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 DEITY

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DEITY

prayer to the winds Boreas and Zephyrus, that they kindle the flames on the funeral pyre of Patroclus (Iliad, XXIII). Observation of the fact that in na- ture two energies — one active and generative, the other passive and feminine — combine, led men to as- sociate heaven and earth, sun and moon, day and night, as common primal and motherly deities co-op- erating in the production of being. Hence the dis- tinction of male divinities — e. g. heaven, ether, sun — and of female divinities — e. g. earth, air, moon. From this only a step to the deification of the genera- tive principle and the worship of the phallus.

(2) AnthTopomorphonis. — The powers of nature were at first worshipped without form or name, afterwards humanized and regarded as persons. Thus Gaia, of ancient Pelasgic worship, appears as Rhea in Cretan traditions, as the Cybele of Asia Anterior, as Hera in Arcadia and Samos, as the goddess of nature Aphro- dite, as Demeter. In Rome the Bona Dea of mystic rite, whose proper name was not to be spoken, was later akin to, or identified with, a number of Greek or Italian deities. De la Saiissaye writes of ancient Babylono- As.syrian religion: "Among the influential words which could avert or expel evil, the most prominent were the names of the great gods; but these names were considered to be secret, and therefore people ap- pealed to the god himself to pronounce them." In Samothrace the Cabiri, i. e. great and mighty dei- ties, the supreme powers of nature, were adored at first without specific names. In old Latium the pon- tifices concealed the names of the gods. Herodotus says the Pelasgian deities were nameless. In the Vedie hymns the sacrificial tree, to which the sacrifices were attached, is thus addressed: "Where thou knowest, O Tree, the sacred names of the gods, to that place make the off'erings go." According to de la Saussaye the deities of the Rig- Veda are but slightly individualized. To the formless gods of nature succeeded the deities of Homeric imagination, in Iiuman shape and with hu- man feelings. In the judgment of Herodotus it was Homer and Hesiod who settled the theogony of the Greeks — in fact laid the basis of the later Hellenic religion. The Greeks lavished the rich stores of their intellectual life upon their deities, humanized and severed them from natural phenomena. Hence the whole of nature was pervaded by a family of deities descending from the elements as primal gods, the in- dividual members of which family were of kin to one another and in mutual relations of higher and lower, older and younger, male and female, stronger and weaker; so that man, feeling himself surrounded on all sides by deities, discovered in the course of nature, and in her various phenomena, their actions, histories, and manifestations of their will. The conception of these deities was anthropopathic, in their motives and passions they were more powerful and more perfect men, they had a human body and a human counte- nance, human thoughts and feelings; they resided in the clouds or on a hirfi mountain; they dwelt in a heavenly palace. Such an idea is incoherent and con- tradictory. In reality the Deity was nature. If its inanimate forms were personified and worshipped, why not animals and plants — e. g. tree-worship?

(3) Human Apotheosis is another cause and equally prolific in later pagan times. Plutarch (in his " Rom- ulus") enters at length into the question, how the soul, when separated from the body, advances into the state of heroism, and from a hero develops into a demon and from a demon becomes a god. To Cicero the doctrine of Euhemerism is the core and funda- mental principle of the mysteries (de Nat. Deor., Ill, xxi). With the Greelcs it had been a custom to hon- our renowned or well-deserving men as heroes after death, e. g. Herakles, Theseus; but to pay divine honours to the living never entered into their minds in early times. Heroes or saintly men were regarded (a) as sons of the gods, e. g. in Hesiod; (b) as incarna-

tions of the great gods. The growth of popular Poly- theism in modern India is due to the fact that the Brahmins, by their doctrine of divine embodiments (avatara), create holy men into deities actually wor- shipped. Thus the older gods of India, i. e. nature- personifications, are in turn obscured by the swarm of earth-born deifications. Colebrooke says that the worship of deified heroes is a later phase not to be found in the Vedas, though the heroes themselves not yet deified are therein mentioned occasionally, (c) The hero was identified with one of the great gods. Thus hero-worship was strange to the early Romans. Romulus, according to Plutarch, was not worshipped as a hero properly speaking, but as a god, and that after he had been identified with the Sabine god Quirinus. (d) Hero-worship properly speaking, e. g. in the Odyssey, (e) Apotheosis. — Plutarch tells us that Lysander (d. 394 B. c.) was the first man to whom the Greeks erected altars and offered sacrifices as to a god. Farnell states that one of the most fruitful offshoots of the older Hellenic system was hero-worship. And Pliny writes, " Of all ways of paying due thanks to men of great desert, the most time-honoured is to enrol them as gods". The Jaina faith, anofi'shoot of Buddhism, is nothing but the worship of deified men. In Egypt di- vine honours were paid to kings even during their life- time. Cicero makes a formal profession of Euhemer- ism. " Knowest that thou art a god?" he represents the glorified Scipio addressing himself in a dream (de Rep. VI, xxiv). Men and women after death had been raised to be gods ; therefore he would have his daugh- ter TuUia exalted to the same honour, as having best deserved it, and he would dedicate a temple to her (ep. ad Att., xii). The Christian apologists, who stood face to face with Heathendom, positively declared that all the deities of Paganism were dei- fied men. Among the Romans the worship of the geniits was to men the deification of manhood, as that of Juno was to women the deification of woman- hood. Pliny saw in this belief a formal self-deifica- tion, proceeding upon the theory that the genius, or Juno, was nothing else than the spiritual element of man, or woman. Not only the individual, but every place and, above all, the Roman people and Rome itself had its genius. The time-honoured worship of the latter was naturally associated with, and passed into, a worship of the emperor. Thus pre-Christian heathenism culminated in the worship of Augustus. In the Book of Wisdom the various stages in the pro- cess of human deification are clearly described (Wis- dom, xiv).

(4) St. Augustine (Civ. Dei, IV, ii) discusses the opinion of Roman writers that all the manifold gods and goddesses of the Romans were in the final analysis but one Jupiter, for these deities melt away into each other on closer inspection. Thus we have a single god, who by the dissection of his nature into various aspects of his powers, and by the personifying of his individual powers, has been resolved into a nmltipli- city of deities. The Romans thus broke up the idea of deity by hypostasizing particular powers, modes of operation, physical functions, and properties. By this process not only events in nature and in human life, but their various phases, qualities, and circumstances were considered apart as endowed with proper per- sonalities, and worshipped as deities. Thus in the liff of a child, Vaticanus opens his mouth, Cunina guards the cradle, Educa and Potina teach him to eat anc drink, Fabulinus to speak, Statalinus helps him tc stand up, Adeona and Abeona watch over his firs' footsteps. Since every act required a god, there waj| scarcely any limit to the inventive work of the ima gination. ,\nd St. Augustine tells us (Civ. Dei, IV viii) that the Roman farmer was in the hands of a hos of deities who assisted him at each stage of ploughing hoeing, sowing, and reaping. Under such condition we can understand how easily the cultured Romai