritual 
 dancing was the matrix out of which the Drama sprang, 
 and further that the drama in its inception (as still to-day 
 in India) was an affair of religion and was acted in, or in 
 connexion with, the Temples, it becomes easier to under¬ 
 stand how all this mass of ceremonial sacrifices, expiations, 
 initiations, Sun and Nature festivals, eucharistic and orgiastic 
 communions and celebrations, mystery-plays, dramatic 
 representations, myths and legends, etc., which I have 
 touched upon in the preceding chapters—together with 
 all the emotions, the desires, the fears, the yearnings and 
 the wonderment which they represented—have practically 
 sprung from the same root : a root deep and necessary 
 in the psychology of Man. Presently I hope to show that 
 they will all practically converge again in the end to one 
 meaning, and prepare the way for one great Synthesis to 
 
RITUAL DANCING 
 
 173 
 
 come—an evolution also necessary and inevitable in human 
 psychology. 
 
 In that truly inspired Ode from which I quoted a few 
 pages back, occur those well-known words whose repetition 
 now will, on account of their beauty, I am sure be excused :— 
 
 Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
 
 The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, 
 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting. 
 
 And cometh from, afar ; 
 
 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 
 And not in utter nakedness. 
 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
 From God, who is our home : 
 
 Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! 
 
 Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
 Upon the growing Boy, 
 
 But He beholds the light and whence it flows, 
 
 He sees it in his joy ; 
 
 The Youth, who daily farther from the east 
 Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest, 
 
 And by the vision splendid 
 Is on his way attended ; 
 
 At length the Man perceives it die away. 
 
 And fade into the light of common day. 
 
 Wordsworth—though he had not the inestimable ad¬ 
 vantage of a nineteenth-century education and the inheri¬ 
 tance of the Darwinian philosophy—does nevertheless put 
 the matter of the Genius of the Child in a way which (with 
 the alteration of a few conventional terms) we scientific 
 moderns are quite inclined to accept. We all admit now 
 that the Child does not come into the world with a mental 
 tabula rasa of entire forgetfulness but on the contrary as 
 the possessor of vast stores of sub-conscious memory, derived 
 from its ancestral inheritances ; we ail admit that a certain 
 grace and intuitive insight and even prophetic quality, in 
 the child-nature, are due to the harmonisation of these 
 racial inheritances in the infant, even before it is born ; 
 
174 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 and that after birth the impact of the outer world serves 
 rather to break up and disintegrate this harmony than 
 to confirm and strengthen it. Some psychologists indeed 
 nowadays go so far as to maintain that the child is not 
 only * Father of the man/ but superior to the man, 1 and 
 that Boyhood and Youth and Maturity are attained to 
 not by any addition but by a process of loss and subtraction. 
 It will be seen that the last ten lines of the above quotation 
 rather favour this view. 
 
 But my object in making the quotation was not to insist 
 on the truth of its application to the individual Child, but 
 rather to point out the remarkable way in which it illustrates 
 what I have said about the Childhood of the Race. In fact, 
 if the quotation be read over again with this interpretation 
 (which I do not say Wordsworth intended) that the ‘ birth ’ 
 spoken of is the birth or evolution of the distinctively self- 
 conscious Man from the Animals and the animal-natured, 
 unself-conscious human beings of a preceding age, then 
 the parable unfolds itself perfectly naturally and con¬ 
 vincingly. That birth certainly was a sleep and a forgetting ; 
 the grace and intuition and instinctive perfection of the 
 animals was lost. But the forgetfulness was not entire ; 
 the memory lingered long of an age of harmony, of an Eden- 
 garden left behind. And trailing clouds of this remembrance 
 the first tribal men, on the edge of but not yet within the 
 civilisation-period, appear in the dawn of History. 
 
 As I have said before, the period of the dawn of Self- 
 consciousness was also the period of the dawn of the practical 
 and inquiring Intellect ; it was the period of the babyhood 
 of both ; and so we perceive among these early people (as 
 we also do among children) that while in the main the 
 heart and the intuitions were right, the intellect was for 
 . 
 
 1 “ Man in the course of his life falls away more and more from the 
 specifically human type of his early years, but the Ape in the course 
 of his short life goes very much farther along the road of degradation 
 and premature senility ** {Man and, Woman, by Havelock Ellis, p. 24). 
 
 
RITUAL DANCING 
 
 175 
 
 a long period futile and rambling to a degree. As soon as 
 the mind left the ancient bases of instinct and sub-conscious 
 racial experience it fell into a hopeless bog, out of which 
 it only slowly climbed by means of the painfully-gathered 
 stepping-stones of logic and what we call Science. “ Heaven 
 lies about us in our infancy.” Wordsworth perceived 
 that wonderful world of inner experience and glory out of 
 which the child emerges ; and some even of us may perceive 
 that similar world in which the untampered animals still 
 dwell, and out of which self-regarding Man in the history 
 of the race was long ago driven. But a curse went with 
 the exile. As the Brain grew, the Heart withered. The 
 inherited instincts and racially accumulated wisdom, on 
 which the first men thrived and by means of which they 
 achieved a kind of temporary Paradise, were broken up ; 
 delusions and disease and dissension set in. Cain turned 
 upon his brother and slew him ; and the shades of the 
 prison-house began to close. The growing Boy, however, 
 (by whom we may understand the early tribes of Mankind) 
 had yet a radiance of Light and Joy in his life ; and the 
 Youth—though traveling daily farther from the East— 
 still remained Nature’s priest, and by the vision splendid 
 was on his way attended : but 
 
 At length the Man perceived it die away, 
 
 And fade into the light of common day. 
 
 What a strangely apt picture in a few words (if we like 
 to take it so) of the long pilgrimage of the Human Race, 
 its early and pathetic clinging to the tradition of the Eden- 
 garden, its careless and vigorous boyhood, its meditative 
 youth, with consciousness of sin and endless expiatory 
 ritual in Nature’s bosom, its fleeting visions of salvation, 
 and finally its complete disillusionment and despair in the 
 world-slaughter and unbelief of the twentieth century ! 
 
 Leaving Wordsworth, however, and coming back to our 
 
176 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 main line of thought, we may point out that while early 
 peoples were intellectually mere babies—with their endless 
 yarns about heroes on horseback leaping over wide rivers 
 or clouds of monks flying for hundreds of miles through 
 the air, and their utter failure to understand the general 
 concatenations of cause and effect—yet practically and in 
 their instinct of life and destiny they were, as I have already 
 said, by no means fools ; certainly not such fools as many 
 of the arm-chair students of these things delight to represent 
 them. For just as, a few years ago, we modern civilisees, 
 studying outlying nations, the Chinese for instance, rejoiced 
 (in our vanity) to pick out every quaint peculiarity and 
 absurdity and monstrosity of a supposed topsyturveydom, 
 and failed entirely to see the real picture of a great and 
 eminently sensible people ; so in the case of primitive men 
 we have been, and even still are, far too prone to catalogue 
 their cruelties and obscenities and idiotic superstitions, 
 and to miss the sane and balanced setting of their actual 
 lives. 
 
 Mr. R. R. Marett, who has a good practical acquaintance 
 with his subject, had in the Hibbert Journal for October 1918 
 an article on “ The Primitive Medicine Man ” in which he 
 shows that the latter is as a rule anything but a fool and 
 a knave—although like ‘ medicals ' in all ages he hocuspo- 
 cuses his patients occasionally ! He instances the medicine¬ 
 man's excellent management, in most cases, of childbirth, 
 or of wounds and fractures, or his primeval skill in tre¬ 
 panning or trephining—all of which operations, he admits, 
 may be accompanied with grotesque and superstitious cere¬ 
 monies, yet show real perception and ability. We all know 
 —though I think the article does not mention the matter— 
 what a considerable list there is of drugs and herbs which 
 the modern art of healing owes to the ancient medicine-man, 
 and it may be again mentioned that one of the most up-to- 
 date treatments—the use of a prolonged and exclusive diet of 
 milk as a means of giving the organism a new start in severe 
 
RITUAL DANCING 
 
 177 
 
 cases—has really come down to us through the ages from 
 this early source. 1 The real medicine-man, Mr. Marett 
 says, is largely a ‘ faith-healer' and ‘ soul-doctor ’; he 
 believes in his vocation, and undergoes much for the sake 
 of it: “ The main point is to grasp that by his special 
 initiation and the rigid taboos which he practises—not 
 to speak of occasional remarkable gifts, say of trance and 
 ecstasy, which he may inherit by nature and have improved 
 by art—he has access to a wonder-working power. . . . 
 And the great need of primitive folk is for this healer of 
 souls." Our author further insists on the enormous play 
 and influence of Fear in the savage mind—a point we have 
 touched on already—and gives instances of Thanatomania, 
 or cases where, after a quite slight and superficial wound, 
 the patient becomes so depressed that he, quite needlessly, 
 persists in dying ! Such cases, obviously, can only be coun¬ 
 tered by Faith, or something (whatever it may be) which 
 restores courage, hope and energy to the mind. Nor need 
 I point out that the situation is exactly the same among 
 a vast number of * patients * to-day. As to the value, in 
 his degree, of the medicine-man many modern observers and 
 students quite agree with the above. 2 Also as the present 
 chapter is on Ritual Dancing it may not be out of place 
 to call attention to the supposed healing of sick people 
 in Ceylon and other places by Devil-dancing —the enormous 
 output of energy and noise in the ritual possibly having 
 the effect of reanimating the patient (if it does not kill 
 him), or of expelling the disease from his organism. 
 
 With regard to the practical intelligence of primitive 
 peoples, derived from their close contact with life and 
 
 1 Milk (“ fast-milk ” or vrata ) was, says Mr. Hewitt, the only diet 
 in the Soma-sacrifice. See Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times (pre¬ 
 face). The Soma itself was a fermented drink prepared with ceremony 
 from the milky and semen-like sap of certain plants, and much used 
 in sacrificial offerings. (See Monier-Williams, Sanskrit Dictionary ) 
 
 2 See Win wood Reade ( Savage Africa), Salamon Reinach (Cults, 
 Myths and Religions ), and others. 
 
 12 
 
178 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 nature, Bishop Colenso’s experiences among the Zulus may 
 appropriately be remembered. When expounding the Bible 
 to these supposedly backward ‘ niggers 5 he was met at all 
 points by practical interrogations and arguments which he 
 was perfectly unable to answer—especially over the recorded 
 passage of the Red Sea by the Israelites in a single night. 
 From the statistics given in the Sacred Book these naughty 
 savages proved to him absolutely conclusively that the 
 numbers of the fugitives were such that even supposing 
 them to have marched—men, women and children —five 
 abreast and in close order, they would have formed a column 
 ioo miles long, and this not including the baggage, sheep 
 and cattle ! Of course the feat was absolutely impossible. 
 They could not have passed the Red Sea in a night or a 
 week of nights. 
 
 But the sequel is still more amusing and instructive. 
 Colenso, in his innocent sincerity, took the side of the Zulus, 
 and feeling sure the Church at home would be quite glad to 
 have its views with regard to the accuracy of Bible statistics 
 corrected, wrote a book embodying the amendments needed. 
 Modest as his criticisms were, they raised a storm of protest 
 and angry denunciation, which even led to his deposition 
 for the time being from his bishopric ! While at the same 
 time an avalanche of books to oppose his heresy poured 
 forth from the press. Lately I had the curiosity to look 
 through the British Museum catalogue and found that 
 in refutation of Colenso’s Pentateuch Examined some 140 
 (a hundred and forty) volumes were at that time published ! 
 To-day, I need hardly say, all these arm-chair critics and 
 their works have sunk into utter obscurity, but the argu¬ 
 ments of the Zulus and their Bishop still stand unmoved 
 and immovable. 
 
 This is a case of searching intelligence shown by ‘ savages/ 
 an intelligence founded on intimate knowledge of the needs 
 of actual life. I think we may say that a similarly instinctive 
 intelligence (sub-conscious if you like) has guided the tribes 
 
RITUAL DANCING 
 
 179 
 
 of men on the whole in their long passage through the 
 Red Sea of the centuries, from those first days of which I 
 speak even down to the present age, and has in some 
 strange, even if fitful, way kept them along the path 
 of that final emancipation towards which Humanity is 
 inevitably moving. 
 
XII 
 
 THE SEX-TABOO 
 
 In the course of the last few chapters I have spoken more 
 than once of the solidarity and continuity of Christianity, 
 in its essential doctrines, with the Pagan rites. There is, 
 however, one notable exception to this statement. I 
 refer of course to Christianity’s treatment of Sex. It is 
 certainly very remarkable that while the Pagan cults 
 generally made a great deal of all sorts of sex-rites, laid 
 much stress upon them, and introduced them in what 
 we consider an unblushing and shameless way into the 
 worship of their most honoured gods, the Christian Church 
 on the whole took quite the opposite line—ignored sex, 
 contemned it, and did much despite to the perfectly natural 
 instincts connected with it. I say ' the Christian Church/ 
 because there is nothing to show that Jesus himself (if we 
 admit his figure as historical) adopted any such extreme 
 or doctrinaire attitude ; and the quite early Christian teachers 
 (with the chief exception of Paul) do not exhibit this bias 
 to any great degree. In fact, as is well known, strong 
 currents of pagan usage and belief ran through the Christian 
 assemblies of the first three or four centuries. “ The Chris¬ 
 tian art of this period remained delightfully pagan. In the 
 catacombs we see the Saviour as a beardless youth, like 
 a young Greek god ; sometimes represented, like Hermes 
 
 the guardian of the flocks, bearing a ram or lamb round 
 
 iso 
 
THE SEX-TABOO 
 
 181 
 
 his neck ; sometimes as Orpheus tuning his lute among 
 the wild animals ” 1 The followers of Jesus were at times 
 even accused—whether rightly or wrongly I know not— 
 of celebrating sexual mysteries at their love-feasts. But 
 as the Church through the centuries grew in power and scope 
 —with its monks and their mutilations and asceticisms, 
 and its celibate clergy, and its absolute refusal to recognise 
 the sexual meaning of its own acclaimed symbols (like the 
 Cross, the three fingers of Benediction, the Fleur de Lys 
 and so forth)—it more and more consistently defined itself 
 as anti-sexual in its outlook, and stood out in that way in 
 marked contrast to the earlier Nature-religions. 
 
 It may be said of course that this anti-sexual tendency 
 can be traced in others of the pre-Christian Churches, es¬ 
 pecially the later ones, like the Buddhist, the Egyptian, 
 and so forth ; and this is perfectly true ; but it would seem 
 that in many ways the Christian Church marked the cul¬ 
 mination of the tendency ; and the fact that other cults 
 participated in the taboo makes us all the more ready and 
 anxious to inquire into its real cause. 
 
 To go into a disquisition on the Sex-rites of the various 
 pre-Christian religions would be ' a large order '—larger 
 than I could attempt to fill ; but the general facts in this 
 connexion are fairly patent. We know, of course, from the 
 Bible that the Syrians in Palestine were given to sexual 
 worships. There were erect images (phallic) and “ groves ” 
 (symbols of the female) on every high hill and under every 
 green tree ; 2 and these same images and the rites connected 
 with them crept into the Jewish Temple and were popular 
 enough to maintain their footing there for a long period 
 from King Rehoboam onwards, notwithstanding the efforts 
 of Josiah 3 and other reformers to extirpate them. Moreover 
 there were girls and men (hierodouloi) regularly attached 
 during this period to the Jewish Temple as to the heathen 
 
 1 Angels' Wings, by E. Carpenter, p. 104. 
 
 3 1 Kings xiv. 22-24. 3 2 Kings xxiii. 
 
182 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Temples, for the rendering of sexual services, which were 
 recognised in many cases as part of the ritual. Women 
 were persuaded that it was an honour and a privilege to 
 be fertilised by a 4 holy man ’ (a priest or other man con¬ 
 nected with the rites), and children resulting from such 
 unions were often called 44 Children of God ”—an appella¬ 
 tion which no doubt sometimes led to a legend of miraculous 
 birth ! Girls who took their place as hierodouloi in the 
 Temple or Temple-precincts were expected to surrender 
 themselves to men-worshipers in the Temple, much in 
 the same way, probably, as Herodotus describes in the 
 temple of the Babylonian Venus Mylitta, where every 
 native woman, once in her life, was supposed to sit in the 
 Temple and have intercourse with some stranger. 1 Indeed 
 the Syrian and Jewish rites dated largely from Babylonia. 
 “ The Hebrews entering Syria,” says Richard Burton, 2 
 44 found it religionised by Assyria and Babylonia, when the 
 Accadian Ishtar had passed West, and had become Ashtoreth, 
 Ashtaroth, or Ashirah, the Anaitis of Armenia, the Phoe¬ 
 nician Astarte, and the Greek Aphrodite, the great Moon- 
 goddess who is queen of Heaven and Love.” The word 
 translated 44 grove ” as above, in our Bible, is in fact Asher ah, 
 which connects it pretty clearly with the Babylonian Queen 
 of Heaven. 
 
 In India again, in connexion with the Hindu Temples 
 and their rites, we have exactly the same institution of 
 girls attached to the Temple service—the Nautch-girls— 
 whose functions in past times were certainly sexual, and 
 whose dances in honour of the god are, even down to the 
 present day, decidedly amatory in character. Then we 
 have the very numerous lingams (conventional representa¬ 
 tions of the male organ) to be seen, scores and scores of 
 them, in the arcades and cloisters of the Hindu Temples— 
 
 1 See Herodotus i. 199 ; also a reference to this custom in the apo¬ 
 cryphal Baruch, vi. 42, 43. 
 
 3 The Thousand Nights and a Night (1886 edn.), vol. x, p. 229 
 
THE SEX-TABOO 
 
 183 
 
 to which women of all classes, especially those who wish 
 to become mothers, resort, anointing them copiously with 
 oil, and signalising their respect and devotion to them in 
 a very practical way. As to the lingam as representing 
 the male organ, in some form or other—as upright stone 
 or pillar or obelisk or slender round tower—it occurs all 
 over the world, notably in Ireland, and forms such a mem¬ 
 orial of the adoration paid by early folk to the great emblem 
 and instrument of human fertility, as cannot be mistaken. 
 The pillars set up by Solomon in front of his temple were 
 obviously from their names—Jachin and Boaz 1 —meant 
 to be emblems of this kind ; and the fact that they were 
 crowned with pomegranates—the universally accepted 
 symbol of the female—confirms and clinches this interpre¬ 
 tation. The obelisks before the Egyptians’ temples were 
 signs of the same character. The well-known T-shaped 
 cross was in use in pagan lands long before Christianity, as 
 a representation of the male member, and also at the same 
 time of the * tree ’ on which the god (Attis or Adonis or 
 Krishna or whoever it might be) was crucified ; and the 
 same symbol combined with the oval (or yoni) formed 
 the Crux Ansata ? of the old Egyptian ritual—a figure 
 which is to-day sold in Cairo as a potent charm, and con¬ 
 fessedly indicates the conjunction of the two sexes in one 
 design. 3 MacLennan in The Fortnightly Review (Oct. 1869) 
 quotes with approval the words of Sanchoniathon, as saying 
 that “ men first worship plants, next the heavenly bodies, 
 
 1 “ He shall establish” and ** In it is strength ” are in the Bible the 
 marginal interpretations of these two words. 
 
 a The connexion between the production of fire by means of the 
 fire-drill and the generation of life by sex-intercourse is a very obvious 
 one, and lends itself to magical ideas. J. E. Hewitt in his Ruling 
 Races of Prehistoric Times (1894) says (vol. i, p. 8) that ” Magha, 
 the mother-goddess worshipped in Asia Minor, was originally the 
 socket-block from which fire was generated by the fire-drill.” Hence 
 we have, he says, the Magi of Persia, and the Maghadas of Indian 
 History, also the word ‘ Magic.’ 
 
184 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 supposed to be animals, then ‘ pillars * (emblems of the 
 Procreator), and last, the anthropomorphic gods/’ 
 
 It is not necessary to enlarge on this subject. The 
 facts of the connexion of sexual rites with religious services 
 nearly everywhere in the early world are, as I say, suffi¬ 
 ciently patent to every inquirer. But it is necessary to 
 try to understand the rationale of this connexion. To 
 dispatch all such cases under the mere term “ religious 
 prostitution ” is no explanation. The term suggests, of 
 course, that the plea of religion was used simply as an 
 excuse and a cover for sexual familiarities ; but though 
 this kind of explanation commends itself, no doubt, to 
 the modern man—whose religion is as commercial as his 
 sex-relationships are—and though in cases no doubt it 
 was a true explanation—yet it is obvious that among people 
 who took religion seriously, as a matter of life and death, 
 and who did not need hypocritical excuses or covers for 
 sex-relationships, it cannot be accepted as in general the 
 right explanation. No, the real explanation is—and I 
 will return to this presently—that sexual relationships are 
 so deep and intimate a part of human nature that from 
 the first it has been simply impossible to keep them out 
 of religion—it being of course the object of religion to bring 
 the whole human being into some intelligible relation with 
 the physical, moral, and if you like supernatural order of 
 the great world around him. Sex was felt from the first 
 to be part, and a foundational part, of the great order of 
 the world and of human nature ; and therefore to separate 
 it from Religion was unthinkable and a kind of contradiction 
 in terms. 1 
 
 If that is true—it will be asked—how was it that that 
 divorce did take place—that the taboo did arise ? How 
 was it that the Jews, under the influence of Josiah and the 
 Hebrew prophets, turned their faces away from sex and 
 
 1 For further development of this subject see ch. xv (pp. 244-248) 
 infra. 
 
THE SEX-TABOO 
 
 185 
 
 strenuously opposed the Syrian cults ? How was it that 
 this reaction extended on into Christianity and became 
 even more definite in the Christian Church—that monks 
 went by thousands into the deserts of the Thebaid, and 
 that the early Fathers and Christian apologists could not 
 find terms foul enough to hurl at Woman as the symbol 
 (to them) of nothing but sex-corruption and delusion ? 
 How was it that this contempt of the body and degradation 
 of sex-things went on far into the Middle Ages of Europe, 
 and ultimately created an organised system of hypocrisy, 
 and concealment and suppression of sex-instincts, which, 
 acting as cover to a vile commercial Prostitution and as 
 a breeding ground for horrible Disease, has lasted on even 
 to the edge of the present day ? 
 
 This is a fair question, and one which demands an answer. 
 There must have been a reason, and a deep-rooted one, for 
 this remarkable reaction and volte-face which has charac¬ 
 terised Christianity, and, perhaps to a lesser degree, other 
 both earlier and later cults like those of the Buddhists, 
 the Egyptians, the Aztecs, 1 and so forth. 
 
 It may be said—and this is a fair answer on the surface 
 of the problem—that the main reason was something in 
 the nature of a reaction. The excesses and corruptions of 
 sex in Syria had evidently become pretty bad, and that 
 very fact may have led to a pendulum-swing of the Jewish 
 Church in the opposite direction ; and again in the same 
 way the general laxity of morals in the decay of the Roman 
 empire may have confirmed the Church of early Christendom 
 in its determination to keep along the great high road of 
 asceticism. The Christian followed on the Jewish and 
 Egyptian Churches, and in this way a great tradition of 
 sexual continence and anti-pagan morality came right down 
 the centuries even into modern times. 
 
 This seems so far a reasonable theory ; but I think we 
 shall go farther and get nearer the heart of the problem if 
 
 1 For the Aztecs, see Acosta, vol. ii, p. 324 (London, 1604). 
 
186 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 we revert to the general clue which I have followed already 
 more than once—the clue of the necessary evolution of 
 human Consciousness. In the first or animal stage of 
 human evolution, Sex was (as among the animals) a per¬ 
 fectly necessary, instinctive and unself-conscious activity. 
 It was harmonious with itself, natural, and unproductive 
 of evil. But when the second stage set in, in which man 
 became preponderantly s<?//-conscious, he inevitably set 
 about deflecting sex-activities to his own private pleasure 
 and advantage; he employed his budding intellect in 
 scheming the derailment of passion and desire from tribal 
 needs and Nature's uses to the poor details of his own 
 gratification. If the first stage of harmonious sex-instinct 
 and activity may be held as characteristic of the Golden 
 Age, the second stage must be taken to represent the Fall 
 of man and his expulsion from Paradise in the Garden of 
 Eden story. The pleasure and glory of Sex having been 
 turned to self-purposes, Sex itself became the great Sin. 
 A sense of guilt overspread man’s thoughts on the subject. 
 " He knew that he was naked,” and he fled from the voice 
 and face of the Lord. From that moment one of the 
 main objects of his life (in its inner and newer activities) 
 came to be the denial of Sex. Sex was conceived of as the 
 great Antagonist, the old Serpent lying ever in wait to 
 betray him ; and there arrived a moment in the history 
 of every race, and of every representative religion, when 
 the sexual rites and ceremonies of the older time lost their 
 naive and quasi-innocent character and became afflicted 
 with a sense of guilt and indecency. This extraordinarily 
 interesting and dramatic moment in human evolution was 
 of course that in which self-consciousness grew powerful 
 enough to penetrate to the centre of human vitality, the 
 sanctum of man’s inner life, his sexual instinct, and to 
 deal it a terrific blow—a blow from which it has never yet 
 recovered, and from which indeed it will not recover, until 
 the very nature of man’s inner life is changed. 
 
THE SEX-TABOO 
 
 187 
 
 It may be said that it was very foolish of Man to deny 
 and to try to expel a perfectly natural and sensible thing, 
 a necessary and indispensable part of his own nature. 
 And that, as far as I can see, is perfectly true. But some¬ 
 times it is unavoidable, it would seem, to do foolish things— 
 if only to convince oneself of one's own foolishness. On 
 the other hand, this policy on the part of Man was certainly 
 very wise—wiser than he knew—for in attempting to drive 
 out Sex (which of course he could not do) he entered into 
 a conflict which was bound to end in the expulsion of some¬ 
 thing ; and that something was the domination, within 
 himself, of self-consciousness, the very thing which makes 
 and ever has made sex detestable. Man did not succeed 
 in driving the snake out of the Garden, but he drove 
 himself out, taking the real old serpent of self-greed and 
 self-gratification with him. When some day he returns 
 to Paradise this latter will have died in his bosom and 
 been cast away, but he will find the good Snake there as 
 of old, full of healing and friendliness, among the branches 
 of the Tree of Life. 
 
 Besides it is evident from other considerations that 
 this moment of the denial of sex had to come. When 
 one thinks of the enormous power of this passion, and 
 its age-long hold upon the human race, one realises that 
 once liberated from the instinctive bonds of nature, and 
 backed by a self-conscious and self-seeking human intelli¬ 
 gence it was on the way to become a fearful curse. 
 
 A monstrous Eft was of old the Lord and Master of Earth ; 
 For him did his high sun flame, and his liver billowing ran. 
 
 And this may have been all very well and appropriate in 
 the carboniferous Epoch, but we in the end of Time have 
 no desire to fall under any such preposterous domination, 
 or to return to the primal swamps from which organic 
 nature has so slowly and painfully emerged. 
 
188 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 
 I say it was the entry of self-consciousness into the 
 sphere of Sex, and the consequent use of the latter for 
 private ends, which poisoned this great race-power at its 
 root. For above all, Sex, as representing through Child¬ 
 birth the life of the Race (or of the Tribe, or, if you like, 
 of Humanity at large) should be sacred and guarded from 
 merely selfish aims, and therefore to use it only for such 
 aims is indeed a desecration. And even if—as some maintain 
 and I think rightly 1 —sex is not merely for child-birth and 
 physical procreation, but for mutual vitalising and invigora- 
 tion, it still subserves union and not egotism ; and to use 
 it egotistically is to commit the sin of Separation indeed. 
 It is to cast away and corrupt the very bond of life and 
 fellowship. The ancient peoples at any rate threw an illu¬ 
 mination of religious (that is, of communal and public) 
 value over sex-acts, and to a great extent made them into 
 matters either of Temple-ritual and the worship of the 
 gods, or of communal and pandemic celebration, as in 
 the Saturnalia and other similar festivals. We have cer¬ 
 tainly no right to regard these celebrations—of either kind—• 
 as insincere. They were, at any rate in their inception, 
 genuinely religious or genuinely social and festal; and 
 from either point of view they were far better than the 
 secrecy of private indulgence which characterizes our 
 modern world in these matters. The thorough and shameless 
 commercialism of Sex has alas ! been reserved for what is 
 called “ Christian civilisation,” and with it (perhaps as 
 a necessary consequence) Prostitution and Syphilis have 
 grown into appalling evils, accompanied by a gigantic degra¬ 
 dation of social standards, and upgrowth of petty Philis¬ 
 tinism and niaiserie. Love, in fact, having in this modern 
 world-movement been denied, and its natural manifestations 
 affected with a sense of guilt and of sin, has really languished 
 and ceased to play its natural part in life; and a vast 
 
 1 See Havelock Ellis, The Objects of Marriage, a pamphlet pub¬ 
 lished by the “ British Society for the Study of Sex-psychology." 
 
THE SEX-TABOO 
 
 189 
 
 number of people—both men and women, finding them¬ 
 selves barred or derailed from the main object of existence, 
 have turned their energies to ‘ business ’ or ‘ money¬ 
 making * or ' social advancement ’ or something equally 
 futile, as the only poor substitute and pis alter open to 
 them. 
 
 Why (again we ask) did Christianity make this apparently 
 great mistake ? And again we must reply : Perhaps the 
 mistake was not so great as it appears to be. Perhaps this 
 was another case of the necessity of learning by loss. Love 
 had to be denied, in the form of sex, in order that it might 
 thus the better learn its own true values and needs. Sex 
 had to be rejected, or defiled with the sense of guilt and 
 self-seeking, in order that having cast out its defilement it 
 might return one day, transformed in the embrace of love. 
 The whole process has had a deep and strange world-signi¬ 
 ficance. It has led to an immensely long period of suppres¬ 
 sion—suppression of two great instincts—the physical 
 instinct of sex and the emotional instinct of love. Two 
 things which should naturally be conjoined have been 
 separated ; and both have suffered. And we know from 
 the Freudian teachings what suppressions in the root- 
 instincts necessarily mean. We know that they inevitably 
 terminate in diseases and distortions of proper action, 
 either in the body or in the mind, or in both ; and that 
 these evils can only be cured by the liberation of the said 
 instincts again to their proper expression and harmonious 
 functioning in the whole organism. No wonder then that, 
 with this agelong suppression (necessary in a sense though 
 it may have been) which marks the Christian dispensation, 
 there should have been associated endless Sickness and 
 Crime and sordid Poverty, the Crucifixion of animals in 
 the name of Science and of human workers in the name 
 of Wealth, and wars and horrors innumerable ! Hercules 
 writhing in the Nessus-shirt or Prometheus nailed to the 
 
190 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 rocks are only as figures of a toy miniature compared with 
 this vision of the great and divine Spirit of Man caught 
 in the clutches of those dread Diseases which through the 
 centuries have been eating into his very heart and vitals. 
 
 It would not be fair to pile on the Christian Church the 
 blame for all this. It had, no doubt, its part to play in 
 the whole great scheme, namely, to accentuate the self¬ 
 motive ; and it played the part very thoroughly and suc¬ 
 cessfully. For it must be remembered (what I have again 
 and again insisted on) that in the pagan cults it was always 
 the salvation of the clan, the tribe, the people that was the 
 main consideration ; the advantage of the individual took 
 only a very secondary part. But in Christendom—after 
 the communal enthusiasms of apostolic days and of the 
 medieval and monastic brotherhoods and sisterhoods had 
 died down—religion occupied itself more and more with 
 each man or woman’s individual salvation, regardless of 
 what might happen to the community; till, with the 
 rise of Protestantism and Puritanism, this tendency 
 reached such an extreme that, as some one has said, each 
 man was absorbed in polishing up his own little soul in a 
 corner to himself, in entire disregard to the damnation 
 which might come to his neighbor. Religion, and Morality 
 too, under the commercial regime became, as was natural, 
 perfectly selfish. It was always : “ Am I saved ? Am 
 
 I doing the right thing ? Am I winning the favour of 
 God and man ? Will my claims to salvation be allowed ? 
 Did I make a good bargain in allowing Jesus to be crucified 
 for me ? ” The poison of a diseased self-consciousness 
 entered into the whole human system. 
 
 As I say, one must not blame the Christians too much 
 for all this—partly because, after the communal periods 
 which I have just mentioned, Christianity was evidently 
 deeply influenced by the rise of Commercialism, to which 
 during the last two centuries it has so carefully and piously 
 adapted itself; and partly because—if our view is anywhere 
 
THE SEX-TABOO 
 
 191 
 
 near right—this microbial injection of self-consciousness 
 was just the necessary work which (in conjunction with 
 commercialism) it had to perform. But though one does 
 not blame Christianity one cannot blind oneself to its defects 
 —the defects necessarily arising from the part it had to 
 play. When one compares a healthy Pagan ritual—say 
 of Apollo or Dionysus—including its rude and crude sacrifices 
 if you like, but also including its whole-hearted spontaneity 
 and dedication to the common life and welfare—with the 
 morbid self-introspection of the Christian and the eternally 
 recurring question “ What shall I do to be saved ? ”—the 
 comparison is not favourable to the latter. There is (at 
 any rate in modern days) a mawkish milk-and-wateriness 
 about the Christian attitude, and also a painful self-con¬ 
 sciousness, which is not pleasant; and though Nietzsche’s 
 blonde beast is a sufficiently disagreeable animal, one almost 
 thinks that it were better to be that than to go about with 
 one’s head meekly hanging on one side, and talking always 
 of altruism and self-sacrifice, while in reality one’s heart was 
 entirely occupied with the question of one’s own salvation. 
 There is besides a lamentable want of grit and substance 
 about the Christian doctrines and ceremonials. Somehow 
 under the sex-taboo they became spiritualised and etherial- 
 ised out of all human use. Study the initiation-rites of 
 any savage tribe—with their strict discipline of the young 
 braves in fortitude, and the overcoming of pain and fear; 
 with their very detailed lessons in the arts of war and life 
 and the duties of the grown man to his tribe ; and with 
 their quite practical instruction in matters of Sex ; and 
 then read our poor little Baptismal and Confirmation services, 
 which ought to correspond thereto. How thin and attenu¬ 
 ated and weak the latter appear! Or compare the Holy 
 Communion, as celebrated in the sentimental atmosphere 
 of a Protestant Church, with an ancient Eucharistic feast 
 of real jollity and community of life under the acknowledged 
 presence of the god; or the Roman Catholic service of the 
 
192 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Mass, including its genuflexions and mock oblations and 
 droning ritual sing-song, with the actual sacrifice in early 
 days of an animal-god-victim on a blazing altar; and I 
 think my meaning will be clear. We do not want, of course, 
 to return to all the crudities and barbarities of the past; but 
 also we do not want to become attenuated and spiritualised 
 out of all mundane sense and recognition, and to live in 
 an otherworld Paradise void of application to earthly 
 affairs. 
 
