[ p. 204 ]
The Priest : The original priest or spiritual authority was, according to circumstances, an oracle, a diviner, a singer (of incantations, carmen means a charm), or a leech, sometimes combining these functions. In many savage religions he was first of all a dancer and as such was recognized as a diviner or oracle. Another common function was that of making fine weather; a priest who could not do this was discredited; a good priest was supposed to be influential with the powers that give rain. In all these cases, the priest was recognized as an intermediary between human and spiritual powers, sometimes to tell what spirits know, sometimes to influence the spirits. Again, the keeper of a holy place or guardian of religious relics might become director of ritual and so take upon himself a priestly office. But usually among primitive peoples the priest is accepted as such only in consequence of some special individual faculty or inherited power or as recipient of spiritual blessings. A savage priest must prove by ecstatic and hysterical speech and action that he is inspired; [1] he dances himself into a frenzy, ejaculates meaningless syllables; or he effects cures or foretells events or sees what is unknown to other people (discovers crimes, etc.). Among American and African tribes a dream may reveal a chosen man as priest; he becomes one of the elect. In both countries also the practice was [ p. 205 ] known of forming priests from boyhood; they were regularly trained for the priesthood.
Often in the higher religions, and occasionally in the lower, the office of priest was hereditary and the priesthood was kept in a caste,[2] which controlled religions matters. Yef this control, even in India where the priestly caste had charge of all public religions services, was still retained in domestic rites by the family head. Such a family head might become head of a clan and yet officiate in Religious matters, so that in many races we find a sort of rivalry between chief and priest, each of whom is guardian of religion. A more common antithesis, however, is that of the family head and tribal priest. Thus among the Ugro-Finnish tribes, the father of the family remains the family sacrificer, but the tribal sacrifices are conducted by hereditary priests in the “great hut” or temple of the whole tribe which is erected in a sacred grove. But the soothsaying and oracular priests also may make a group apart from the state-priests and form a kind of illegitimate priesthood, which maintains itself long after the state-priesthood is established; sometimes, indeed, it enters the state-priesthood and absorbs functions with which it had at first nothing to do. In China, there were professional exorcists of hereditary character, who invoked the dead, prophesied, and banned all evil, though as a class they had nothing to do with the state religion, till the later boards included them under the head of state board of rites. These exorcists of quite Shamanistic appearance were probably the original Chinese priests, very likely temporary, not permanent, priests, afterwards displaced by the priestless religion of the State.
[ p. 206 ]
More markedly unpriestly than the state religion of China, which eventually countenanced Confucian priests (teachers) and Taoist magicians, is Islana, which recognizes neither the priest nor the temple. Buddhism also did away with the priest as spiritual controller and with the priestly caste as ministrants of religion (not, however, as a sodal order); but it really replaced the priests with superior “brethren,” who controlled the religious organization; they could not confme but could expel recalcitrant members. Practically also the monks became to the laity a special priestlike-erder and in some Buddhistic sects there was formed a spiritual hierarchy of Patriarchs, whicn acted as intermediary between man and the spiritual powers of earth and air.
The relation between king and priest has already been noticed. There is no valid reason to suppose that- kings were originally priests; only that they assumed priestly functions as bemg heads and representatives of the community and hence also intermediaries with the gods. In Peru, the king’s brother was high priest of the sun, of which (whom) the reigning family were supposed to be descendants. Chibcha priests formed a caste distinct from the castes of warriors and agriculturists (including, as in India, traders) and the rulers were deified on occasion as divine or rather as divine priests; but they were flot priests acting as kings. In Babylon, too, the kings were not originally priests, as has often been asserted. In India, the priests in their own opinion, not contradicted, were not even part of the political State. In presenting a new king to the people, the formal proclamation made by the priests was: “Here, O people, is your king; not ours, for our king is the (god) Soma”; and the iimg might exercise no power over the priest, who at first najght not be slain or corporally punished, though he nai^t be banished from the realm. Later, he was fined [ p. 207 ] for heavy offenses and in the legal period arose the strange doctrine that “the higher the caste the higher the fine; for the more the sinner knows the more he sins;” but it is doubtful whether any religious king ever dared to act in accordance with this rule.
