Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/376

Rh R E L R E L by the bishop of the diocese, and sealed up with the epis- copal seal. A collect iu the Ordo Musx assumes their presence, and makes reference to the saints whose relics are thus preserved. Authoritim. Many of the leading authorities have already been named. To these may be added on the Roman Catholic side Perrone, Prxlectioncs Thcologiae, vol. ii. " De Cultu Sanctorum," cap. iv. (cd. Paris, 1863), aud Martigny, Dictionnaire dcs Antiquites Chrc- tienncs (s. v. " Reliques "). On the other side the followers of Calvin (on this as on so many other topics) are usually more fiercely anti-Roman than those of Luther. Among Anglican divines those who have published treatises on the Thirty-nine Articles are necessarily brought across the subject. The work of the bishop of Winchester (Dr Harold Browne) will hero be found the fullest and most able as well as the most candid and temperate. Compare also Bp. Pearson, Minor Works, vol. ii. ( J. G. C. ) BELIEF. See SCULPTURE. RELIGIONS. Religions, by which are meant the modes of divine worship proper to different tribes, nations, or communities, and based on the belief held in common by the members of them severally, were not before the present century the subject of original scientific research and comparative study. With the exception of a few good books containing useful information on some ancient religions and on the religious customs of uncivilized nations, nothing written on this subject in former cen- turies can be said to possess any scientific value. It is not that the old books are antiquated, as all works of learning must become with the lapse of time : they were worth nothing even when published. There were huge collec- tions, containing descriptions of all the religions in the world, so far as they were known, laboriously compiled, but without any critical acumen, and without the least suspicion that unbiblical religions are not mere curiosities. There was a philosophy of religion, but it was all but purely speculative, and it could not be otherwise, as then it had but scanty means to work with, and was obliged to draw the facts it required from very troubled and insuffi- cient sources. Attempts were made to explain the mytho- logies of the Greeks and the Romans, and even of some Oriental nations, but for the same reason they could not but fail Then there was the theological bias, which caused all religions except one to be regarded as utterly false; the philosophical bias, which caused all religions, except the arbitrary abstraction then called natural religion, to be decried as mere superstitions, invented by shrewd priests and tyrants for selfish ends ; and, finally, the total lack of a sound method in historical investigation, which was one of the prominent characteristics of the 18th century.- It was only after the brilliant discoveries which marked the end of that century and the first half of this, and after the not less brilliant researches to which they gave rise ; after the sacred writings of the Chinese, the Indians, the Persians, and some other ancient nations could be studied in the original ; after the finding of the key to the Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform writing had lifted the veil which for many centuries had covered the history of these most ancient civilizations it was then only that a history of religion ceuld be thought of and that something like a science of religion could be aimed at, if not yet founded. The comparative historical study of religions is one of the means indispensable to the solution of the difficult problem What is religion? the other being a psychological study of man. It is one of the pillars on which not a merely speculative and fantastic, and therefore worth- less, but a sound scientific philosophy of religion should rest. Still, like every department of study, it has its aim in itself. This aim is not to satisfy a vain curiosity, but to understand and explain one of the mightiest motors in the history of mankind, which formed as well as tore asunder nations, united as well as divided empires, which sanctioned the most atrocious and barbarous deeds, the most cruel and libidinous customs, and inspired the most admirable acts of heroism, self-renunciation, and devotion, which occasioned the most sanguinary wars, rebellions, and persecutions, as well as brought about the freedom, happiness, and peace of nations at one time a partisan of tyranny, at another breaking its chains, now calling into existence and fostering a new and brilliant civilization, then the deadly foe to progress, science, and art. Religions, like living organisms, have a history, and therefore this is to be studied first, so far as it can be known, how they rise and spread, grow and fade away ; how far they are the creations of individual genius, and how far of the genius of nations and communities ; by what laws, if it is possible to discover them, their development is ruled ; what are their relations to philosophy, science, and art, to the state, to society, and above all to ethics; what is their mutual historical relation, thai is, if one of them sprang from another, or if a whole group are to be derived from a common parent, or if they only borrowed from one another and were subject to one another's influence ; lastly, what place is to be assigned to each of those groups or single religions in the universal history of religion. The first result of this historical inquiry must be an attempt at a genealogical classification of religions, in which they are grouped after their proved or probable descent and affinity. However, like every genuine scientific study, historical investigations, if they are to bear fruit, must be compara- tive. Not only has every religion as a whole, aud every religious group, to be compared with others, that we may know in what particular qualities it agrees with or differs from them, and that we may determine its special characteristics, but, before this can be done, compara- tive study on a much larger scale must precede. Every religion has two prominent constituent elements, the one theoretical, the other practical religious ideas and religious acts. The ideas may be vague conceptions, concrete myths, precise dogmas, either handed over by tradition or recorded in sacred books, combined or not into systems of mythology and dogmatics, summarized or not in a creed or symbol, but there is no living religion without some- thing like a doctrine. On the other hand, a doctrine, however elaborate, does not constitute a religion. Scarcely less than by its leading ideas a religion is characterized by its rites and institutions, including in the higher phases of development moral precepts, in the highest phases ethical principles. It happens but very seldom, if ever, that those two elements balance each other. In different religions they are commonly found in very different proportions, some faiths being pre-eminently doctrinal or dogmatic, others pre-eminently ritualistic or ethical; but where one of them is wanting entirely religion no longer exists. Not that dogma and ritual are religion ; they are only its necessary manifestations, the embodi- ment of what must be considered as its very life and essence, of that which as an inner conviction must be dis- tinguished from a doctrine or creed a belief. But we cannot get a knowledge of the belief which lies at the base of a particular doctrine and which prompts peculiar rites and acts, without studying the mythical and dogmatical conceptions and the ritual or ethical institutions in which it takes its shape, and without comparing these with others. This then is the task of what is called compara- tive theology in its widest sense, of which comparative mythology is only a branch, and in which more space and attention should be given to the hitherto much neglected comparative study of religious worship and of ethics in their relation to religion. It is then only that we can proceed to characterize and mutually compare religions themselves, regarded as a whole, and that we may come