 The sex-taboo in Christianity was apparently, as I have 
 said, an effort of the human soul to wrest itself free from 
 the entanglement of physical lust—which lust, though 
 normal and appropriate and in a way gracious among the 
 animals, had through the domination of self-consciousness 
 become diseased and morbid or monstrous in Man. The 
 work thus done has probably been of the greatest value to 
 the human race ; but, just as in other cases it has sometimes 
 happened that the effort to do a certain work has resulted 
 in the end in an unbalanced exaggeration, so here. We 
 are beginning to see now the harmful side of the repression 
 of sex, and are tentatively finding our way back again to 
 a more pagan attitude. And as this return-movement is 
 taking place at a time when, from many obvious signs, 
 the self-conscious, grasping, commercial conception of life is 
 preparing to go on the wane, and the sense of solidarity 
 to re-establish itself, there is really good hope that our 
 return-journey may prove in some degree successful. 
 
 Man progresses generally, not both legs at once like a 
 sparrow, but by putting one leg forward first, and then 
 the other. There was this advantage in the Christian 
 taboo of sex that by discouraging the physical and sensual 
 side of love it did for the time being allow the spiritual 
 side to come forward. But, as I have just now indicated, 
 there is a limit to that process. We cannot always keep 
 one leg first in walking, and we do not want, in life, always 
 to put the spiritual first, nor always the material and 
 
THE SEX-TABOO 193 
 
 sensual. The two sides in the long run have to keep pace 
 with each other. 
 
 And it may be that a great number of the very curious 
 and seemingly senseless taboos that we find among the 
 primitive peoples can be partly explained in this way : that 
 is, that by ruling out certain directions of activity they 
 enabled people to concentrate more effectually, for the time 
 being, on other directions. To primitive folk the great world, 
 whose ways are puzzling enough in all conscience to us, 
 must have been simply bewildering in its dangers and com¬ 
 plications. It was an amazement of Fear and Ignorance. 
 Thunderbolts might come at any moment out of the blue 
 sky, or a demon out of an old tree trunk, or a devastating 
 plague out of a bad smell—or apparently even out of nothing 
 at all! Under those circumstances it was perhaps wise, 
 wherever there was the smallest suspicion of danger or 
 ill-luck, to create a hard and fast taboo —just as we tell 
 our children on no account to walk under a ladder (thereby 
 creating a superstition in their minds), partly because it 
 would take too long to explain all about the real dangers 
 of paint-pots and other things, and partly because for the 
 children themselves it seems simpler to have a fixed and 
 inviolable law than to argue over every case that occurs 
 The priests and elders among early folk no doubt took the 
 line of forbiddal of activities, as safer and simpler, even if 
 carried sometimes too far, than the opposite, of easy per¬ 
 mission and encouragement. Taboos multiplied—many of 
 them quite senseless—but perhaps in this perilous maze 
 of the world, of which I have spoken, it really was simpler 
 to cut out a large part of the labyrinth, as forbidden ground, 
 thus rendering it easier for the people to find their way 
 in those portions of the labyrinth which remained. If 
 you read in Deuteronomy (ch. xiv) the list of birds and 
 beasts and fishes permitted for food among the Israelites, 
 or tabooed, you will find the list on the whole reasonable, 
 but you will be struck by some curious exceptions (according 
 
 13 
 

 194 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 to our ideas), which are probably to be explained by the 
 necessity of making the rules simple enough to be compre¬ 
 hended by everybody—even if they included the forbiddal 
 of some quite eatable animals. 
 
 At some early period, in Babylonia or Assyria, a very 
 stringent taboo on the Sabbath arose, which, taken up in 
 turn by the Jewish and Christian Churches, has ruled the 
 Western World for three thousand years or more, and still 
 survives in a quite senseless form among some of our rural 
 populations, who will see their corn rot in the fields rather 
 than save it on a Sunday . 1 2 It is quite likely that this taboo 
 in its first beginning was due not to any need of a weekly 
 rest-day (a need which could never be felt among nomad 
 savages, but would only occur in some kind of industrial 
 and stationary civilisation), but to some superstitious fear, 
 connected with such things as the changes of the Moon, 
 and the probable ill-luck of any enterprise undertaken on 
 the seventh day, or any day of Moon-change. It is probable, 
 however, that as time went on and Society became more 
 complex, the advantages of a weekly rest-day (or market- 
 day) became more obvious and that the priests and legis¬ 
 lators deliberately turned the taboo to a social use.- 
 The learned modern Ethnologists, however, will generally 
 have none of this latter idea. As a rule they delight in 
 representing early peoples as totally destitute of common 
 sense (which is supposed to be a monopoly of us moderns !) ; 
 and if the Sabbath-arrangement has had any value or use 
 they insist on ascribing this to pure accident, and not to 
 the application of any sane argument or reason. 
 
 It is true indeed that a taboo—in order to be a proper 
 taboo—must not rest in the general mind on argument or 
 reason. It may have had good sense in the past or even 
 
 1 For other absurd Sunday taboos see Westermarck on The Moral 
 Ideas, vol. ii, p. 289. 
 
 2 For a ^racing of this taboo from useless superstition to practical 
 utility see Hastings's Ency cl. Religion and Ethics, art. “The Sabbath.” 
 
THE SEX-TABOO 
 
 195 
 
 an underlying good sense in the present, but its foundation 
 must rest on something beyond. It must be an absolute 
 /^—something of the nature of a Mystery 1 * 3 or of Religion 
 or Magic—and not to be disputed. This gives it its blood¬ 
 curdling quality. The rustic does not know what would 
 happen to him if he garnered his corn on Sunday, nor does 
 the diner-out in polite society know what would happen 
 if he spooned up his food with his knife—but they both 
 are stricken with a sort of paralysis at the very suggestion 
 of infringing these taboos. 
 
 Marriage-customs have always been a fertile field for 
 the generation of taboos. It seems doubtful whether any¬ 
 thing like absolute promiscuity ever prevailed among the 
 human race, but there is much to show that wide choice 
 and intercourse were common among primitive folk and 
 that the tendency of later marriage custom has been on 
 the whole to limit this range of choice. At some early period 
 the forbiddal of marriage between those who bore the same 
 totem-name took place. Thus in Australia “ no man of 
 the Emu stock might marry an Emu woman ; no Blacksnake 
 might marry a Blacksnake woman, and so forth ” 3 Among 
 the Kamilaroi and the Arunta of S. Australia the tribe was 
 divided into classes or clans, sometimes four, sometimes 
 eight, and a man of one particular clan was only marriage¬ 
 able with a woman of another particular clan—say (1) 
 with (3) or (2) with (4), and so on .3 Customs with a similar 
 tendency, but different in detail, seem to have prevailed 
 among native tribes in Central Africa and N. America. 
 And the regulations in all this matter have been so (appar¬ 
 ently) entirely arbitrary in the various cases that it would 
 almost appear as if the bar of kinship through the Totem 
 had been the excuse , originating perhaps in some superstition, 
 but that the real and more abiding object was simply limita- 
 
 1 See Weste rmarck. Ibid., ii. 586. 
 
 3 Myth, Ritual and Religion, i, p. 66. 
 
 3 See Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Australia. 
 
196 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 tion. And this perhaps was a wise line to take. A taboo 
 on promiscuity had to be created, and for this purpose 
 any current prejudice could be made use of. 1 
 
 With us moderns the whole matter has taken a different 
 complexion. When we consider the enormous amount of 
 suffering and disease, both of mind and body, arising from 
 the sex-suppression of which I have just spoken, especially 
 among women, we see that mere unreasoning taboos— 
 which possibly had their place and use in the past—can 
 be tolerated no longer. We are bound to turn the search¬ 
 light of reason and science on a number of superstitions 
 which still linger in the dark and musty places of the 
 Churches and the Law courts. Modern inquiry has shown 
 conclusively not only the foundational importance of sex 
 in the evolution of each human being, but also the very 
 great variety of its spontaneous manifestations in different 
 individuals and the vital necessity that these should be 
 recognised, if society is ever to expand into a rational 
 human form. It is not my object here to sketch the future 
 of marriage and sex-relations generally—a subject which 
 is now being dealt with very effectively from many sides ; 
 but only to insist on our using our good sense in the whole 
 matter, and refusing any longer to be bound by senseless 
 pre-judgments. 
 
 Something of the same kind may be said with regard to 
 Nakedness, which in modern Civilisation has become the 
 object of a very serious and indeed harmful taboo, both 
 of speech and act. As someone has said, it became in the 
 end of the nineteenth century almost a crime to mention 
 by name any portion of the human body within a radius 
 of about twenty inches from its centre (!) and as a matter 
 of fact a few dress-reformers of that period were actually 
 brought into court and treated as criminals for going about 
 with legs bare up to the knees, and shoulders and chest 
 
 1 The author of The Mystic Rose seems to take this view. See 
 p. 214 of that book. 
 
THE SEX-TABOO 
 
 197 
 
 uncovered ! Public follies such as these have been re¬ 
 sponsible for much of the bodily and mental disease and 
 suppression just mentioned, and the sooner they are sent 
 to limbo the better. No sensible person would advocate 
 promiscuous nakedness any more than promiscuous sex- 
 relationship ; nor is it likely that aged and deformed 
 people would at any time wish to expose themselves. But 
 surely there is enough good sense and appreciation of grace 
 and fitness in the average human mind for it to be able 
 to liberate the body from senseless concealment, and give 
 it its due expression. The Greeks of old, having on the 
 whole clean bodies, treated them with respect and dis¬ 
 tinction. The young men appeared quite naked in the 
 palaestra , and even the girls of Sparta ran races publicly 
 in the same condition ; 1 2 and some day when our bodies 
 (and minds too) have become clean we shall return to similar 
 institutions. But that will not be just yet. As long as 
 the defilement of this commercial civilisation is on us we 
 shall prefer our dirt and concealment. The powers that 
 be will protest against change. Heinrich Scham, in his 
 charming little pamphlet Nackende Menscheny describes 
 the consternation of the commercial people at such ideas : 
 
 What will become of us/ cried the tailors, ' if you 
 go naked ? * 
 
 " And all the lot of them, hat, cravat, shirt, and shoe¬ 
 makers joined in the chorus. 
 
 “ ‘And where shall I carry my money ? ’ cried one who 
 had just been made a director/' 
 
 1 See Theocritus, Idyll xviii. 
 
 2 Published at Leipzig about 1893. 
 
XIII 
 
 THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Referring back to the existence of something resembling 
 a great World-religion which has come down the centuries, 
 continually expanding and branching in the process, we 
 have now to consider the genesis of that special brand or 
 branch of it which we call Christianity. Each religion or 
 cult, pagan or Christian, has had, as we have seen, a vast 
 amount in common with the general World-religion ; yet 
 each has had its own special characteristics. What have 
 been the main characteristics of the Christian branch, as 
 differentiating it from the other branches ? 
 
 We saw in the last chapter that a certain ascetic attitude 
 towards Sex was one of the most salient marks of the 
 Christian Church : and that whereas most of the pagan 
 cults (though occasionally favouring frightful austerities 
 and cruel sacrifices) did on the whole rejoice in pleasure 
 and the world of the senses, Christianity—following largely 
 on Judaism—displayed a tendency towards renunciation 
 of the world and the flesh, and a withdrawal into the inner 
 and more spiritual regions of the mind. The same tendency 
 may be traced in the Egyptian and Phrygian cults of that 
 period. It will be remembered how Juvenal (Sat. VI, 
 510-40) chaffs the priests of Cybele at Rome for making 
 themselves “ eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake,” 
 or the rich Roman lady for plunging in the wintry Tiber 
 
 198 
 
THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY 199 
 
 for a propitiation to Isis. No doubt among the later pagans 
 “ the long intolerable tyranny of the senses over the soul ” 
 had become a very serious matter. But Christianity 
 represented perhaps the most powerful reaction against 
 this ; and this reaction had, as indicated in the last chapter, 
 the enormously valuable result that (for the time) it dis¬ 
 entangled love from sex and established Love, pure and 
 undefiled, as ruler of the world. “ God of Love.” But, as 
 also indicated, the divorce between the two elements of 
 human nature, carried to an extreme, led in time to a 
 crippling of both elements and the development of a certain 
 morbidity and self-consciousness which, it cannot be denied, 
 is painfully marked among some sections of Christians— 
 especially those of the altruistic and ‘ philanthropic * type. 
 
 Another characteristic of Christianity which is also very 
 fine in its way but has its limits of utility, has been its 
 insistence on " morality.” Some modern writers indeed 
 have gone so far—forgetting, I suppose, the Stoics— 
 as to claim that Christianity’s chief mark is its high 
 morality, and that the pagans generally were quite 
 wanting in the moral sense ! This, of course, is a 
 profound mistake. I should say that, in the true sense 
 of the word, the early and tribal peoples have been much 
 more * moral ’ as a rule—that is, ready as individuals to 
 pay respect to the needs of the community—than the later 
 and more civilised societies. But the mistake arises from 
 the different interpretations of the word; for whereas 
 all the pagan religions insisted very strongly on the just- 
 mentioned kind of morality, which we should call civic 
 duty to ones neighbor, the Christians made morality to con¬ 
 sist more especially in a man’s duty to God. It became 
 with them a private affair between a man’s self and God, 
 rather than a public affair ; and thus led in the end to a 
 very obnoxious and quite pharisaic kind of morality, whose 
 chief inspiration was not the helping of one’s fellow-man 
 but the saving of one’s own soul. 
 
200 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 There may perhaps be other salient points of differentiation 
 between Christianity and the preceding pagan religions ; 
 but for the present we may recognise these two— (a) the 
 tendency towards a renunciation of the world, and the 
 consequent cultivation of a purely spiritual love and ( b) 
 the insistence on a morality whose inspiration was a private 
 sense of duty to God rather than a public sense of duty to 
 one's neighbor and to society generally. It may be inter¬ 
 esting to trace the causes which led to this differentiation. 
 
 Three centuries before our era the conquests of Alexander 
 had had the effect of spreading the Greek thought and 
 culture over most of the known world. A vast number 
 of small bodies of worshipers of local deities, with their 
 various rituals and religious customs, had thus been broken 
 up, or at least brought into contact with each other and 
 partially modified and hellenised. The orbit of a more 
 general conception of life and religion was already being 
 traced. By the time of the founding of the first Christian 
 Church the immense conquests of Rome had greatly ex¬ 
 tended and established the process. The Mediterranean 
 had become a great Roman lake. Merchant ships and 
 routes of traffic crossed it in all directions ; tourists visited 
 its shores. The known world had become one. The 
 numberless peoples, tribes, nations, societies within the 
 girdle of the Empire, with their various languages, creeds, 
 customs, religions, philosophies, were profoundly influencing 
 each other. 1 A great fusion was taking place ; and it was 
 becoming inevitable that the next great religious movement 
 would have a world-wide character. 
 
 It was probable that this new religion would combine 
 many elements from the preceding rituals in one cult. In 
 
 1 For an enlargement on this theme see Glover’s Conflict of Religions 
 in the early Roman, Empire ; also S. J. Case, Evolution of Early Chris¬ 
 tianity (University of Chicago, 1914). The Adonis worship, for in¬ 
 stance, (a resurrection-cult) “ was still thriving in Syria and Cyprus 
 when Paul preached there, and the worship of Isis and Serapis had 
 already reached Athens, Rome and Naples. 
 
THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 201 
 
 connexion with the fine temples and elaborate services of 
 Isis and Cj^bele and Mithra there was growing up a powerful 
 priesthood; Franz Cumont 1 2 speaks of “ the learned priests 
 of the Asiatic cults ” as building up, on the foundations 
 of old fetichism and superstition, a complete religious 
 philosophy—just as the Brahmins had built the monism 
 of the Vedanta on the “ monstrous idolatries of Hinduism.’’ 
 And it was likely that a similar process would evolve the 
 new religion expected. Toutain again calls attention to 
 the patronage accorded to all these cults by the Roman 
 Emperors, as favouring a new combination and synthesis : 
 —“ Hadrien, Commode, Septime Severe, Julia Domna, 
 Elagabal, Alexandre Severe, en particulier ont contribue 
 personnellement a la popularity et au succes des cultes 
 qui se celebraient en l’honneur de Serapis et d’Isis, des 
 divinites syriennes et de Mithra.” 3 
 
 It was also probable that this new Religion would show 
 (as indicated in the last chapter) a reaction against mere 
 sex-indulgence ; and, as regards its standard of Morality 
 generally, that, among so many conflicting peoples with 
 their various civic and local customs, it could not well 
 identify itself with any one of these but would evolve an 
 inner inspiration of its own which in its best form would 
 be love of the neighbor, regardless of the race, creed or 
 customs of the neighbor, and whose sanction would not 
 reside in any of the external authorities thus conflicting 
 with each other, but in the sense of the soul’s direct responsi¬ 
 bility to God. 
 
 So much for what we might expect a priori as to the 
 influence of the surroundings on the general form of the 
 new Religion. And what about the kind of creed or creeds 
 which that religion would favour ? Here again we must 
 see that the influence of the surroundings compelled a 
 
 1 See Cumont, Religions Orientates dans le Paganisme Romain 
 
 (Paris, 1906), p. 253. 
 
 2 Cultes paiens dans l’Empire Romain (2 vols., 1911), vol. ii, p. 263. 
 
202 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 certain result. Those doctrines which we have described 
 in the preceding chapters—doctrines of Sin and Sacrifice, 
 a Saviour, the Eucharist, the Trinity, the Virgin-birth, 
 and so forth—were in their various forms seething, so to 
 speak, all around. It was impossible for any new religious 
 synthesis to escape them ; all it could do would be to 
 appropriate them, and to give them perhaps a colour of 
 its own. Thus it is into the midst of this germinating mass 
 that we must imagine the various pagan cults, like fertilising 
 streams, descending. To trace all these streams would 
 of course be an impossible task ; but it may be of use, as 
 an example of the process, to take the case of some par¬ 
 ticular belief. Let us take the belief in the coming of a 
 Saviour-god ; and this will be the more suitable as it is a 
 belief which has in the past been commonly held to be 
 distinctive of Christianity. Of course we know now that 
 it is not in any sense distinctive, but that the long tradition 
 of the Saviour comes down from the remotest times, and 
 perhaps from every country of the world. 1 The Messianic 
 prophecies of the Jews and the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah 
 emptied themselves into the Christian teachings, and in¬ 
 fected them to some degree with a Judaic tinge. The 
 “ Messiah ” means of course the Anointed One. The 
 Hebrew word occurs some 40 times in the Old Testament ; 
 and each time in the Septuagint or Greek translation 
 (made mainly in the third century before our era) the word 
 is translated xpioroQ, or Christos, which again means 
 Anointed. Thus we see that the idea or the word “ The 
 Christ ” was in vogue in Alexandria as far back certainly 
 as 280 b.c., or nearly three centuries before Jesus. And what 
 the word “ The Anointed ” strictly speaking means, and 
 from what the expression is probably derived, will appear 
 later. In The Book of Enoch , written not later than b.c. 
 170, 2 the Christ is spoken of as already existing in heaven, 
 
 1 Even to-day the Arabian lands are always vibrating Avith pro¬ 
 phecies of a coming Mahdi. 
 
 3 See Edition by R. H. Charles (1893). 
 
THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY 208 
 
 and about to come as Judge of all men, and is definitely 
 called “ the Son of Man." The Book of Revelations is 
 full of passages from Enoch ; so are the Epistles of Paul; 
 so too the Gospels. The Book of Enoch believes in a Golden 
 Age that is to come ; it has Dantesque visions of Heaven 
 and Hell, and of Angels good and evil, and it speaks of a 
 “ garden of Righteousness " with the “ Tree of Wisdom " 
 in its midst. Everywhere, says Prof. Drews, in the first 
 century B.c., there was the longing for a coming Saviour. 
 
 But the Saviour-god, as we also know, was a familiar 
 figure in Egypt. The great Osiris was the Saviour of the 
 world, both in his life and death : in his life through the 
 noble works he wrought for the benefit of mankind, and in 
 his death through his betrayal by the powers of darkness 
 and his resurrection from the tomb and ascent into heaven. 1 
 The Egyptian doctrines descended through Alexandria 
 into Christianity—and though they did not influence the 
 latter deeply until about 300 A.D., yet they then succeeded 
 in reaching the Christian Churches, giving a colour to their 
 teachings with regard to the Saviour, and persuading them 
 to accept and honour the Egyptian worship of Isis in the 
 Christian form of the Virgin Mary. 
 
 Again, another great stream of influence descended from 
 Persia in the form of the cult of Mithra. Mithra, as we 
 have seen, 2 stood as a great Mediator between God and man. 
 With his baptisms and eucharists, and his twelve disciples, 
 and his birth in a cave, and so forth, he seemed to the 
 early Fathers an invention of the devil and a most dangerous 
 mockery on Christianity—and all the more so because his 
 worship was becoming so exceedingly popular. The cult 
 seems to have reached Rome about b.c. 70. It spread 
 far and wide through the Empire. It extended to Great 
 Britain, and numerous remains of Mithraic monuments 
 and sculptures in this country—at York, Chester and other 
 places—testify to its wide acceptance even here. At 
 
 1 See ch. ii, supra. 
 
 Supra, ch. ii. 
 
 2 
 
204 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Rome the vogue of Mithraism became so great that in 
 the third century a.d., it was quite doubtful 1 whether it 
 or Christianity would triumph ; the Emperor Aurelian in 
 273 founded a cult of the Invincible Sun in connexion 
 with Mithraism ; 2 3 and as St. Jerome tells us in his letters,3 
 the latter cult had at a later time to be suppressed in Rome 
 and Alexandria by physical force, so powerful was it. 
 
 Nor was force the only method employed. Imitation is 
 not only the sincerest flattery, but it is often the most 
 subtle and effective way of defeating a rival. The priests 
 of the rising Christian Church were,, like the priests of 
 all religions, not wanting in craft; and at this moment 
 when the question of a World-religion was in the balance, it 
 was an obvious policy for them to throw into their own scale 
 as many elements as possible of the popular Pagan cults. 
 Mithraism had been flourishing for 600 years ; and it is, 
 to say the least, curious that the Mithraic doctrines and 
 legends which I have just mentioned should all have been 
 adopted (quite unintentionally of course !) into Christianity ; 
 and still more so that some others from the same source, 
 like the legend of the Shepherds at the Nativity and the 
 doctrine of the Resurrection and Ascension, which are 
 not mentioned at all in the original draft of the earliest 
 Gospel (St. Mark), should have made their appearance in 
 the Christian writings at a later time, when Mithraism 
 was making great forward strides. History shows that 
 as a Church progresses and expands it generally feels 
 
 1 See Cumont, op. cit., who says, p. 171 :—" Jamais, pas meme 
 & l’epoque des invasions mussulmanes, l’Europe ne sembla plus pr6s 
 de devenir asiatique qu’au moment oil Diocletien reconnaissait ofhciel- 
 lement en Mithra le protecteur de l’empire reconstitue.” See also 
 Cumont s My steves de Mithra, preface. The Roman Army, in fact, 
 stuck to Mithra throughout, as against Christianity ; and so did the 
 Roman nobility. (See S. Augustine’s Confessions, Book VIII, ch. 2.) 
 
 a Cumont indeed says that the identification of Mithra with the 
 Sun (the emblem of imperial power) formed one reason why Mithraism 
 was not persecuted at that time. 
 
 3 Epist. cvii, ad Laeiam. See Robertson’s Pagan Christs, p. 350. 
 
 
THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY 205 
 
 compelled to enlarge and fortify its own foundations by 
 inserting material which was not there at first. I shall 
 shortly give another illustration of this ; at present I 
 will merely point out that the Christian writers, as time 
 went on, not only introduced new doctrines, legends, 
 miracles and so forth—most of which we can trace to 
 antecedent pagan sources—but that they took especial pains 
 to destroy the pagan records and so obliterate the evidence 
 of their own dishonesty. We learn from Porphyry 1 that 
 there were several elaborate treatises setting forth the 
 religion of Mithra; and J. M. Robertson adds (Pagan 
 Christs, p. 325) : “ everyone of these has been destroyed by 
 the care of the Church, and it is remarkable that even the 
 treatise of Firmicus is mutilated at a passage (v.) where 
 he seems to be accusing Christians of following Mithraic 
 usages." While again Professor Murray says, “ The polemic 
 literature of Christianity is loud and triumphant; the 
 books of the Pagans have been destroyed.” * 
 
 Returning to the doctrine of the Saviour, I have already 
 in preceding chapters given so many instances of belief 
 in such a deity among the pagans—whether he be called 
 Krishna or Mithra or Osiris or Horus or Apollo or Hercules 
 —that it is not necessary to dwell on the subject any further 
 in order to persuade the reader that the doctrine was ‘ in 
 the air ’ at the time of the advent of Christianity. Even 
 Dionysus, then a prominent figure in the ‘ Mysteries/ 
 was called Eleutherios, The Deliverer. But it may be of 
 interest to trace the same doctrine among the pre-Christian 
 sects of Gnostics. The Gnostics, says Professor Murray ,3 
 “ are still commonly thought of as a body of Christian 
 heretics. In reality there were Gnostic sects scattered over 
 
 1 De Abstinentia, ii. 56; iv. 16. 
 
 2 Four Stages, p. 180. We have probably an instance of this 
 destruction in the total disappearance of Celsus’ lively attack on 
 Christianity (180 a.d.), of which, however, portions have been 
 fortunately preserved in Origen's rather prolix refutation of the same. 
 
 3 Four Stages, p. 143. 
 
206 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 the Hellenistic world before Christianity as well as after. 
 They must have been established in Antioch and probably 
 in Tarsus well before the days of Paul or Apollos. Their 
 Saviour, like the Jewish Messiah, was established in men’s 
 minds before the Saviour of the Christians. 7 If we look 
 close, says Professor Bousset, f the result emerges with 
 great clearness that the figure of the Redeemer as such did 
 not wait for Christianity to force its way into the religion 
 of Gnosis, but was already present there under various 
 forms.’ ” 
 
 This Gnostic Redeemer, continues Professor Murray, “ is 
 descended by a fairly clear genealogy from the ‘ Tritos 
 Soter ( third Saviour ’)* of early Greece, contaminated 
 with similar figures, like Attis and Adonis from Asia Minor, 
 Osiris from Egypt, and t he special Je wish conce ption of 
 the Messiah of the Chosen people. He has v arious nam es, 
 which "the"Tiame~ of Jesus or * Chri stos,’ * the Anointed,’ 
 tends gradually to supersede. Above all, he is in some 
 sense Mari, or r the second Man ’ or ‘ the Son of Man ’ 
 
 He is the real, the ultimate, the perfect and eternal Man, 
 of whom all bodily men are feeble copies.” 1 2 3 
 
 This passage brings vividly before the mind the process 
 of which I have spoken, namely, the fusion and mutual 
 interchange of ideas on the subject of the Saviour during 
 the period anterior to our era. Also it exemplifies to us 
 through what an abstract sphere of Gnostic religious specula¬ 
 tion the doctrine had to travel before reaching its expression 
 in Christianity. 3 This exalted and high philosophical 
 
 1 There seems to be some doubt about the exact meaning of this 
 expression. Even Zeus himself was sometimes called ‘ Soter,' and 
 at feasts, it is said, the third, goblet was always drunk in his honour. 
 
 2 See also The Gnostic Story of Jesus Christ, by Gilbert T. Sadler 
 (C. W. Daniel, 1919). 
 
 3 When traveling in India I found that the Gnanis or Wise Men 
 there quite commonly maintained that Jesus (judging from his teach- 
 
 ing) must have been initiated at some time in the esoteric doctrines 
 of the Vedanta. 
 
THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY 207 
 
 conception passed on and came out again to some degree 
 in the Fourth Gospel and the Pauline Epistles (especially 
 i Cor. xv) ; but I need hardly say it was not maintained. 
 The enthusiasm of the little scattered Christian bodies— 
 with their communism of practice with regard to this 
 world and their intensity of faith with regard to the next 
 —began to wane in the second and third centuries a.d. 
 As the Church (with capital initial) grew, so was it less 
 and less occupied with real religious feeling, and more and 
 more with its battles against persecution from outside, 
 and its quarrels and dissensions concerning heresies within 
 its own borders. And when at the Council of Nic$a (325 
 A.D.) it endeavoured to establish an official creed, the 
 strife and bitterness only increased. “There is no wild 
 beast, said the Emperor Julian, “ like an angry theologian.” 
 Where the fourth Evangelist had preached the gospel of 
 Love, and Paul had announced redemption by an inner and 
 spiritual identification with Christ, “ As in Adam all die, 
 so in Christ shall all be made alive ” ; and whereas some 
 at any rate of the Pagan cults had taught a glorious salva¬ 
 tion by the new birth of a divine being within each man : 
 “Be of good cheer , 0 initiates in the mystery of the liberated 
 god ; L or to you too out of all your labours and sorrows shall 
 come Liberation ”—the Nicene creed had nothing to pro¬ 
 pound except some extremely futile speculations about 
 the relation to each other of the Father and the Son, and 
 the relation of both to the Holy Ghost, and of all three to 
 the Virgin Mary—speculations which only served for the 
 renewal of shameful strife and animosities—riots and blood¬ 
 shed and murder—within the Church, and the mockery of 
 the heathen without. And as far as it dealt with the cruci¬ 
 fixion, death and resurrection of the Lord it did not differ 
 from the score of preceding pagan creeds, except in the 
 thorough materialism and lack of poetry in statement 
 which it exhibits. After the Council of Niccea, in fact, 
 the Judaic tinge in the doctrines of the Church becomes 
 
208 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 more apparent, and more and more its Scheme of Salvation 
 through Christ takes the character of a rather sordid and 
 huckstering bargain by which Man gets the better of God 
 by persuading the latter to sacrifice his own Son for the 
 redemption of the world ! With the exception of a few 
 episodes like the formation during the Middle Ages of the 
 noble brotherhoods and sisterhoods of Friars and Nuns, 
 dedicated to the help and healing of suffering humanity, 
 and the appearance of a few real lovers of mankind (and the 
 animals) like St. Francis—(and these manifestations can 
 hardly be claimed by the Church, which pretty consistently 
 opposed them)—it may be said that after about the fourth 
 century the real spirit and light of early Christian enthusi¬ 
 asm died away. The incursions of barbarian tribes from the 
 North and East, and later of Moors and Arabs from the South, 
 familiarised the European peoples with the ideas of blood¬ 
 shed and violence ; gross and material conceptions of life 
 were in the ascendant ; and a romantic and aspiring Christi¬ 
 anity gave place to a worldly and vulgar Churchianity. 
 
 * I have in these two or three pages dealt only—and that 
 very briefly—with the entry of the pagan doctrine of the 
 Saviour into the Christian field, showing its transformation 
 there and how Christianity could not well escape having 
 a doctrine of a Saviour, or avoid giving a colour of its own 
 to that doctrine. To follow out the same course with 
 other doctrines, like those which I have mentioned above, 
 would obviously be an endless task—which must be left 
 to each student or reader to pursue according to his oppor¬ 
 tunity and capacity. It is clear anyhow, that all these 
 elements of the pagan religions—pouring down into the vast 
 reservoir, or rather whirlpool, of the Roman Empire, and 
 mixing among all these numerous brotherhoods, societies, 
 collegia, mystery-clubs, and groups which were at that 
 time looking out intently for some new revelation or in¬ 
 spiration—did more or less automatically act and react 
 
THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY 209 
 
 upon each other, and by the general conditions prevailing 
 were modified, till they ultimately combined and took 
 united shape in the movement which we call Christianity, 
 but which only—as I have said—narrowly escaped being 
 called Mithraism—so nearly related and closely allied were 
 these cults with each other. 
 
 c&t this point it will naturally be asked : “ And where 
 in this scheme of the Genesis of Christianity is the chief 
 figure and accredited leader of the movement—namely 
 Jesus Christ himself—for to all appearance in the account 
 here given of the matter he is practically non-existent or 
 a negligible quantity ? ” And the question is a very 
 pertinent one, and very difficult to answer. “ Where is 
 the founder of the Religion ? ”—or to put it in another 
 form : Is it necessary to suppose a human and visible 
 
 Founder at all ? A few years ago such a mere question 
 would have been accounted rank blasphemy, and would 
 only if passed over—have been ignored on account of 
 its supposed absurdity. To-day, however, owing to the 
 enormous amount of work which has been done of late 
 on the subject of Christian origins, the question takes on 
 quite a different complexion. And from Strauss onwards 
 a growingly influential and learned body of critics is inclined 
 to regard the whole story of the Gospels as legendary)^ Arthur 
 Drews, for instance, a professor at Karlsruhe, in his cele¬ 
 brated book The Christ-Myth , 1 places David F. Strauss as 
 first in the myth field—though he allows that Dupuis in 
 L’origine de tons les cultes (1795) had given the clue to the 
 whole idea. He then mentions Bruno Bauer (1877) as 
 contending that Jesus was a pure invention of Mark’s, and 
 John M. Robertson as having in his Christianity and My¬ 
 thology (1900) given the first thoroughly reasoned exposition 
 of the legendary theory * also Emilio Bossi in Italy, who 
 
 1 \o > ^ 6 ( ~'^ sius ' m y^ e ' ve rbesserte und erweitezte Ausgabe, Jena, 
 
 14 
 
210 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 wrote Jesu Christo non e mai esistito, and similar authors 
 in Holland, Poland, and other countries, including W. 
 Benjamin Smith, the American author of The Pre-christian 
 Jesus (1906), and P. Jensen in Das Gilgamesch Epos in den 
 Welt-literatur (1906), who makes the Jesus-story a variant of 
 the Babylonian epic, 2000 B.c. A pretty strong list! 1 “ But/’ 
 continues Drews, “ ordinary historians still ignore all this.” 
 Finally, he dismisses Jesus as “ a figure swimming obscurely 
 in the mists of tradition.” Nevertheless I need hardly 
 remark that, large and learned as the body of opinion here 
 represented is, a still larger (but less learned) body fights 
 desperately for the actual historicity of Jesus, and some 
 even still for the old view of him as a quite unique and 
 miraculous revelation of Godhood on earth. 
 
 At first, no doubt, the legendary theory seems a little 
 too far-fetched. There is a fashion in all these things, 
 and it may be that there is a fashion even here. But when 
 you reflect how rapidly legends grow up even in these days 
 of exact Science and an omniscient Press ; how the figure 
 of Shakespeare, dead only 300 years, is almost completely 
 lost in the mist of Time, and even the authenticity of his 
 works has become a subject of controversy ; when you 
 find that William Tell, supposed to have lived some 300 
 years again before Shakespeare, and whose deeds in minutest 
 detail have been recited and honoured all over Europe, 
 is almost certainly a pure invention, and never existed ; 
 when you remember—as mentioned earlier in this book 2 3 — 
 that it was more than five hundred years after the supposed 
 birth of Jesus before any serious effort was made to establish 
 the date of that birth—and that then a purely mythical 
 date was chosen : the 25th December, the day of the Sun s 
 new birth after the winter solstice, and the time of the 
 supposed birth of Apollo, Bacchus, and the other Sungods; 
 
 1 To which we may also add Schweitzer’s Quest of the historical 
 
 Jesus (1910). 
 
