The God-Idea of the Ancients Part 27
161) The St. Louis (Mo.) Republican.
The writer of the above, who was evidently ignorant of the extent to which these monuments are scattered over the earth, seemed to regard it as a singular freak of Nature with no significance other than that of a natural curiosity.
The round towers of Ireland, over the origin of which there has in the past been so much controversy, are now pretty generally admitted to be a.n.a.logous in their use and design to Stonehenge, Abury, and other extant monolithic structures.
Many writers have endeavored to prove that these towers were belfries used in connection with Christian churches; others that they were purgatorial columns or penitential heights, similar in design to the pillar of St. Simeon Stylites. Others again have argued that they were used as beacons and others that they were intended simply as receptacles for the sacred fire known to have formerly been in use in the British Isles. Although numberless arguments have been brought forward to refute these theories, it is thought that the expensive architecture alone of the elegant and stately columns known as Round Towers contradicts all these "guesses," and that their grandeur and almost absolute indestructibility proclaim for them a different origin from that of the lowly and miserable huts which in a later age were erected beside them for purposes of worship by the Romish Christians. The same objection is made also against the theory that these monuments were erected in memory of the several defeats of the Danes. As an answer to the argument that they were erected by the Danes to celebrate their victories, it is declared that such is the character of the hieroglyphics upon them as to make this theory worthless. Besides, throughout the country of the Danes and Ostmen, there is nowhere to be found an example of architectural splendor such as is displayed in the construction of these columns.
In the north of Scotland was one of these monuments upon which were depicted war-like scenes, horses and their riders, warriors brandishing their weapons, and troops shouting for victory, while on the other side was a sumptuous cross, beneath which were two figures, the one evidently female, the other male.
In Cordiner's Antiquities of Scotland is a description of an elaborately carved obelisk. On one side of this column appears a mammoth cross, and underneath it are figures of uncouth animals. Among these carvings are to be seen the Bulbul of Iran, the Boar of Vishnu, the elk, the fox, the lamb, and a number of dancing human figures. In fact all the configurations are not only in their nature and import essentially Eastern, but are actually the symbols of the various animal forms under which "the people of the East contemplated the properties of the G.o.dhead."
Carnac, in upper Egypt, is a monolith of the same symbolic character. It is hewn from a solid block of black granite and is eighty feet high.
Henry O'Brien, a cultured Irishman, who when in London became, in his own line of investigation, one of the chief contributors to Fraser's Magazine while at its best, in response to a call by the Royal Irish Academy for productions relating to the origin and use of the Round Towers, declared that they were erected by a colony of Tuath-de-danaans, or Lingham worshippers from Persia, who had left their native land because of the victories gained over them by their rivals--the Pish de-danaans--a sect of Yoni worshippers; in other words, the sect which recognized the female element as the superior agency in reproduction, and who, therefore, worshipped it as divine. In the devastating wars which swept over Persia and the other countries of antiquity prior to the age of the later Zoroaster, the Pish-de danaans were victorious, and, driving from the country the Tuath-de danaans, or male worshippers, succeeded in re-establishing, and for a time maintaining, the old form of worship. O'Brien claims that the Tuath-de-danaans who were expelled from Persia emigrated to Ireland, and there continued or preserved their favorite form of worship, the Round Towers having been erected by them in conformity to their peculiar religious views. This writer a.s.sures us that the old Irish tongue bears unmistakable evidence of the relation existing between these countries. In addition to the similarity of language which is found to exist between ancient Ireland or Iren, and Persia or Iran, the same writer observes that in all their customs, religious observances, and emblems, the resemblance is preserved.
Much regret has been expressed by all the writers who have dealt with this subject that at an earlier age when Stonehenge, Abury, and various other of the ancient monumental shrines of the British Isles were in a better state of preservation, and before bigotry and religious hatred had been aroused against them, more minute observations of their character and of all the details surrounding them could not have been made; yet, notwithstanding the late date at which these investigations were begun, it is believed that a fair amount of success has crowned the efforts which have been put forth to unravel the mysteries bound up in them.
When we remember that every detail connected with the sacred monuments of the ancients was full of significance that their religious ideas were all portrayed by means of symbols which appeared in connection with their sacred edifices--the extent to which a thorough understanding of these details would a.s.sist in revealing the mysteries involved in the universal religious conceptions may in a measure be realized.
The ident.i.ty of the symbols used to express religious ideas, and the extent to which the conceptions of a creative force have been connected in all portions of the globe, are set forth in the following from Barlow:
"A complete history of religious symbolism should embrace all the religions of antiquity no less than the Christian, and it would require as thorough a knowledge of their tenets as of our own to explain satisfactorily its influence in regulating the practice of art."(162)
162) Symbolism, p. 10.
CHAPTER XVII. SACRIFICES.