In Greece, the Homeric priest or “prayer” was officiant of a local altar and “honored like a god,” though by no means a recluse; he was sometimes married and at no time was the Greek priest regarded as especially holy. Different shrines were served by priests and priestesses who were reqmred to conform to local conditions imposed upon all aspirants to priesthood, such as sex and age, as well as to the usual demand of physical fitness and beauty.[^xxxx] There was no general rule, though priestesses usually served goddesses; but Herakles, for example, was served, at Thespiae by a young woman. Special families might hold the office or the State appoint the priest or the office was sold to the highest bidder or it was bestowed by lot. The priest lived on emoluments (tithes, etc.) coming from gifts, care of temple property, etc., and received public honors; he acted as agent of the family or State and was supported by his employers, who in turn benefited through his ministrations. He was director of the ritual of prayer and sacrifice, guardian of the shrine, and overseer of’ a number of hired assistants; but there were also state officials, king or archon, who supervised all the shrines, tried cases of sacrilege, recognized new cults, etc. The Greeks as a whole were on intimate terms with their gods and "without having recourse to priests prayed to them for success in every undertaking; [ p. 208 ] “all men need the gods”; thanksgiving sacrifices were made by the State for release from danger, votive offerings by the individual. Li the hymns, dances, and processions of worship, as in the sacrifice, the priest or his agent; the herald, was occupied rather as director than as an essential element; he received the votive offering at the shrine. The priest’s shrine also provided the victor’s wreath at the athletic contests, which had become religious festivals.[3] But even in sacrifice the priest was not always necessary, or rather the chief, head of the family’ or clan, was himself priest. Purification needed a priest only when it concerned the people at large and even then a seer, like Epimenides, might direct the ritual. On the other hand, the priestess of Deineter in Boeotia formally blessed the bride in the name of the goddess, who presided over marriage. Priests of shrines of Asklepios were also physicians and surgeons who wrought many cures, for which the god got credit.
But the Greek priests, although they never formed a caste, were like the priests of India in acting without coherence; they formed no body that rose into an imperium in imperio. Even in India the caste members were too isolated and too Jealous of each other to unite info a political power. Certain priests might defy a king but no united priesthood ever opposed royalty or state power in India or Greece. In less highly civilized countries, such as Mexico and Babylonj the chief office of the priest was to be a conjurer and diviner and he never rose politically above the position of servant of the State, though he acted asPjudge. Elsewhere, too, as in India and Egypt, the priest was endowed with judicial power, but only in connedion with the king, who in Egypt was himself the hi g h priest. Such union of priest and chief of state appears [ p. 209 ] when the Homeric chieftain offers a sacrifice. Egyptians Babylonians, and Hebrews all had distinctive dress and ranks and degrees in tneir priesthoods, which date from the earliest period, though the Hebrew priest was not at first required for sacrifice; but the Aaronic priest’s chief duty was to offer the sacrifice for atonement as well as to care for the temple.
Our own priesthood comes from the reestablishment of the old Hebrew priesthood idea according to a new order (Heb. 5:10), in which Christ is high priest of the new ^sacrifice. So the temple gave way to the synagogue and on this was modeled the church as a meeting-house, but for spiritual food rather than for sacrifee (its ritual copied that of the synagogue), consisting in prayer and exhortation. Deacons and overseers, episcopi, bishops, were a natural product of the new congregation and recognized as authoritative soon after the Church was founded, the head of whose Western branch in a few centuries became supreme spiritual head of the Western sub-branches. To him the other churches paid at first rather “love and respect” than obedience. Political conditions, however, established the Bishop of Borne in a position where he could and did enforce obedience as ruler of Church and State. The Christian priesthood in the Mass, according to the establisiied belief, carries on the sacrifice (of the Eucharist) instituted by Christ as high priest.[4] The priest must be confirmed by the bishop.