 3 Ch. II, supra. 
 
THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY 211 
 
 when, moreover, you think for a moment what the state 
 of historical criticism must have been, and the general 
 standard of credibility, 1,900 years ago, in a country like 
 Syria, and among an ignorant population, where any 
 story circulating from lip to lip was assured of credence 
 if sufficiently marvelous or imaginative ;—why, then the 
 legendary theory does not seem so improbable. There is 
 no doubt that after the destruction of Jerusalem (in a.d. 
 70), little groups of believers in a redeeming ‘ Christ ’ were 
 formed there and in other places, just as there had certainly 
 existed, in the first century b.c., groups of Gnostics, Thera- 
 peutae, Essenes and others whose teachings were very 
 similar to the Christian, and there was now a demand from 
 many of those groups for * writings ' and ‘ histories ’ which 
 should hearten and confirm the young and growing Churches. 
 The Gospels and Epistles, of which there are still extant a 
 great abundance, both apocryphal and canonical, met this 
 demand ; but how far their records of the person of Jesus 
 of Nazareth are reliable history, or how far they are merely 
 imaginative pictures of the kind of man the Saviour might 
 be expected to be, 1 is a question which, as I have already 
 said, is a difficult one for skilled critics to answer, and one 
 on which I certainly have no intention of giving a positive 
 verdict. Personally I must say I think the ‘ legendary ’ 
 solution quite likely, and in some ways more satisfactory 
 than the opposite one—for the simple reason that it seems 
 much more encouraging to suppose that the story of Jesus, 
 (gracious and beautiful as it is) is a myth which gradually 
 formed itself in the conscience of mankind, and thus points 
 the way of humanity’s future evolution, than to suppose 
 it to be the mere record of an unique and miraculous inter¬ 
 position of Providence, which depended entirely on the 
 powers above, and could hardly be expected to occur again 
 
 1 One of Celsus’ accusations against the Christians was that their 
 Gospels had been written “ several times over ” (see Origen, Contra 
 Celsunt, ii. 26, 27). 
 
212 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 However, the question is not what we desire, but what 
 we can prove to be the actual fact. And certainly the diffi¬ 
 culties in the way of regarding the Gospel story (or stories, 
 for there is not one consistent story) as true are enormous. 
 If anyone will read, for instance, in the four Gospels, the 
 events of the night preceding the crucifixion and reckon the 
 time which they would necessarily have taken to enact— 
 the Last Supper, the agony in the Garden, the betrayal 
 by Judas, the haling before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, 
 and then before Pilate in the Hall of Judgment (though 
 courts for the trial of malefactors do not generally sit in 
 the middle of the night) ; then—in Luke—the interposed 
 visit to Herod, and the return to Pilate ; Pilate’s speeches 
 and washing of hands before the crowd; then the scourging 
 and the mocking and the arraying of Jesus in purple robe 
 as a king ; then the preparation of a Cross and the long 
 and painful journey to Golgotha ; and finally the Crucifixion 
 at sunrise ;—he will see—as has often been pointed out— 
 that the whole story is physically impossible. As a record 
 of actual events the story is impossible ; but as a record 
 or series of notes derived from the witnessing of a “ mystery- 
 play ”—and such plays with very similar incidents were 
 common enough in antiquity in connexion with cults of 
 a dying Saviour, it very likely is true (one can see the very 
 dramatic character of the incidents : the washing of hands, 
 the threefold denial by Peter, the purple robe and crown 
 of thorns, and so forth) ; and as such it is now accepted 
 by many well-qualified authorities. 1 
 
 1 Dr. Frazer in The Golden Bough (vol. ix, “ The Scapegoat,’ 
 p. 400) speaks of the frequency in antiquity of a Mystery-play relating 
 to a God-man who gives his life and blood for the people ; and he 
 puts forward tentatively and by no means dogmatically the following 
 note :—“ Such a drama, if we are right, was the original story of 
 Esther and Mordecai, or (to give their older names) Ishtar and Marduk. 
 It was played in Babylonia, and from Babylonia the returning 
 Captives brought it to Judaea, where it was acted, rather as an his¬ 
 torical than a mythical piece, by players who, having to die in grim 
 earnest on a cross or gallows, were naturally drawn from the gaol 
 
THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY 213 
 
 There are many other difficulties. The raising of Lazarus, 
 already dead three days, the turning of water into wine 
 (a miracle attributed to Bacchus, of old), the feeding of 
 the five thousand, and others of the marvels are, to say 
 the least, not easy of digestion. The “ Sermon on the 
 Mount ” which, with the “ Lord’s Prayer ” embedded in 
 it, forms the great and accepted repository of ‘ Christian ’ 
 teaching and piety, is well known to be a collection of 
 sayings from pre-Christian writings, including the Psalms, 
 Isaiah, Ecclesiasticus, the Secrets of Enoch , the Shemoneh- 
 esreh (a book of Hebrew prayers), and others ; and the fact 
 that this collection was really made after the time of Jesus, 
 and could not have originated from him, is clear from the 
 stress which it lays on “ persecutions ” and " false prophets ” 
 —things which were certainly not a source of trouble at 
 the time Jesus is supposed to be speaking, though they 
 were at a later time—as well as from the occurrence of 
 the word “ Gentiles,” which being here used apparently 
 in contradistinction to " Christians ” could not well be 
 appropriate at a time when no recognised Christian bodies 
 as yet existed. 
 
 But the most remarkable point in this connexion is the 
 absolute silence of the Gospel of Mark on the subject of 
 the Resurrection and Ascension—that is, of the original 
 Gospel, for it is now allowed on all hands that the twelve 
 verses Mark xvi. 9 to the end, are a later insertion. Con¬ 
 sidering the nature of this event, astounding indeed, if 
 physically true, and unique in the history of the world, 
 it is strange that this Gospel—the earliest written of the 
 four Gospels, and nearest in time to the actual evidence— 
 
 rather than the green-room. A chain of causes, which because we 
 cannot follow' them might—in the loose language of common life 
 -—be called an accident, determined that the part of the dying god 
 in this annual play should be thrust upon Jesus of Nazareth, whom 
 the enemies he had made in high places by his outspoken strictures 
 were resolved to put out of the way.” See also vol. iv, “ The Dying 
 God,” in the same book. 
 
214 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 makes no mention of it. The next Gospel in point of time 
 —that of Matthew—mentions the matter rather briefly 
 and timidly, and reports the story that the body had been 
 stolen from the sepulchre. Luke enlarges considerably 
 and gives a whole long chapter to the resurrection and 
 ascension ; while the Fourth Gospel, written fully twjsnty 
 years later still—say about a.d. 120—gives two chapters 
 and a great variety of details ! 
 
 This increase of detail, however, as one gets farther 
 and farther from the actual event is just what one always 
 finds, as I have said before, in legendary traditions. A 
 very interesting example of this has lately come to light 
 in the case of the traditions concerning the life and death 
 of the Persian Bab. The Bab, as most of my readers will 
 know, was the Founder of a great religious movement 
 which now numbers (or numbered before the Great War) 
 some millions of adherents, chiefly Mahommedans, Christ- 
 ians, Jews and Parsees. The period of his missionary 
 activity was from 1845 to 1850. His Gospel was singularly 
 like that of Jesus—a gospel of love to mankind—only (as 
 might be expected from the difference of date) with an 
 even wider and more deliberate inclusion of all classes, 
 creeds and races, sinners and saints ; and the incidents 
 and entourage of his ministry were also singularly similar. 
 He was born at Shiraz in 1820, and growing up a promising 
 boy and youth, fell at the age of 21 under the influence 
 of a certain Seyyid Kazim, leader of a heterodox sect, and 
 a kind of fore-runner or John the Baptist to the Bab. The 
 result was a period of mental trouble (like the “ tempta¬ 
 tion in the wilderness ”), after which the youth returned 
 to Shiraz and at the age of twenty-five began his own mission. 
 His real name was Mirza Ali Muhammad, but he called 
 himself thenceforth The Bdh, i.e. the Gate (" I am the 
 Way *') ; and gradually there gathered round him disciples, 
 drawn by the fascination of his personality and the devo¬ 
 tion of his character. But with the rapid increase of his 
 
THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 215 
 
 following great jealousy and hatred were excited among 
 the Mullahs, the upholders of a fanatical and narrow¬ 
 minded Mahommedanism and quite corresponding to the 
 Scribes and Pharisees of the New Testament. By them 
 he was denounced to the Turkish Government. He was 
 arrested on a charge of causing political disturbance, and 
 was condemned to death. Among his disciples was one 
 favourite, 1 who was absolutely devoted to his Master and 
 refused to leave him at the last. So together they were 
 suspended over the city wall (at Tabriz) and simultaneously 
 shot. This was on the 8th July, 1850. 
 
 In November 1850—or between that date and October 
 1851, a book appeared, written by one of the Bab’s earliest 
 and most enthusiastic disciples—a merchant of Kashan— 
 and giving in quite simple and unpretending form a record 
 of the above events. There is in it no account of miracles 
 or of great pretensions to godhood and the like. It is just 
 a plain history of the life and death of a beloved teacher. It 
 was cordially received and circulated far and wide ; and 
 we have no reason for doubting its essential veracity. 
 And even if proved now to be inaccurate in one or two 
 details, this would not invalidate the moral of the rest of 
 the story—which is as follows : 
 
 After the death of the Bab a great persecution took 
 place (in 1852) ; there were many Babi martyrs, and for 
 some years the general followers were scattered. But in 
 time they gathered themselves together again; successors 
 to the original prophet were appointed—though not without 
 dissensions—and a Babi church, chiefly at Acca or Acre 
 in Syria, began to be formed. It was during this period 
 that a great number of legends grew up—legends of miracu¬ 
 lous babyhood and boyhood, legends of miracles performed 
 by the mature Bab, and so forth ; and when the newly- 
 forming Church came to look into the matter it concluded 
 
 1 Mirza Muhammad Ali; and one should note the similarity of 
 the two names. 
 
216 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 (quite naturally!) that such a simple history as I have 
 outlined above would never do for the foundation of its 
 plans, now grown somewhat ambitious. So a new Gospel 
 was framed, called the Tarikh-i-Jadid (" The new History ” 
 or The new Way ), embodying and including a lot of 
 legendary matter, and issued with the authority of “ the 
 Church. I his was in 1881-2 ; and comparing this with 
 the original record (called The point of Kaf) we get a 
 luminous view of the growth of fable in those thirty brief 
 years which had elapsed since the Bab’s death. Meanwhile 
 it became very necessary of course to withdraw from circu¬ 
 lation as far as possible all copies of the original record, 
 lest they should give the lie to the later ‘ Gospel ’ ; and 
 this apparently was done very effectively—so effectively 
 indeed that Professor Edward Browne (to whom the w^orld 
 owe s so much on account of his labours in connexion with 
 Babism), after arduous search, came at one time to the 
 conclusion that the original was no longer extant. Most 
 fortunately, however, the well-known Comte de Gobineau 
 had in the course of his studies on Eastern Religions acquired 
 a copy of 7 he point of Kaf; and this, after his death, 
 was found among his literary treasures and identified (as 
 was most fitting) by Professor Browne himself. 
 
 Such in brief is the history of the early Babi Church 1 
 —a Church which has grown up and expanded greatly 
 within the memory of many yet living. Much might be 
 written about it, but the chief point at present is for us 
 to note the well-verified and interesting example it gives 
 of the rapid growth in Syria of a religious legend and the 
 reasons which contributed to this growth—and to be warned 
 how much more rapidly similar legends probably grew up 
 in the same land in the middle of the First Century, a.d. 
 
 Koi literature, see Edward G. Browne’s Traveller's Narrative 
 on the Episode of the Bah (1891), and his New History of the Bab trans¬ 
 lated from the Persian of the Tarikh-i-Jadid (Cambridge, 1893). Also 
 Sermons and Essays by Herbert Rix (Williams and Norgate 1907) 
 PP- 295-325. “ The Persian Bab.” 
 
THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY 217 
 
 The story of the Bab is also interesting to us because, while 
 this mass of legend was formed around it, there is no possible 
 doubt about the actual existence of a historical nucleus 
 in the person of Mirza Ali Muhammad. 
 
 On the w r hole, one is sometimes inclined to doubt whether 
 any great movement ever makes itself felt in the world, 
 without dating first from some powerful personality or 
 group of personalities, round which the idealising and myth¬ 
 making genius of mankind tends to crystallize. But one 
 must not even here be too certain. Something of the 
 Apostle Paul we know, and something of ‘ John 5 the 
 Evangelist and writer of the Epistle i John ; and that 
 the * Christian ’ doctrines dated largely from the preaching 
 and teaching of these two we cannot doubt; but Paul 
 never saw Jesus (except “ in the Spirit ”), nor does he ever 
 mention the maiTpiemonally, or~air\n mcI 3 ^iT~of hisl ictual 
 life (the “ c rucified Christ ^Eemjg always an ideal figure) ; 
 and ‘ John ’ who wrote the Gospel was certainly not the 
 same as the disciple who “ lay in Jesus’ bosom ”—though 
 an intercalated verse, the last but one in the Gospel, asserts 
 the identity. 1 
 
 There may have been a historic Jesus—and if so, to get 
 a reliable outline of his life would indeed be a treasure ; 
 but at present it would seem there is no sign of that. If 
 the historicity of Jesus, in any degree, could be proved, 
 it would give us reason for supposing—what I have person¬ 
 ally always been inclined to believe—that there was also 
 a historical nucleus for such personages as Osiris, Mithra, 
 Krishna, Hercules, Apollo and the rest. The question, 
 in fact, narrows' itself down to this, Have there been in 
 the course of human evolution certain, so to speak, nodal 
 points or periods at which the psychologic currents ran 
 together and condensed themselves for a new start ; and 
 
 1 It is obvious, in fact, that the whole of the last chapter of St. 
 John is a la t er inser tion , and again that the two last verses of that 
 chapter are later than the chapter itself ! 
 
218 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 has each such node or point of condensation been marked 
 by the appearance of an actual and heroic man (or woman) 
 who supplied a necessary impetus for the new departure, 
 and gave his name to the resulting movement ? or is it 
 sufficient to suppose the automatic formation of such nodes 
 or starting-points without the intervention of any special 
 hero or genius, and to imagine that in each case the myth¬ 
 making tendency of mankind created a legendary and 
 inspiring figure and worshiped the same for a long period 
 afterwards as a god ? 
 
 As I have said before, this is a question which, interesting 
 as it is, is not really very important. The main thing being 
 that the prophetic and creative spirit of mankind has from 
 time to time evolved those figures as idealisations of its 
 “ heart's desire ” and placed a halo round their heads. 
 The long procession of them becomes a real piece of History 
 -—the history of the evolution of the human heart, and of 
 human consciousness. But with the psychology of the 
 whole subject I shall deal in the next chapter. 
 
 I may here, however, dwell for a moment on two other 
 points which belong properly to this chapter. I have 
 already mentioned the great reliance placed by the advocates 
 of a unique ‘ revelation ' on the high morality taught in the 
 Gospels and the New Testament generally. There is no 
 need of course to challenge that morality or to depreciate 
 it unduly ; but the argument assumes that it is so greatly 
 superior to anything of the kind that had been taught 
 before that we are compelled to suppose something like a 
 revelation to explain its appearance—whereas of course 
 anyone familiar with the writings of antiquity, among the 
 Greeks or Romans or Egyptians or Hindus or later Jews, 
 knows perfectly well that the reported sayings of Jesus 
 and the Apostles may be paralleled abundantlv from these 
 sources. I have illustrated this already from the Sermon 
 on the Mount. If anyone will glance at the Testament of 
 
THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 219 
 
 the Twelve Patriarchs —a Jewish book composed about 
 120 B.c. —he will see that it is full of moral precepts, and 
 especially precepts of love and forgiveness, so ardent and 
 so noble that it hardly suffers in any way when compared 
 with the New Testament teaching, and that consequently 
 no special miracle is required to explain the appearance 
 of the latter. 
 
 The twelve Patriarchs in question are the twelve sons 
 of Jacob, and the book consists of their supposed death¬ 
 bed scenes, in which each patriarch in turn recites his own 
 (more or less imaginary) life and deeds and gives pious 
 counsel to his children and successors. It is composed in 
 a fine and poetic style, and is full of lofty r thought, remind¬ 
 ful in scores of passages of the Gospels—words and all— 
 the coincidences being too striking to be accidental. It 
 evidently had a deep influence on the authors of the Gospels, 
 as well as on St. Paul. It affirms a belief in the coming of 
 a Messiah, and in salvation for the Gentiles. The following 
 are some quotations from it : 1 Testament of Zebulun 
 (p. ii6) : “ My children, I bid you keep the commands of 
 the Lord, and show mercy to your neighbours, and have 
 compassion towards all, not towards men only, but also 
 towards beasts." Dan (p. 127) : “ Love the Lord through 
 all your life, and one another with a true heart." Joseph 
 (p. 173) : “ I was sick, and the Lord visited me ; in prison, 
 and my God showed favor unto me." Benjamin (p. 209) : 
 “ For as the sun is not defiled by shining on dung and mire, 
 but rather drieth up both and driveth away the evil 
 smell, so also the pure mind, encompassed by the defile¬ 
 ments of earth, rather cleanseth them and is not itself 
 defiled." 
 
 I think these quotations are sufficient to prove the high 
 standard of this book, which was written in the Second 
 Century b.c., and from which the New Testament authors 
 copiously borrowed. 
 
 1 The references being to the Edition by R. H. Charles (1907). 
 
220 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 The other point has to do with my statement at the 
 beginning of this chapter that two of the main ‘ charac¬ 
 teristics ’ of Christianity were its insistence on (a) a tendency 
 towards renunciation of the world, and a consequent culti¬ 
 vation of a purely spiritual love, and (b) on a morality 
 whose inspiration was a private sense of duty to God rather 
 than a public sense of duty to one's neighbour and to society 
 generally. I think, however, that the last-mentioned 
 characteristic ought to be viewed in relation to a third, 
 namely, (c) the extraordinarily democratic tendency of 
 the new Religion. 1 Celsus ( a . d . 200) jeered at the early 
 Christians for their extreme democracy : “It is only the 
 simpletons, the ignoble, the senseless—slaves and womenfolk 
 and children—whom they wish to persuade [to join their 
 churches] or can persuade ”—“ wool-dressers and cobblers 
 and fullers, the most uneducated and vulgar persons,” 
 and “ whosoever is a sinner, or unintelligent or a fool, in 
 a word, whoever is god-forsaken {icaKoScti[icov) , him the 
 Kingdom of God will receive.” 2 Thus Celsus, the accom¬ 
 plished, clever, philosophic and withal humorous critic, 
 laughed at the new religionists, and prophesied their speedy 
 extinction. Nevertheless he was mistaken. There is little 
 doubt that just the inclusion of women and weaklings 
 and outcasts did contribute largely to the spread of Chris¬ 
 tianity (and Mithraism). It brought hope and a sense of 
 human dignity to the despised and rejected of the earth. 
 Of the immense numbers of lesser officials who carried on 
 the vast organisation of the Roman Empire, most perhaps, 
 were taken from the ranks of the freedmen and quondam 
 slaves, drawn from a great variety of races and already 
 
 1 It is important to note, however, that this same democratic 
 tendency was very marked in Mithraism. “ I] est certain,” says Cumont, 
 
 qu il a fait ses premieres conquetes dans les classes inferieures de 
 la soci6t6, et c’est l’a un fait considerable ; le mithracisme est rest6 
 longtemps la religion des humbles.” My sieves de Mithra, p. 68. 
 
 2 See Glover's Conflict of Religions in the early Roman Empire, 
 ch. viii. 
 
THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY 221 
 
 familiar with pagan cults of all kinds—Egyptian, Syrian, 
 Chaldean, Iranian, and so forth. 1 This fact helped to give 
 to Christianity—under the fine tolerance of the Empire— 
 its democratic character and also its willingness to accept 
 all. The rude and menial masses, who had hitherto been 
 almost beneath the notice of Greek and Roman culture, 
 flocked in ; and though this was doubtless, as time went 
 on, a source of weakness to the Church, and a cause of 
 dissension and superstition, yet it was in the inevitable 
 fine of human evolution, and had a psychological basis 
 which I must now endeavour to explain. 
 
 1 See Toutain, Cultes pa'iens, vol. ii, conclusion. 
 
XIV 
 
 THE MEANING OF IT ALL 
 
 The general drift and meaning of the present book must 
 now, I think, from many hints scattered in the course of 
 it, be growing clear. But it will be well perhaps in this 
 chapter, at the risk of some repetition, to bring the whole 
 argument together. And the argument is that since the 
 dawn of humanity on the earth—many hundreds of thou¬ 
 sands or perhaps a million years ago—there has been a slow 
 psychologic evolution, a gradual development or refinement 
 of Consciousness, which at a certain stage has spontaneously 
 given birth in the human race to the phenomena of religious 
 belief and religious ritual—these phenomena (whether in 
 the race at large or in any branch of it) always following, 
 step by step, a certain order depending on the degrees 
 of psychologic evolution concerned; and that it is this 
 general fact which accounts for the strange similarities of 
 belief and ritual which have been observed all over the 
 world and in places far remote from each other, and which 
 have been briefly noted in the preceding chapters. 
 
 And the main stages of this psychologic evolution— 
 those at any rate with which we are here concerned—are 
 Three : the stage of Simple Consciousness, the stage of 
 Self-consciousness, and a third Stage which for want of 
 a better word we may term the stage of Universal Conscious¬ 
 ness. Of course these three stages may at some future 
 
THE MEANING OF IT ALL 
 
 223 
 
 time be analysed into lesser degrees, with useful result— 
 but at present I only desire to draw attention to them in 
 the rough, so to speak, to show that it is from them and 
 from their passage one into another that there has flowed 
 by a perfectly natural logic and concatenation the strange 
 panorama of humanity’s religious evolution—its super¬ 
 stitions and magic and sacrifices and dancings and ritual 
 generally, and later its incantations and prophecies, and 
 services of speech and verse, and paintings and forms of 
 art, and figures of the gods. A wonderful Panorama indeed, 
 or poem of the Centuries, or, if you like. World-symphony 
 with three great leading motives ! 
 
 And first we have the stage of Simple Consciousness. 
 For hundreds of centuries (we cannot doubt) Man possessed 
 a degree of consciousness not radically different from that 
 of the higher Animals, though probably more quick and 
 varied. He saw, he heard, he felt, he noted. He acted 
 or reacted, quickly or slowly, in response to these impressions. 
 But the consciousness of him self, as a being separate from 
 his impressions, as separate from his surroundings, had 
 not yet arisen or taken hold on him. He was an instinctive 
 part of Nature. And in this respect he was very near to 
 the Animals. Self-consciousness in the animals, in a 
 germinal form is there, no doubt, but embedded, so to speak, 
 in the general world consciousness. It is on this account 
 that the animals have such a marvellously acute perception 
 and instinct, being embedded in Nature. And primitive 
 Man had the same. Also we must, as I have said before, 
 allow that man in that stage must have had the same sort 
 of grace and perfection of form and movement as we admire 
 in the (wild) animals now. It would be quite unreasonable 
 to suppose that he, the crown in some sense of creation, 
 was from the beginning a lame and ill-made abortion. For 
 a long long period the tribes of men, like the tribes of the 
 higher animals, must have been (on the whole, and allowing 
 
224 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 for occasional privations and sufferings and conflicts) 
 well adapted to their surroundings and harmonious with 
 the earth and with each other. There must have been 
 a period resembling a Golden Age—some condition at any 
 rate which, compared with subsequent miseries, merited 
 the epithet ‘ golden/ 
 
 It was during this period apparently that the system 
 of Totems arose. The tribes felt their relationship to their 
 winged and fourfooted mates (including also other objects 
 of nature) so deeply and intensely that they adopted the 
 latter as their emblems. The pre-civilisation Man fairly 
 worshiped the animals and was proud to be called after 
 them. Of course we moderns find this strange. We, 
 whose conceptions of these beautiful creatures are mostly 
 derived from a broken-down cab-horse, or a melancholy 
 milk-rummaged cow in a sooty field, or a diseased and 
 despondent lion or eagle at the Zoo, have never even seen 
 or loved them and have only wondered with our true com¬ 
 mercial instinct what profit we could extract from them. 
 But they, the primitives, loved and admired the animals ; 
 they domesticated many of them by the force of a natural 
 friendship, 1 and accorded them a kind of divinity. This 
 was the age of tribal solidarity and of a latent sense of 
 solidarity with Nature. And the point of it all is (with 
 regard to the subject we have in hand) that this was also 
 the age from which by a natural evolution the sense of 
 Religion came to mankind. If Religion in man is the sense 
 of ties binding his inner self to the powers of the universe 
 around him, then it is evident I think that primitive man 
 as I have described him possessed the reality of this sense 
 —though so far buried and subconscious that he was hardly 
 aware of it. It was only later, and with the coming of 
 
 1 See ch. iv, supra. Tylor in his Primitive Culture (vol. i, p. 469, 
 edn. 1903) says : “ The sense of an absolute psychical distinction 
 
 between man and beast, so prevalent in the civilised world, is hardly 
 to be found among the lower races." 
 
THE MEANING OF IT ALL 
 
 225 
 
 the Second Stage, that this sense began to rise distinctly 
 into consciousness. 
 
 Let us pass then to the Second Stage. There is a moment 
 in the evolution of a child—somewhere perhaps about the 
 age of three 1 —when the simple almost animal-like con¬ 
 sciousness of the babe is troubled by a new element— self- 
 consciousness. The change is so marked, so definite, that 
 (in the depth of the infant’s eyes) you can almost see it take 
 place. So in the evolution of the human race there has 
 been a period—also marked and definite, though extending 
 intermittent over a vast interval of time—when on men 
 in general there dawned the consciousness of themselves, 
 of their own thoughts and actions. The old simple accept¬ 
 ance of sensations and experiences gave place to reflection . 
 The question arose : “ How do these sensations and ex¬ 
 periences affect me ? What can / do to modify them, to 
 encourage the pleasurable, to avoid or inhibit the painful, 
 and so on ? ” From that moment a new motive was added 
 to life. The mind revolved round a new centre. It began 
 to spin like a little eddy round its own axis. It studied 
 itself first and became deeply concerned about its own 
 pleasures and pains, losing touch the while with the larger 
 life which once dominated it—the life of Nature, the life 
 of the Tribe. The old unity of the spirit, the old solidarity, 
 were broken up. 
 
 I have touched on this subject before, but it is so important 
 that the reader must excuse repetition. There came an 
 inevitable severance, an inevitable period of strife. The 
 magic mirror of the soul, reflecting nature as heretofore 
 in calm and simple grace, was suddenly cracked across. 
 The new self-conscious man (not all at once but gradually) 
 became alienated from his tribe. He lapsed into strife 
 with his fellows. Ambition, vanity, greed, the love of 
 
 1 See Bucke’s Cosmic Consciousness (Philadelphia, 1901), pp. 11 
 and 39; also W. McDougairs Social Psychology (1908), p. 146— 
 where the same age is tentatively suggested. 
 
 15 
 
226 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 domination, the desire for property and possessions, set 
 in. The influences of fellowship and solidarity grew feebler. 
 He became alienated from his great Mother. His instincts 
 were less and less sure—and that in proportion as brain- 
 activity and self-regarding calculation took their place. 
 Love and mutual help were less compelling in proportion as 
 the demands of self-interest grew louder and more insistent. 
 Ultimately the crisis came. Cain murdered his brother 
 and became an outcast. The Garden of Eden and the 
 Golden Age closed their gates behind him. He entered 
 upon a period of suffering—a period of labour and toil 
 and sorrow such as he had never before known, and such 
 as the animals certainly have never known. And in that 
 distressful state, in that doleful valley of his long pilgrimage, 
 he still remains to-day 
 
 Thus has the canker of self-consciousness done its work. 
 It would be foolish and useless to rail against the process, 
 or to blame any one for it. It had to be. Through this 
 dismal vale of self-seeking mankind had to pass—if only 
 in order at last to find the True Self which was (and still 
 remains) its goal. The pilgrimage will not last for ever. 
 Indeed there are signs that the recent Great War and the 
 following Events mark the lowest point of descent and the 
 beginning of the human soul’s return to sanity and ascent 
 towards the heavenly Kingdom. No doubt Man will 
 arrive again some day at the grace, composure and leisurely 
 beauty of life which the animals realised long ago, though 
 he seems a precious long time about it ; and when all this 
 nightmare of Greed and Vanity and Self-conceit and Cruelty 
 will come again to its Golden Age and to that Paradise of 
 and Lust of oppression and domination, which marks the 
 present period, is past—and it will pass—then Humanity 
 redemption and peace which has for so long been prophesied. 
 
 But we are dealing with the origins of Religion ; and 
 what I want the reader to see is that it was just this breaking 
 up of the old psychologic unity and continuity of man with 
 
THE MEANING OF IT ALL 
 
 227 
 
 his surroundings which led to the whole panorama of the 
 rituals and creeds. Man, centering round himself, necessarily 
 became an exile from the great Whole. He committed the 
 sin (if it was a sin) of Separation. Anyhow Nemesis was 
 swift. The sense of loneliness and the sense of guilt came 
 on him. Ihe realisation of himself as a separate conscious 
 being necessarily led to his attributing a similar conscious¬ 
 ness of some kind to the great Life around him. Action 
 and reaction are equal and opposite. Whatever he may 
 have felt before, it became clear to him now that beings 
 more or less like himself—though doubtless vaster and 
 more powerful—moved behind the veil of the visible world. 
 From that moment the belief in Magic and Demons and 
 Gods arose or slowly developed itself ; and in the midst 
 of this turmoil of perilous and conflicting powers, he per¬ 
 ceived himself an alien and an exile, stricken with Fear, 
 stricken with the sense of Sin. If before, he had exper¬ 
 ienced fear—in the kind of automatic way of self-preservation 
 in which the animals feel it—he now, with fevered self- 
 regard and excited imagination, experienced it in double 
 or treble degree. And if, before, he had been aware that 
 fortune and chance were not always friendly and propitious 
 to his designs, he now perceived or thought he perceived 
 in every adverse happening the deliberate persecution of 
 the pow r ers, and an accusation of guilt directed against 
 him for some neglect or deficiency in his relation to them. 
 Hence by a perfectly logical and natural sequence there 
 arose the belief in other-world or supernatural powers, 
 whether purely fortuitous and magical or more distinctly 
 rational and personal; there arose the sense of Sin, or 
 of offence against these powers ; there arose a complex 
 ritual of Expiation—whether by personal sacrifice and 
 suffering or by the sacrifice of victims. There arose too 
 a whole catalogue of ceremonies—ceremonies of Initiation, 
 by which the novice should learn to keep within the good 
 grace of the Powers, and under the blessing of his Tribe 
 
228 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 and the protection of its Totem ; ceremonies of Eucharistic 
 meals which should restore the lost sanctity of the common 
 life and remove the sense of guilt and isolation ; ceremonies 
 of Marriage and rules and rites of sex-connexion, fitted to 
 curb the terrific and demonic violence of passions which 
 else indeed might easily rend the community asunder. 
 And so on. It is easy to see that granted an early stage 
 of simple unreflecting nature-consciousness, and granting 
 this broken into and, after a time, shattered by the arrival 
 of self -consciousness there would necessarily follow in 
 spontaneous yet logical order a whole series of religious 
 institutions and beliefs, which phantasmal and unreal 
 as they may appear to us, were by no means unreal to our 
 ancestors. It is easy also to see that as the psychological 
 process was necessarily of similar general character in every 
 branch of the human race and all over the world, so the 
 religious evolutions—the creeds and rituals—took on much 
 the same complexion everywhere ; and, though they differed 
 in details according to climate and other influences, ran 
 on such remarkably parallel lines as we have noted. 
 
 Finally, to make the whole matter clear, let me repeat 
 that this event, the inbreak of Self-consciousness, took 
 place, or began to take place, an enormous time ago, perhaps 
 in the beginning of the Neolithic Age. I dwell on the word 
 “ began ” because I think it is probable that in its beginnings, 
 and for a long period after, this newborn consciousness 
 had an infantile and very innocent character, quite different 
 from its later and more aggressive forms—just as we see 
 self-consciousness in a little child has a charm and a grace 
 which it loses later in a boastful or grasping boyhood and 
 manhood. So we may understand that though self- 
 consciousness may have begun to appear in the human 
 race at this very early time (and more or less contempor¬ 
 aneously with the invention of very rude tools and unformed 
 language), there probably did elapse a very long period— 
 perhaps the whole of the Neolithic Age—before the evils 
 
THE MEANING OF IT ALL 
 
 229 
 
 of this second stage of human evolution came to a head. 
 Max Muller has pointed out that among the words which 
 are common to the various branches of Aryan language, 
 and which therefore belong to the very early period before 
 the separation of these branches, there are not found the 
 words denoting war and conflict and the weapons and 
 instruments of strife—a fact which suggests a long con¬ 
 tinuance of peaceful habit among mankind after the first 
 formation and use of language. 
 
 That the birth of language and the birth of self-con¬ 
 sciousness were approximately simultaneous is a probable 
 theory, and one favoured by many thinkers ; 1 but the 
 slow beginnings of both must have been so very protracted 
 that it is perhaps useless to attempt any very exact deter¬ 
 mination. Late researches seem to show that language 
 began in what might be called tribal expressions of mood 
 and feeling ( holophrases like “ go-hunting-kill-bear ”) with¬ 
 out reference to individual personalities and relationships ; 
 and that it was only at a later stage that words like “ I ” 
 and “ Thou ” came into use, and the holophrases broke up 
 into “parts of speech” and took on a definite grammatical 
 structure. 2 If true, these facts point clearly to a long 
 foreground of rude communal language, something like 
 though greatly superior to that of the animals, preceding 
 or preparing the evolution of Self-consciousness proper, 
 in the forms of " I ” and “ Thou ” and the grammar of 
 personal actions and relations. “ They show that the 
 plural and all other forms of number in grammar arise not 
 by multiplication of an original ‘ 1/ but by selection and 
 
 1 Dr. Bucke ( Cosmic Consciousness ) insists on their simultaneity, 
 but places both events excessively far back, as we should think, i.e. 
 200,000 or 300,000 years ago. Possibly he does not differentiate 
 sufficiently between the rude language of the holophrase and the 
 much later growth of formed and grammatical speech. 
 
 2 See A. E. Crawley’s Idea of the Soul, ch. ii; Jane Harrison’s 
 Themis, pp. 473-5 ; and E. J. Payne’s History of the New World called 
 America, vol. ii, pp. 115 sq., where the beginning of self-consciousness 
 is associated with the break-up of the holophrase. 
 
230 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 gradual exclusion from an original collective ' we.’ Accor- 
 ing to this view the birth of self-consciousness in the human 
 family, or in any particular race or section of the human 
 family, must have been equally slow and hesitating ; and 
 it would be easy to imagine, as just said, that there may 
 have been a very long and ‘ golden ' period at its beginning, 
 before the new consciousness took on its maturer and 
 harsher forms. 
 
