Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/598

 288 The Origin of Monotheis7n.

obvious reason why there should be one god rather than many ; once man has come to believe in gods, why should he ever cut down their number to one ? In some ways it is easier to believe in many than in one, it spares us endless theological problems, and it makes religion more personal. Such an intelligent people as the Greeks seem to have been well content to have many gods.

The theory I have outlined at all events explains how the oneness of God first occurred to men. It is based on a custom which can be traced as far back as early Egypt and Sumer, the custom of worshipping kings in their own name.

Monotheism by Conquest.

The idea once vaguely conceived was doubtless confirmed and expanded by other causes, conquest being one of them.

Let us return to our supposition that the kings of England are incarnations of Odin. They conquer India, and assume the title of Emperor of India, but in taking the title he is taking far more than the mere name ; he is assuming the divine attributes that go with the name. He becomes, let us suppose, Indra. King George then is Odin, he is also Indra ; therefore, Odin and Indra are the same.

Prof. Sethe and Dr. A. M. Blackman both recognise that conquest may have helped to fuse gods together, though they conceive the process somewhat differently from what I have outlined. " Owing to the political predominance gained by Buto over Heliopolis in the predynastic age, Horus, originally the god of Buto, came to be identified with the Sun-god, the local god " of Helio- polis. Since the king was regarded as the embodiment of Horus, he was also regarded as the embodiment of the Sun-god." ^ The idea seems to be that the gods were first identified with one another ; the king being the

1 Blackman, " Sacramental ideas and usages in Ancient Egypt " {Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, March 1918, p. 60).