In all priesthoods arises the need of specialists, one priest being an expert in slaughtering the sacrificial animal, another in ceremonial, etc. Thus sixteen priests were required to conduct the complicated Vedic sacrifice in [ p. 210 ] India, one to build the altar, another to sing, another to oversee the work, etc., no one of whom might do any but his own allotted work. There were praying priests and singing priests and others distinguished by their peculiar occupations. All elaborated rituals naturally develop in this way (as among the Mexicans, Peruvians, Egyptians, and Hebrews), so that a priesthood is subdivided into groups not marking different faiths but only carrying on certain branches of work. This is apt to end in a lasting distinction which stresses socially the kind of work. The slaughterer of the victim is regarded and regards himself as less important than the reciter of Holy Writ, etc. A caste within a caste is thus evolved, as the “big talking” priest among savages is regarded as higher than the shrine-attendant. In a complicated social system the elements of ordinary worldly success are usually operative "with the priest also and it is not always the best man who has the best place, but he who has influence and patronage. The cutthroat prelates of the Middle Ages, the sensual leaders of the Church, thus prepared the world for Eeformation, as the selfish and sensual Brahmans prepared India to receive with enthusiasm the ethical remonstrance of BuddMsm.
In all priesthoods, too, the priest intermediates between man and the spiritual powers; in our speech he “holds the key of heaven.” He is either divine or filled with a peculiar spiritual power akin to divinity, which he represents. Thus, even today, the Guru, or spiritual director, of the Hindu is a little human divinity, whose sect treats him like a gody he is dangerous to touch and deadly to offend, a reversion to the taboo-attitude, which is found in respect of priests and sect-leaders. In the West, the adoration of divine representatives is less pronounced but there has been the same intellectual submission to God’s representative on earth. The ritual is [ p. 211 ] largely responsible for this, since it has enshrined the priest in an impenetrable armor, as it exalts him into a superior being whose office is beyond the layman. He comes into closest touch with divinity and through the fact that no one understands what his speech means in the ritual (Sanskrit in India, Latin in the West) he becomes, as has been observed, the sole controller of a tremendous spiritual machine whose movement is essential to salvation, but no one save the priest knows how to make it go, as no one save the priest or pope can impose penances by which sins are cleared off or grant indulgences through which they may be safely practiced.[5]
A double danger lies then in the inevitable combination of ritual and priest. First, the ritual may become a substitute for religion. Out of piety excessive weight is laid upon the exact reproduction of inherited acts and words, so that, as in the Hindu ritual, a meticulous observance of received usage in the measurement of the altar, the pronunciation and accent of each word and phrase repeated without understanding, the movement at fixed intervals of eyes and fingers, all this becomes the sum total of priestly religion to the loss of meaning and detriment of spirit. The priest no longer knows why he does this or that or what the words mean which he repeats; he speaks and acts as if performing a magical operation and the service is supposed to act automatically to the ben^t of the hearers. Second, the mere mass of the ritual, as well as. its imposing mystery and bewildering complexity, makes the worshipper realize that his individual part in [ p. 212 ] worship is reduced to nothing. The priest performs; the people watch the priest move and mumble. They that should worship get out of touch with divinity save through the mechanical mediation of hirelings, who yet, although mere hirelings, by virtue of their possession of this power of mediation, make themselves, as religious specialists, the feared masters of their depressed employers. And as it has been in India so it must be in every church where the people abrogate their spiritual powers in favor of those who employ religion as a means of coercion, pretended coercion of spirits and real coercion of men. Thus the ritual of Rome, long before the Republic fell, became a tool in the hands of unscrupulous politicians and dishonest servants of the gods and the ritual of later Rome was used to coerce kings as well as private individuals. The fault of course is not in the ritual; ritual in itself is not dangerous. The fault is the priest’s when he employs his ritual senselessly or unscrupulously. The first confessional in India was established for women: “confession is truth; thus sin becomes a virtue.” The ritual of confession may be innocuous, as when the Buddhists confess themselves in open congregation once a month, or it may become a weapon, when it is given in secret and used for political ends, as in Peru.[6] Further, the priest without ritual can also become the master of the king, as the royal chaplain in India, though the most despised and ignorant of priests, had often the greatest influence.[7]