 All estimates of the Time involved in these evolutions 
 of early man are notoriously most divergent and most 
 difficult to be sure of ; but if we take 500,000 years ago 
 for the first appearance of veritable Man (homo primi- 
 genius ), 3 and (following Professor W. J. Sollas )3 30,000 or 
 40,000 years ago for the first tool-using men (homo sapiens) 
 of the Chellean Age (palaeolithic), 15,000 for the rock- 
 paintings and inscriptions of the Aurignacian and Magdale- 
 nian peoples, and 5,000 years ago for the first actual his¬ 
 torical records that have come down to us, we may perhaps 
 get something like a proportion between the different 
 periods. That is to say, half a million years for the purely 
 animal man in his different forms and grades of evolution. 
 Then somewhere towards the end of palaeolithic or com- 
 . mencement of neolithic times Self-consciousness dimly 
 beginning and, after some 10,000 years of slow germination 
 and pre-historic culture, culminating in the actual historic 
 period and the dawn of civilisation 40 or 50 centuries ago, 
 and to-day (we hope), reaching the climax which precedes 
 or foretells its abatement and transformation. 
 
 No doubt many geologists and anthropologists would 
 favour periods greatly longer than those here mentioned ; 
 but possibly there would be some agreement as to the ratio 
 
 1 Themis, p. 471. 
 
 3 Though Dr. Arthur Keith, Ancient Types of Man (1911), pp. 93 
 and 102, puts the figure at more like a million. 
 
 3 See Ancient Hunters (1915) ; also Hastings’s Encycl. art. “ Ethno¬ 
 logy ” and Havelock Ellis, “ The Origin of War,” in The Philosophy 
 of Conflict and other Essays. 
 
231 
 
 THE MEANING OF IT ALL 
 
 to each other of the times concerned : that is, the said 
 authorities would probably allow for a very long animal- 
 man 1 period corresponding to the first stage ; for a much 
 shorter aggressively ‘ self conscious ’ period, corresponding 
 to the Second Stage—perhaps lasting only one thiitieth 
 or fiftieth of the time of the first period ; and then—-if 
 they looked forward at all to a third stage—would be inclined 
 for obvious reasons to attribute to that again a veiy extended 
 duration. 
 
 However, all this is very speculative. To return to the 
 difficulty about Language and the consideration of those 
 early times when words adequate to the expression of 
 religious or magical ideas simply did not exist, it is clear 
 that the only available, or at any rate the chief means of 
 expression, in those tinies, must have consisted in gestures, 
 in attitudes, in ceremonial actions —in a more or less elaborate 
 ritual, in fact.* Such ideas as Adoration, Thanksgiving, 
 confession of Guilt, placation of Wrath, Expiation, Saciifice, 
 Celebration of Community, sacramental Atonement, and 
 a score of others could at that time be expressed by appro¬ 
 priate rites—and as a matter of fact are often so expressed 
 even now —more readily and directly than by language. 
 ‘ Dancing ’—when that word came to be invented—did 
 not mean a mere flinging about of the hmbs in recreation, 
 but any expressive movements of the body which might be 
 used to convey the feelings of the dancer or of the audience 
 whom he represented. And so the ‘ religious dance became 
 a most important part of ritual. 
 
 So much for the second stage of Consciousness. Let us 
 now pass on to the Third Stage. It is evident that the 
 process of disruption and dissolution—disruption both of 
 
 1 i U se the phrase ‘ animal-man ’ here, not with any flavour of 
 contempt or reprobation, as the dear Victorians would have used 
 it, but with a sense of genuine respect and admiration such as one 
 feels towards the animals themselves. 
 
 2 See supra, ch. ix, pp. 147, 148 and xi, pp. 165, 166. 
 
232 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 the human mind, and of society round about it, due to the 
 action of the Second Stage—could not go on indefinitely. 
 There aie hundreds of thousands of people at the present 
 moment who are dying of mental or bodily disease—their 
 nervous systems broken down by troubles connected with 
 excessive self-consciousness—selfish fears and worries and 
 restlessness. Society at large is perishing both in industry 
 and in warfare through the domination in its organism of 
 the self-motives of greed and vanity and ambition. This 
 cannot go on for ever. Things must either continue in 
 the same strain, in which case it is evident that we are 
 approaching a crisis of utter dissolution, oy a new element 
 must enter in, a new inspiration of life, and we (as individuals) 
 and the society of which we form a part, must make a fresh 
 
 stait. What is that new and necessary element of regenera¬ 
 tion ? 
 
 It is evident that it must be a new birth—the entry 
 into a further stage of consciousness which must supersede 
 the present one. Through some such crisis as we have 
 spoken of, through the extreme of suffering, the mind of 
 Man, us ut pyesent constituted , has to die. 1 2 Self-consciousness 
 has to die, and be buried, and rise again in a new form. 
 Probably nothing but the extreme of suffering can bring 
 this about.^ And what is this new form in which con¬ 
 sciousness has to rearise ? Obviously, since the miseries of 
 the world during countless centuries have dated from that 
 fatal attempt to make the little personal self the centre of 
 effort and activity, and since that attempt has inevitably led 
 to disunity and discord and death, both within the mind itself 
 and within the body of society, there is nothing left but 
 the return to a Consciousness which shall have Unity as 
 its foundation-principle, and which shall proceed from the 
 
 1 " The mind must be restrained in the heart till it comes to an 
 end,” says the Maitrayana-Brahmana-Upanishad. 
 
 2 One may remember in this connexion the tapas of the Hindu 
 yogi, or the oi deals of initiates into the pagan Mysteries generally. 
 
THE MEANING OF IT ALL 
 
 233 
 
 direct sense and perception of such an unity throughout 
 creation. The simple mind of Early Man and the Animals 
 was of that character—a consciousness, so to speak, con¬ 
 tinuous through nature, and though running to points of 
 illumination and foci of special activity in individuals, yet 
 at no point essentially broken or imprisoned in separate 
 compartments. (And it is this continuity of the primitive 
 mind which enables us, as I have already explained, to 
 understand the mysterious workings of instinct and intui¬ 
 tion.) To some such unity-consciousness we have to 
 return ; but clearly it will not be—it is not—of the simple 
 inchoate character of the First Stage, for it has been en¬ 
 riched, deepened, and greatly extended by the experience 
 of the Second Stage. It is in fact, a new order of mentality 
 —the consciousness of the Third Stage. 
 
 In order to understand the operation and qualities of 
 this Third Consciousness, it may be of assistance just now 
 to consider in what more or less rudimentary way or ways 
 it figured in the pagan rituals and in Christianity. We 
 have seen the rude Siberyaks in North-Eastern Asia or 
 the c Grizzly ’ tribes of North American Indians in the 
 neighborhood of Mount Shasta paying their respects and 
 adoration to a captive bear—at once the food-animal, 
 and the divinity of the Tribe. A tribesman had slain a 
 bear—and, be it said, had slain it not in a public hunt 
 with all due ceremonies observed, but privately for his 
 own satisfaction. He had committed, therefore, a sin 
 theoretically unpardonable ; for had he not—to gratify 
 his personal desire for food—levelled a blow at the guardian 
 spirit of the Tribe ? Had he not alienated himself from 
 his fellows by destroying its very symbol ? There was 
 only one way by which he could regain the fellowship of 
 his companions. He must make amends by some public 
 sacrifice, and instead of retaining the flesh of the animal 
 for himself he must share it with the whole tribe (or clan) 
 
234 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 in a common feast, while at the same time, tensest prayers 
 and thanks are offered to the animal for the gift of his body 
 for food. The Magic formula demanded nothing less than 
 this—else dread disaster would fall upon the man who sinned, 
 and upon the whole brotherhood. Here, and in a hundred 
 similar rites, we see the three phases of tribal psychology—- 
 the first, in which the individual member simply remains 
 within the compass of the tribal mind, and only acts in 
 harmony with it ; the second, in which the individual 
 steps outside and to gratify his personal self performs an 
 action which alienates him from his fellows ; and the third, 
 in which, to make amends and to prove his sincerity, he 
 submits to some sacrifice, and by a common feast or some 
 such ceremony is received back again into the unity of 
 the fellowship. The body of the animal-divinity is con¬ 
 sumed, and the latter becomes, both in the spirit and in 
 the flesh, the Saviour of the tribe. 
 
 In course of time, when the Totem or Guardian-spirit 
 is no longer merely an Animal, or animal-headed Genius, 
 but a quite human-formed Divinity, still the same general 
 outline of ideas is preserved—only with gathered intensity 
 owing to the specially human interest of the drama. The 
 Divinity who gives his life for his flock is no longer just 
 an ordinary Bull or Lamb, but Adonis or Osiris or Dionysus 
 or Jesus. He is betrayed by one of his own followers, and 
 suffers death, but rises again redeeming all with himself 
 in the one fellowship ; and the corn and the wine and the 
 wild flesh which were his body, and which he gave for the 
 sustenance of mankind, are consumed in a holy supper 
 of reconciliation. It is always the return to unity which 
 is the ritual of Salvation, and of which the symbol is the 
 Eucharist—the second birth, the formation of “ a new 
 creature when old things are passed away.” For “ Except 
 a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God ” ; 
 and “ the first man is of the earth, earthy, but the second 
 man is the Lord from heaven.” Like a strange refrain, 
 
THE MEANING OF IT ALL 
 
 235 
 
 and from centuries before our era, comes down this belief 
 in a god who is imprisoned in each man, and whose libera¬ 
 tion is a new birth and the beginning of a new creature : 
 
 “ Rejoice, ye initiates in the mystery of the liberated god ” 
 —rejoice in the thought of the hero who died as a mortal 
 in the coffin, but rises again as Lord of all! 
 
 Who then was this “ Christos ” for whom the world 
 was waiting three centuries before our era (and indeed 
 centuries before that) ? Who was this “ thrice Saviour 
 whom the Greek Gnostics acclaimed ? What was the 
 meaning of that ‘ 'coming of the Son of Man ” whom Daniel 
 beheld in vision among the clouds of heaven ? or of the 
 “ perfect man ” who, Paul declared, should deliver us 
 from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty 
 of the children of God ? What was this salvation which 
 time after time and times again the pagan deities promised 
 to their devotees, and which the Eleusinian and other 
 Mysteries represented in their religious dramas with such 
 convincing enthusiasm that even Pindar could say “ Happy 
 is he who has seen them (the Mysteries) before he goes 
 beneath the hollow earth : that man knows the true end 
 of life and its source divine ”; and concerning which 
 Sophocles and Aeschylus were equally enthusiastic ? 1 
 
 Can we doubt, in the light of all that we have already 
 said, what the answer to these questions is ? As with 
 the first blossoming of self-consciousness in the human 
 mind came the dawn of an immense cycle of experience— 
 a cycle indeed of exile from Eden, of suffering and toil 
 and blind wanderings in the wilderness, yet a cycle absolutely 
 necessary and unavoidable—so now the redemption, the 
 return, the restoration has to come through another forward 
 step, in the same domain. Abandoning the quest and the 
 glorification of the separate isolated self we have to return 
 to the cosmic universal life. It is the blossoming indeed 
 
 1 See Parnell's Cults of the Greek States, vol. iii, p. 194 ; also The 
 Mysteries, Pagan and Christian, by S. Cheetham, D.D. (London, 1897). 
 
236 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 of this ‘ new ’ life in the deeps of our minds which is salvation, 
 and which all the expressions which I have just cited have 
 indicated. It is this presence which all down the ages 
 has been hailed as Saviour and Liberator: the daybreak of a 
 consciousness so much vaster, so much more glorious, than 
 all that has gone before that the little candle of the local self 
 is swallowed up in its rays. It is the return home, the 
 ieturn into diiect touch with Nature and Man—the libera¬ 
 tion from the long exile of separation, from the painful 
 sense of isolation and the odious nightmare of guilt and 
 sin. Can we doubt that this new birth—this third stage 
 of consciousness, if we like to call it so—has to come, that 
 it is indeed not merely a pious hope or a tentative theory, 
 but a fact testified to already by a cloud of witnesses in 
 the past witnesses shining in their own easily recognisable 
 and authentic light, yet for the most part isolated from 
 each other among the arid and unfruitful wastes of Civilisa¬ 
 tion, like glow-worms in the dry grass of a summer night ? 
 
 Since the first dim evolution of human self-consciousness 
 an immense period, as we have said—perhaps 30,000 years, 
 peihaps even more has elapsed. Now, in the present 
 day this period is reaching its culmination, and though 
 it will not terminate immediately, its end is, so to speak, 
 m sight. Meanwhile, during all the historical age behind 
 us -say for the last 4,000 or 5,000 years—evidence has been 
 coming in (partly in the religious rites recorded, partly 
 in oracles, poems and prophetic literature) of the onset 
 of this fuither illumination —“ the light which never was 
 on sea or land and the cloud of witnesses, scattered 
 at first, has in these later centuries become so evident and 
 so notable that we are tempted to believe in or to anticipate 
 a gieat and general new birth, as now not so very far off. 1 
 [We should, however, do well to remember, in this con- 
 
 * For an amplification of all this theme, see Dr. Bucke’s remark¬ 
 able and epoch-making book, Cosmic Consciousness (first published 
 at Philadelphia, 1901). 
 
THE MEANING OF IT ALL 
 
 237 
 
 nexion, that many a time already in history the Millennium 
 has been prophesied, and yet not arrived punctual to date, 
 and to take to ourselves the words of ‘ Peter/ who somewhat 
 grievously disappointed at the long-delayed second coming 
 of the Lord Jesus in the clouds of heaven, wrote in his 
 second Epistle : “ There shall come in the last days scoffers, 
 walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the 
 promise of his coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep, all 
 things continue as they were from the beginning of the 
 creation.” 
 
 I say that all through the historical 1 age behind us there 
 has been evidence—even though scattered—of salvation 
 and the return of the Cosmic life. Man has never been so 
 completely submerged in the bitter sea of self-centredness 
 but what he has occasionally been able to dash the spray 
 from his eyes and glimpse the sun and the glorious light of 
 heaven. From how far back we cannot say, but from an 
 immense antiquity come the beautiful myths which indicate 
 this. 
 
 Cinderella, the cinder-maiden, sits unbeknown in her earthly 
 hutch; 
 
 Gibed and jeered at she bewails her lonely fate ; 
 
 Nevertheless youngest-born she surpasses her sisters and endues 
 a garment of the sun and stars ; 
 
 From a tiny spark she ascends and irradiates the universe, 
 and is wedded to the prince of heaven. 
 
 How lovely this vision of the little maiden sitting un¬ 
 beknown close to the Hearth-fire of the universe herself 
 indeed just a little spark from it ; despised and rejected ; 
 rejected by the world, despised by her two elder sisters 
 (the body and the intellect) ; yet she, the soul, though 
 latest-born, by far the most beautiful of the three. And of 
 the Prince of Love who redeems and sets her free; and of her 
 
 1 2 Peter iii. 4 ; written probably about a.d. 150, 
 
238 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 wedding-garment the glory and beauty of all nature and 
 of the heavens ! The parables of Jesus are charming in 
 theii way, but they hardly reach this height of inspiration. 
 
 Or the world-old myth of Eros and Psyche. How strange 
 that here again there are three sisters (the three stages of 
 human evolution), and the latest-born the most beautiful 
 of the three, and the jealousies and persecutions heaped 
 on the youngest by the others, and especially by Aphrodite 
 the goddess of mere sensual charm. And again the coming 
 of the unknown, the unseen Lover, on whom it is not per¬ 
 mitted for mortals to look j and the long, long tests and 
 sufferings and trials which Psyche has to undergo before 
 Eros may really take her to his arms and translate her to 
 the heights of heaven. Can we not imagine how when 
 these things were represented in the Mysteries the world 
 flocked to see them, and the poets indeed said, “ Happy 
 are they that see and seeing can understand ? ” Can we 
 not understand how it was that the Amphictyonic decree 
 of the second century b.c. spoke of these same Mysteries 
 as enforcing the lesson that " the greatest of human blessings 
 is fellowship and mutual trust ” ? 
 
XV 
 
 THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES 
 
 Thus we come to a thing which we must not pass over, 
 because it throws great light on the meaning and interpreta¬ 
 tion of all these rites and ceremonies of the great World- 
 religion. I mean the subject of the Ancient Mysteries. 
 And to this I will give a few pages. 
 
 These Mysteries were probably survivals of the oldest 
 religious rites of the Greek races, and in their earlier forms 
 consisted not so much in worship of the gods of Heaven 
 as of the divinities of Earth, and of Nature and Death. 
 Crude, no doubt, at first, they gradually became (especially 
 in their Eleusinian form) more refined and philosophical; the 
 rites were gradually thrown open, on certain conditions, not 
 only to men generally, but also to women, and even to 
 slaves ; and in the end they influenced Christianity deeply. 1 
 
 There were apparently three forms of teaching made 
 use of in these rites : these were Xtyo/utva, things said ; 
 Stzucvvfieva, things shown ; and things per¬ 
 
 formed or acted? I have given already some instances 
 of things said—texts whispered for consolation in the 
 neophyte’s ear, and so forth ; of the third group, things 
 enacted, we have a fair amount of evidence. There were 
 
 1 See Edwin Hatch, D.D., The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages 
 on the Christian Church (London, 1890), pp. 283-5. 
 
 2 Cheetham, op. cit ., pp. 49-61 sq. 
 
 239 
 
240 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 ritual dramas or passion-plays, of which an important 
 one dealt with the descent of Kore or Proserpine into the 
 underworld, as in the Eleusinian representations, 1 and her 
 redemption and restoration to the upper world in Spring ) 
 another with the sufferings of Psyche and her rescue by 
 Eros, as described by Apuleius himself an initiate in the 
 cult of Isis. There is a parody by Lucian, which tells 
 of the birth of Apollo, the marriage of Coronis, and the 
 coming of Aesculapius as Saviour; there was the dying 
 and rising again of Dionysus (chief divinity of the Orphic 
 cult) ; and sometimes the mystery of the birth of Dionysus 
 as a holy child .3 There was, every year at Eleusis, a 
 solemn and lengthy procession or pilgrimage made, symbolic 
 of the long pilgrimage of the human soul, its sufferings 
 and deliverance. 
 
 Almost always, says Dr. Cheetham, “ the suffering 
 of a god suffering followed by triumph—seems to have 
 been the subject of the sacred drama.” Then occasionally 
 to the Neophytes, after taking part in the pilgrimage, 
 and when their minds had been prepared by an ordeal of 
 darkness and fatigue and terrors, was accorded a revelation 
 of Paradise, and even a vision of I ransfiguration—the form 
 of the Hierophant himself, or teacher of the Mysteries, 
 being seen half-lost in a blaze of light.4 Finally, there 
 was the eating of food and drinking of barley-drink from 
 the sacred chest 5 —a kind of Communion or Eucharist. 
 
 1 See Farnell, op. cit., iii. i 5 8 sq. 
 
 2 See The Golden Ass. 
 
 3 Farnell, iii. 177. 4 Ibidt> lyg sq . 
 
 5 Ibid., 186. Sacred chests, in which holy things were kept, figure 
 frequently m early rites and legends—as in the case of the ark of 
 the Jewish tabernacle, the ark or box carried in celebrations of the 
 mysteries of Bacchus (Theocritus, Idyll xxvi), the legend of Pan¬ 
 dora s box which contained the seeds of all good and evil, the ark 
 of Noah which saved all living creatures from the flood, the Argo 
 of the argonauts, the moonshaped boat in which Isis floating over 
 the waters gathered together the severed limbs of Osiris, and so 
 brought about his resurrection, and the many chests or coffins out 
 
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES 
 
 241 
 
 Apuleius in The Golden Ass gives an interesting account 
 of his induction into the mysteries of Isis : how, bidding 
 farewell one evening to the general congregation outside, 
 and clothed in a new linen garment, he was handed by 
 the priest into the inner recesses of the temple itself; how 
 he “ approached the confines of death, and having trod 
 on the threshold of Proserpine (the Underworld), returned 
 therefrom, being borne through all the elements. At 
 midnight I saw the sun shining with its brilliant light : 
 and I approached the presence of the Gods beneath and 
 the Gods above, and stood near and worshipped them. ,, 
 During the night things happened which must not be 
 disclosed ; but in the morning he came forth “ consecrated 
 by being dressed in twelve stoles painted with the figures 
 of animals.” 1 He ascended a pulpit in the midst of the 
 Temple, carrying in his right hand a burning torch, while 
 a chaplet encircled his head, from which palm-leaves pro¬ 
 jected like rays of light. “ Thus arrayed like the Sun , 
 and placed so as to resemble a statue, on a sudden, the 
 curtains being drawn aside, I was exposed to the gaze of 
 the multitude. After this I celebrated the most joyful 
 day of my initiation, as my natal day [day of the New 
 Birth] and there was a joyous banquet and mirthful con¬ 
 versation.” 
 
 One can hardly refuse to recognise in this account the 
 
 description of some kind of ceremony which was supposed 
 
 to seal the illumination of a man and his new birth into 
 
 divinity—the animal origin, the circling of all experience, 
 
 the terrors of death, and the resurrection in the form of 
 
 of which the various gods (Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Jesus), having been 
 laid there in death, rose again for the redemption of the world. They 
 all evidently refer to the mystic womb of Nature and of Woman, 
 and are symbols of salvation and redemption. (For a full discussion 
 of this subject, see The Great Law of religious origins, by W. Williamson, 
 ch. iv.) 
 
 1 An allusion no doubt to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, the path¬ 
 way of the Sun, as well as to the practice of the ancient priests of 
 wearing the skins of totem-animals in sign of their divinity. 
 
 16 
 
242 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 the Sun, the symbol of all light and life. The very word 
 “ illumination ” carries the ideas of light and a new birth 
 with it. Reitzenstein in his very interesting book on the 
 Greek Mysteries 1 speaks over and over again of the illu¬ 
 mination (< pwTKTfiog ) which was held to attend Initiation 
 and Salvation. The doctrine of Salvation indeed (< jtorrip'ia ) 
 was, as we have already seen, rife and widely current in 
 the Second Century b.c. It represented a real experience, 
 and the man who shared this experience became a Ouoq 
 avOpwnog or divine man. 2 3 4 In the Orphic Tablets the 
 phrase “ I am a child of earth and the starry heaven, but 
 my race is of heaven (alone) ” occurs more than once. 
 In one of the longest of them the dead man is instructed 
 “ after he has passed the waters (of Lethe) where the white 
 Cypress and the House of Hades are ” to address these 
 very words to the guardians of the Lake of Memory while 
 he asks for a drink of cold water from that Lake. In 
 another the dead person himself is thus addressed : “ Hail, 
 thou who hast endured the Suffering, such as indeed thou 
 hadst never suffered before ; thou hast become god from 
 man ! ” 3 Ecstasy was the acme of the religious life ; and, 
 what is especially interesting to us, Salvation or the divine 
 nature was open to all men—to all, that is, who should go 
 through the necessary stages of preparation for it.4 
 
 Reitzenstein contends (p. 26) that in the Mysteries, 
 transfiguration (/uerafxop<p(omc;), salvation (o-wrrjpta), and 
 new birth (7 raXiyysveafa) were often conjoined. He says 
 
 1 Die hellenistischen Mystevien-Religionen, by R. Reitzenstein, 
 Leipzig, 1910. 
 
 2 Reitzenstein, p. 12. 
 
 3 These Tablets (so-called) are instructions to the dead as to their 
 passage into the other world, and have been found in the tombs, 
 in Italy and elsewhere, inscribed on very thin gold plates and buried 
 with the departed. See Manual of Greek Antiquities by Percy Gardner 
 and F. B. Jevons (1893) ; also Prolegomena to Greek Religion by Jane 
 E. Harrison (1903). 
 
 4 Reitzenstein pp. 15 and 18 ; also S. J. Case, Evolution of Early 
 Christianity, p. 301. 
 
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES 
 
 243 
 
 (p- 3 J )> that in the Egyptian Osiris-cult, the Initiate acquires 
 a nature “ equal to God " (lctoOeoq), the very same ex¬ 
 pression as that used of Christ Jesus in Philippians ii. 6 ; 
 he mentions Apollonius of Tyana and Sergius Paulus as 
 instances of men who by their contemporaries were con¬ 
 sidered to have attained this nature ; and he quotes Akh- 
 naton (Pharaoh of Egypt in 1375 b.c.) as having said, 
 “ Thou art in my heart; none other knows Thee, save thy 
 son Akhnaton ; Thou hast initiated him into thy wisdom 
 and into thy power/' He also quotes the words of Hermes 
 (Trismegistus)—“ Come unto Me, even as children to their 
 mother's bosom : Thou art I, and I am Thou ; what is 
 thine is mine, and what is mine is thine ; for indeed I am 
 thine image (aSwAov)," and refers to the dialogue between 
 Hermes and Tat, in which they speak of the great and 
 mystic New Birth and Union with the All—with all Elements, 
 Plants and Animals, Time and Space. 
 
 “ The Mysteries," says Dr. Cheetham very candidly, 
 “ influenced Christianity considerably and modified it in 
 some important respects " ; and Dr. Hatch, as we have 
 seen, not only supports this general view, but follows it 
 out in detail. 1 He points out that the membership of the 
 Mystery-societies was very numerous in the earliest times, 
 a.d. ; that their general aims were good, including a sense 
 of true religion, decent life, and brotherhood; that 
 cleanness from crime and confession were demanded from 
 the neophyte ; that confession was followed by baptism 
 ( KaOapaig ) and that by sacrifice ; that the term ^amayxae 
 (illumination) was adopted by the Christian Church as 
 the name for the new birth' of baptism ; that the Christian 
 usage of placing a seal on the forehead came from the same 
 source ; that baptism itself after a time was called a mystery 
 (fivartipLov) ; that the sacred cakes and barley-drink of 
 the Mysteries became the milk and honey and bread and 
 wine of the first Christian Eucharists, and that the occasional 
 1 See Hatch, op. cit., pp. 290 sq. 
 
244 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 sacrifice of a lamb on the Christian altar (“ whose mention 
 is often suppressed ”) probably originated in the satne way. 
 Indeed, the conception of the communion-table as an altar 
 and many other points of ritual gradually established them¬ 
 selves from these sources as time went on. 1 It is hardly 
 necessary to say more in proof of the extent to which in 
 these ancient representations “ things said ” and “ scenes 
 enacted ” forestalled the doctrines and ceremonials of 
 Christianity. 
 
 But what of the second group above-mentioned, the 
 “ things shown ”7 It is not so easy naturally to get exact 
 information concerning these, but they seem to have been 
 specially holy objects, probably things connected with 
 very ancient rituals in the past—such as sacred stones, 
 old and rude images of the gods, magic nature-symbols, 
 like that half-disclosed ear of corn above-mentioned (Ch. 
 V, supra). “ In the Temple of Isis at Philae,” says Dr. 
 Cheetham, “ the dead body of Osiris is represented with 
 stalks of corn springing from it, which a priest waters from 
 a vessel. An inscription says : ‘ This is the form of him 
 whom we may not name, Osiris of the Mysteries who sprang 
 from the returning waters ’ [the Nile].” Above all, no doubt, 
 there were images of the phallus and the vulva, the great 
 symbols of human fertility. We have seen (Ch. XII) 
 that the lingam and the yoni are, even down to to-day, 
 commonly retained and honoured as holy objects in the 
 S. Indian Temples, and anointed with oil (some of them) 
 for a very practical reason. Sir J. G. Frazer, in his lately 
 published volumes on The Folk-lore of the Old Testament, 
 has a chapter (in vol. ii) on the very numerous sacred stones 
 of various shapes and sizes found or spoken of in Palestine 
 and other parts of the world. Though uncertain as to the 
 meaning of these stones he mentions that they are “ fre- 
 
 1 See Dionysius Areop. (end of fifth century), who describes the 
 Christian rites generally in Mystery language (Hatch, 296). 
 
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES 
 
 245 
 
 quently, though not always, upright” Anointing them with 
 oil, he assures us, “ is a widespread practice, sometimes by 
 women who wish to obtain children/’ And he concludes 
 the chapter by saying : “ The holy stone at Bethel was 
 probably one of those massive standing stones or rough 
 pillars which the Hebrews called masseboth, and which, 
 as we have seen, were regular adjuncts of Canaanite and 
 early Israelitish sanctuaries/’ We have already mentioned 
 the pillars Jachin and Boaz which stood before the Temple 
 of Solomon, and which had an acknowledged sexual signifi¬ 
 cance ; and so it seems probable that a great number of 
 these holy stones had a similar meaning. 1 Following this 
 clue it would appear likely that the lingam thus anointed 
 and worshiped in the Temples of India and elsewhere is 
 the original rro^, 2 3 adored by the human race from the 
 very beginning, and that at a later time, when the 
 Priest and the King, as objects of worship, took the place 
 of the Lingam, they also were anointed with the chrism of 
 fertility. That the exhibition of these emblems should 
 be part of the original ‘ Mystery ’-rituals was perfectly 
 natural—especially because, as we have explained already,3 
 old customs often continued on in a quite naive fashion 
 in the rituals, when they had come to be thought indecent 
 or improper by a later public opinion ; and (we may say) 
 was perfectly in order, because there is plenty of evidence to 
 show that in savage initiations, of which the Mysteries were 
 the linear descendants, all these things were explained to 
 
 1 F. Nork, Der Mystagog, mentions that the Roman Penates 
 were commonly anointed with oil. J. Stuart Hay, in his Life of 
 Elagabalus (1911), says that “ Elagabal was worshipped under the 
 symbol of a great black stone or meteorite, in the shape of a Phallus, 
 which having fallen from the heavens represented a true portion of 
 the Godhead, much after the style of those black stone images popu¬ 
 larly venerated in Norway and other parts of Europe.” 
 
 2 J. E. Hewitt, in his Riding Races of Pre-historic Times (p. 64), 
 gives a long list of pre-historic races who worshiped the lingam. 
 
 3 See Ch. XI, p. 171. 
 
246 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 the novices, and their use actually taught. 1 No doubt also 
 there were some representations or dramatic incidents of 
 a fairly coarse character, as deriving from these ancient 
 sources. 2 It is, however, quaint to observe how the mere 
 mention of such things has caused an almost hysterical 
 commotion among the critics of the Mysteries—from the 
 day of the early Christians who (in order to belaud their 
 own religion) were never tired of abusing the Pagans, on¬ 
 ward to the present day when modern scholars either on 
 the one hand follow the early Christians in representing 
 the Mysteries as sinks of iniquity or on the other (knowing 
 this charge could not be substantiated except in the period 
 of their final decadence) take the line of ignoring the sexual 
 interest attaching to them as non-existent or at any rate 
 unworthy of attention. The good Archdeacon Cheetham, 
 for instance, while writing an interesting book on the Mys¬ 
 teries, passes by this side of the subject almost as if it did 
 not exist ; while the learned Dr. Farnell, overcome appar¬ 
 ently by the weight of his learning, and unable to confront 
 the alarming obstacle presented by these sexual rites and 
 aspects, hides himself behind the rather non-committal 
 remark (speaking of the Eleusinian rites) “ we have no 
 right to imagine any part of this solemn ceremony as coarse 
 or obscene.” 3 As Nature, however, has been known (quite 
 
 1 See Ernest Crawley’s Mystic Rose, ch. xiii, pp. 310 and 313 : 
 “ In certain tribes of Central Africa both boys and girls after initiation 
 must as soon as possible have intercourse.” Initiation being not 
 merely preliminary to, but often actually marriage. The same among 
 Kaffirs, Congo tribes, Senegalese, etc. Also among the Arunta of 
 Australia. 
 
 2 Professor Diederichs has said that “ in much ancient ritual it 
 was thought that mystic communion with the deity could be obtained 
 through the semblance of sex-intercourse—as in the Attis-Cybele 
 worship, and the Isis-ritual.” (Farnell.) Reitzenstein says {op. cit., 
 p. 20) that the Initiates, like some of the Christian Nuns at a later 
 time, believed in union with God through receiving the seed. 
 
 3 Farnell, op. cit., iii. 176. Messrs. Gardner and Jevons, in their 
 Manual oj Greek Antiquities, above-quoted, compare the Eleusinian 
 Mysteries favorably with some of the others, like the Arcadian, the 
 
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES 
 
 247 
 
 frequently) to be coarse or obscene, and as the initiators 
 of the Mysteries were probably neither ' good 5 nor * learned/ 
 but were simply anxious to interpret Nature as best they 
 could, we cannot find fault with the latter for the way 
 they handled the problem, nor indeed well see how they 
 could have handled it better. 
 
 After all it is pretty clear that the early peoples saw 
 in Sex the great cohesive force which kept (we will not say 
 Humanity but at any rate) the Tribe together, and sus¬ 
 tained the race. In the stage of simple Consciousness this 
 must have been one of the first things that the budding 
 intellect perceived. Sex became one of the earliest divinities, 
 and there is abundant evidence that its organs and processes 
 generally were invested with a religious sense of awe and 
 sanctity. It was in fact the symbol (or rather the actuality) 
 of the permanent undying life of the race, and as such was 
 sacred to the uses of the race. Whatever taboos may have, 
 among different peoples, guarded its operations, it was not 
 essentially a thing to be concealed, or ashamed of. Rather 
 the contrary. For instance the early Christian writer, 
 Hippolytus, Bishop of Pontus ( a . d . 200), in his Refutation 
 of all Heresies , Book V, says that the Samothracian Mys¬ 
 teries, just mentioned, celebrate Adam as the primal or 
 archetypal Man eternal in the heavens ; and he then con¬ 
 tinues <( Habitually there stand in the temple of the 
 Samothracians two images of naked men having both hands 
 stretched aloft towards heaven, and their pudenda turned 
 upwards, as is also the case with the statue of Mercury 
 on Mt. Cyllene. And the aforesaid images are figures of 
 the primal man, and of that spiritual one that is born again, 
 in every respect of the same substance with that [hist] 
 man.” 
 
 Troezenian, the ^Eginsean, and the very primitive Samothracian : 
 saying (p. 278) that of the last-mentioned “ we know little, but safely 
 conjecture that in them the ideas of sex and procreation dominated 
 even more than in those of Eleusis.” 
 
248 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 This extract from Hippolytus occurs in the long discourse 
 in which he ' exposes ’ the heresy of the so-called Naassene 
 doctiines and mysteries. But the whole discourse should 
 be read by those who wish to understand the Gnostic philo¬ 
 sophy of the period contemporary with and anterior to the 
 birth of Christianity. A translation of the discourse, care¬ 
 fully analysed and annotated, is given in G. R. S. Mead’s 
 Thrice-greatest Hermes 1 (vol. i) ; and Mead himself, speaking 
 of it, says (p. 141) ^ Ihe claim of these Gnostics was 
 practically that the good news of the Christ [the Christos] 
 was the consummation of the inner doctrine of the Mystery- 
 institutions of all the nations \ the end of them all being 
 the revelation of the Mystery of Man.” Further, he explains 
 that the Soul, in these doctrines, was regarded as synonymous 
 with the Cause of All; and that its loves were twain—of 
 Aphrodite (or Life), and of Persephone (or Death and the 
 other world). Also that Attis, abandoning his sex in the 
 worship of the Mother-Goddess (Dea Syria), ascends to 
 Heaven—a new man, Male-female, and the origin of all 
 things: the hidden Mystery being the Phallus itself, 
 erected as Hermes in all roads and boundaries and temples, 
 the Conductor and Reconductor of Souls. 
 
