Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/94

 was very widely spread, and so late as the Middle Ages we meet with a secret Mithras-worship ostensibly connected with the order of the Knights-Templars. Mithras thrusting the knife into the neck of the ox is a figurative representation belonging essentially to the cult of Mithras, of which examples have been frequently found in Europe.

(c.) Worship.

The worship belonging to this religion results directly from the essential character of the religion. The purpose of it is to glorify Ormazd in his creation, and the adoration of the Good in everything is its beginning and end. The prayers are of a simple and uniform character, without any special shades of meaning. The principal feature of the cultus is that man is to keep himself pure as regards his inner and outer life, and is to maintain and diffuse the same purity everywhere. The entire life of the Parsi is to be this worship; it is not something isolated, as among the Hindus. It is the duty of the Parsi everywhere to promote life, to render it fruitful and keep it gladsome; to practise good in word and deed in all places; to further all that is good among mankind, as well as to benefit men themselves; to excavate canals, plant trees, give shelter to wanderers, build waste places, feed the hungry, irrigate the ground, which, from another point of view, is itself subject and genius.

Such is this one-sidedness of abstraction.

2. The Syrian Religion, or the Religion of Pain.

We have just been considering the ideas of strife and of victory over evil. We have now to consider, as representing the next moment or stage, that strife as Pain. “Strife as pain” seems a superficial expression; it implies, however, that the strife is no longer an external opposition only, but is in a single subject, and within that subject’s own feeling of itself. The strife is,