On the other hand, it is obvious that priests, despite their ritual, have always sustained and kept alive the religious spark in the form of faith to which they were committed. [ p. 213 ] In the past it was the priests who were the intellectual leaders of their people in Egypt, Babylon, India, and even in Mexico and Peru. In general, a priesthood is conservative and preserves much that would otherwise be lost, both in literature and in the upholding of old standards and laws. Priests were the teachers of secular sciences as well as of religion in the ancient world, especially in the East. As ministrant shepherds of the religious flock they are still indispensable to the Church, which without priests would become as weak as a body politic without officers. They must, as specialists in divine law, instruct the ignorant many and as such they hold up traditional wisdom and learning. It would have fared ill for India and Egypt if there had been no priests. and the same is true for Europe, though, on the other hand, they have often opposed intellectual advance, conserved evil as well as good, been tyrants as well as benefactors, and become dangerous opponents of the State. But it is generally among the priests themselves that the revolt against priestly mishandling and ineptitude has arisen. On the whole, religion has been better understood and better practiced by priests than by laymen, and as their word has greater weight among the devout so their influence in general is more profound for good as well as for evil. Ethically, too, the priest in many religions was a man apart, obliged to be pure not only in a ritualistic sense but in conduct. He was often (not always) a celibate and from the sorcery of savages to the morality of civilization he has been, at least nominally, the sustainer of virtue, detecting and punishing sin, as understood by him, advocating moral excellence, and serving in his own person as an example of human frailty exalted by spiritual life.[8] How often he has failed, both as an in [ p. 214 ] dividual and as a class, the history of India and of Europe shows sufficiently, but it. shows also that priests have been as useful as they have been inevitable. Nor is their use negligible now; for there are many who are the better for their services. Advancing enlightenment has is various religious circles sheared off their pretensions. They appear not as monuments of ancient mysticism but as guides to present spiritual betterment; but even as mere ministers, as those who set the pace for others to run the race uphill to a higher life, they are still invaluable, not valueless, as many pretend. It means much for any community to have a body of men dedicated to spiritual and ethical improvement.
In America, though the word priest is usually avoided in evangelical circles, the parson or minister is virtually a priest in that he spiritually represents the congregation and is consecrated to his office by a recognized ceremony regarded by his religious group as sufficient, though it may want the traditional channel through which authority comes. The question of apostolic succession or its parallel has twice been raised in the Buddhistic Church, once in Ceylon and once in Burma. In both cases it was necessary to send abroad to obtain due authority for ordination. In Ceylon, as the nuns have no power of authority, the sisters of the Church had to send to Burma to obtain it.
In sundry Asiatic religions, the temple-gods were served by priestesses as well as by priests. In some eases these women were virtually slaves of the temple and their conduct was unethical, as it is today in sorpe Hindu temples, where the dancing-girls are little better than prostitutes. But priestesses beyond reproach have been [ p. 215 ] known in several religions, not only independent of priests but as participants of the otherwise priest-served ritual. In Greece, the priestess might be the only servitor, of a divinity; in Egypt, the god’s wife might be the chief priestess; in Babylon, the daughter of a king or high dignitary was sometimes the chaste priestess of a shrine. The duties of priestesses working with priests were generally, when not immoral, subordinate; they did not offer sacrifice but attended to the service of dance and song. Since savage priestesses are not unusual (some African tribes have a woman as chief religious head) it may be that the Oriental “wives of the gods” 'were originally such independent priestesses, though it has been suggested that they reflect an age of sexual promiscuity; but the existence of such an age is questionable. Neither explanation seems to the writer so plausible as that the institution of women-servitors goes back to a double origin. One is represented by the vestal virgins of Peru, whose analogue in Keltic and Eoman religion is well known and whose savage prototype may be found in Africa, where the care of &e is entrusted to certain women, whose behavior is unexceptionable. In other words, one origin of priestesses is to be sought in special sendee, like the Iroquois cult of spirits of the earth, which was given over to women, or the Eoman and Peruvian care of fire. The other comes perhaps from subordinating to the temple-service the use of dancing-girls in processions. Thus India’s prostitute dancing-girls (a comparatively modern feature) may best be explained by the religious festivals and processions which are still marked by dancing and music and baimers, in short, a spring celebration, which in outlying countries clearly bear the marks of original unreligious festivals only recently brought under the hand of churehly authority and fitted out with perfunctory ritual, such as those already mentioned as celebrated [ p. 216 ] in Camboja and Siam. Tims of the four thousand servitors of the temple of Angkor in Camboja, six hundred were dancing-girls (twelfth century), but they were for processional and festive occasions. The religious dance to the