 All this may sound strange, but one may fairly say that 
 it represented in its degree, and in that first ‘ unfallen ' stage 
 of human thought and psychology, a true conception of the 
 cosmic Life, and indeed a conception quite sensible and 
 admirable, until, of course, the Second Stage brought 
 corruption. No sooner was this great force of the cosmic 
 life diverted from its true uses of Generation and Regenera¬ 
 tion, 2 and appropriated by the individual to his own private 
 pleasure—no sooner was its religious character as a tribal 
 
 1 Reitzenstein, op. cit., quotes the discourse largely. The Thrice- 
 greatest Hermes may also be consulted for a translation of Plutarch’s 
 Isis and Osiris. 
 
 2 For the special meaning of these two terms, see The Drama of 
 Love and Death, by E. Carpenter, pp. 59-61. 
 
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES 
 
 249 
 
 service 1 (often rendered within the Temple precincts) lost 
 sight of or degraded into a commercial transaction—than 
 every kind of evil fell upon mankind. Conuptio optimi 
 pessima. It must be remembered too that simultaneous 
 with this sexual disruption occurred the disruption of 
 other human relations ; and we cease to be surprised that 
 disease and selfish passions, greed, jealousy, slander, cruelty, 
 and wholesale murder, raged—and have raged ever since. 
 
 But for the human soul—whatever its fate, and whatever 
 the dangers and disasters that threaten it—there is always 
 redemption waiting. As we saw in the last chapter, this 
 corruption of Sex led (quite naturally) to its denial and 
 rejection ; and its denial led to the differentiation from it 
 of Love. Humanity gained by the enthronement and 
 deification of Love, pure and undefiled, and (for the time 
 being) exalted beyond this mortal world, and free from all 
 earthly contacts. But again in the end, the divorce thus 
 introduced between the physical and the spiritual led to 
 the crippling of both. Love relegated, so to speak, to 
 heaven, as a purely philanthropical, pious and * spiritual ’ 
 affair, became exceedingly dull; and sex, remaining on 
 earth, but deserted by the redeeming presence, fell into 
 mere “ carnal curiosity and wretchlessness of unclean 
 living.” Obviously for the human race there remains 
 nothing, in the final event, but the reconciliation of the 
 physical and the spiritual, and after many sufferings, the 
 reunion of Eros and Psyche. 
 
 There is still, however, much to be said about the Third 
 State of Consciousness. Let us examine into it a little 
 
 1 Ernest Crawley in The Mystic Rose challenges this identification 
 of Religion with tribal interests ; yet his arguments are not very 
 convincing. On p. 5 he admits that “ there is a religious meaning 
 inherent in the primitive conception and practice of all human 
 relations ” ; and a large part of his ch. xii is taken up in showing that 
 even such institutions as the Saturnalia were religious in confirming 
 the sense of social union and leading to ‘ extended identity.’ 
 
250 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 more closely. Clearly, since it is a new state, and not 
 merely an extension of a former one, one cannot arrive 
 at it by argument derived from the Second state, for all 
 conscious Thought such as we habitually use simply keeps 
 us in the Second state. No animal or quite primitive man 
 could possibly understand what we mean by Self-conscious¬ 
 ness till he had experienced it. Mere argument would not 
 enlighten him. And so no one in the Second state can 
 quite realise the Third state till he has experienced it. 
 Still, explanations may help us to perceive in what direction 
 to look, and to recognise in some of our experiences an 
 approach to the condition sought. 
 
 Evidently it is a mental condition in some respects more 
 similar to the first than to the second stage. The second 
 stage of human psychologic evolution is an aberration, 
 a divorce, a parenthesis. With its culmination and dis¬ 
 missal the mind passes back into the simple state of union 
 with the Whole. (The state of Ekagratd in the Hindu 
 philosophy: one-pointedness, singleness of mind.) And 
 the consciousness of the Whole, and of things past and things 
 to come and things far around—which consciousness had 
 been shut out by the concentration on the local self—begins 
 to return again. This is not to say, of course, that the 
 excursus in the second stage has been a loss and a defect. 
 On the contrary, it means that the Return is a bringing 
 of all that has been gained during the period of exile (all 
 sorts of mental and technical knowledge and skill, emotional 
 developments, finesse and adaptability of mind) back 
 into harmony with the Whole. It means ultimately a 
 great gain. The Man, perfected, comes back to a vastly 
 extended harmony. He enters again into a real under¬ 
 standing and confidential relationship with his physical 
 body and with the body of the society in which he dwells 
 -—from both of which he has been sadly divorced ; and he 
 takes up again the broken thread of the Cosmic Life. 
 
 Everyone has noticed the extraordinary consent sometimes 
 
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES 
 
 251 
 
 observable among the members of an animal community— 
 how a flock of 500 birds (e.g. starlings) will suddenly change 
 its direction of flight—the light on the wings shifting in¬ 
 stantaneously, as if the impulse to veer came to all at the same 
 identical moment; or how bees will swarm or otherwise 
 act with one accord, or migrating creatures (lemmings, 
 deer, gossamer spiders, winged ants) the same. Whatever 
 explanation of these facts we favour—whether the possession 
 of swifter and finer means of external communication than 
 we can perceive, or whether a common and inner sensitivity 
 to the genius of the Tribe (the “ Spirit of the Hive ”) or 
 to the promptings of great Nature around—in any case 
 these facts of animal life appear to throw light on the 
 possibilities of an accord and consent among the members 
 of emancipated humanity, such as we little dream of now, 
 and seem to bid us have good hope for the future. 
 
 It is here, perhaps, that the ancient worship of the Lingam 
 comes in. The word itself is apparently connected with 
 our word * link/ and has originally the same meaning. 1 
 It is the link between the generations. Beginning with 
 the worship of the physical Race-life, the course of psy¬ 
 chologic evolution has been first to the worship of the Tribe 
 (or of the Totem which represents the tribe) ; then to the 
 worship of the human-formed God of the tribe—the God 
 who dies and rises again eternally, as the tribe passes on 
 eternal—though its members perpetually perish; then 
 to the conception of an undying Saviour, and the realiza¬ 
 tion and distinct experience of some kind of Super-con¬ 
 sciousness which does certainly reside, more or less hidden, 
 in the deeps of the mind, and has been waiting through the 
 ages for its disclosure and recognition. Then again to the 
 recognition that in the sacrifices, the Slayer and the Slain 
 are one—the strange and profoundly mystic perception 
 that the God and the Victim are in essence the same—the 
 dedication of ‘ Himself to Himself ’; 2 and simultaneously 
 1 See Sanskrit Dictionary. 2 See Ch. VIII, supra. 
 
252 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 with this the interpretation of the Eucharist as meaning, 
 even for the individual, the participation in Eternal Life— 
 the continuing life of the Tribe, or ultimately of Humanity. 1 
 The Tribal order rises to Humanity ; love ascends from the 
 lingam to yogam, from physical union alone to the union 
 with the Whole—which of course includes physical and all 
 other kinds of union. No wonder that the good St. Paul, 
 witnessing that extraordinary whirlpool of beliefs and prac¬ 
 tices, new and old, there in the first century a.d.— the 
 unabashed adoration of sex side by side with the transcen¬ 
 dental devotions of the Vedic sages and the Gnostics—became 
 somewhat confused himself and even a little violent, scolding 
 his disciples (i Cor. x. 21) for their undiscriminating accep¬ 
 tance, as it seemed to him, of things utterly alien and 
 antagonistic. “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord 
 and the cup of devils : ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's 
 table and the table of devils." 
 
 Every careful reader has noticed the confusedness of 
 Paul's mind and arguments. Even taking only those 
 Epistles (Galatians, Romans and Corinthians) which the 
 critics assign to his pen, the thing is observable—and some 
 learned Germans even speak of two Pauls. 2 But also the 
 thing is quite natural. There can be little doubt that 
 Paul of Tarsus, a Jew brought up in the strictest sect of 
 the Pharisees, did at some time fall deeply under the influence 
 of Greek thought, and quite possibly became an initiate 
 
 1 There are many indications in literature—in prophetic or poetic 
 form—of this awareness and distinct conviction of an eternal life, 
 reached through love and an inner sense of union with others and 
 with humanity at large ; indications which bear the mark of absolute 
 genuineness and sincerity of feeling. See, for instance. Whitman’s 
 poem. To the Garden the World (Leaves of Grass, complete 
 edition, p. 79). But an eternal life of the third order ; not, thank 
 heaven ! an eternity of the meddling and muddling self-conscious 
 Intellect ! 
 
 2 “Die Mysterien-anschauungen, die bei Paulus im Hintergrunde 
 stehen, drangen sich in dem sogenannten Deuteropaulinismus machtig 
 vor ’’ (Reitzenstein) 
 
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES 
 
 253 
 
 in the Mysteries. It would be difficult otherwise to account 
 for his constant use of the Mystery-language. Reitzenstein 
 says (p. 59) : “ The hellenistic religious literature must have 
 been read by him ; he uses its terms, and is saturated with 
 its thoughts (see Rom. vi. 1-14).” And this conjoined with 
 his Jewish experience gave him creative power. “ A great 
 deal in his sentiment and thought may have remained 
 Jewish, but to his Hellenism he was indebted for his love 
 of freedom and his firm belief in his apostleship.” He 
 adopts terms (like crapiciKog, \pv\uc 6 g and TTv^vpanKog) 1 
 which were in use among the hellenistic sects of the time ; 
 and he writes, as in Romans vi. 4, 5, about being “ buried ” 
 with Christ or “ planted ” in the likeness of his death, in 
 words which might well have been used (with change of 
 the name) by a follower of Attis or Osiris after witnessing 
 the corresponding ‘ mysteries * ; certainly the allusion to 
 these ancient deities would have been understood by every 
 religionist of that day. These few points are sufficient 
 to accentuate the two elements in Paul, the Jewish and 
 the Greek, and to explain (so far) the seeming confusion 
 in his utterances. Further it is interesting to note—as 
 showing the pagan influences in the N.T. writings—the 
 degree to which the Epistle to Philemon (ascribed to Paul) 
 is full —short as it is—of expressions like prisoner of the 
 Lord, fellow soldier, captive or bondman , 2 3 which were so 
 common at the time as to be almost a cant in Mithraism and 
 the allied cults. In 1 Peter ii. 2 3 we have the verse “ As 
 newborn babes, desire ye the sincere milk of the word, 
 that ye may grow thereby.” And again we may say that 
 no one in that day could mistake the reference herein 
 contained to old initiation ceremonies and the new birth 
 (as described in Chapter VIII above), for indeed milk was 
 
 1 Remindful of our Three Stages : the Animal, the Self-conscious, 
 and the Cosmic. 
 
 2 decrpiog, (rrpaTuorrjg , dovXog. 
 
 3 See also 1 Cor. iii. 2. 
 
254 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 the well-known diet of the novice in the Isis mysteries, as 
 well as (in some savage tribes) of the Medicine-man when 
 practising his calling. 
 
 And here too Democracy comes in—strangely fore¬ 
 boded from the first in all this matter. 1 Not only does 
 the Third Stage bring illumination, intuitive understanding 
 of processes in Nature and Humanity, sympathy with the 
 animals, artistic capacity, and so forth, but it necessarily 
 brings a new Order of Society. A preposterous—one may 
 almost say a hideous—social Age is surely drawing to its end. 
 The debacle we are witnessing to-day all over Europe (in¬ 
 cluding the British Islands), the break-up of old institutions, 
 the generally materialistic outlook on life, the coming to 
 the surface of huge masses of diseased and fatuous popula¬ 
 tions, the scum and dregs created by the past order, all 
 point to the End of a Dispensation. Protestantism and 
 Commercialism, in the two fields of religion and daily life 
 have, as I have indicated before, been occupied in concen¬ 
 trating the mind of each man solely on his own welfare, 
 the salvation of his own soul or body. These two forces 
 have therefore been disruptive to the last degree ; they mark 
 the culmination of the Self-conscious Age—a culmination in 
 War, Greed, Materialism, and the general principle of 
 Devil-take-the-hindmost —and the clearing of the ground 
 for the new order which is to come. So there is hope for 
 the human race. Its evolution is not all a mere formless 
 craze and jumble. There is an inner necessity by which 
 Humanity unfolds from one degree or plane of consciousness 
 to another. And if there has been a great * Fall * or Lapse 
 into conflict and disease and * sin ’ and misery, occupying 
 the major part of the Historical period hitherto, we see 
 that this period is only brief, so to speak, in comparison 
 with the whole curve of growth and expansion. We see 
 also that, as I have said before, the belief in a state of salva- 
 
 1 See the germs of Democracy in the yoga teaching of the Hindus 
 and in the Upanishads, the Bhagavat Gita, and other books. 
 
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES 255 
 
 tion or deliverance has in the past ages never left itself 
 quite without a witness in the creeds and rituals and poems 
 and prophecies of mankind. Art, in some form or other, 
 as an activity or inspiration dating not from the conscious 
 Intellect, but from deeper regions of sub-conscious feeling 
 and intuition, has continually come to us as a message 
 from and an evidence of the Third stage or state, and as 
 a promise of its more complete realisation under other 
 conditions. 
 
 Through the long night-time where the Nations wander 
 From Eden past to Paradise to be, 
 
 Art’s sacred flowers, like fair stars shining yonder. 
 
 Alone illumine Life’s obscurity. 
 
 O gracious Artists, out of your deep hearts 
 
 ’Tis some great Sun, I doubt, by men unguessed, 
 
 Whose rays come struggling thus, in slender darts, 
 
 To shadow what Is, till Time shall manifest. 
 
 With the Cosmic stage comes also necessarily the re¬ 
 habilitation of the whole of Society in one fellowship (the 
 true Democracy). Not the rule or domination of one 
 class or caste—as of the Intellectual, the Pious, the Com¬ 
 mercial or the Military—but the fusion or at least consen¬ 
 taneous organisation of all (as in the corresponding functions 
 of the human Body), Class rule has been the mark of that 
 second period of human evolution, and has inevitably 
 given birth during that period to wars and self-aggrandise¬ 
 ments of classes and sections, and their consequent greeds 
 and tyrannies over other classes and sections. It is not 
 found in the primitive human tribes and societies; and 
 will not be found in the final forms of human association. 
 The liberated and emancipated Man passes unconstrained 
 and unconstraining through all grades and planes of human 
 fellowship, equal and undisturbed, and never leaving his 
 true home and abiding place in the heart of all. Equally 
 necessarily with the rehabilitation of Society as an entirety 
 
256 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 will follow the rehabilitation of the entire physical body in 
 each member of Society. We have spoken already of 
 Nakedness : its meaning and likely extent of adoption 
 (Ch. XII, pp. 196-7). The idea that the head and the 
 hands are the only seemly and presentable members of 
 the organism, and that the other members are unworthy 
 and indecent, is obviously as onesided and lopsided as 
 that which honours certain classes in the commonwealth 
 and despises others. Why should the head brag of its 
 ascendancy and domination, and the heart be smothered 
 up and hidden ? It will only be a life far more in the 
 open air than that which we lead at present, which will 
 restore the balance and ultimately bring us back to sanity 
 and health. 
 
XVI 
 
 THE EXODUS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 vVe have dealt with the Genesis of Christianity ; we now 
 :ome to its Exodus. For that Christianity can continue 
 o hold the field of Religion in the Western World is neither 
 )robable nor desirable. It is true, as I have remarked already, 
 hat there is a certain trouble about defining what we mean 
 >y “ Christianity ” similar to that about the word “ Civilisa- 
 i°n.” If we select out of the great mass of doctrines and 
 ites favoured by the various Christian Churches just those 
 riiich commend themselves to the most modern and humane 
 nd rational human mind and choose to call that resulting 
 but rather small) body of belief and practice ‘ Christianity * 
 ye are, of course, entitled to do so, and to hope (as we do 
 tope) that this residuum will survive and go forward into 
 he future. But this sort of proceeding is hardly fair and 
 ertainly not logical. It enables Christianity to pose as 
 n angel of light while at the same time keeping discreetly 
 ut of sight all its own abominations and deeds of darkness, 
 die Church—which began its career by destroying, dis¬ 
 orting and denying the pagan sources from which it sprang ; 
 riiose bishops and other ecclesiastics assassinated each 
 ther in their theological rancour “ of wild beasts,” which 
 ncouraged the wicked folly of the Crusades—especially 
 he Children’s Crusades—and the shameful murders of 
 he Manicheans, the Albigenses, and the Huguenots ; which 
 
 17 257 
 
258 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 burned at the stake thousands and thousands of poor 
 ‘ witches ’ and ‘ heretics ’ ; which has hardly ever spoken 
 a generous word in favour or defence of the animals ; which 
 in modern times has supported vivisection as against the 
 latter, Capitalism and Commercialism as against the poorer 
 classes of mankind ; and whose priests in the forms of its 
 various sects, Greek or Catholic, Lutheran or Protestant, 
 have in these last days rushed forth to urge the nations to 
 slaughter each other with every diabolical device of Science, 
 and to glorify the war-cry of Patriotism in defiance of the 
 principle of universal Brotherhood—such a Church can 
 hardly claim to have established the angelic character 
 of its mission among mankind ! And if it be said—as it 
 often is said : “ Oh ! but you must go back to the genuine 
 article, and the Church’s real origin and one foundation 
 in the person and teaching of Jesus Christ,” then indeed 
 you come back to the point which this book, as above, 
 enforces : namely, that as to the person of Jesus, there is 
 no certainty at all that he ever existed ; and as to the teaching 
 credited to him, it is certain that that comes down from a 
 period long anterior to ‘ Christianity ' and is part of what 
 may justly be called a very ancient World-religion. So, as 
 in the case of ‘ Civilisation,’ we are compelled to see that 
 it is useless to apply the word to some ideal state of affairs 
 or doctrine (an ideal by no means the same in all people’s 
 minds, or in all localities and times), but that the only 
 reasonable thing to do is to apply it in each case to a historical 
 period. In the case of Christianity the historical period 
 has lasted nearly 2,000 years, and, as I say, we can hardly 
 expect or wish that it should last much longer. 
 
 The very thorough and careful investigation of religious 
 origins which has been made during late years by a great 
 number of students and observers undoubtedly tends to show 
 that there has been something like a great World-religion 
 coming down the centuries from the remotest times and 
 gradually expanding and branching as it has come—that 
 
THE EXODUS OF CHRISTIANITY 259 
 
 is to say that the similarity (in essence though not always 
 in external detail) between the creeds and rituals of widely 
 sundered tribes and peoples is so great as to justify the view 
 
 advanced in the present volume—that these creeds and 
 rituals are the necessary outgrowths of human psychology, 
 slowly evolving, and that consequently they have a common 
 origin and in their various forms a common expression. 
 Of this great World-religion, so coming down, Christianity 
 is undoubtedly a branch, and an important branch. But 
 there have been important branches before * and while 
 it may be tiue that Christianity emphasizes some points 
 which may have been overlooked or neglected in the Vedic 
 teachings or in Buddhism, or in the Persian and Egyptian 
 and Syrian cults, or in Mahommedanism, and so forth, it 
 is also equally true that Christianity has itself overlooked 
 or neglected valuable points in these religions. It has, in 
 fact, the defects of its qualities. If the World-religion is 
 like a great tree, one cannot expect or desire that all its 
 branches should be directed towards the same point of 
 the compass. 
 
 Reinach, whose studies of religious origins are always 
 nteresting and characterised by a certain Gallic grace 
 md nettete, though with a somewhat Jewish non-perception 
 )f the mystic element in life, defines Religion as a com- 
 rination of animism and scruples. This is good in a way, 
 )ecause it gives the two aspects of the subject: the inner,’ 
 tnimism, consisting of the sense of contact with more or 
 ess intelligent beings moving in Nature ; and the outer, 
 onsisting in scruples or taboos. The one aspect shows 
 he feeling which inspires religion, the other, the checks 
 nd limitations which define it and give birth to ritual. 
 *ut like most anthropologists he (Reinach) is a little too 
 'atronising towards the “ poor Indian with untutored 
 rind. He is sorry for people so foolish as to be animistic 
 i their outlook, and he is always careful to point out that 
 • le sciuples and taboos were quite senseless in their origin. 
 
 
 
260 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 though occasionally (by accident) they turned out useful. 
 Yet—as I have said before—Animism is a perfectly sensible, 
 logical and necessary attitude of the human mind. It is 
 a necessary attribute of man’s psychical nature, by which 
 he projects into the great World around him the image 
 of his own mind. When that mind is in a very primitive, 
 inchoate, and fragmentary condition, the images so pro¬ 
 jected are those of fragmentary intelligences (‘ spirits,’ 
 gnomes, etc.—the age of magic) ; when the mind rises 
 to distinct consciousness of itself the reflexions of it are 
 anthropomorphic ‘ gods ’ ; when finally it reaches the 
 universal or cosmic state it perceives the presence of a 
 universal Being behind all phenomena—which Being is 
 indeed itself —“ Himself to Himself.” If you like you 
 may call the whole process by the name of Animism. It 
 is perfectly sensible throughout. The only proviso is 
 that you should also be sensible, and distinguish the differ¬ 
 ent stages in the process. 
 
 Jane Harrison makes considerable efforts to show that 
 Religion is primarily a reflection of the social Conscience 
 (see Themis , pp. 482-92)—that is, that the sense in 
 Man of a " Power that makes for righteousness ” outside 
 (and also inside) him is derived from his feeling of con¬ 
 tinuity with the Tribe and his instinctive obedience to its 
 behests, confirmed by ages of collective habit and experi¬ 
 ence. He cannot in fact sever the navel-string which 
 connects him with his tribal Mother, even though he 
 desires to do so. And no doubt this view of the origin 
 of Religion is perfectly correct. But it must be pointed 
 out that it does not by any means exclude the view that 
 religion derives also from an Animism by which man 
 recognises in general Nature his foster-mother and feels 
 himself in closest touch with her. Which may have come 
 first, the Social affiliation or the Nature affiliation, I 
 leave to the professors to determine. The term Animism 
 may, as far as I can see, be quite well applied to the social 
 
THE EXODUS OF CHRISTIANITY 261 
 
 affiliation, for the latter is evidently only a case in which 
 the individual projects his own degree of consciousness 
 into the human group around him instead of into the 
 animals or the trees, but it is a case of which the justice 
 is so obvious that the modern man can intellectually seize 
 and understand it, and consequently he does not tar it 
 with the ‘ animistic ’ brush. 
 
 And Miss Harrison, it must be noticed, does, in other 
 passages of the same book (see Themis, pp. 68, 69), admit 
 that Religion has its origin not only from unity with the 
 Tribe but from the sense of affiliation to Nature—the 
 sense of “ a world of unseen power lying behind the visible 
 universe, a world which is the sphere, as will be seen, of 
 magical activity and the medium of mysticism. The 
 mystical element, the oneness and continuousness comes 
 out very clearly in the notion of Wakonda among the Sioux 
 Indians. . . . The Omahas regarded all animate and in¬ 
 animate forms, all phenomena, as pervaded by a common 
 life, which was continuous and similar to the will-power 
 they were conscious of in themselves. This mysterious 
 power in all things they called Wakonda, and through 
 it all things were related to man, and to each other. In 
 the idea of the continuity of life, a relation was maintained 
 between the seen and the unseen, the dead and the living, 
 and also between the fragment of anything and its entirety.” 
 Thus our general position is confirmed, that Religion in 
 its origin has been inspired by a deep instinctive conviction 
 or actual sense of continuity with a being or beings in the 
 world around, while it has derived its form and ritual by 
 slow degrees from a vast number of taboos, generated in 
 the first instance chiefly by superstitious fears, but gradually 
 with the growth of reason and observation becoming 
 simplified and rationalized into forms of use. On the one 
 side there has been the positive impulse—of mere animal 
 Desire and the animal urge of self-expression; on the 
 other there has been the negative force of Fear based 
 
262 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 on ignorance—the latter continually carving, moulding and 
 shaping the former. According to this an organised study and 
 classification of taboos might yield some interesting results ; 
 because indeed it would throw light on the earliest forms of 
 both religion and science. It would be seen that some taboos, 
 like those of contact (say with a menstruous woman, or 
 a mother-in-law, or a lightning-struck tree) had an obvious 
 basis of observation, justifiable but very crude; while 
 others, like the taboo against harming an enemy who 
 had contracted blood-friendship with one of your own 
 tribe, or against giving decent burial to a murderer, were 
 equally rough and rude expressions or indications of the 
 growing moral sentiment of mankind. All the same there 
 would be left, in any case, a large residuum of taboos 
 which could only be judged as senseless, and the mere 
 rubbish of the savage mind. 
 
 So much for the first origins of the World-religion ; 
 and I think enough has been said in the various chapters 
 of this book to show that the same general process has 
 obtained throughout. Man, like the animals, began with 
 this deep, subconscious sense of unity with surrounding 
 Nature. When this became (in Man) fairly conscious, it led 
 to Magic and Totemism. More conscious, and it branched, 
 on the one hand, into figures of Gods and definite forms 
 of Creeds, on the other into elaborate Scientific Theories—- 
 the latter based on a strong intellectual belief in Unity, 
 but fervently denying any ‘ anthropomorphic ' or ‘ ani¬ 
 mistic ' sense of that unity. Finally, it seems that we 
 are now on the edge of a further stage when the theories 
 and the creeds, scientific and religious, are on the verge 
 of collapsing, but in such a way as to leave the sense and 
 the perception of Unity—the real content of the whole 
 process—not only undestroyed, but immensely heightened 
 and illuminated. Meanwhile the taboos—of which 
 there remain some still, both religious and scientific- 
 have been gradually breaking up and merging them 
 
 
 
 •rr If - • - 
 
THE EXODUS OF CHRISTIANITY 268 
 
 selves into a reasonable and humane order of life and 
 philosophy. 
 
 I have said that out. of this World-religion Christianity 
 really sprang. It is evident now that the time has arrived 
 when it must either acknowledge its source and frankly 
 i endeavour to affiliate itself to the same, or failing that 
 must perish. In the first case it will probably have to 
 change its name ; in the second the question of its name 
 ‘ will interest it no more. 5 
 
 With regard to the first of these alternatives, I might 
 venture—though with due diffidence—to make a few 
 suggestions. Why should we not have—instead of a 
 Holy Roman Church—a Holy Human Church, rehabilitating 
 the ancient symbols and rituals, a Christianity (if you 
 still desire to call it so) frankly and gladly acknowledging 
 its own sources ? This seems a reasonable and even feasible 
 proposition. If such a church wished to celebrate a Mass 
 or Communion or Eucharist it would have a great variety 
 of rites and customs of that kind to select from ; those that 
 were not appropriate for use in our times or were connected 
 with the worship of strange gods need not be rejected or 
 condemned, but could still be commented on and explained 
 as approaches to the same idea—the idea of dedication 
 to the Common Life, and of reinvigoration in the partaking 
 of it. If the Church wished to celebrate the Crucifixion 
 or betrayal of its Founder, a hundred instances of such 
 celebrations would be to hand, and still the thought that 
 has underlain such celebrations since the beginning of the 
 world could easily be disentangled and presented in con¬ 
 crete form anew. In the light of such teaching expiessions 
 like “ I know that my Redeemer liveth 55 would be traced 
 to their origin, and men would understand that notwith¬ 
 standing the mass of rubbish, cant and humbug which has 
 collected round them they really do mean something and 
 represent the age-long instinct of Humanity feeling its way 
 towards a more extended revelation, a new order of being, 
 
264 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 a third stage of consciousness and illumination. In such 
 a Church or religious organisation every quality of human 
 nature would have to be represented, ever)/ practice and 
 custom allowed for and its place accorded—the magical 
 and astronomical meanings, the rites connected with sun- 
 worship, or with sex, or with the worship of animals ; the 
 consecration of corn and wine and other products of the 
 ground, initiations, sacrifices, and so forth—all (if indeed it 
 claimed to be a World-religion) would have to be represented 
 and recognised. For they all have their long human origin 
 and descent in and through the pagan creeds, and they all 
 have penetrated into and become embodied to some degree 
 in Christianity. Christianity therefore, as I say, must 
 either now come frankly forward and, acknowledging its 
 parentage from the great Order of the past, seek to re¬ 
 habilitate that and carry mankind one step forward in the 
 path of evolution—or else it must perish. There is no 
 other alternative. 1 
 
 Let me give an instance of how a fragment of ancient 
 ritual which has survived from the far Past and is still 
 celebrated, but with little intelligence or understanding, 
 in the Catholic Church of to-day, might be adopted in such 
 a Church as I have spoken of, interpreted, and made eloquent 
 of meaning to modern humanity. When I was in Ceylon 
 nearly 30 years ago I was fortunate enough to witness a 
 night-festival in a Hindu Temple—the great festival of 
 Taipusam, which takes place every year in January. Of 
 course, it was full moon, and great was the blowing up 
 of trumpets in the huge courtyard of the Temple. The 
 moon shone down above from among the fronds of tall 
 coco-palms, on a dense crowd of native worshipers—men 
 and a few women—the men for the most part clad in little 
 
 1 Comte in founding his philosophy of Positivism seems to have 
 had in view some such Holy Human Church, but he succeeded in 
 making it all so profoundly dull that it never flourished, The seed 
 of Life was not in it. 
 
THE EXODUS OF CHRISTIANITY 265 
 
 more than a loin-cloth, the women picturesque in their 
 coloured saris and jewelled ear and nose rings. The images 
 of Siva and two other gods were carried in procession round 
 and round the temple—three or four times ; nautch girls 
 danced before the images, musicians, blowing horns and huge 
 shells, or piping on flageolets or beating tom-toms, accom¬ 
 panied them. The crowd carrying torches or high crates 
 with flaming coco-nuts, walked or rather danced along on 
 each side, elated and excited with the sense of the present 
 divinity, yet pleasantly free from any abject awe. The 
 whole thing indeed reminded one of some bas-relief of a 
 Bacchanalian procession carved on a Greek sarcophagus 
 —and especially so in its hilarity and suggestion of friendly 
 intimacy with the god. There were singing of hymns and 
 the floating of the chief actors on a raft round a sacred 
 lake. And then came the final Act. Siva, or his image, 
 very weighty and borne on the shoulders of strong men, 
 was carried into the first chamber or hall of the Temple 
 and placed on an altar with a curtain hanging in front. 
 The crowd followed with a rush ; and then there was more 
 music, recital of hymns, and reading from sacred books. 
 From where we stood we could see the rite which was per¬ 
 formed behind the curtain. Two five-branched candle¬ 
 sticks were lighted ; and the manner of their lighting was 
 as follows. Each branch ended in a little cup, and in the 
 cups five pieces of camphor were placed, all approximately 
 equal in size. After offerings had been made, of fruit, 
 flowers and sandalwood, the five camphors in each candlestick 
 were lighted. As the camphor flames burned out the music 
 became more wild and exciting, and then at the moment 
 of their extinction the curtains were drawn aside and the 
 congregation outside suddenly beheld the god revealed 
 and in a blaze of light. This burning of camphor was, 
 like other things in the service, emblematic. The five 
 lights represent the five senses. Just as camphor consumes 
 itself and leaves no residue behind, so should the five senses, 
 
266 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 being offered to the god, consume themselves and disappear. 
 When this is done, that happens in the soul which was 
 now figured in the ritual—the God is revealed in the inner 
 light. 1 
 
 We are familiar with this parting or rending of the veil. 
 We hear of it in the Jewish Temple, and in the Greek and 
 Egyptian Mysteries. It had a mystically religious, and also 
 obviously sexual, signification. It occurs here and there 
 in the Roman Catholic ritual. In Spain, some ancient 
 Catholic ceremonials are kept up with a brilliance and 
 splendour hardly found elsewhere in Europe. In the 
 Cathedral at Seville the service of the Passion, carried 
 out on Good Friday with great solemnity and accompanied 
 with fine music, culminates on the Saturday morning— 
 i.e. in the interval between the Crucifixion and the Resur¬ 
 rection—in a spectacle similar to that described in Ceylon. 
 A rich velvet-black curtain hangs before the High Altar. At 
 the appropriate moment and as the very emotional strains 
 of voices and instruments reach their climax in the “ Gloria 
 in Excelsis,” the curtain with a sudden burst of sound 
 (thunder and the ringing of all the bells) is rent asunder, 
 and the crucified Jesus is seen hanging there revealed in 
 a halo of glory. 
 
 There is also held at Seville Cathedral and before the 
 High Altar every year, the very curious Dance of the Seises 
 (sixes), performed now by 16 instead of (as of old) by 
 12 boys, quaintly dressed. It seems to be a survival of 
 some very ancient ritual, probably astronomical, in which 
 the two sets of six represent the signs of the Zodiac, and 
 is celebrated during the festivals of Corpus Chrisii, the 
 Immaculate Conception , and the Carnival. 
 
 Numerous instances might of course be adduced of how 
 a Church aspiring to be a real Church of Humanity might 
 adopt and re-create the rituals of the past in the light of 
 
 1 For a more detailed account of this Temple-festival, see Adam’s 
 Peak to Elephanta by E. Carpenter, ch. vii. 
 
THE EXODUS OF CHRISTIANITY 267 
 
 a modern inspiration. Indeed the difficulty would be 
 to limit the process, for every ancient ritual, we can now 
 see, has had a meaning and a message, and it would be a 
 real joy to disentangle these and to expose the profound 
 solidarity of human thought and aspiration from the very 
 dawn of civilisation down to the present day. Nor would 
 it be necessary to imagine any Act of Uniformity or dead 
 level of ceremonial in the matter. Different groups might 
 concentrate on different phases of religious thought and 
 practice. The only necessity would be that they should 
 approach the subject with a real love of Humanity in their 
 hearts and a real desire to come into touch with the deep 
 inner life and mystic growing-pains of the souls of men and 
 women in all ages. In this direction M. Loisy has done 
 noble and excellent work ; but the dead weight and selfish 
 blinkerdom of the Catholic organisation has hampered him 
 to that degree that he has been unable to get justice done 
 to his liberalising designs—or, perhaps, even to reveal 
 the full extent of them. And the same difficulty will 
 remain. On the one hand no spiritual movement which 
 does not take up the attitude of a World-religion has now 
 in this age, any chance of success ; on the other, all the 
 existing Churches—whether Roman Catholic, or Greek, or 
 Protestant or Secularist—whether Christian or Jewish or 
 Persian or Hindu—will in all probability adopt the same 
 blind and blinkered and selfish attitude as that described 
 above, and so disqualify themselves for the great role of 
 world-wide emancipation, which some religion at some time 
 will certainly have to play. It is the same difficulty which 
 is looming large in modern World-politics, where the local 
 selfishnesses and vainglorious “ patriotisms ” of the Nations 
 are sadly impeding and obstructing the development of 
 that sense of Internationalism and Brotherhood which is 
 the clearly indicated form of the future, and which alone 
 can give each nation deliverance from fear, and a promise 
 of growth, and the confident assurance of power. 
 