Although the sun was formerly worshipped as the source of all good, at a certain stage in the human career it came to be regarded as the cause of all evil. When Typhon Seth comprehended the powers of Nature, as the Destroyer and Regenerator she was the author of all good; but later, after the truths underlying Nature worship were lost, Typhon, the hot wind of the desert, was feared rather than worshipped.
In the history of an earlier age of existence, there is not to be found the slightest trace of human sacrifice to atone for the sins of the people, or to appease the wrath of an offended G.o.d. On the contrary, throughout the traditions and monumental records of the most ancient nations, sacrifices to the Deity--the G.o.d of Nature--consisted simply in the acknowledgment of earth's benefits by means of a free-will offering of the bounties which she had brought forth.
That the sacrifice either of human beings or of animals was not offered in an earlier age of religious faith is confidently a.s.serted and, I think, proved by various writers. Of this Higgins says: "I think a time may be perceived when it did not exist even among the Western nations."
This writer states also that it was not always practiced at Delphi.
Mention is made of the fact that among the Buddhists, to whom belongs the first book of Genesis, no b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifices were ever offered.
It was doubtless under the worship of Muth, Neith, or Minerva, the first emanation from the deity and the original Buddha, that the first book of Genesis or Wisdom was written. In this book may be observed the fact that the slaughter of animals is forbidden. It is thought that with Crishna, Hercules, and the worshippers of the sun in Aries, the sacrifice of human beings and animals began. In the second book of Genesis, which is said to be a Brahmin work, animals are first used for sacrifice, and in the third book, or the book of Generations or Re-generations of the race of man or the Adam, which was written after the pure doctrines connected with the worship of Wisdom had been corrupted, they are first allowed to be eaten as food.
It is supposed that the practice of sacrificing human beings and animals took its rise in the western parts of the world after the sun entered Aries, and that it subsequently extended even to the followers of the Tauric worship, among whom it was carried to a frightful extent. It is also thought that the history of Cain and Abel is an allegory of the followers of Crishna to justify their sacrifice of the yajna or lamb "in opposition to the Buddhist offering of bread and wine, or water, made by Cain and practiced by Melchizedek."(163)
163) Anacalypsis, vol. i., p. 101.
It is now positively known that all over the world, during a certain stage of religious belief, either human beings or animals were, at stated seasons, sacrificed to the Deity. Of the universality of this practice Faber says:
"Throughout the whole world we find a notion prevalent that the G.o.ds could be appeased only by b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifices. Now this idea is so thoroughly arbitrary, there being no obvious and necessary connection, in the way of cause and effect, between slaughtering a man or a beast, and recovering of the divine favor by the slaughterers, that its very universality involves the necessity of concluding that all nations have borrowed it from some common source."(164)
164) The Origin of Pagan Idolatry, vol. i., book 2, p. 465.
Dr. Shuckford is constrained to admit that the sacrifices and ceremonies of purification practiced by Abraham and his descendants and those of surrounding peoples, were identical, with only "such trifling changes as distance of countries and length of time might be expected to produce."
The subst.i.tution of a lamb in the place of Isaac would seem to indicate a change from child-slaughter to that of animals.
Sacrifices were offerings to the G.o.d of pro-creation. Certain representatives of the life which he had bestowed must be returned to him as a free-will gift. In many countries, the victims offered to the deity were captives taken in war; but, as prisoners of war and slaves were not permitted to join in the battles of their captors, their lives were of little value; hence, later, it is observed that the sacrificial victim must be a prince or an individual whose life was of great importance to the tribe.
As in all hot countries the heat of the sun is the most destructive agency against which mankind have to contend, it is not perhaps singular, at a time when superst.i.tion had usurped the functions of the reasoning powers, that the sun-G.o.d should have been invested with the attributes inspired by terror, and that so far as possible, mankind should have deemed it necessary to propitiate its wrath, and, by rendering to it suitable offerings and sacrifices, they should have hoped to avert the calamities incident to its displeasure. Neither is it remarkable when we remember the peculiar circ.u.mstances surrounding the Jews, and the fact that the offerings demanded by their G.o.d was the life which he had bestowed, that the sacrifices offered to Moloch, the fire G.o.d, should have been the members of their own household--namely, their children.
We must not forget that the reward promised this people by prophet, priest, and diviner for G.o.dliness was extreme fruitfulness of body. We have seen that to obtain this mark of G.o.dly favor, or, under pretense of serving their G.o.d, the form of worship prescribed by their priests, and adopted both in their households and in their temples was pre-eminently sensual, and calculated to stimulate and encourage to the highest extent their lower or animal nature.
As the size of a man's family, or his power to reproduce, was an index to his favor with the Almighty the pleasure of the "Lord" in this matter being but the reflection of his own desires, the result as might reasonably be expected was overpopulation to such an extent that the means of subsistence within the small boundary of Judea was inadequate to supply the demands of the swarming ma.s.ses of "G.o.d's children"--children which had been created for his honor and glory.
