Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/108

Rh the prayers and hymns, the festivals and fasts, of Fetichists and Polytheists we find often as clear and definite intimations of Monotheism, as in the devotional writings of professed Monotheists. In this sense the doctrine is old as human civilization, and has never been lost sight of. This is so plain it requires no proof. But the Conception of God, which men superadd to the Sentiment and Idea of Him, is continually changing with the advance of the world, of the nation, or the man. We can trace its historical development in the writings of Priests, and Philosophers, and Poets, though it is impossible to say when and where it was first taught with distinct philosophical consciousness, that there is one God; one only. The history of this subject demands a treatise by itself. This, however, is certain, that we find signs and proofs of its existence among the earliest poets and philosophers of Greece; in the dim remnants of Egyptian splendour; in the uncertain records of the East; in the spontaneous effusions of savage hearts, and in the most ancient writings of the Jews. The latter have produced such an influence on the world, that their doctrine requires a few words on this point.

The Deity was conceived of by the Hebrews as entirely separate from Nature; this distinguishes Judaism from all forms which had a pantheistic tendency, and which deified matter or men. He was the primitive ground and cause of all. But the Jewish Religion did not, with logical consistency, deny the existence of other Gods, inferior to the highest. Here we must consider the doctrine of the Jewish books, and that of the Jewish people. In the first the reality of other deities is generally assumed. The first commandment of the decalogue implies the existence of other Gods. The mention of Sons of God who visited the daughters of men; of the divine council or Host of Heaven; the contract Jacob makes with Jehovah; the frequent reference to strange Gods; the preëminence claimed for Jehovah above all the deities of the other