268 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 I say that Christianity must either frankly adopt this 
 generous attitude and confess itself a branch of the great 
 World-religion, anxious only to do honour to its source— 
 or else it must perish and pass away. There is no other 
 alternative. The hour of its Exodus has come. It may 
 be, of course, that neither the Christian Church nor any 
 branch of it, nor any other religious organisation, will step 
 into the gap. It may be—but I do not think this is likely 
 ■—that the time of rites and ceremonies and formal creeds 
 is past, and churches of any kind will be no more needed 
 in the world : not likely, I say, because of the still far 
 backwardness of the human masses, and their considerable 
 dependence yet on laws and forms and rituals. Still, if it 
 should prove that that age of dependence is really approach¬ 
 ing its end, that would surely be a matter for congratulation. 
 It would mean that mankind was moving into a knowledge 
 of the reality which has underlain these outer shows—that 
 it was coming into the Third stage of its Consciousness. 
 Having found this there would be no need for it to dwell 
 any longer in the land of superstitions and formulae. It 
 would have come to the place of which these latter are 
 only the outlying indications. 
 
 It may, therefore, happen—and this quite independently 
 of the growth of a World-cult such as I have described, 
 though by no means in antagonism to it—that a religious 
 philosophy or Theosophy might develop and spread, similar to 
 the Gnanam of the Hindus or the Gnosis of the pre-Christian 
 sects, which would become, first among individuals and 
 afterwards among large bodies over the world, the religion 
 of—or perhaps one should say the religious approach to 
 the Third State. Books like the Upanishads of the Vedic 
 seers, and the Bhagavat Gita, though garbled and ob¬ 
 scured by priestly interferences and mystifications, do 
 undoubtedly represent and give expression to the highest 
 utterance of religious experience to be found anywhere 
 in the world. They are indeed the manuals of human 
 
THE EXODUS OF CHRISTIANITY 269 
 
 entrance into the cosmic state. But as I say, and as has 
 happened in the case of other sacred books, a vast deal 
 of rubbish has accreted round their essential teachings, 
 and has to be cleared away. To go into a serious explication 
 of the meaning of these books would be far too large an 
 affair, and would be foreign to the purpose of the present 
 volume ; but I have in the Appendix below inserted two 
 papers, (on " Rest ” and “ The Nature of the Self ”) con¬ 
 taining the substance of lectures given on the above books. 
 These papers or lectures are couched in the very simplest 
 language, free from Sanskrit terms and the usual ‘ jargon 
 of the Schools/ and may, I hope, even on that account 
 be of use in familiarising readers who are not specially 
 students with the ideas and mental attitudes of the cosmic 
 state. Non-differentiation (Advaita *) is the root attitude 
 
 of the mind inculcated. ^ 
 
 We have seen that there has been an age of non-differen¬ 
 tiation in the Past —non-differentiation from other members 
 of the Tribe, from the Animals, from Nature and the Spirit 
 or Spirits of nature ; why should there not arise a similar 
 sense of non-differentiation in the Future —similar but more 
 extended, more intelligent ? Certainly this will arrive, m 
 its own appointed time. There will be a surpassing of the 
 bounds of separation and division. There will be a surpassing 
 of all Taboos. We have seen the use and function of Taboos 
 in the early stages of Evolution and how progress and growth 
 have been very much a matter of their gradual extinction 
 and assimilation into the general body of rational thought 
 and feeling. Unreasoning and idiotic taboos still linger, but 
 they grow weaker. A new Morality will come which will 
 shake itself free from them. The sense of kinship with 
 the animals (as in the old rituals)* will be restored; the sense 
 
 Here we see a great subtlety 
 with others that is urged, but 
 
 1 The word means “ not-two-ness. 
 of definition. It is not to be “ one ” 
 
 t0 2 ] The record^of the Roman Catholic Church has been sadly callous 
 and inhuman in this matter of the animals. 
 
270 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 of kinship with all the races of mankind will grow and 
 become consolidated ; the sense of the defilement and im¬ 
 purity of the human body will (with the adoption of a 
 generally clean and wholesome life) pass away ; and the 
 body itself will come to be regarded more as a collection 
 of shrines in which the gods may be worshiped and less 
 as a mere organ of trivial self-gratifications ; 1 there will 
 be no form of Nature, or of human life or of the lesser 
 creatures, which will be barred from the approach of Man 
 or from the intimate and penetrating invasion of his spirit; 
 and as in certain ceremonies and after honorable toils and 
 labours a citizen is sometimes received into the community 
 of his own city, so the emancipated human being on the 
 completion of his long long pilgrimage on Earth will be 
 presented with the Freedom of the Universe. 
 
 1 See The Art of Creation , by E. Carpenter. 
 
XVII 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 In conclusion there does not seem much to say> except 
 to accentuate certain points which may still appear doubtful 
 or capable of being misunderstood. 
 
 The fact that the main argument of this volume is along 
 the lines of psychological evolution will no doubt com¬ 
 mend it to some, while on the other hand it will disci edit 
 the book to others whose eyes, being fixed on purely material 
 causes, can see no impetus in History except through these. 
 But it must be remembered that there is not the least 
 reason for separating the two factors. The fact that psy¬ 
 chologically man has evolved from simple consciousness 
 to self-consciousness, and is now in process of evolution 
 towards another and more extended kind of consciousness, 
 does not in the least bar the simultaneous appearance 
 and influence of material evolution. It is clear indeed 
 that the two must largely go together, acting and reacting 
 on each other. Whatever the physical conditions of the 
 animal brain may be which connect themselves with simple 
 (unreflected and unreflecting) consciousness, it is evident 
 that these conditions—in animals and primitive man - 
 lasted for an enormous period, before the distinct con¬ 
 sciousness of the individual and separate self arose. This 
 second order of consciousness seems to have germinated 
 at or about the same period as the discovery of the use 
 
 271 
 
272 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 of Tools (tools of stone, copper, bronze, &c.), the adoption 
 of picture-writing and the use of reflective words (like 
 “ I ” and “ Ihou ”) ; and it led on to the appreciation of 
 gold and of iron with their ornamental and practical values, 
 the accumulation of Property, the establishment of slavery 
 of various kinds, the subjection of Women, the encourage¬ 
 ment of luxury and self-indulgence, the growth of crowded 
 cities and the endless conflicts and wars so resulting. We 
 can see plainly that the incoming of the self-motive exercised 
 a direct stimulus on the pursuit of these material objects 
 and adaptations ; and that the material adaptations in their 
 turn did largely accentuate the self-motive ; but to insist 
 that the real explanation of the whole process is only to 
 be found along one channel—the material or the psychical 
 —is clearly quite unnecessary. Those who understand 
 that all matter is conscious in some degree, and that all 
 consciousness has a material form of some kind, will be the 
 first to admit this. 
 
 The same remarks apply to the Third Stage. We can 
 see that in modern times the huge and unlimited powers 
 of production by machinery, united with a growing tendency 
 towards intelligent Birth-control, are preparing the way 
 for an age of Communism and communal Plenty which 
 will inevitably be associated (partly as cause and partly 
 as effect) with a new general phase of consciousness, in¬ 
 volving the mitigation of the struggle for existence, the 
 growth of intuitional and psychical perception, the spread 
 of amity and solidarity, the disappearance of War, and 
 the realisation (in degree) of the Cosmic life. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest difficulty or stumbling-block to 
 the general acceptance of the belief in a third (or ‘ Golden- 
 Age ’) phase of human evolution is the obstinate and obdurate 
 pre-judgment that the passing of Humanity out of the 
 Second stage can only mean the entire abandonment of 
 self-consciousness ; and this, people say—and quite rightly 
 —is both impossible and undesirable. Throughout the 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 273 
 
 preceding chapters I have striven, wherever feasible, to 
 counter this misunderstanding—but I have little hope of 
 success ! The determination of the world to misunderstand 
 or misinterpret anything a little new or unfamiliar is a 
 thing which perhaps only an author can duly appreciate. 
 But while it is clear that self-consciousness originally came 
 into being through a process of alienation and exile and 
 fear which marked it with the Cain-like brand of loneliness 
 and apartness, it is equally clear that to think of that 
 apartness as an absolute and permanent separation is an 
 illusion, since no being can really continue to live divorced 
 from the source of its life. For a period in evolution the 
 self took on this illusive form in consciousness, as of an 
 ignis fatuus —the form of a being sundered from all other 
 beings, atomic, lonely, without refuge, surrounded by 
 dangers and struggling for itself alone and for its own 
 salvation in the midst of a hostile environment. Perhaps 
 some such terrible imagination was necessary at first, as 
 it were to start Humanity on its new path. But it had 
 its compensation, for the sufferings and tortures, mental 
 and bodily, the privations, persecutions, accusations, 
 hatreds, the wars and conflicts—so endured by millions of 
 individuals and whole races—have at length stamped upon 
 the human mind a sense of individual responsibility which 
 otherwise perhaps would never have emerged, and whose 
 mark can never now be effaced ; ultimately, too, these 
 things have searched our inner nature to its very depths 
 and exposed its bed-rock foundation. They have convinced 
 us that this idea of ultimate separation is an illusion, and 
 that in truth we are all indefeasible and indestructible 
 parts of one great Unity in which “ we live and move and 
 have our being.” That being so, it is clear that there remains 
 in the end a self-consciousness which need by no means 
 be abandoned, which indeed only comes to its true fruition 
 md understanding when it recognises its affiliation with 
 the Whole, and glories in an individuality which is an 
 
 18 
 
274 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 expression both of itself and of the whole. The human 
 child at its mother’s knee probably comes first to know it 
 has a ‘ self ’ on some fateful day when having wandered 
 afar it goes lost among alien houses and streets or in the 
 trackless fields. That appalling experience—the sense of 
 danger, of fear, of loneliness—is never forgotten ; it stamps 
 some new sense of Being upon the childish mind, but that 
 sense, instead of being destroyed, becomes all the prouder 
 and more radiant in the hour of return to the mother’s 
 arms. The return, the salvation, for which humanity 
 looks, is the return of the little individual self to harmony 
 and union with the great Self of the universe, but by no 
 means its extinction or abandonment—rather the finding 
 of its own true nature as never before. 
 
 There is another thing which may be said here : namely, 
 that the disentanglement, as above, of three main stages 
 of psychological evolution as great formative influences 
 in the history of mankind, does not by any means preclude 
 the establishment of lesser stages within the boundaries 
 of these. In all probability subdivisions of all the three will 
 come in time to be recognised and allowed for. To take 
 the Second stage only, it may appear that Self-consciousness 
 in its first development is characterised by an accentuation 
 of Timidity ; in its second development by a more deliberate 
 pursuit of sensual Pleasure (lust, food, drink, &c.) ; in its 
 third by the pursuit of mental gratifications (vanities, 
 ambitions, enslavement of others) ; in its fourth by the 
 pursuit of Property, as a means of attaining these objects ; 
 in its fifth by the access of enmities, jealousies, wars and so 
 forth, consequent on all these things ; and so on. I have no 
 intention at present of following out this line of thought, but 
 only wish to suggest its feasibility and the degree to which 
 it may throw light on the social evolutions of the Past . 1 
 
 1 For an analysis of the nature of Self-consciousness see vol. iii, 
 p. 375 sq. of the three ponderous tomes by Wilhelm Wundt— Grund- 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 275 
 
 As a kind of rude general philosophy we may say that 
 there are only two main factors in life, namely, Love and 
 Ignorance. And of these we may also say that the two are 
 not in the same plane : one is positive and substantial, 
 the other is negative and merely illusory. It may be thought 
 at first that Fear and Hatred and Cruelty, and the like, 
 are very positive things, but in the end we see that they 
 are due merely to absence of perception, to dulness of 
 understanding. Or we may put the statement in a rather 
 less crude form, and say that there are only two factors 
 in life : (i) the sense of Unity with others (and with Nature) 
 —which covers Love, Faith, Courage, Truth, and so forth, 
 and (2) Non-perception of the same—which covers Enmity, 
 Fear, Hatred, Self-pity, Cruelty, Jealousy, Meanness and 
 an endless similar list. The present world which we see 
 around us, with its idiotic wars, its senseless jealousies of 
 nations and classes, its fears and greeds and vanities and 
 its futile endeavours—as of people struggling in a swamp 
 —to find one’s own salvation by treading others underfoot, 
 is a negative phenomenon. Ignorance, non- perception, are 
 at the root of it. But it is the blessed virtue of Ignorance 
 and of non-perception that they inevitably—if only slowly 
 and painfully —destroy themselves. All experience serves 
 to dissipate them. The world, as it is, carries the doom 
 of its own transformation in its bosom ; and in proportion 
 as that which is negative disappears the positive element 
 must establish itself more and more. 
 
 So we come back to that with which we began , 1 to Fear 
 bred by Ignorance. From that source has sprung the long 
 catalogue of follies, cruelties and sufferings which mark 
 the records of the human race since the dawn of history ; 
 and to the overcoming of this Fear we perforce must look 
 
 ziigc dev Physiologischen Psychologic —in which amid an enormous 
 mass of verbiage occasional gleams of useful suggestion are to be 
 found. 
 
 1 See Introduction, Ch. I, supra. 
 
276 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 for our future deliverance, and for the discovery, even in 
 the midst of this world, of our true Home. The time is 
 coming when the positive constructive element must domi¬ 
 nate. It is inevitable that Man must ever build a state of 
 society around him after the pattern and image of his own 
 interior state. The whole futile and idiotic structure of 
 commerce and industry in which we are now imprisoned 
 springs from that falsehood of individualistic self-seeking 
 which marks the second stage of human evolution. That 
 stage is already tottering to its fall, destroyed by the very 
 flood of egotistic passions and interests, of vanities, greeds, 
 and cruelties, all warring with each other, which are the 
 sure outcome and culmination of its operation. With the 
 restoration of the sentiment of the Common Life, and the 
 gradual growth of a mental attitude corresponding, there 
 will emerge from the flood something like a solid earth— 
 something on which it will be possible to build with good 
 hope for the future. Schemes of reconstruction are well 
 enough in their way, but if there is no ground of real human 
 solidarity beneath, of what avail are they ? 
 
 An industrial system which is no real industrial order, 
 but only (on the part of the employers) a devil’s device 
 for securing private profit under the guise of public utility, 
 and (on the part of the employed) a dismal and poor-spirited 
 renunciation—for the sake of a bare living—of all real 
 interest in life and work : such a ‘ system ’ must infallibly 
 pass away. It cannot in the nature of things be permanent. 
 The first condition of social happiness and prosperity must 
 be the sense of the Common Life. This sense, which in¬ 
 stinctively underlay the whole Tribal order of the far past— 
 which first came to consciousness in the worship of a thousand 
 pagan divinities, and in the rituals of countless sacrifices, 
 initiations, redemptions, love-feasts and communions, which 
 inspired the dreams of the Golden Age, and flashed out 
 for a time in the Communism of the early Christians and in 
 their adorations of the risen Saviour—must in the end be 
 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 277 
 
 the creative condition of a new order: it must provide 
 the material of which the Golden City waits to be built. 
 The long travail of the World-religion will not have been 
 in vain, which assures this consummation. What the signs 
 and conditions of any general advance into this new order 
 of life and consciousness will be, we know not. It may 
 be that as to individuals the revelation of a new vision 
 i often comes quite suddenly, and generally perhaps after 
 a period of great suffering, so to society at large a similar 
 revelation will arrive—like “ the lightning which cometh 
 jt out of the East and shineth even unto the West ”—with 
 unexpected swiftness. On the other hand it would perhaps 
 be wise not to count too much on any such sudden trans¬ 
 formation. When we look abroad (and at home) in this 
 year of grace and hoped-for peace, 1919, and see the spirits 
 of rancour and revenge, the fears, the selfish blindness and 
 the ignorance, which still hold in their paralysing grasp 
 huge classes and coteries in every country in the world, 
 we see that the second stage of human development is by 
 no means yet at its full term, and that, as in some vast 
 chrysalis, for the liberation of the creature within still more 
 and more terrible struggles may be necessary. We can 
 only pray that such may not be the case. Anyhow, if 
 we have followed the argument of this book we can hardly 
 doubt that the destruction (which is going on everywhere) 
 of the outer form of the present society marks the first 
 stage of man’s final liberation ; and that, sooner or later, 
 and in its own good time, that further ' divine event ’ will 
 surely be realised. 
 
 Nor need we fear that Humanity, when it has once 
 entered into the great Deliverance, will be again over¬ 
 powered by evil. From Knowledge back to Ignorance 
 there is no complete return. The nations that have come 
 to enlightenment need entertain no dread of those others 
 (however hostile they appear) who are still plunging darkly 
 
278 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 in the troubled waters of self-greed. The dastardly Fears 
 which inspire all brutishness and cruelty of warfare—- 
 whether of White against White or it may be of White 
 against Yellow or Black—may be dismissed for good and 
 all by that blest race which once shall have gained the shore 
 —since from the very nature of the case those who are on 
 dry land can fear nothing and need fear nothing from the 
 unfortunates who are yet tossing in the welter and turmoil 
 of the waves. 
 
 Dr. Frazer, in the conclusion of his great work The Golden 
 Bough , 1 bids farewell to his readers with the following 
 words : “ The laws of Nature are merely hypotheses 
 
 devised to explain that ever-shifting phantasmagoria of 
 thought which we dignify with the high-sounding names 
 of the World and the Universe. In the last analysis magic, 
 religion and science are nothing but theories [of thought] ; 
 and as Science has supplanted its predecessors so it may 
 hereafter itself be superseded by some more perfect hypo¬ 
 thesis, perhaps by some perfectly different way of looking 
 at phenomena—of registering the shadows on the screen—- 
 of which we in this generation can form no idea.” I imagine 
 Dr. Frazer is right in thinking that “ a way of looking 
 at phenomena ” different from the way of Science, may 
 some day prevail. But I think this change will come, not 
 so much by the growth of Science itself or the extension 
 of its f hypotheses/ as by a growth and expansion of the 
 human heart and a change in its psychology and powers 
 of perception. Perhaps some of the preceding chapters 
 will help to show how much the outlook of humanity on 
 the world has been guided through the centuries by the 
 slow evolution of its inner consciousness. Gradually, out 
 of an infinite mass of folly and delusion, the human soul 
 has in this way disentangled itself, and will in the future 
 disentangle itself, to emerge at length in the fight of true 
 Freedom. All the taboos, the insane terrors, the fatuous 
 1 See " Balder," vol. ii, pp. 306, 307. (" Farewell to Nemi.”) 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 279 
 
 forbiddals of this and that (with their consequent heart- 
 searchings and distress) may perhaps have been in their 
 way necessary, in order to rivet and define the meaning 
 and the understanding of that word. To-day these taboos 
 and terrors still linger, many of them, in the form of con¬ 
 ventions of morality, uneasy strivings of conscience, doubts 
 and desperations of religion ; but ultimately Man will emerge 
 from all these things, free— familiar, that is, with them all, 
 making use of all, allowing generously for the values of 
 all, but hampered and bound by none. He will realise 
 the inner meaning of the creeds and rituals of the ancient 
 religions, and will hail with joy the fulfilment of their far 
 prophecy down the ages—finding after all the long-expected 
 Saviour of the world within his own breast, and Paradise 
 in the disclosure there of the everlasting peace of the soul. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 THE TEACHING OF THE UPANISHADS 
 
 Being the Substance of Two Lectures to Popular Audiences 
 I. REST 
 
 II. 
 
 THE NATURE OF THE SELF 
 
I 
 
 REST 
 
 To some, in the present whirlpool of life and affairs it may 
 seem almost an absurdity to talk about Rest. For long enough 
 now rest has seemed a thing far off and unattainable. With 
 the posts knocking at our doors ten or twelve times a day, with 
 telegrams arriving every hour, and the telephone bell constantly 
 ringing ; with motors rushing wildly about the streets, and 
 aeroplanes whizzing overhead, with work speeded up in every 
 direction, and the drive in the workshops becoming more in¬ 
 tolerable every day ; with the pace of the walkers and the 
 pace of the talkers from hour to hour insanely increasing— 
 what room, it may well be asked, is there for Rest ? And now 
 the issues of war, redoubling the urgency of all questions, are 
 on us. 
 
 The problem is obviously a serious one. So urgent is it that 
 I think one may safely say the amount of insanity due to the 
 pressure of daily life is increasing ; nursing-homes have sprung 
 up for the special purpose of treating such cases ; and doctors 
 are starting special courses of tuition in the art—now becoming 
 very important—of systematically doing nothing ! And yet 
 it is difficult to see the outcome of it all. The clock of what 
 is called Progress is not easily turned backward. We should 
 not very readily agree nowadays to the abolition of telegrams 
 or to a regulation compelling express trains to stop at every 
 station ! We can’t all go to Nursing Homes, or afford to enjoy 
 a winter’s rest-cure in Egypt. And, if not, is the speeding-up 
 process to go on indefinitely, incapable of being checked, and 
 destined ultimately to land civilisation in the mad-house ? 
 
 It is, I say, a serious and an urgent problem. And it is, I 
 think, forcing a certain answer on us—which I will now en¬ 
 deavour to explain. 
 
 283 
 
. 284 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 If we cannot turn back and reverse this fatal onrush of modern 
 life (and it is evident that we cannot do so in any very brief 
 time—though of course ultimately we might succeed) then I 
 think there are clearly only two alternatives left—either to go 
 forward to general dislocation and madness, or—to learn to 
 rest even in the very midst of the hurry and the scurry. 
 
 To explain what I mean, let me use an illustration. The 
 typhoons and cyclones of the China Seas are some of the most 
 formidable storms that ships can encounter. Their paths in 
 the past have been strewn with wrecks and disaster. But 
 now with increased knowledge much of their danger has been 
 averted. It is known that they are circular in character, and 
 that though the wind on their outskirts often reaches a speed of 
 ioo miles an hour, in the centre of the storm there is a space of 
 complete calm—not a calm of the sea certainly, but a complete 
 absence of wind. The skilled navigator, if he cannot escape 
 the storm, steers right into the heart of it, and rests there. 
 Even in the midst of the clatter he finds a place of quiet where 
 he can trim his sails and adjust his future course. He knows 
 too from his position in what direction at every point around 
 him the wind is moving and where it will strike him when at 
 last his ship emerges from the charmed circle. 
 
 Is it not possible, we may ask, that in the very midst of the 
 cyclone of daily life we may find a similar resting-place ? If 
 we can, our case is by no means hopeless. If we cannot, then 
 indeed there is danger. 
 
 Looking back in History we seem to see that in old times 
 people took life much more leisurely than they do now. The 
 elder generations gave more scope in their customs and their 
 religions for contentment and peace of mind. We associate 
 a certain quietism and passivity with the thought of the 
 Eastern peoples. But as civilisation traveled Westward external 
 activity and the pace of life increased—less and less time was 
 left for meditation and repose—till with the rise of Western 
 Europe and America, the dominant note of life seems to have 
 simply become one of feverish and ceaseless activity—of activity 
 merely for the sake of activity, without any clear idea of its 
 own purpose or object. 
 
 Such a prospect does not at first seem very hopeful ; but 
 on second thoughts we see that we are not forced to draw any 
 very pessimistic conclusion from it. The direction of human 
 evolution need not remain always the same. The movement, 
 in fact, of civilisation from East to West has now clearly com- 
 
 
 
 
REST 
 
 285 
 
 pleted itself. The globe has been circled, and we cannot go 
 any farther to the West without coming round to the East again. 
 It is a commonplace to say that our psychology, our philosophy 
 and our religious sense are already taking on an Eastern colour ; 
 nor is it difficult to imagine that with the end of the present 
 dispensation a new era may perfectly naturally arrive in which 
 the St. Vitus' dance of money-making and ambition will cease 
 to be the chief end of existence. 
 
 In the history of nations as in the history of individuals there 
 are periods when the formative ideals of life (through some 
 hidden influence) change ; and the mode of life and evolution 
 in consequence changes also. I remember when I was a boy 
 wishing—like many other boys—to go to sea. I wanted to 
 join the Navy. It was not, I am sure, that I was so very anxious 
 to defend my country. No, there was a much simpler and more 
 prosaic motive than that. The ships of those days with their 
 complex rigging suggested a perfect paradise of climbing, and 
 I know that it was the thought of that which influenced me. 
 To be able to climb indefinitely among those ropes and spars ! 
 How delightful ! Of course I knew perfectly well that I should 
 not always have free access to the rigging ; but then—some 
 day, no doubt, I should be an Admiral, and who then could 
 prevent me ? I remember seeing myself in my mind’s eye, 
 with cocked hat on my head and spy-glass under my arm, 
 roaming at my own sweet will up aloft, regardless of the remon¬ 
 strances which might reach me from below ! Such was my 
 childish ideal. But a time came—needless to say—when I 
 conceived a different idea of the object of life. 
 
 It is said that John Tyndall, whose lectures on Science were 
 so much sought after in their time, being on one occasion in 
 New York was accosted after his discourse by a very successful 
 American business man, who urged him to devote his scientific 
 knowledge and ability to commercial pursuits, promising that 
 if he did so, he, Tyndall, would easily make “ a big pile.” 
 Tyndall very calmly replied, “ Well, I myself thought of that 
 once, but I soon abandoned the idea, having come to the con¬ 
 clusion that I had no time to waste in making money.” The 
 man of dollars nearly sank into the ground. Such a conception 
 of life had never entered his head before. But to Tyndall no 
 doubt it was obvious that if he chained himself to the commercial 
 ideal all the joy and glory of his days would be gone. 
 
 We sometimes hear of the awful doom of some of the Russian 
 convicts in the quarries and mines of Siberia, who are (or were) 
 
286 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 chained permanently to their wheelbarrows. It is difficult to 
 imagine a more dreadful fate : the despair, the disgust, the 
 deadly loathing of the accursed thing from which there is no 
 escape day or night—which is the companion not only of the 
 prisoner’s work but of his hours of rest—with which he has to 
 sleep, to feed, to take his recreation if he has any, and to fulfil 
 all the offices of nature. Could anything be more crushing ? 
 And yet, and yet ... is it not true that we, most of us, in 
 our various ways are chained to our wheelbarrows—is it not 
 too often true that to these beggarly things we have for the 
 most part chained ourselves ? 
 
 Let me be understood. Of course we all have (or ought to 
 have) our work to do. We have our living to get, our families 
 to support, our trade, our art, our profession to pursue. In 
 that sense no doubt we are tied ; but I take it that these things 
 are like the wheelbarrow which a man uses while he is at work. 
 It may irk him at times, but he sticks to it with a good heart, 
 and with a certain joy because it is the instrument of a noble 
 purpose. That is all right. But to be chained to it, not to 
 be able to leave it when the work of the day is done—that is 
 indeed an ignoble slavery. I would say, then, take care that 
 even with these things, these necessary arts of life, you preserve 
 your independence, that even if to some degree they may confine 
 your body they do not enslave your mind. 
 
 For it is the freedom of the mind which counts. We are 
 all no doubt caught in the toils of the earth-life. One man is 
 largely dominated by sensual indulgence, another by ambition, 
 another by the pursuit of money. Well, these things are all 
 right in themselves. Without the pleasures of the senses we 
 should be dull mokes indeed ; without ambition much of the 
 zest and enterprise of life would be gone ; gold, in the present 
 order of affairs, is a very useful servant. These things are 
 right enough—but to be chained to them, to be unable to think 
 of anything else—what a fate ! The subject reminds one of 
 a not uncommon spectacle. It is a glorious day ; the sun is 
 bright, small white clouds float in the transparent blue—a day 
 when you linger perforce on the road to enjoy the scene. But 
 suddenly here comes a man painfully running all hot and dusty 
 and mopping his head, and with no eye, clearly, for anything 
 around him. What is the matter ? He is absorbed by one idea. 
 He is running to catch a train ! And one cannot help wondering 
 what exceedingly important business it must be for which all this 
 glory and beauty is sacrificed, and passed by as if it did not exist. 
 
REST 
 
 287 
 
 Further we must remember that in our foolishness we very 
 commonly chain ourselves, not only to things like sense- 
 pleasures and ambitions which are on the edge, so to speak, 
 of being vices ; but also to other things which are accounted 
 virtues, and which as far as I can see are just as bad, if we once 
 become enslaved to them. I have known people who were so 
 exceedingly ‘ spiritual ’ and ‘ good 7 that one really felt quite 
 depressed in their company ; I have known others whose sense 
 of duty, dear things, was so strong that they seemed quite 
 unable to rest, or even to allow their friends to rest ; and I 
 have wondered whether, after all, worriting about one’s duty 
 might not be as bad—as deteriorating to oneself, as distressing 
 to one’s friends—as sinning a good solid sin. No, in this respect 
 virtues may be no better than vices ; and to be chained to a 
 wheelbarrow made of alabaster is no way preferable to being 
 chained to one of wood. To sacrifice the immortal' freedom 
 of the mind in order to become a prey to self-regarding cares 
 and anxieties, self-estimating virtues and vices, self-chaining 
 duties and indulgences, is a mistake. And I warn you, it is 
 quite useless. For the destiny of Freedom is ultimately upon 
 every one, and if refusing it for a time you heap your life per¬ 
 sistently upon one object—however blameless in itself that 
 object may be—Beware ! For one day—and when you least 
 expect it—the gods will send a thunderbolt upon you. One 
 day the thing for which you have toiled and spent laborious 
 days and sleepless nights will lie broken before you—your repu¬ 
 tation will be ruined, your ambition will be dashed, your savings 
 of years will be lost—and for the moment you will be inclined 
 to think that your life has been in vain. But presently you 
 will wake up and find that something quite different has 
 happened. You will find that the thunderbolt which you 
 thought was your ruin has been your salvation—that it has 
 broken the chain which bound you to your wheelbarrow, and 
 that you are free ! 
 
 I think you will now see what I mean by Rest. Rest is 
 the loosing of the chains which bind us to the whirligig of the 
 world ; it is the passing into the centre of the Cyclone ; it is 
 the Stilling of Thought. For (with regard to this last) it is 
 Thought, it is the Attachment of the Mind, which binds us 
 to outer things. The outer things themselves are all right. 
 It is only through our thoughts that they make slaves of us. 
 
288 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Obtain power over your thoughts and you are free. You can 
 then use the outer things or dismiss them at your pleasure. 
 
 There is nothing new of course in all this. It has been known 
 for ages ; and is part of the ancient philosophy of the world. 
 
 In the Katha Upanishad you will find these words (Max 
 Muller’s translation) : “As rainwater that has fallen on a 
 mountain ridge runs down on all sides, thus does he who sees 
 a difference between qualities run after them on all sides.” 
 This is the figure of the man who does not rest. And it is a 
 powerful likeness. The thunder shower descends on the moun¬ 
 tain top ; torrents of water pour down the crags in every 
 direction. Imagine the state of mind of a man—however 
 thirsty he may be—who endeavors to pursue and intercept 
 all these streams ! 
 
 But then the Upanishad goes on : “As pure water poured 
 into pure water remains the same, thus, O Gautama, is the Self 
 of a thinker who knows.” What a perfect image of rest ! 
 Imagine a cistern before you with transparent glass sides and 
 filled with pure water. And then imagine some one comes 
 with a phial, also of pure water, and pours the contents gently 
 into the cistern. What will happen ? Almost nothing. The 
 pure water will glide into the pure water—“ remaining the 
 same.” There will be no dislocation, no discoloration (as 
 might happen if muddy water were poured in) ; there will be 
 only perfect harmony. 
 
 I imagine here that the meaning is something like this. The 
 cistern is the great Reservoir of the Universe which contains 
 the pure and perfect Spirit of all life. Each one of us, and 
 every mortal creature, represents a drop from that reservoir— 
 a drop indeed which is also pure and perfect (though the phial 
 in which it is contained may not always be so). When we, 
 each of us, descend into the world and meet the great Ocean 
 of Life which dwells there behind all mortal forms, it is like 
 the little phial being poured into the great reservoir. If the 
 tiny canful which is our selves is pure and unsoiled, then when 
 it meets the world it will blend with the Spirit which informs 
 the world perfectly harmoniously, without distress or dislo¬ 
 cation. It will pass through and be at one with it. How can 
 one describe such a state of affairs ? You will have the key 
 to every person that you meet, because indeed you are con¬ 
 scious that the real essence of that person is the same as your 
 own. You will have the solution of every event which happens. 
 For every event is (and is felt to be) the touch of the great 
 
REST 
 
 289 
 
 Spirit on yours. Can any description of Rest be more perfect 
 than that ? Pure water poured into pure water. . . . There 
 is no need to hurry, for everything will come in its good 
 time. There is no need to leave your place, for all you desire 
 is close at hand. 
 
 Here is another verse (from the Vagasaneyi-Samhita Upan- 
 ishad) embodying the same idea : “ And he who beholds all 
 beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings, he never turns 
 away from It. When, to a man who understands, the Self 
 has become all things, what sorrow, what trouble, can there 
 be to him—having once beheld that Unity ? ”—What trouble, 
 what sorrow, indeed, when the universe has become trans¬ 
 parent with the presences of all we love, held firm in the One 
 i enfolding Presence ? 
 
 But it will be said : “ Our minds are not pure and trans¬ 
 parent. More often they are muddy and soiled—soiled, if not 
 in their real essence, yet by reason of the mortal phial in which 
 they are contained.” And that alas ! is true. If you pour 
 a phial of muddy water into that reservoir which we described 
 —what will you see ? You will see a queer and ugly cloud 
 formed. And to how many of us, in our dealings with the 
 world, does life take on just such a form—of a queer and ugly 
 cloud ? 
 
 Now not so very long after those Upanishads were written 
 there lived in China that great Teacher, Lao-tze ; and he too 
 had considered these things. And he wrote—in the Tao-Teh- 
 King—“ Who is there who can make muddy water clear ? ” 
 The question sounds like a conundrum. For a moment one 
 hesitates to answer it. Lao-tze, however, has an answer ready. 
 He says : “ But if you leave it alone it will become clear of itself.” 
 That muddy water of the mind, muddied by all the foolish 
 little thoughts which like a sediment infest it—but if you leave 
 it alone it will become clear of itself. Sometimes walking along 
 the common road after a shower you have seen pools of water 
 lying here and there, dirty and unsightly with the mud stirred 
 up by the hooves of men and animals. And then returning 
 some hours afterwards along the same road—in the evening 
 and after the cessation of traffic—you have looked again, and 
 lo ! each pool has cleared itself to a perfect calm, and has become 
 a lovely mirror reflecting the trees and the clouds and the sunset 
 and the stars. | 
 
 So this mirror of the mind. Leave it alone. Let the ugly f 
 sediment of tiresome thoughts and anxieties, and of fussing 
 
 19 
 
290 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 over one’s self-importances and duties, settle down—and pre¬ 
 sently you will look on it, and see something there which you 
 never knew or imagined before—something more beautiful 
 than you ever yet beheld—a reflection of the real and eternal 
 world such is only given to the mind that rests. 
 
 Do not recklessly spill the waters of your mind in this direction 
 and in that, lest you become like a spring lost and dissipated in the 
 desert. 
 