pious Hindu expresses the divine rhythm of the universe presented in the figure of the dancing gods, whose creative act is thus symbolically expressed in rhythmic joy (God is Joy). It wms easy to bring into the ritual of Hindu and Buddhist the popular dance and to make the dancing-girls part of the regular service. Such dancing is different from the dance of the Ceylon Kapuralas, who in dancing intoxicate themselves with the belief that they are becoming inspired (devil-dancers). The Canaanite prostitutes adopted into the Hebrew service "were probably dancers, but they belonged to religions which frankly stimulated eroticism, even to the extent of obliging girls generally to sacrifice their virginity. The sacrifice of virility on the part of priests of the Mother is probably due to a desire to approximate priest to goddess and hangs together with the female attire donned by the same priests. So the mediaeval priests of the Eadha Vallabha sect, which adores the female potency as spouse of Krishna, were dressed as women, obviously in imitation of the goddess.
The Church: By slow degrees the ecclesiastical body is built up into an army of pin<’^sts of various degrees, officers of the king-priest, Dalai lama or pope, who represents or incorporates dmnity.[9] Such an army may contend successfully, as in Japan and Tibet and Europe, with the secular army. In Europe the monastic bodies, [ p. 217 ] which derived originally from Egyptian models, kept in general their original ckaracter, but in the East these bodies, instead of bribing soldiers, became themselves soldiers of the Lord and fought valiantly against those of the sovereign civil power, while in the West internecine conflict was waged by sect against sect, usually on questions which resolved themselves into the problem of form against spirit, whence reformation and re-reformations, till larger issues eventually effected a political severance of a military character, when Church and State were represented by embattled devotees. Nothing of this sort ever happened in India. There the fetate took no interest in religious questions except to say that all sects should live in harmony and the sects themselves admitted the mutual right of disagreement. Not till modem times was there really a state religion (in the case of Sikhs and Hahrattas), for Ashoka coxmtenanced Buddhism, but, as a Buddhist himself, was tolerant of all religions. Most religions have gradually settled down into a compromise position with the civil power, dividing between them the spoils of prestige, as lords of the spiritual world and lords of the temporal power, a combined aristocracy, the king upholding the priest and the priest upholding the king, to their mutual advantage. In India, c. 1000 B. C., these two bodies or classes were forming castes which soon rose far above the common people, already (c. 800 B. G.) derisively called by the priests “the food of the king”; but the priests themselves fattened on the same food. In Europe, no king was too base to be blessed by the Church, no ecclesiastic too corrupt to be made cardinal or pope. The holy rogue, who served the king with twice the zeal with which he served the Church, was well known.
But Church and State are comparatively modem bodies. The horde is not a state. A loose amalgamation of [ p. 218 ] people, easily split up and subdividing into groups which pass into other fields, a horde has no religions or political unity. Any one man of a temporary group will turn and fight against his friends, like Maoris. Their women, too, come largely from other groups; there is no binding family tie; no religious starting-point in the family; no father of the family as priest, nor chief as chief priest. The family religion begins with the established family, and this is a product of development, caused by circumstances which keep the horde in a settled place, as a clan, after it has passed from a nomadic stage. In other words, clan and family-religion are matters of culture, and higher culture really begins with agriculture, which ties down the group to one locality and stabihzes the family or consolidates the clan.[10] It was the agricultural dependence of the Amerind which kept him. within bounds despite his life as a hunter, and his best civilization or approach to it was the result of this home-staying. But even with the dan established, the religious activity of the war-chief is mainly confined to war-religion, which may be important even in an agricultural community, so that its chief god, like Mars, may be at once a war-god and a grain-god. Yet ordinary religious matters are not in the hands of the chief Or king but remain in those of the wizard, medicine^man, etc., except for family matters, where again the chief of the family is also the religious head, as, for example, he remains for centuries in India, where no priest is required for many domestic rites, or rather the father acts as priest But a family may become a clan and its head be still the dan-pries^ or the rites performed by the king may be extended till he becomes [ p. 219 ] the general religions chief. He is thus naturally the judge and the whole reli^ous-judicial procedure may be in his hands. “The king shall take a club and kill a thief” is one of the earliest Hindu laws. Here the chief of state is judge and executioner of justice, which, be it remembered, is’ religious. The priest, representing the king, acted thus as judge in Mexico, in Babylon, and in Rome (compare the Druidic priest-judges). The whole court procedure, with its oath and ordeal, was a religious act in which the king and culprit were the chief actors.