Surely some plan must be devised whereby these difficulties might be adjusted, and that, too, to use a modern expression, without flying in the face of Providence. As the Lord had been honored and man blessed in the mere bringing forth of offspring, what better scheme, so soon as such blessings became too numerous, than to return a certain number of them to the giver, the G.o.d of Moloch? It is true that by this process children were born only to be delivered over to the ravages of the fire-G.o.d, but by it, was not their deity both served and appeased at the same time that population was kept within the bounds of subsistence?
That great numbers were thus sacrificed is only too apparent from the accounts in the Jewish scriptures--Abraham's acts and those of Jephtha being examples of the manner in which this G.o.d was propitiated.
In Micah, vi. chap., 7th verse, occurs an interrogation which furnishes something more than a hint of the practice among the Jews of child sacrifice. "Shall I give my first born for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"
Although there is sufficient evidence to prove the enormous extent to which the practice of child sacrifice prevailed among the Jews, it is believed that much more proof would be found, had it not, in later times, with a view to concealing the extent of this practice, been expunged from their sacred writings. Moloch was to the Jews what Siva came to be to the Hindoos, namely, the Terrible. It is plain, however, that Siva was not formerly feared in India, but next to Vishnu was the best beloved of all their G.o.ds. Siva was originally the androgyne G.o.d who was not only the Destroyer, but the beneficent Regenerator and purifier. It was the cold of winter and the heat of the sun. It was a conception which was a direct outgrowth of Nature worship or of that religious idea which was portrayed by a mother and her child.
The conception involved in sacrifice seems to be that of a payment for services rendered, or desired. The Amazulus, when going to battle, sacrifice to the manes of their ancestors, who, as older branches of the tree of life, appear to const.i.tute their G.o.d-idea. This is done that their G.o.ds "may have no cause of complaint, because they have made amends to them and made them bright." On appearing before the enemy they say: "Can it be, since we have made amends to the Amadhlozi, that they will say we have wronged them by anything?"(165)
165) Viscount Amberley, a.n.a.lysis of Religious Belief, vol. i., p. 32.
At a certain stage in human history the various peoples of the globe depended upon excessive numbers for their prosperity, hence the most precious offering to the G.o.d of pro-creation was that of human victims.
In India, when a new colony or city was founded, in order to insure its prosperity, large numbers of children were delivered over as a bribe or offering of reconciliation to the G.o.d of virility. The enormous extent to which human sacrifice has prevailed in India, in Egypt, in Mexico, among the Carthaginians, the Jews, the Druids, and even among the Greeks and Romans, is well attested.
From the records of extant history, it would seem that human sacrifice usually accompanies a certain stage of sun-worship. Among the Aztecs in Mexico, a country in which the sun was a universal object of reverence and in which one of the prescribed duties of the boys trained in the temple was that of keeping alive the sacred fires, the immolation of victims became the most prominent feature of their public worship. We are distinctly told, however, that human sacrifice was not formerly practiced in Mexico, but that finally here as elsewhere, the idea became prevalent that by sacrificing human victims to the G.o.d of Destruction, his wrath might be appeased and the people saved from his vengeance. It is stated that human sacrifices were adopted by the Aztecs early in the fourteenth century, about two hundred years before the conquest. "Rare at first, they became more frequent with the wider extent of their empire; till, at length, almost every festival was closed with this cruel abomination."
Notwithstanding these atrocities, in their conceptions of a future state of existence, and especially in their disposition of the unregenerate after death, are to be observed certain traces of human feeling and refined sensibility which are difficult to reconcile with the cruelty practiced in their religious rites, and which bear a striking contrast to the physical torture, to which after death the wicked are subjected not only in Mexico, but in countries professing a high stage of civilization and culture.
Of their religious observances, those which had doubtless been inherited from an older civilization, Prescott, quoting from Torquemada and Sahagun, says:
"Many of their ceremonies were of a light and cheerful complexion, consisting of the national songs and dances, in which both s.e.xes joined.
Processions were made of women and children crowned with garlands and bearing offerings of fruits, the ripened maize, or the sweet incense of copal and other odoriferous gums, while the altars of the deity were stained with no blood save that of animals. These were the peaceful rites derived from their Toltec predecessors."(166)
166) See Conquest of Mexico, book I, chap. iii., p. 74.
Prior to the days of Montezuma, the Aztec priests had engrafted upon these simple ceremonies not only a burdensome ceremonial, and a polytheism similar to that of Eastern nations, but, as we have seen, human sacrifices and even cannibalism had become prominent features in religious worship. Throughout the entire ceremonial and religious conceptions of the Aztecs may be observed a display of the savage and brutal elements in human nature, in close connection with unmistakable evidence of a once higher stage of culture and refinement.
In the later ages of Aztec history their most exalted deity was Huitzilopotchi, the Mexican Moses, the G.o.d of war. His temples were the most costly and magnificent among the public edifices in the country, and his image bedecked with ornaments was an universal object of adoration. At the dedication of his temple in the year 1486 more than seventy thousand captives are said to have perished.(167)