 But draw them together into a little compass, and hold them still, 
 so still; 
 
 And let them become clear, so clear—so limpid, so mirror-like ; 
 
 At last the mountains and the sky shall glass themselves in peace¬ 
 ful beauty. 
 
 And the antelope shall descend to drink, and the lion to quench 
 his thirst, 
 
 And Love himself shall come and bend over, and catch his own 
 likeness in you. 1 
 
 Yes, there is this priceless thing within us, but hoofing along 
 the roads in the mud we fail to find it ; there is this region of 
 calm, but the cyclone of the world raging around guards us 
 from entering it. Perhaps it is best so—best that the access 
 to it should not be made too easy. One day, some time ago, 
 in the course of conversation with Rabindranath Tagore in 
 London, I asked him what impressed him most in visiting the 
 great city. He said, “ The restless incessant movement of 
 everybody.” I said, “ Yes, they seem as if they were all rush¬ 
 ing about looking for something.” He replied, “ It is because 
 each person does not know of the great treasure he has within 
 himself.” 
 
 How then are we to reach this treasure and make it our own ? 
 How are we to attain to this Stilling of the Mind, which is the 
 secret of all power and possession ? The thing is difficult, no 
 doubt ; yet as I tried to show at the outset of this discourse, 
 we Moderns must reach it; we have got to attain to it—for 
 the penalty of failure is and must be widespread Madness. 
 
 The power to still the mind—to be able, mark you, when 
 you want, to enter into the region of Rest, and to dismiss or 
 command your Thoughts—is a condition of Health ; it is a 
 condition of all Power and Energy. For all health, whether 
 
 1 Towards Democracy, p. 373. 
 
 
REST 
 
 291 
 
 of mind or body, resides in one’s relation to the central Life 
 within. If one cannot get into touch with that, then the life- 
 forces cannot flow down into the organism. Most, perhaps all, 
 disease arises from the disturbance of this connexion. All mere 
 hurry, all mere running after external things (as of the man 
 after the water-streams on the mountain-top), inevitably breaks 
 it. Let a pond be allowed calmly under the influence of frost 
 to crystallise, and most beautiful flowers and spears of ice will 
 be formed ; but keep stirring the water all the time with a 
 stick or a pole and nothing will result but an ugly brash of half- 
 frozen stuff. The condition of the exercise of power and energy 
 is that it should proceed from a centre of Rest within one. So 
 convinced am I of this, that whenever I find myself hurrying 
 over my work, I pause and say, “ Now you are not producing 
 anything good ! ” and I generally find that that is true. It 
 is curious, but I think very noticeable, that the places where 
 people hurry most—as for instance the City of London or Wall 
 Street, New York—are just the places where the work being 
 done is of least importance (being mostly money-gambling) ; 
 whereas if you go and look at a ploughman ploughing—doing 
 perhaps the most important of human work—you find all his 
 movements most deliberate and leisurely, as if indeed he had 
 infinite time at command ; the truth being that in dealing 
 (like a ploughman) with the earth and the horses and the weather 
 and the things of Nature generally you can no more hurry than 
 Nature herself hurries. 
 
 Following this line of thought it might seem that one would 
 arrive at a hopeless paradox. If it be true that the less one 
 hurries the better the work resulting, then it might seem that 
 by sitting still and merely twirling one’s thumbs one would 
 arrive at the very greatest activity and efficiency ! And indeed 
 (if understood aright) there is a truth even in this, which—like 
 the other points I have mentioned—has been, known and taught 
 long ages ago. Says that humorous old sage, Lao-tze, whom 
 I have already quoted : “ By non-action there is nothing that 
 cannot be done.” At first this sounds like mere foolery or 
 worse ; but afterwards thinking on it one sees there is a meaning 
 hidden, there is a secret by which Nature and the powers 
 of the universal life will do all for you. The Bh&gavat Gita 
 also says, “ He who discovers inaction in action and action in 
 inaction is wise among mortals.” 
 
 It is worth while dwelling for a moment on these texts. We 
 are all—as I said earlier on—involved in work belonging to 
 
292 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 our place and station ; we are tied to some degree in the bonds 
 of action. But that fact need not imprison our inner minds. 
 While acting even with keenness and energy along the external 
 and necessary path before us, it is perfectly possible to hold the 
 mind free and untied—so that the result of our action (which 
 of course is not ours to command) shall remain indifferent and 
 incapable of unduly affecting us. Similarly, when it is our part 
 to remain externally inactive, we may discover that underneath 
 this apparent inaction we may be taking part in the currents 
 of a deeper life which are moving on to a definite end, to an 
 end or object which in a sense is ours and in a sense is not ours. 
 The lighthouse beam flies over land and sea with incredible 
 velocity, and you think the light itself must be in swiftest move¬ 
 ment ; but when you climb up thither you find the lamp abso¬ 
 lutely stationary. It is only the reflection that is moving. 
 The rider on horseback may gallop to and fro wherever he will, 
 but it is hard to say that he is acting. The horse guided by 
 the slightest indication of the man’s will performs all the action 
 that is needed. If we can get into right touch with the immense, 
 the incalculable powers of Nature, is there anything which 
 we may not be able to do ? “ If a man worship the Self only 
 
 as his true state,” says the Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad, “ his 
 work cannot fail, for whatever he desires, that he obtains from 
 the Self.” What a wonderful saying, and how infallibly true ! 
 For obviously if you succeed in identifying your true being 
 with the great Self of the universe, then whatever you desire 
 the great Self will also desire, and therefore every power of 
 Nature will be at your service and will conspire to fulfil your 
 need. 
 
 There are marvelous things here “ well wrapped up ” — 
 difficult to describe, yet not impossible to experience. And 
 they all depend upon that power of stilling Thought, that 
 ability to pass unharmed and undismayed through the grinning 
 legions of the lower mind into the very heart of Paradise. 
 
 The question inevitably arises, How can this power be ob¬ 
 tained ? And there is only one answer—the same answer 
 which has to be given for the attainment of any power or 
 faculty. There is no royal road. The only way is (however 
 imperfectly) to do the thing in question, to practise it. If you 
 would learn to play cricket, the only way is to play cricket; 
 if you would be able to speak a language, the only way is to 
 speak it. If you would learn to swim, the only way is to practise 
 swimming. Or would you wish to be like the man who when 
 
REST 
 
 293 
 
 his companions were bathing and bidding him come and join 
 them, said : “Yes, I am longing to join you, but I am not 
 going to be such a fool as to go into the water till I know how to 
 swim ! ” 
 
 There is nothing but practice. If you want to obtain that 
 priceless power of commanding Thought—of using it or dis¬ 
 missing it (for the two things go together) at will—there is no 
 way but practice. And the practice consists in two exercises : 
 (a) that of concentration—in holding the thought steadily for 
 a time on one subject, or point of a subject; and ( b ) that of 
 effacement—in effacing any given thought from the mind, and 
 determining not to entertain it for such and such a time. Both 
 these exercises are difficult. Failure in practising them is certain 
 —and may even extend over years. But the power equally 
 certainly grows with practice. And ultimately there may come 
 a time when the learner is not only able to efface from his mind 
 any given thought (however importunate), but may even 
 succeed in effacing, during short periods, all thought of any 
 kind. When this stage is reached, the veil of illusion which 
 surrounds all mortal things is pierced, and the entrance to the 
 Paradise of Rest (and of universal power and knowledge) is 
 found. 
 
 Of indirect or auxiliary methods of reaching this great con¬ 
 clusion, there are more than one. I think a life in the ppen 
 air, if not absolutely necessary, at least most important. The 
 gods—though sometimes out of compassion the}/ visit the 
 interiors of houses—are not fond of such places and the evil 
 effluvium they find there, and avoid them as much as they can. 
 It is not merely a question of breathing oxygen instead of 
 carbonic acid. There is a presence and an influence in Nature 
 and the Open which expands the mind and causes brigand 
 cares and worries to drop off—whereas in confined places foolish 
 and futile thoughts of all kinds swarm like microbes and cloud 
 and conceal the soul. Experto Credo. It is only necessary to 
 try this experiment in order to prove its truth. 
 
 Another thing which corresponds in some degree to living 
 physically in the open air, is the living mentally and emotionally 
 in the atmosphere of love. A large charity of mind, which 
 refuses absolutely to shut itself in little secluded places of 
 prejudice, bigotry and contempt for others, and which attains 
 to a great and universal sympathy, helps, most obviously, to 
 open the way to that region of calm and freedom of which we 
 have spoken, while conversely all petty enmity, meanness and 
 
294 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 spite, conspire to imprison the soul and make its deliverance 
 more difficult. 
 
 It is not necessary to labour these points. As we said, the 
 way to attain is to sincerely try to attain, to consistently practise 
 attainment. Whoever does this will find that the way will 
 open out by degrees, as of one emerging from a vast and gloomy 
 forest, till out of darkness the path becomes clear. For whom¬ 
 soever really tries there is no failure ; for every effort in that 
 region is success, and every onward push, however small, and 
 however little result it may show, is really a move forward, 
 and one step nearer the light. 
 
II 
 
 THE NATURE OF THE SELF 
 
 The true nature of the Self is a matter by no means easy to 
 compass. We have all probably at some time or other attempted 
 to fathom the deeps of personality, and been baffled. Some 
 people say they can quite distinctly remember a moment in 
 early childhood, about the age of three (though the exact period 
 is of course only approximate) when self-consciousness—the 
 awareness of being a little separate Self—first dawned in the 
 mind. It was generally at some moment of childish tension—• 
 alone perhaps in a garden, or lost from the mother’s protecting 
 hand—that this happened ; and it was the beginning of a whole 
 range of new experience. Before some such period there is 
 in childhood strictly speaking no distinct self-consciousness. 
 As Tennyson says {In Memoriam xliv) : 
 
 The baby new to earth and sky, 
 
 What time his tender palm is prest 
 Against the circle of the breast. 
 
 Hath never thought that “ This is I.” 
 
 It has consciousness truly, but no distinctive self-consciousness. 
 It is this absence or deficiency which explains many things 
 which at first sight seem obscure in the psychology of children 
 and of animals. The baby (it has often been noticed) experi¬ 
 ences little or no sense of fear. It does not know enough to 
 be afraid ; it has never formed any image of itself, as of a thing 
 which might be injured. It may shrink from actual pain or 
 discomfort, but it does not look forward —which is of the essence 
 of fear—to pain in the future. Fear and self-consciousness 
 are closely interlinked. Similarly with animals, we often wonder 
 
 how a horse or a cow can endure to stand out in a field all night, 
 
 295 
 
296 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 exposed to cold and rain, in the lethargic patient way that 
 they exhibit. It is not that they do not feel the discomfort, but 
 it is that they do not envisage themselves as enduring this pain 
 and suffering for all those coming hours ; and as we know with 
 ourselves that nine-tenths of our miseries really consist in look¬ 
 ing forward to future miseries, so we understand that the absence 
 or at any rate slight prevalence of self-consciousness in animals 
 enables them to endure forms of distress which would drive 
 us mad. 
 
 In time then the babe arrives at self-consciousness ; and, 
 as one might expect, the growing boy or girl often becomes 
 intensely aware of Self. His or her self-consciousness is crude, 
 no doubt, but it has very little misgiving. If the question 
 of the nature of the Self is propounded to the boy as a problem 
 he has no difficulty in solving it. He says “ I know well enough 
 who I am : I am the boy with red hair what gave Jimmy Brown 
 such a jolly good licking last Monday week.” He knows well 
 enough-—or thinks he knows—who he is. And at a later age, 
 though his definition may change and he may describe himself 
 chiefly as a good cricketer or successful in certain examinations, 
 his method is practically the same. He fixes his mind on a 
 certain bundle of qualities and capacities which he is supposed 
 to possess, and calls that bundle Himself. And in a more 
 elaborate way we most of us, I imagine, do the same. 
 
 Presently, however, with more careful thought, we begin to 
 see difficulties in this view. I see that directly I think of my¬ 
 self as a certain bundle of qualities—and for that matter it is 
 of no account whether the qualities are good or bad, or in what 
 sort of charming confusion they are mixed—I see at once that 
 I am merely looking at a bundle of qualities : and that the 
 real “ I,” the Self, is not that bundle, but is the being inspecting 
 the same-—something beyond and behind, as it were. So I 
 now concentrate my thoughts upon that inner Something, in 
 order to find out what it really is. I imagine perhaps an inner 
 being, of ‘ astral ’ or ethereal nature, and possessing a new range 
 of much finer and more subtle qualities than the body—a being 
 inhabiting the body and perceiving through its senses, but 
 quite capable of surviving the tenement in which it dwells— 
 and I think of that as the Self. But no sooner have I taken 
 this step than I perceive that I am committing the same mistake 
 as before. I am only contemplating a new image or picture, 
 and “ 1” still remain beyond and behind that which I con¬ 
 template. No sooner do I turn my attention on the subjective 
 
THE NATURE OF THE SELF 
 
 297 
 
 being than it becomes objective, and the real subject retires 
 into the background. And so on indefinitely. I am baffled ; 
 and unable to say positively what the Self is. 
 
 Meanwhile there are people who look upon the foregoing 
 speculations about an interior Self as merely unpractical. Being 
 perhaps of a more materialistic type of mind they fix their 
 attention on the body. Frankly they try to define the Self 
 by the body and all that is connected therewith—that is by 
 the mental as well as corporeal qualities which exhibit them¬ 
 selves in that connexion ; and they say, “ At any rate the Self 
 —whatever it may be—is in some way limited by the body ; 
 each person studies the interest of his body and of the feelings, 
 emotions and mentality directly associated with it, and you 
 cannot get beyond that ; it isn’t in human nature to do so. 
 The Self is limited by this corporeal phenomenon and doubtless 
 it perishes when the body perishes.” But here again the con¬ 
 clusion, though specious at first, soon appears to be quite in¬ 
 adequate. For though it is possibly true that a man, if left 
 alone in a Robinson Crusoe life on a desert island, might ulti¬ 
 mately subside into a mere gratification of his corporeal needs 
 and of those mental needs which were directly concerned with 
 the body, yet we know that such a case would by no means 
 be representative. On the contrary we know that vast numbers 
 of people spend their lives in considering other people, and often 
 so far as to sacrifice their own bodily and mental comfort and 
 well-being. The mother spends her life thinking almost day 
 and night about her babe and the other children—spending 
 all her thoughts and efforts on them. You may call her selfish 
 if you will, but her selfishness clearly extends beyond her per¬ 
 sonal body and mind, and extends to the personalities of her 
 children around her ; her “ body ”—if you insist on your defin¬ 
 ition—must be held to include the bodies of all her children. 
 And again, the husband who is toiling for the support of the 
 family, he is thinking and working and toiling and suffering 
 for a ‘ self ’ which includes his wife and children. Do you 
 mean that the whole family is his “ body ” ? Or a man belongs 
 to some society, to a church or to a social league of some kind, 
 and his activities are largely ruled by the interests of this larger 
 group. Or he sacrifices his life—as many have been doing of 
 late—with extraordinary bravery and heroism for the sake 
 of the nation to which he belongs. Must we say then that 
 the whole nation is really a part of the man’s body ? Or again, 
 he gives his life and goes to the stake for his religion. Whether 
 
298 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 his religion is right or wrong does not matter, the point is that 
 there is that in him which can carry him far beyond his local 
 self and the ordinary instincts of his physical organism, to 
 dedicate his life and powers to a something of far wider circum¬ 
 ference and scope. 
 
 Thus in the first of these two examples of a search for the 
 nature of the Self we are led inwards from point to point, into 
 interior and ever subtler regions of our being, and still in the 
 end are baffled ; while in the second we are carried outwards 
 into an ever wider and wider circumference in our quest of 
 the Ego, and still feel that we have failed to reach its ultimate 
 nature. We are driven in fact by these two arguments to the 
 conclusion that that which we are seeking is indeed something 
 very vast—something far extending around, yet also buried 
 deep in the hidden recesses of our minds. How far, how deep, 
 we do not know. We can only say that as far as the indications 
 point the true self is profounder and more far-reaching than 
 anything we have yet fathomed. 
 
 In the ordinary commonplace life we shrink to ordinary 
 commonplace selves, but it is one of the blessings of great ex¬ 
 periences, even though they are tragic or painful, that they 
 throw us out into that enormously greater self to which we 
 belong. Sometimes, in moments of inspiration, of intense 
 enthusiasm, of revelation, such as a man feels in the midst of 
 a battle, in moments of love and dedication to another person, 
 and in moments of religious ecstasy, an immense world is 
 opened up to the astonished gaze of the inner man, who sees 
 disclosed a self stretched far beyond anything he had ever 
 imagined. We have all had experiences more or less of that 
 kind. I have known quite a few people, and most of you have 
 known some, who at some time, even if only once in their lives, 
 have experienced such an extraordinary lifting of the veil, an 
 opening out of the back of their minds as it were, and have 
 had such a vision of the world, that they have never afterwards 
 forgotten it. They have seen into the heart of creation, and 
 have perceived their union with the rest of mankind. They 
 have had glimpses of a strange immortality belonging to them, 
 a glimpse of their belonging to a far greater being than they 
 have ever imagined. Just once—and a man has never for¬ 
 gotten it, and even if it has not recurred it has coloured all 
 the rest of his life. 
 
 Now, this subject has been thought about—since the begin¬ 
 ning of the world, I was going to say—but it has been thought 
 
THE NATURE OF THE SELF 
 
 299 
 
 about since the beginnings of history. Some three thousand 
 years ago certain groups of—I hardly like to call them philo¬ 
 sophers—but, let us say, people who were meditating and think¬ 
 ing upon these problems, were in the habit of locating them¬ 
 selves in the forests of Northern India ; and schools arose there. 
 In the case of each school some teacher went into the woods 
 and collected groups of disciples around him, who lived there 
 in his company and listened to his words. Such schools w^ere 
 formed in. very considerable numbers, and the doctrines of 
 these teachers were gathered together, generally by their dis¬ 
 ciples, in notes, which notes were brought together into little 
 pamphlets or tracts, forming the books which are called the 
 ‘ Upanishads ’ of the Indian sages. They contain some extra¬ 
 ordinary words of wisdom, some of which I want to bring before 
 you. The conclusions arrived at were not so much what we 
 should call philosophy in the modern sense. They were not so 
 much the result of the analysis of the mind and the following 
 out of concatenations of strict argument ; but they were flashes 
 of intuition and experience, and all through the ‘ Upanishads ’ 
 you find these extraordinary flashes embedded in the midst 
 of a great deal of what we should call a rather rubbishy kind 
 of argument, and a good deal of merely conventional Brahmanical 
 talk of those days. But the people who wrote and spoke thus 
 had an intuition into the heart of things which I make bold to 
 say very few people in modern life have. These ‘ Upanishads, 
 however varibus their subjects, practically agree on one point 
 —in the definition of the “ self/’ They agree in saying that 
 the self of each man is continuous with and in a sense identical 
 with the Self of the universe. Now that seems an extraordinary 
 \ conclusion, and one which almost staggers the modern mind 
 to conceive of. But that is the conclusion, that is the thread 
 which runs all through the ‘ Upanishads ’—the identity of the 
 self of each individual with the self of every other individual 
 throughout mankind, and even with the selves of the animals 
 and other creatures. 
 
 Those who have read the Khandogya Upanishad remember 
 how in that treatise the father instructs his son Svetaketu on 
 this very subject—pointing him out in succession the objects 
 of Nature and on each occasion exhorting him to realise his 
 identity with the very essence of the object—“ Tat twam asi, 
 That thou art.” He calls Svetaketu’s attention to a tree. What 
 is the essence of the tree ? When they have rejected the external 
 characteristics—the leaves, the branches, etc.—and agreed 
 
300 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 that the sap is the essence, then the father says, " Tat twam asi 
 —That thou art.” He gives his son a crystal of salt, and asks 
 him what is the essence of that. The son is puzzled. Clearly 
 neither the form nor the transparent quality are essential. The 
 father says, “ Put the crystal in water.” Then when it is melted 
 he says, “ Where is the crystal ? ” The son replies, “ I do not 
 know. ’ “ Dip your finger in the bowl,” says the father, ” and 
 
 taste.” Ihen Svetaketu dips here and there, and everywhere 
 there is a salt flavour. They agree that that is the essence of 
 salt ; and the father says again, ” Tat twam asi.” I am of course 
 neither defending nor criticising the scientific attitude here 
 adopted. I am only pointing out that this psychological identi¬ 
 fication of the.observer with the object observed runs through 
 the Upanishads, and is I think worthy of the deepest consider¬ 
 ation. 
 
 In the ‘ Bhagavat Gita,’ which is a later book, the author 
 speaks of ” him whose soul is purified, whose self is the Self 
 of all creatures.” A phrase like that challenges opposition. 
 It is so bold, so sweeping, and so immense, that we hesitate to 
 give our adhesion to what it implies. But what does it mean 
 whose soul is purified ” ? I believe that it means this, 
 that with most of us our souls are anything but clean or purified, 
 they are by no means transparent, so that all the time 
 we are continually deceiving ourselves and making clouds 
 between us and others. We are all the time grasping things 
 from other people, and if not in words, are mentally boasting 
 ourselves against others, trying to think of our own superiority 
 to the rest of the people around us. Sometimes we try to run 
 our neighbours down a little, just to show that they are not 
 quite equal to our level. We try to snatch from others some 
 things which belong to them, or take credit to ourselves for 
 things to which we are not fairly entitled. But all the time we 
 are acting so it is perfectly obvious that we are weaving veils 
 between ourselves and others. You cannot have dealings with 
 another person in a purely truthful way, and be continually 
 trying to cheat that person out of money, or out of his good 
 name and reputation. If you are doing that, however much 
 in the background you may be doing it, you are not looking 
 the person fairly in the face—there is a cloud between you all 
 the time. So long as your soul is not purified from all these 
 really absurd and ridiculous little desires and superiorities and 
 self-satisfactions, which make up so much of our lives, just 
 so long as that happens you do not and you cannot see the 
 
THE NATURE OF THE SELF 
 
 301 
 
 truth. But when it happens to a person, as it does happen 
 in times of great and deep and bitter experience ; when it 
 happens that all these trumpery little objects of life are swept 
 away ; then occasionally, with astonishment, the soul sees that 
 It is also the soul of the others around. Even if it does not 
 become aware of an absolute identity, it perceives that there 
 is a deep relationship and communion between itself and others, 
 and it comes to understand how it may really be true that to 
 him whose soul is purified the self is literally the Self of all 
 creatures. 
 
 Ordinary men and those who go on more intellectual and less 
 intuitional lines will say that these ideas are really contrary to 
 human nature and to nature generally. Yet I think that those 
 people who say this in the name of Science are extremely un¬ 
 scientific, because a very superficial glance at nature reveals 
 that the very same thing is taking place throughout nature. 
 Consider the madrepores, corallines, or sponges. You find, for 
 instance, that constantly the little self of the coralline or sponge is 
 functioning at the end of a stem and casting forth its tentacles 
 into the water to gain food and to breathe the air out of the 
 water. That little animalcule there, which is living in that way, 
 imagines no doubt that it is working all for itself, and yet it is 
 united down the stem at whose extremity it stands, with the life 
 of the whole madrepore or sponge to which it belongs. There is 
 the common life of the whole and the individual life of each, 
 and while the little creature at the end of the stem is thinking 
 (if it is conscious at all) that its whole energies are absorbed in 
 its own maintenance, it really is feeding the common life through 
 the stem to which it belongs, and in its turn it is being fed by 
 that common life. 
 
 You have only to look at an ordinary tree to see the same 
 thing going on. Each little leaf on a tree may very naturally 
 have sufficient consciousness to believe that it is an entirely 
 separate being maintaining itself in the sunlight and the air, 
 withering away and dying when the winter comes on and 
 there is an end of it. It probably does not realise that all the 
 time it is being supported by the sap which flows from the trunk 
 of the tree, and that in its turn it is feeding the tree, too—that 
 its self is the self of the whole tree. If the leaf could really 
 understand itself, it would see that its self was deeply, intimately 
 connected, practically one with the life of the whole tree. 
 Therefore, I say that this Indian view is not unscientific. On 
 the contrary, I am sure that it is thoroughly scientific. 
 
302 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Let us take another passage, out of the ‘ Svetasvatara Upan- 
 ishad/ which, speaking of the self says : “ He is the one God, 
 hidden in all creatures, all pervading, the self within all, watch¬ 
 ing over all works, shadowing all creatures, the witness, the 
 perceiver, the only one free from qualities.” 
 
 And now we can return to the point where we left the argu¬ 
 ment at the beginning of this discourse. We said, you remember, 
 that the Self is certainly no mere bundle of qualities—that 
 the very nature of the mind forbids us thinking that. For 
 however fine and subtle any quality or group of qualities may 
 be, we are irresistibly compelled by the nature of the mind 
 itself to look for the Self, not in any quality or qualities, but 
 in the being that perceives those qualities. The passage I have 
 just quoted says that being is “ The one God, hidden in all 
 creatures, all pervading, the self within all . . . the witness, 
 the perceiver, the only one free from qualities.” And the more 
 you think about it the clearer I think you will see that this 
 passage is correct—that there can be only one witness, one 
 perceiver, and that is the one God hidden in all creatures, “ Sarva 
 Sakshi,” the Universal Witness. 
 
 Have you ever had that curious feeling, not uncommon, 
 especially in moments of vivid experience and emotion, that 
 there was at the back of your mind a witness, watching every¬ 
 thing that was going on, yet too deep for your ordinary thought 
 to grasp ? Has it not occurred to you—in a moment say of 
 great danger when the mind was agitated to the last degree by 
 fears and anxieties—suddenly to become perfectly calm and 
 collected, to realise that nothing can harm you, that you are 
 identified with some great and universal being lifted far over 
 this mortal world and unaffected by its storms ? Is it not 
 obvious that the real Self must be something of this nature, 
 a being perceiving all, but itself remaining unperceived ? For 
 indeed if it were perceived it would fall under the head of some 
 definable quality, and so becoming the object of thought would 
 cease to be the subject, would cease to be the Self. 
 
 The witness is and must be “ free from qualities.” For 
 since it is capable of perceiving all qualities it must obviously 
 not be itself imprisoned or tied in any quality—it must either 
 be entirely without quality, or if it have the potentiality 
 of quality in it, it must have the potentiality of every 
 quality ; but in either case it cannot be in bondage to any 
 quality, and in either case it would appear that there can 
 be only one such ultimate Witness in the universe. For if 
 
THE NATURE OF THE SELF 303 
 
 I 
 
 there were two or more such Witnesses, then we should be 
 compelled to suppose them distinguished from one another by 
 something, and that something could only be a difference of 
 qualities, which would be contrary to our conclusion that such 
 a Witness cannot be in bondage to any quality. 
 
 There is then I take it—as the text in question says—only 
 one Witness, one Self, throughout the universe. It is hidden 
 in all living things, men and animals and plants ; it pervades 
 all creation. In every thing that has consciousness it is 
 the Self; it watches over all operations, it overshadows all 
 creatures, it moves in the depths of our hearts, the per- 
 ceiver, the only being that is cognisant of all and yet free 
 from all. 
 
 Once you really appropriate this truth, and assimilate it in 
 the depths of your mind, a vast change (you can easily imagine) 
 will take place within you. The whole world will be trans¬ 
 formed, and every thought and act of which you are capable 
 will take on a different colour and complexion. Indeed the 
 revolution will be so vast that it would be quite impossible for 
 me within the limits of this discourse to describe it. I will 
 however, occupy the rest of my time in dealing with some points 
 and conclusions, and some mental changes which will flow 
 perfectly naturally from this axiomatic change taking place 
 at the very root of life. 
 
 “ Free from qualities.” We generally pride ourselves a 
 little on our qualities. Some of us think a great deal of our 
 good qualities, and some of us are rather ashamed of our bad 
 ones ! I would say : “Do not trouble very much about all 
 that. What good qualities you have—well you may be quite 
 sure they do not really amount to much; and what bad 
 qualities, you may be sure they are not very important ! Do 
 not make too much fuss about either. Do you see ? The 
 thing is that you, you yourself, are not any of your qualities— 
 you are the being that perceives them. The thing to see to is 
 that they should not confuse you, bamboozle you, and hide 
 you from the knowledge of yourself that they should not be 
 erected into a screen, to hide you from others, or the others 
 from you. If you cease from running after qualities, then 
 after a little time your soul will become purified, and you will 
 know that your self is the Self of all creatures ; and when you 
 can feel that you will know that the other things do not much 
 matter. 
 
 Sometimes people are so awfully good that their very good- 
 
304 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 ness hides them from other people. They really cannot be 
 on a level with others, and they feel that the others are far 
 below them. Consequently their ‘ selves ’ are blinded or hidden 
 by their ‘ goodness/ It is a sad end to come to ! And some¬ 
 times it happens that very ‘ bad ’ people—just because they 
 are so bad—do not erect any screens or veils between them¬ 
 selves and others. Indeed they are only too glad if others 
 will recognise them, or if they may be allowed to recognise 
 others. And so, after all, they come nearer the truth than the 
 very good people. 
 
 “ The Self is free from qualities.’’ That thing which is so 
 deep, which belongs to all, it either—as I have already said— 
 has all qualities, or it has none. You, to whom I am speaking 
 now, your qualities, good and bad, are all mine. I am perfectly 
 willing to accept them. They are all right enough and in 
 place—if one can only find the places for them. But I know 
 that in most cases they have got so confused and mixed up 
 that they cause great conflict and pain in the souls that harbour 
 them. If you attain to knowing yourself to be other than 
 and separate from the qualities, then you will pass below and 
 beyond them all. You will be able to accept all your qualities 
 and harmonise them, and your soul will be at peace. You will 
 be free from the domination of qualities then because you will 
 know that among all the multitudes of them there are none 
 of any importance ! 
 
 If you should happen some day to reach that state of mind 
 in connexion with which this revelation comes, then you will 
 find the experience a most extraordinary one. You will become 
 conscious that there is no barrier in your path ; that the way 
 is open in all directions ; that all men and women belong to 
 you, are part of you. You will feel that there is a great open 
 immense world around, which you had never suspected before, 
 which belongs to you, and the riches of which are all yours, 
 waiting for you. It may, of course, take centuries and thousands 
 of years to realise this thoroughly, but there it is. You are 
 just at the threshold, peeping in at the door. What did Shake¬ 
 speare say ? “ To thine own self be true, and it must follow 
 
 as the night the day, thou can’st not then be false to any 
 man.” What a profound bit of philosophy in three lines ! 
 I doubt if anywhere the basis of all human life has been expressed 
 more perfectly and tersely. 
 
 One of the Upanishads (the Maitr&yana-Brahmana) says: 
 “ The happiness belonging to a mind, which through deep 
 
THE NATURE OF THE SELF 
 
 305 
 
 inwardness 1 (or understanding) has been washed clean and has 
 entered into the Self, is a thing beyond the power of words to 
 describe : it can only be perceived by an inner faculty.” Observe 
 the conviction, the intensity with which this joy, this happiness 
 is described, which comes to those whose minds have been 
 washed clean (from all the silly trumpery sediment of self¬ 
 thought) and have become transparent, so that the great uni¬ 
 versal Being residing there in the depths can be perceived. 
 What sorrow indeed, what grief, can come to such an one who 
 has seen this vision ? It is truly a thing beyond the power of 
 words to describe : it can only be perceived —and that by an 
 inner faculty. The external apparatus of thought is of no use. 
 Argument is of no use. But experience and direct perception 
 are possible ; and probably all the experiences of life and of 
 mankind through the ages are gradually deepening our powers 
 of perception to that point where the vision will at last rise 
 upon the inward eye. 
 
 Another text, from the Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad (which 
 I have already quoted in the paper on “ Rest”), says : “ If a 
 man worship the Self only as his true state, his work cannot 
 fail, for whatever he desires, that he obtains from the Self.” 
 Is that not magnificent ? If you truly realise your identity 
 and union with the great Self who inspires and informs the 
 world, then obviously whatever you desire the great Self will 
 desire, and the whole world will conspire to bring it to you. 
 “ He maketh the winds his angels, and the flaming fires his 
 ministers.” [I need not say that I am not asking you to try 
 and identify yourself with the great Self universal in order to 
 get riches, “ opulence,” and other things of that kind which 
 you desire ; because in that quest you will probably not succeed. 
 The Great Self is not such a fool as to be taken in in that way. 
 It may be true—and it is true—that if ye seek first the Kingdom 
 of Heaven all these things shall be added unto you ; but you 
 must seek it first, not second.] 
 
 x The word in the Max Muller translation is “ meditation. ' But 
 that is, I think, a somewhat misleading word. It suggests to most 
 people the turning inward of the thinking faculty to grope and delve 
 in the interior of the mind. This is just what should not be done. 
 Meditation in the proper sense should mean the inward deepening 
 of feeling and consciousness till the region of the universal self is 
 reached ; but thought should not interfere there. That should be 
 turned on outward things to mould them into expression of the inner 
 consciousness. 
 
 20 
 
306 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Here is a passage from Towards Democracy : “ As space spreads 
 everywhere, and all things move and change within it, but it 
 moves not nor changes, 
 
 “ So I am the space within the soul, of which the space with¬ 
 out is but the similitude and mental image ; 
 
 “ Comest thou to inhabit me, thou hast the entrance to all 
 life—death shall no longer divide thee from whom thou 
 lovest. 
 
 “ I am the Sun that shines upon all creatures from within— 
 gazest thou upon me, thou shalt be filled with joy eternal.” 
 
 Yes, this great sun is there, always shining, but most of the 
 time it is hidden from us by the clouds of which I have spoken, 
 and we fail to see it. We complain of being out in the cold ; 
 and in the cold, for the time being, no doubt we are ; but our 
 return to the warmth and the light has now become possible. 
 
 Thus at last the Ego, the mortal immortal self—disclosed at 
 first in darkness and fear and ignorance in the growing babe 
 —finds its true identity. For a long period it is baffled in trying 
 to understand what it is. It goes through a vast experience. 
 It is tormented by the sense of separation and alienation— 
 alienation from other people, and persecution by all the great 
 powers and forces of the universe ; and it is pursued by a sense 
 of its own doom. Its doom truly is irrevocable. The hour of 
 fulfilment approaches, the veil lifts, and the soul beholds at 
 last its own true being. 
 
 We are accustomed to think of the external world around us 
 as a nasty tiresome old thing of which all we can say for certain 
 is that it works by a " law of cussedness ”—so that, which¬ 
 ever way we want to go, that way seems always barred, and 
 we only bump against blind walls without making any progress. 
 But that uncomfortable state of affairs arises from ourselves. 
 Once we have passed a certain barrier, which at present looks 
 so frowning and impossible, but which fades into nothing im¬ 
 mediately we have passed it—once we have found the open 
 secret of identity—then the way is indeed open in every 
 direction. 
 