The growth of the State was largely fostered by the law of hospitality (whereby the hostis became the hospes and made commerce possible) and the law of asylum, both of which were closely connected with religion. Local gods are left behind when one travels, and in early days a traveller was a man without a god. He got religious protection in becoming a guest (or being adopted) and when he sought asylum he found it also only as a religious support, either at the altar, in the temple or church, or in cities of refuge. The Hawaiian temple and palace are both asylums, and the idea is common to Semites and Aryans, and savages such as those of New Guinea The asylum is not, as Wilutzky says,[11] an appeal to gods against human judgment but an appeal to the fear of gods; the appeal to the god of the tribe comes later. Modifications of the asylum are standards, flags, statues of the emperor (among the Romans), groves (of Mohammedans), and the inclusion of anj space within thirty paces of a church edifice (Roman Catholic) or “the church door-ring” among the Germans (the earliest German asylum was the Irmen-pillar). Even the houseasylum was originjally religious, for it implied the hearth and that was a sacred taboo-spot; but with a brave race the religious idea probably was mingled with the de [ p. 220 ] fiance expressed by the Hindu (epic) statement that “every man is king in his own house,” sve dame. The Maori chief gave absolute asylum by covering the refugee with his cloak and any woman could act as inviolate asylum to a G-erman outlaw. As a temporary relief the asylum gave opportunity to arrange for blood-money to satisfy the vendetta-feeling (w’hich was also largely religious), thus introducing the whole system of compensation for wrongdoing instead of exacting the logical quid pro quo. This “compensation” is a widespread institution, found, for example, among the Five Nations and Poljnesians (slavery is there a form of compensation), as well as Aryans and Semites. But it must be noticed also that the asylum leads to a conflict between Church and State when unworthy people are thus protected. One of the first complaints against the Buddhist Congregation (church) was that as their Brethren, friars, were inviolate, any robber or murderer could take refuge within a Congregation and so defeat justice. Buddha was obliged to rule that no one might be admitted into the Congregation without first satisfying the Church Elders that he was not a scoundrel subject to punishment by the law. The Greeks misused “altars of safety” in the same way.[12]
To turn to wider relations of Ohuroh and State, the expanse of the State has a broadening effect upon religion in giving a broader view of the deity of the tribe. If the Hebrews had not been dispersed over a wider area their god would have remained local, and monotheism probably owes its fullest expression to tribal misfortune. In Egypt the growth of the State amalgamated gods and [ p. 221 ] suggested the idea of a god greater than the Sun and even the early Egyptian priest inherited a composite religion formed of various local cultural ideas. On the other hand, imported ideas may ignore the State so completely as to divorce it from religion. Thus the Greek mysteries undermined what was left of local religious feeling and established a religious instead of political brotherhood. Eeligion became denationalized; the slave gained weight as a “brother” man. So even in India during a religious love-orgy the lowest caste loses its base estate (for a 'night) and the idea is introduced that all are equal before the deity, which is not a state-view and may lead to serious political consequences. Conversely, in this upheaval the priest qua priest sinks as the slave rises, another blow at the religious-political confederacy. For the priest of the Hindu religious debauch is never the accredited priest of the State.