 The world in which we live—the world into which we are 
 tumbled as children at the first onset of self-consciousness— 
 denies this great fact of unity. It is a world in which the 
 principle of separation rules. Instead of a common life and 
 union with each other, the contrary principle (especially in the 
 
THE NATURE OF THE SELF 
 
 307 
 
 later civilisations) has been the one recognised—and to such 
 an extent that always there prevails the obsession of separation, 
 and the conviction that each person is an isolated unit. The 
 whole of our modern society has been founded on this delusive 
 idea, which is false. You go into the markets, and every man’s 
 hand is against the others—that is the ruling principle. You 
 go into the Law Courts where justice is, or should be, admin¬ 
 istered, and you find that the principle which denies unity is 
 the one that prevails. The criminal (whose actions have really 
 been determined by the society around him) is cast out, dis- 
 acknowledged, and condemned to further isolation in a prison 
 cell. ' Property ’ again is the principle which rules and deter¬ 
 mines our modern civilisation—namely that which is proper 
 to, or can be appropriated by, each person, as against the others. 
 In the moral world the doom of separation comes to us in the 
 shape of the sense of sin. For sin is separation. Sin is actually 
 (and that is its only real meaning) the separation from others, 
 and the non-acknowledgment of unity. And so it has come 
 about that during all this civilisation-period the sense of sin 
 has ruled and ranged to such an extraordinary degree. Society 
 has been built on a false base, not true to fact or life and 
 has had a dim uneasy consciousness of its falseness. Mean¬ 
 while at the heart of it all—and within all the frantic external 
 strife and warfare—there is all the time this real great life brood¬ 
 ing. The Kingdom of Heaven, as we said before, is still within. 
 
 The word Democracy indicates something of the kind—the 
 rule of the Demos, that is of the common life. The coming of 
 that will transform, not only our Markets and our Law Courts 
 and our sense of Property, and other institutions, into some¬ 
 thing really great and glorious instead of the dismal masses of 
 rubbish which they at present are ; but it will transform our 
 sense of Morality. 
 
 Our Morality at present consists in the idea of self-goodness 
 —one of the most pernicious and disgusting ideas which has 
 ever infested the human brain. If any one should follow and 
 assimilate what I have just said about the true nature of the 
 Self he will realise that it will never again be possible for him 
 to congratulate himself on his own goodness or morality or 
 superiority ; for the moment he does so he will separate him¬ 
 self from the universal life, and proclaim the sin of his own 
 separation. I agree that this conclusion is for some people a 
 most sad and disheartening one—but it cannot be helped ! 
 A man may truly be ‘ good ’ and * moral ’ in some real sense , 
 
308 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 but only on the condition that he is not aware of it. He can 
 only be good when not thinking about the matter ; to be conscious 
 of one’s own goodness is already to have fallen ! 
 
 We began by thinking of the self as just a little local self ,* 
 then we extended it to the family, the cause, the nation—ever 
 to a larger and vaster being. At last there comes a time when 
 we recognise—or see that we shall have to recognise—an inner 
 Equality between ourselves and all others ; not of course an 
 external equality—for that would be absurd and impossible 
 —but an inner and profound and universal Equality. And so 
 we come again to the mystic root-conception of Democracy. 
 
 And now it will be said : “ But after all this talk you have 
 not defined the Self, or given us any intellectual outline of what 
 you mean by the word.” No—and I do not intend to. If 
 I could, by any sort of copybook definition, describe and show 
 the boundaries of myself, I should obviously lose all interest 
 in the subject. Nothing more dull could be imagined. I may 
 be able to define and describe fairly exhaustively this inkpot 
 on the table ; but for you or for me to give the limits and 
 boundaries of ourselves is, I am glad to say, impossible. That 
 does not, however, mean that we cannot feel and be conscious 
 of ourselves, and of our relations to other selves, and to the 
 great Whole. On the contrary I think it is clear that the more 
 vividly we feel our organic unity with the whole, the less shall 
 we be able to separate off the local self and enclose it within 
 any definition. I take it that we can and do become ever more 
 vividly conscious of our true Self, but that the mental statement 
 of it always does and probably always will lie beyond us. All 
 life and all our action and experience consist in the gradual 
 manifestation of that which is within us—of our inner being. 
 In that sense—and reading its handwriting on the outer world 
 —we come to know the soul’s true nature more and more 
 intimately ; we enter into the mind of that great artist who 
 beholds himself in his own creation. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abraham, sacrifice of ram, 118 
 Abydos mystery play, 22 
 Acosta quoted, 67, 185 
 Adonis-legend, 22, 200 ; A. as 
 Saviour, 129 
 
 Advaita, meaning of, 269 
 African tribes, 58, 120 
 Ahknaton, Pharaoh, 243 
 Alexandrian influences, 203 
 Altamira, caves of, 15 
 Amelioration of pagan customs, 
 118 
 
 Andromeda, meaning of the word, 
 159 
 
 Animals, adored by primitives, 
 ch. iv; despised and mal¬ 
 treated by moderns, 224 
 Animal masks, 94, 95 ; meaning 
 of, 241 
 
 Animism, 15, 57 sq. ; justified, 
 
 11 , 95 , 97 , 2 59 , 260; a pre- 
 animistic stage, 98 
 Annunciation, the, 159 
 Anthropomorphism, 15 ; justi¬ 
 fied, 95, 97 ; a temporary 
 stage, 99 ; but necessary, 102 
 Apis gives place to Amun : the 
 Bull to the Ram, 47 
 Apollo, born with only one hair, 
 27 ; connected with the wolf, 
 94 ; dancing round altar of, 
 170 
 
 Apollonius of Tyana, 243 
 Apostles’ Creed, the, as a Pagan 
 creed, 164 
 
 Apuleius quoted, 241 
 
 Aries, the place of the Sun in 
 Spring, 37, 39, 46 
 Art, origin in magic ritual, 15 ; 
 as evidence of the cosmic 
 life, 255 
 
 Art of learning, 292 
 Artemis or Diana, connected with 
 bear-worship, 94 ; sacrifices 
 on her altar, 118 
 Asher ah, translated “ grove ” in 
 the Bible, 182 
 x\shtoreth, 182 
 
 Astarte, temple of, at Aphaca, 
 
 23 
 
 Atlantis, island of, 134 
 Atonement, 104 
 
 Attis-legend, 23 ; rites, 42, 43, 
 112 ; A. as Saviour, 129, 248 
 Augustine, St., quoted, 26, 204 
 his barbarous creed, 108 
 Aurelian, emperor, cult of Mith- 
 raism, 204 
 
 Australian natives, 11, 58, 61, 
 89 ; rites, 122 ; ordeals, 123 ; 
 theories about conception, 79, 
 158 ; marriage customs, 195 
 Aztec rites, 28 n., 67, 73, 105-108 
 
 Baal, priests of, 72 
 B&b, life of the, 214 ; persecu¬ 
 tion, 215 
 
 B&bism, religion of, 153, 214; 
 Church of, 216 
 
 Bacchus or Dionysus, as Saviour, 
 129, 130 
 
 Balder, as Saviour, 160 
 
 310 
 
INDEX 
 
 311 
 
 Baptism by blood, 43, 44, 121 ; 
 Baptism and Confirmation, 
 
 119 ; correspond to Initiation, 
 120, 121 ; but inadequately, 
 
 ’ 126, 191 
 
 Baring-Gould quoted, 129 
 Bath-kol, 72 
 
 Bauer, Bruno, quoted, 209 
 Bear-sacrifice, 63, 112 
 Bhagavad gita, 268, 291, 300 
 Birth of a new Industrial Order, 
 276-7 
 
 Blake, William, vision of a Tree, 
 79 
 
 Bough, the Golden, quoted, see 
 Dr. Frazer 
 
 Bouphonia at Athens, 63, 112 
 Browne, Edward G., quoted, 216 
 Bucke, Dr., quoted, 225, 229, 
 236 
 
 Buddha as Saviour, 129 
 Bull, constellation of, 34 ; re¬ 
 demption by blood of, 41, 
 42, 43, 63 ; gives place to 
 the Lamb, 47 ; sacrifice in 
 Greece, 62 
 Bull-roarer, the, 72 
 Burmese, the, magic in Nature, 
 
 79 
 
 Burton, Richard, quoted, 182 
 Bushmen, 15 ; praise of, 145 
 
 Calendar, Julian, 27 ; generally, 
 28, 29, 3° 
 
 Camel-sacrifice, Arabian, 60 
 
 Catlin quoted, 71, 124 
 
 Caves, birth of gods in, 27, 29 ; 
 
 meaning, 34 
 Celsus quoted, 211 
 Cheetham, Dr., quoted, 235, 239, 
 243 
 
 Chests or Arks, sacred, 240 n. 
 Chetah and Puma, companions 
 of early man, 75 
 “ Children of God,” 182 
 Child-state, genius of, 173 ; supe¬ 
 rior to maturity, 174 
 Chinese beliefs, 160 
 
 Christ, putting on, 122, 123 
 Christian Church, pretended 
 unique, 11, 19 j its barbari¬ 
 ties, 108, 109, 117, 257; 
 
 suppression of rival teachings, 
 130, 155. 2 °5 i its pagan 
 
 character at first, 180 ; anti- 
 sexual later, 181 ; individual¬ 
 istic in its teaching, 190; 
 gradual corruption of, 207 
 Christianity, spiritual signifi¬ 
 cance of, 128 ; one phase of 
 the great World-religion, 128, 
 198, 259; corrupted by 
 
 commercialism, 191 ; begin¬ 
 nings of, ch. xiii; borrowings 
 from Mithraism, 204 ; decay 
 of, 208 ; democratic tendency 
 of, 220 ; definition of, 257, 
 258 ; exodus of, 268 
 Christmas Day, fixed, 26, 27 ; 
 
 its meaning, 27-30 
 Christ-myth, the, 209, 210 
 Christos, the, meaning of, 202, 
 
 235 
 
 Church of the Future, 263 sq. 
 Cinderella myth, 237 
 Circling of the globe, 285 
 Civilization, origins of, 15 ,* a 
 parenthesis in evolution, 97 ; 
 compared with Christianity, 
 257 
 
 Colenso, Bishop, and the Zulus, 
 178 
 
 Commercialism tottering to its 
 fall, 276 
 
 Communal sense, in animals, 251 ; 
 
 in the future, 276 
 Communion-table originally an 
 altar, 244; Holy Communion, 
 
 67 . . . 
 
 Comte’s church of Positivism, 264 
 
 Consciousness, its three stages, 
 13, 140, 222, 235 ; as expla¬ 
 nation of world-religion, ch. 
 xiv, also pp. 16 and 17 > 
 cosmic, 102, 139, 142, 295- 
 308 
 
312 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Consciousness, third stage of, 
 231 sq., 235, 250; as final 
 religion, 268 
 
 Corn-rites, 84; associated with 
 Virgo, 34; corn-spirit seen 
 in the ear of corn, 82, 83 ; 
 sacrifices to, 84 
 
 Crawley, E. A., quoted, n, 65, 
 196, 229, 246, 249 
 Creation, Art of, quoted, 142 
 Creative spirit of mankind, 218 
 Crucifixion, the, prefigured in 
 Paganism, 23, 24, 42 
 Crux A ns at a, the, 183 
 Cumont, Franz, quoted, 44, 201, 
 204, 220 
 
 Cybele, the Earth-mother, rites, 
 45 . 157 
 
 Cyclones, a psychological symbol, 
 284 
 
 Dancing as a rite, ch. xi, p. 231 ; 
 for rain, 167 ; for success in 
 hunting, 168 ; in war, 168 ; 
 initiation dances, 169 ; mys¬ 
 tery dances, 169 ; in worship 
 of the gods, 170; naked dances, 
 
 171; orgiastic and Bacchana¬ 
 lian, 172 ; at the vintage, 171 ; 
 as nurse of the Drama, 172 ; 
 dance of the Seises at Seville, 
 266 
 
 Daubing with clay, etc., 125 
 Death, not always feared by 
 primitives, 150 
 Delilah, 28 
 
 Demeter and Persephone, legend 
 and rites, 73 
 
 Democracy, germs of, in Indian 
 teaching, 254 ; the true D., 
 
 2 55 
 
 Denderah, Temple of, 31 
 Devaki, 160 
 
 Devil, wiles of, 25, 26, 155 
 Devil-dancing, 177 
 Devil’s Pulpit, the, 10 
 Diana, or Artemis, of the Ephe¬ 
 sians, 86, 161 
 
 Dinkas, the, 58, 75 
 
 Dionysus or Bacchus as Saviour, 
 
 52, 205 ; dismemberment, 
 death and resurrection, 52, 
 53 ; rites, 65, 66, 128 
 
 Dismemberment of gods, 52, 53, 
 66, 152 
 
 Doane, Bible myths, quoted, 50, 
 51, 66 
 
 Drews, professor A., quoted, 
 
 203, 209 
 
 Dupuis quoted, 10, 30 n., 32 n., 
 
 53. 160 
 
 Earth, the, worship of, as Gaia, 
 Demeter, Cybele, etc., 73, 
 157 
 
 Ecliptic, the, 38 
 
 Ecstasy, 242, 298 
 
 Effort, all genuine effort means 
 success, 294 
 
 Ego, the; what is it ? 296-7 ; not 
 limited by the body, 297 ; 
 finds its true nature, 306-8 
 Ekagrata, one-pointedness, 250 
 Eleusis, pilgrimage at, 240 
 Ellis, Havelock, quoted, 146, 
 188, 230 
 
 Emerson, R. W., quoted, 133 
 Emu-totem ceremony, 61, 62 
 Enoch, book of, 202 ; Secrets of, 
 213 
 
 Equality, inner, 308 
 Eros and Psyche myth, 238, 
 249 
 
 Esquimaux rites, 33, 123 
 Etruscan creeds, 160 
 Eucharist, rites, Christian and 
 pagan, 51, 60, 66-8 ; in 
 
 China and Tartary, 68; 
 world-wide, 128, 151, 234; 
 
 perhaps cannibalistic in origin, 
 152 ; derived from pagan 
 Mysteries, 243 
 Euhemerism, 10 
 
 Expiation, ch. vii; meaning of, 
 p. 104 ; ritual of, 227 
 Faith-healing, 177 
 
INDEX 
 
 313 
 
 Fall of Man, the, ch. ix, pp. 81, 
 141, 143, 175, 254 
 Farnell, Dr., quoted, 82 ;z«, 
 
 235, 240, 246 
 Fashion, in Science, 9 
 Fear, domination of, 13, 14, 109 ; 
 creating taboos, 14 ; and lead¬ 
 ing to magic and ritual, 15 ; 
 rooted in Ignorance, 275 ; not 
 prominent in babyhood, 295 
 Feeling before thinking, 147 
 Fertility charms, 73 
 Fielding, H., quoted, 80 
 Fire-drill, the, as sex-symbol, 183 
 Firmicus, Julius, quoted, 112, 124 
 Fish succeeds to Ram and Bull 
 in Zodiac, 48 
 
 Forest-schools of India, 299 
 Frazer, Dr. J. G., quoted, 11, 33, 
 4 2 , 45. 5B 5 8 . 61, 64, 67, 75, 
 79 . S3, 86, 90, 107, 122, 212, 
 244 
 
 “ Free from Qualities,” 302, 303, 
 304 
 
 Freedom of the universe, 270 ; 
 freedom and peace, 279, 286 
 
 Garcilasso della Vega, quoted, 
 58 
 
 Garden of Eden, of the Hesperides, 
 etc., 138 
 
 Geddes and Thomson quoted, 87 
 Generation and Regeneration, 248 
 Glover, Conflict of Religions, 
 quoted, 200, 220 
 Gnostics, the, 205 ; pre-Chris¬ 
 tian, 206 ; Gnostic redeemer, 
 206 ; doctrines, 248 
 Gods, genesis of, 91, 114 ; as 
 composite images, 92, 93, 95 ; 
 animal-headed, 94 ; Olym¬ 
 pian, 114 
 
 God-nature acquired by Man, 
 243 
 
 Golden Age, legend of, ch. ix; 
 
 characteristics of, 143, 144 
 “ Goodness,” dangers of, 304, 307 
 Gorilla dance, 168 
 
 Gospel stories, difficulty of belief 
 in, 212, 213 
 
 Gubernatis, De, quoted, 81 
 
 Harrison, Jane, quoted, 11, 61, 
 62, 64, 75, 91, 120, 124, 229, 
 260 
 
 blasting’s Encyclopaedia quoted, 
 194 
 
 Hatch, Dr., quoted, 239, 243 
 Hercules-legend, 23, 28 ; H. as 
 Saviour, 49, 129 ; as Sun-god, 
 50 ; as crucified, 190 
 Hermes Trismegistus, 243, 248 
 Herodotus quoted, 125, 182 
 Hertha, earth-goddess, 160 
 Hesiod quoted, 138 
 Hewitt, J. E., quoted, 177, 245 
 Hierodouloi, 182 
 
 “ Himself a sacrifice to Himself,” 
 131, 132, 251, 260 
 Hippolytus, Bishop, quoted, 247 
 Holophrase, the, an early form 
 of language, 229 
 
 Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, 28 
 Horus as Saviour, 129 
 “ Host,” meaning of the word, 
 
 131 
 
 Hudson, W. H., quoted, 56, 75, 97 
 Huitzilopochtli, eucharist, 67 
 Humanity, future of, 278 
 
 Identity, of god and victim, 108, 
 131, etc. ; perception of, 300 
 Ignorance or non-perception, a 
 root of the world, 275 
 Illumination, 242, 298 
 Immortality, 89, 298 
 Im Thurn, quoted on the Guiana 
 Indians, 96 
 
 Incas, Rites and Laws of, 67 
 Indra as Saviour, 129 
 Initiation, rites of, 120 ; ordeals, 
 123 ; instruction, 124, 126; 
 
 as actual marriage, 246 
 Inman, Thomas, quoted, 10, 81 
 Intra-uterine blessedness, theory 
 of, 138 
 
314 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Isis worship, 33, 159, 200; 
 
 popularity of, 201 ; mysteries 
 of, 241, 244 
 
 Isolated Self an illusion, 273 
 
 Jefferies, Richard, quoted, 100 
 Jerome, Saint, quoted, 159, 
 204 
 
 Jesus Christ, date of birth fixed, 
 a.d. 530, 26; J. C. legend, 
 21 ; coincidences with pagan 
 legends, 50, 51 ; supposed 
 
 initiate in the Vedanta, 206 ; 
 legendary or real ? 209, 217, 
 258 
 
 Jevons, F. B., quoted, 75, 242 
 Justin Martyr, 25 ; quoted, 26, 
 4 ^> 5 1 
 
 Keith, professor A., quoted, 230 
 Khonds, sacrifices among the, 118, 
 132 
 
 Kikuyu tribe, E. Africa, 120 
 Kings, early, S8 ; become gods, 
 89 
 
 Kingsborough on Mexico, 40 n. ; 
 Aztec holy supper, 67 ; doc¬ 
 trine of Saviour, 130 ; quoted, 
 160 
 
 Knight, R. P., quoted, 10, 160 
 Krishna legend, 23, 51 ; Iv. as 
 Saviour, 129, 132 
 Kropotkin quoted, 140, 145 
 
 Lake of Beauty, quoted, 290 
 Lamb or Ram, constellation of, 
 34 ; symbol of the risen 
 Saviour, 39, and of Redemp¬ 
 tion, 40 ; washed in the 
 blood of, 41 ; sacrifice of in 
 Morocco, 46; worship suc¬ 
 ceeds that of the Bull, 47 
 Lang, Andrew, quoted, 58, 66, 
 72, 89, 108, 125, 133, 169 
 Language, birth of, about simul¬ 
 taneous with self-conscious¬ 
 ness, 229 
 
 Lao-tze, quoted, 289, 291 
 
 Legends, rapid growth of, 210 ; 
 in the Christian Church, 211 ; 
 in Babism, 214-216 
 Life, eternal through love, 252 
 Liligam, the, in Hindu Temples, 
 
 182 ; in the Jewish Temple, 
 
 183 ; as the Christos, 245 ; 
 its real meaning, 251 
 
 Loisy, M., work of, 267 
 Love, denied leads to Mammon, 
 189 ; its divorce from Sex, 
 199, 249; Love and Ignorance, 
 the two great factors of Life, 
 2 73 
 
 Love and charity, importance of, 
 
 293 
 
 Lucian quoted, 157, 169 
 
 McDougall, W., quoted, 225 
 MacLennan quoted, 183 
 Maeterlinck quoted, 140, 148 
 Magic, 11 ; of contact, 64, 65 ; 
 vegetation-magic, ch. v and 
 vi; sympathetic m., 70, 75 ; 
 in snakes, 73 ; in words, 156 ; 
 a blend of primitive science 
 and religion, 74, 79, 86, 87 ; 
 main objects of, 89 
 Maitland, Edward, quoted, 159 
 Man, an exile from Eden, 226, 227 
 Man a or life-force, 62, 64 ; of 
 the Bull, 84 
 
 Marett, R. R., quoted, 176 
 Marriage, of or with trees, 80 ; 
 
 m. customs generally, 195 
 Martius, von, quoted, 27, 95 
 Mass-man and unit-man, 154 
 Max Muller quoted, 129, 229 
 May-pole dances, 76 
 Mead, G. R. S., quoted, 248 
 Medicine-men and magicians, 
 power of, 88 ; transformed to 
 gods, 92, 93 ; their general 
 capability, 176 
 
 Meditation, meaning of the word, 
 
 305 
 
 Mediterranean, religions, 20 ; ori¬ 
 gins of Christianity, 200 
 
INDEX 
 
 315 
 
 Meilichios, the great Snake, 82 
 Meriahs among the Khonds, 118, 
 
 Messiah, meaning of, 202 
 Metamorphosis and Transforma¬ 
 tion, 12 7 ; a world-wide doc¬ 
 trine, 128 
 
 Milk-diet, after initiation, 45, 
 127, 2 53 in the Soma 
 
 sacrifice, 177 
 
 Millennium, often prophesied, 237 
 Mind, stilling of, 287, 289, 290 
 Mithra-legend, the, 21, 25, 33 ; 
 rites, 41, 42, 44 ; M. as Saviour, 
 129 ; popularity of, 201, 203, 
 204, 209 
 
 Morality, pagan superior to Chris¬ 
 tian, 199 ; Christian more 
 universal than pagan, 201 ; 
 parallel passages, 218 ; final, 
 269 ; cant of, 307 
 Muller’s Dorians quoted, ri8, 
 170 
 
 Murray, Gilbert, quoted, 64, 65, 
 73, 82, 84, 90, 92, 205 
 Mystery-plays of a god-man, 
 common in antiquity, 212, 
 240; Mysteries generally, 235, 
 238, ch. xv ; three methods of 
 teaching, 239 ; revelations in, 
 240, 241 ; mystery-societies, 
 
 243 ; vilified by Christians, 246 
 
 Naassene doctrines, 248 
 Nakedness, in ancient rites, 171 ; 
 
 importance now, 197, 256 
 Nanja-s-pots (Australian), 89 
 Nautch-girls, 182 
 Neith as Virgin-mother, 160 
 Neolithic, culture, 146; freedom 
 from War, 146 ; origins of 
 religion, 228 
 
 Nicene Creed, futility of, 207 
 Non-action in action, 291, 292 
 Non-differentiation, final, 269 
 Nork, F., quoted, 10, 32, 245 
 Notre Dame, church of, at Paris, 
 33, 161 
 
 Odin, as Saviour, 132 
 Oil, anointing with, 202, 244, 
 2 45 
 
 Omaha Indians, 124, 261 
 Open-air, importance of, 293 
 Open secret, the, 306 
 Ordeals, 123 
 
 Orphism, 65 ; and Dionysus, 
 66 ; Orphic tablets, 242 
 Osiris-legend, the, 22 ; birth of 
 O., 27 ; dismemberment of 
 the god, 53 ; sacramental 
 eating, 67; O. as a Tree-spirit, 
 79 ; as Corn-spirit, 83 ; as 
 Saviour, 129 
 
 Parthenogenesis, 162 
 Passover, and the saving blood, 
 40 ; ditto in Peru, 40 
 Patriotism versus brotherhood, 
 258, 267 
 
 Paul, St., somewhat confused in 
 mind, 252 ; his use of mystery- 
 language, 253 
 Pausanias quoted, 157 
 Payne, E. J., quoted, 229 
 Persian influences, 203 
 Peruvians, 58, 67, 130 
 Phallicism, 10, 20, 182, 183, 
 
 2 47 
 
 Phallus, as conductor and re¬ 
 conductor of Souls, 248 
 Pindar on the Islands of the 
 Blest, 138 
 
 Plato, allegory of the Cave, 102 ; 
 on Atlantis, 138 
 
 Prajapati, the dismembered god, 
 66, 152 
 
 Precession of Equinoxes, 37, 41 
 Prescott, quoted, 28 n., 107 
 Priesthood, power of, 201 
 Primitive man, his unity with 
 nature and the animals, 74, 
 76, 223, 224 ; his blend of 
 Science and Religion, 78 ; and 
 general good sense, 176, 178 
 Prometheus, as Saviour, 129 ; 
 the crucified, 190 
 
316 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Property, influence of, 147, 272, 
 3°7 
 
 Prostitution, 188 
 Protestantism, self-regarding, 254 
 Psychological and material evolu¬ 
 tion simultaneous, 271 
 Psychology of religious origins 
 similar everywhere, 228 
 Purity, its meaning, 300 
 
 Quetzalcoatl, as Saviour, 130, 132, 
 160 
 
 Rain-making, among Mandans, 
 
 71 ; Greeks, 72 ; Hebrews, 
 
 72 ; Aztecs, 73 ; N.A. In¬ 
 dians, 73 ; by dancing, 167 
 
 Re-birth or Regeneration, doc¬ 
 trine of, 119; rites of, 120; 
 as sacred animal, 122 ; neces¬ 
 sity of, 151, 234 
 Reclus, Elisee, on La Grande 
 Famille, 74, 75 ; Elie, quoted, 
 118 
 
 Red Indian tribes, 58, 59 
 Redemption of the Body, 270 
 Reflective words, characteristic 
 of Second Stage, 272 
 Reinach, S., quoted, 11, 54, 56, 
 57 » 59 , M 3 . 259 
 
 Re-incarnation, early belief in, 
 89, 90 
 
 Reitzenstein quoted, 242, 246, 
 
 248, 252 
 
 Religion, definitions of, 57, 259 ; 
 evolved from magic, 91, 149 ; 
 a story of illusion, 101 ; pa¬ 
 rent of the arts, 143 ; essentials 
 of, in early man, 147, 172 ; a 
 tribal sense, 249, 260 
 Religious Rites, similar every¬ 
 where, 16, 114, 119 
 Religious evolution, three great 
 theories of, 12, 13 ; pano¬ 
 
 rama of, 223 
 
 Rending of the veil, its meaning, 
 266 
 
 Reservoir and water-drop, 288 
 
 Restlessness, urgency of the 
 modern problem, 283 ; in 
 Western lands, 284, 287 ; rest 
 a condition of good work, 291 
 Resurrection, celebrated in Pagan¬ 
 ism, ch. ii, pp. 42, 113 ; not 
 mentioned in original St. 
 Mark, 213 
 
 Ritual before language, 148, 166, 
 167, 231 
 
 Rix, Herbert, quoted, 216 
 Robertson, J. M., quoted, 11, 43, 
 
 44 , 45 , 5 E 52, 209 
 Robertson-Smith, on Camel-rite, 
 60 ; on sacrifice, 66 
 Roman Empire, the seedbed of 
 the new religion, 208 
 
 Sacsea, festival of, 107 
 Sacred stones, 244 ; upright, 245 
 Sacrifice, its meaning, 63, 66, 
 
 103 sq. ; instances of, 105 ; 
 Biblical, 105 ; Carthaginian, 
 105 ; Mexican, 106, 107 ; 
 
 Babylonian, 107 ; essential 
 importance of, 115, 116; 
 
 antiquity of belief in, 117 
 Sahagun quoted, 40 n., 73, 106, 
 107 ; story of his writings, 130 
 Salvation, meaning of, 236, 242 
 Samothracian Mysteries, 247 
 Samson as sun-god, 27, 50 
 Sarva Sakshi, the universal Wit¬ 
 ness, 302, 303 
 
 Saviour or Soter, 90, 206 ; doc¬ 
 trine of, world-wide, 129, 202; 
 general belief in, a psycho¬ 
 logical necessity, 155 ; the 
 saviour Child, 161 
 Second Stage, characteristics of, 272 
 Secularists, wrath against priests, 
 12 
 
 Seed or seeds, use of, in the 
 Mysteries, 67, 177 n., 240 n. 
 Science, its early connection with 
 magic, 15 ; its final conjunc¬ 
 tion with Religion, 18, 301 ; 
 present-day science, 97 
 
INDEX 
 
 317 
 
 Second birth, doctrine of, see 
 Re-birth 
 
 Self-consciousness, its place in 
 evolution, 141, 150, 225 ; the 
 origin of ritual, 147, 165 ; a 
 danger to the Tribe, 150 ; a 
 sleep and a forgetting, 174 ; 
 nurse of the practical Intel¬ 
 lect, 174 ; relation to Sex, 
 186; to birth of language, 
 229 ; the false must die, 232 ; 
 the true, 274 ; appearing at 
 age of three, 295 ; hardly 
 found in animals, 296 
 Separation, an illusion, 301, 307 
 Serpent and Scorpion, 28 
 Sex, treatment of, by Chris¬ 
 tianity, ch. xii ; its connection 
 everywhere with religion, 183 ; 
 as the Old Serpent, 186 ; 
 commercialized, 188 ; primi¬ 
 tive views on, 247 ; relation 
 to love, 249 
 
 Sex-rites, in the Jewish Temple 
 and elsewhere, ch. xii, pp. 
 20, 181-3 >* communal and 
 
 pandemic, 188 ; organs imaged 
 in the Mysteries, 244 
 Sex-taboo, the, 184-7 > a neces_ 
 sary stage, 187 ; meaning of, 
 in Christianity, 192 
 Shelley quoted, 97 
 Sin, the sense of, its origin, 103, 
 141 ; theory of sin and sacri¬ 
 fice, reasonable, no sq. ; 
 natural evolution of, 114 ; its 
 redeeming value, 149 ; as 
 separation, 142, 227, 307 
 Siva, as the Sacrifice, 133 
 Snakes in magic, 73, 82 
 Sollas, W. J., quoted, 230 
 Soma-drink, nature of, 177 
 Son of Man, the, 206, 235 
 Spartacus and the slave-revolt, 
 
 138 
 
 Spartan friendships, 65 
 Spencer and Gillen quoted, 61, 
 195 
 
 Spirit, the Great, 95 ; of the 
 Hive, 148 
 
 Spirits or Sprites, n 
 Spontaneous evolution of rites 
 and creeds, 165, 222 
 Spring, and the renewal of life, 
 70, 112 
 
 Star in the East, 24 ; or Sirius, 
 29 
 
 Sungods, 10, 20, ch. ii ; and 
 
 Christianity, 21 
 
 Superstitions, ch. v ; of ill-luck, 
 14, 156, 194 
 
 Suppression of instincts, 189 ; 
 
 of sex, harmfulness of, 196 
 Sympathetic magic for the crops, 
 
 75 
 
 Syphilis, 188 
 
 Systems and Creeds, delusive, 12, 
 101 ; but necessary, 103 
 
 Taboos, created by fear, 14, 61, 
 62, 94 ; on food, 193 ; on the 
 Sabbath, 194 ; on marriage, 
 195 ; of sex, 185 ; due to 
 reaction, 185 ; to an instinct 
 of limitation, 193, 195 ; their 
 study important, 262 ; final 
 freedom from, 269 
 Tacitus quoted, 47 
 Tagore, Rabindranath, quoted, 
 290 
 
 Taipusam, festival in Ceylon, 
 264 ; meaning of, 265 
 Tammuz, or Adonis, 22 
 Tat twam asi, 299 
 Taurobolium, 43 
 
 Taylor, Richard, author of Devil’s 
 Pulpit, 10 
 
 Tennyson quoted, 295 
 Tertullian quoted, 25, 130 
 Testament of the twelve patriarchs, 
 219 
 
 Thanatomania, 14, 177 
 Thargelia, festival of, 118 
 Theocritus quoted, 65 n., 71, 
 197 
 
 Thera, inscriptions at, 170 
 
318 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS 
 
 Third Stage, characteristics of, 
 
 272 ; misunderstanding of, 
 
 273 
 
 Thoreau quoted, 76 
 Three kings, the, 30 
 Tien (Chinese) as Saviour, 129 
 Time, estimates of, in evolution, 
 230, 236 
 
 Tools, use of, characteristic of 
 Second Stage, 272 
 Totems, ch. iv ; as tribe-names, 
 55 ; as divinities, 57, 93, 
 
 224 ; as famity and national 
 crests, 59 ; the eating of, 
 59, 61, 132 
 
 Toutain quoted, 201, 221 
 Towards Democracy quoted, 306 
 Tree and Serpent worships, 80 ; 
 
 their phallic meaning, 82 
 Trees, magic of, 76, 77, 79, 81 ; 
 
 emblems of the female, Si 
 Tribe, the, as a Spirit, 149 
 Twins, lucky, 87 
 Tylor, E. B., quoted, 80, 86, 224 
 Tyndall, John, quoted, 285 
 Typhon, 28 
 
 Unity, the sense of, 127, 147, 
 301 ; its denial, 104, 148 ; 
 
 final evolution of, 262, 273 
 Upanishads, quoted, 133, 232, 
 
 268, 288, 289, 292, 299, 302, 
 3°4, 305 ; their origin, 299 
 
 Vegetation-gods, 20 
 Venus Mylitta, Temple of, 182 
 Vernal Equinox, 36 ; and the 
 Paschal Lamb, 40 
 Victim and god identical, 108 ; 
 human, 112 
 
 Virgil, his 4th Eclogue, 137 
 
 Virgin Mary, worship of, 32 ; 
 assumption of, 32 ; feast of 
 Purification, 34 
 
 Virgin-birth, the, 21-24 > also 
 3L 33> ; many legends 
 
 thereon, 159 
 
 Virgin-mothers, ch. x; black 
 ditto, 160 
 
 Virgo, constellation of, 30 
 Visionary faculty, 124, 125 
 
 Wakonda, 125, 261 
 Wallace, A. R., quoted, 144 
 Walt Whitman quoted, 76, 252 
 War, origin of, 146; words for, 
 absent in earliest Aryan, 229 
 Westermarck quoted, 91, 121, 194 
 Wheelbarrow, chained to, 286 
 Williamson, The Great Law, 
 quoted, 241 
 
 Wine, cult of Corn and the Vine, 
 52, 66 
 
 Win wood Reade quoted, 168, 177 
 Wordsworth quoted, 166, 173, 
 
 175 
 
 World-religion, the, its evolu¬ 
 tion, 16, 131 ; Christianity 
 
 a branch of, 198 
 World-wide similarity of rites 
 and creeds, 133 ; explana¬ 
 tions of, 134-136 
 Wrath of Early Fathers over 
 pagan legends, 25 
 Wundt, Wilhelm, on Self-con¬ 
 sciousness, 274 
 
 Zeus, connected with the goat, 
 94 ; with lightning and 
 thunder, 95 
 
 Zodiac, ch. iii; Maunder on the, 
 41 n. ; the twelve Signs, 241 
 
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