The priest is apt to break this confederacy himself when he is strong enough to do so and ride roughshod over the king, as king and priest together override the commons when they can. Thus in Fernando Po the priests obtained such power that they kept the king in a hole in the ground, a helpless tool; and in Japan the ruler was often debased to a mere ceremonial puppet. The dominance of either spiritual power over temporal or temporal over spiritual is equally injurious; but, before coming to such an extreme, the lack of interference with each other, when the two remain in equilibrium, is also harmful. Thus the laisses faire policy of Hindu kings never interfered with religious abominations, such as widow-burning, girl-murder, thuggery, erotic debauches, and human sacrifice, all of which have been practiced till late years and supported by native religions. China, on the other hand, has taken all religion under its state institutions and put down whatever it considers injurious, [ p. 222 ] even rejecting gods that had a bad reputation. It is the most perfect example of religion subordinated to the state, but it also exemplifies the shortcomings of such a system, in which religious initiative is at a standstill. Where the State rules religion, the status in quo ante, remains the ideal. Where the Church has been the supreme arbiter in matters intellectual, science and philosophy have suffered. Where religion and the State have been indifferent to each other, both parties have suffered.
The paternal character of the State is gradually shifted over, as the Church emancipates itself from supervision, ’ to the religious Congregation as a body. This body then acts as a board of control in regard to ethics and when ethics is regarded as including opinion it acts also- as an inquisition. No ancient religion of itself tried by force to suppress free thought. This was left to politicians. Only Plato desired that the unorthodox should be punished by the State. But when religion became its ovpi arbiter and was itself the voice of the State it began to be dangerous for the one -who disagreed with it. When in turn the State passed its control over to the Congregation, that body assumed all the repressive rights of the State and, in so far as it could, it disfranchised all heretical teachers. Thus, although political rights cannot be touched by the present Congregations (such Christian bodies as form the various sects may be so called), yet each in its own field acts as judge of opinion and it is merely a question of how indifferent or liberal the Congregation has become when a member thereof ventures to differ from received opinion; the Congregation, if prone to interfere with private judgment, may ostracize at will. In this regard there has been a notable difference between our Christian communities and the religious bodies of the ancient world and the Eastern world today, where a man’s b^ef as to Gpd is his own concern and considerable freedom [ p. 223 ] of thought is permitted.[13] This is largely because religion with us is interpreted in terms of theology; which in other religions was (and is) not a matter of religion but of philosophy. Eeligion consists, says the worshipper of Rama, in worshipping Rama, not in defining him; in loving God, not in explaining his inexplicable nature. Let the scientist and philosopher discuss and explain; religion expresses itself in devout feeling and right living, not in mental exercises.
The relation between religion and State is like that between any other form of culture and the State. TPhen toleration is unknown, the State itself becomes atrophied, as in Sparta; when encouraged, the State grows, as in Athens. Too great concordance leads to stagnation; variety leads to growth. Consciousness of this fact leads slowly to the adoption of toleration as moral; it becomes unethical to be intolerant. How slowly, may be seen in the attitude of those who say that a man is good but bigoted. On the other hand, as solidarity is necessary to the maintenance of any corporate body, it is ine^dtable that too great tolerance will disrupt the body. Religious belief which inculcates treason endangers the State. As heir of the State, the Congregation also has to ask itself whether its better (more conservative) views can safely be attacked, perhaps overthrown, by too liberal opinion. Obviously there is only one answer; nothing can safely be permitted which is sure to destroy.
But out of this impasse there may be an escape. Let the Congregation as a body shift its whole attitude, regard a matter of dispute not as vital btit as secondary, concentrating on unity from another point of view’, and the desperate situation between the Scylla of toleration [ p. 224 ] and the Charydbis of self-destruction may be saved. This is actually v’hat has happened and is no-w happening in our ovn Church. A rapidly growing dissentient body within the Church has adopted the attitude that dogma, which in the past has been vital, is to be treated like ritual, as something secondary in religious imtportance. Neither the formal creed nor the ritual of the Church is part of original Christianity, the so-called Nicene creed having as little connection with the teaching of Jesus as the church ritual of- lights and incense has vdth the primitive cult. Spirit is gradually becoming more important than form or theory; the mediaeval controversies of opinion have long been dead and those of later date are already djing.’ It is too much to expect that the Church will formally repudiate anything; that has never been her way. But -there is good grormd for belie\T.ng that the Church will tacitly acquiesce in the present tendency tosubstitute the religion of its Dhine Pounder for the human dogmas of the fourth century. Such acquiescence will have two advantages. It vill make it possible for intelligent Westerners to remain in the Church and for missionaries to get a respectful hearing from intelligent Orientals.
The scientist says that life’s first great development came about through the unification into one organism of many cells. But the many-celled organism was not produced by the superiority of special forms maintained by warfare with lower forms, but by the union of relatively undifferentiated cells into an aggregate of cells less competitive, more social, that is, more subordinated to social unity. “The law of development is both strife- and concordance.” But only what is quite irreconcilable with development is eliminated; other elements are fused into a nev’ and higher whole. So Christianity grew not only by absorption of unchristian elements but by the consolidation [ p. 225 ] of antagonistic elements within the Christian fold. This represents also the course followed by Mohammedan and Zoroastrian religions. What was thought to he essential was rigidly retained; to other beliefs and forces was given an opportunity to act within their own sphere. Every great religion must thus sur^dve by clinging fast to the spirit of its teaching and permitting freedom in unessentials. The play of diverse forces must be allowed. This is the advantage of sects, that it gives scope to the lover of form as well as to the lover of ideas; the aesthetic sense, the ascetic sense, and mental requirements are all satisfied. But the sect is only a section; the part cannot be greater than the whole; there must be room for all.
Hebrew religion, disease, insanity, inspiration, and all unusual powers come from Yahweh, but this is merely because he absorbed the earlier spirit-possession, etc. ↩︎
Thus hereditary priests were known to India, Egypt, and the Hebrews, but the Hebrew priests did not form a caste, only a class. There was an hereditary priesthood among, e. g. the Nez Percé and the Taraseans (Mexico). ↩︎
In the same way, races and games were iaeorporated into the religions ritual of the South American Bogotas. ↩︎
The priest must be of a certain age (twenty-four years or more). By the ministration of the priest the worshippers partake, of the fruits of the sacrifice in communion, baptism, and the other sacraments. Ha is also the only recognised religions instructor. ↩︎
The grant of indulgences, regularly practiced, for example, by the lama of Tibet, had on one occasion a merited reward. The lama promised his hillsmen pardon for all past and immediate future sins if they would sweep off a mission-settlement. After they bad done so, these savages redected that they still had pardon for all sins, (the time-limit of pardon nor having expired), so they turned on the lama’s own temples and footed them all, although these temples were also their own sanctuaries. ↩︎
Confessioa in the Roman Catholic Church is private and has (it is believed) never been violated. Ritual today is obnoxious only to the danger of substituting form for spirit. ↩︎
His only functions were “to be skilled in prognostication and learned in law and magic” (Yaj., Dh 1, 812). ↩︎
In Africa, as among the Aleuts, the initiation of priests often includes fasting and purification and their life implies the observance of celibacy and chastity, with many restrietions as to food and clothes and hair, taboos retained by many advanced priesthoods. Such taboos were primarily for the purpose of gaining spiritual power. ↩︎
The apotheosis of the king in Camboja identifies him by name with the god; he is the “god who is in the kingdom”; the “subtle self of the king” is Shiva in linga form. This royal god-cult is not very different from that of the lama, who is at once pope, king, and incarnate god. See Sir Charles Eliot, op. cit., III, pp. 11. ↩︎
Clan and family influence, one might almost say, create different religious types. The Arabian is a clan-religion with totem, clan-god, rites of hospitality strongly marked; the Aryan is a family-religion, with cult of family ghosts (no totem or clan-god), late “guest-law,” etc. ↩︎
Paul Wilutzky, VorgesehieMe des Rechts III, pp. 101 1 ↩︎
For the asylum among the savages, see A. Hellwig, Das AsifhmfocM der Naturvolker, Berlin, 1903. As the Church was exempt from state taxation, some Chinese Buddhists nominally made their property over to the Church and thus came in conflict with the State. ↩︎
This is not to imply that either Brahman or Buddhist did not require of the religious member acquiescence in fundamental dogmas; but neither body coerced unbelievers or when in power imposed dogma on them. ↩︎