The God Idea of the Ancients or Sex in Religion

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Digitized by Charles Keller

THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS OR SEX IN RELIGION

BY ELIZA BURT GAMBLE Author of "The Evolution of Woman"

PREFACE.
Much of the material for this volume was collected during the
time that I was preparing for the press the Evolution of Woman,
or while searching for data bearing on the subject of
sex-specialization. While preparing that book for publication,
it was my intention to include within it this branch of my
investigation, but wishing to obtain certain facts relative to
the foundations of religious belief and worship which were not
accessible at that time, and knowing that considerable labor and
patience would be required in securing these facts, I decided to
publish the first part of the work, withholding for the time
being that portion of it pertaining especially to the development
of the God-idea.

As mankind construct their own gods, or as the prevailing ideas
of the unknowable reflect the inner consciousness of human
beings, a trustworthy history of the growth of religions must
correspond to the processes involved in the mental, moral, and
social development of the individual and the nation.

By means of data brought forward in these later times relative to
the growth of the God-idea, it is observed that an independent
chain of evidence has been produced in support of the facts
recently set forth bearing upon the development of the two
diverging lines of sexual demarcation. In other words, it has
been found that sex is the fundamental fact not only in the
operations of Nature but in the construction of a god.

In the Evolution of Woman it has been shown that the peculiar
inheritance of the two sexes, female and male, is the result of
the bias given to these separate lines of development during the
earliest periods of sex-differentiation; and, as this division of
labor was a necessary step in the evolutionary processes, the
rate of progress depended largely on the subsequent adjustment of
these two primary elements or forces. A comprehensive study of
prehistoric records shows that in an earlier age of existence
upon the earth, at a time when woman's influence was in the
ascendancy over that of man, human energy was directed by the
altruistic characters which originated in and have been
transmitted through the female; but after the decline of woman's
power, all human institutions, customs, forms, and habits of
thought are seen to reflect the egoistic qualities acquired by
the male.

Nowhere is the influence of sex more plainly manifested than in
the formulation of religious conceptions and creeds. With the
rise of male power and dominion, and the corresponding repression
of the natural female instincts, the principles which originally
constituted the God-idea gradually gave place to a Deity better
suited to the peculiar bias which had been given to the male
organism. An anthropomorphic god like that of the Jews--a god
whose chief attributes are power and virile might--could have had
its origin only under a system of masculine rule.

Religion is especially liable to reflect the vagaries and
weaknesses of human nature; and, as the forms and habits of
thought connected with worship take a firmer hold on the mental
constitution than do those belonging to any other department of
human experience, religious conceptions should be subjected to
frequent and careful examination in order to perceive, if
possible, the extent to which we are holding on to ideas which
are unsuited to existing conditions.

In an age when every branch of inquiry is being subjected to
reasonable criticism, it would seem that the origin and growth of
religion should be investigated from beneath the surface, and
that all the facts bearing upon it should be brought forward as a
contribution to our fund of general information. As well might
we hope to gain a complete knowledge of human history by studying
only the present aspect of society, as to expect to reach
reasonable conclusions respecting the prevailing God-idea by
investigating the various creeds and dogmas of existing faiths.

The object of this volume is not only to furnish a brief outline
of religious growth, but to show the effect which each of the two
forces, female and male, has had on the development of our
present God- idea, which investigation serves to accentuate the
conclusions arrived at in the Evolution of Woman relative to the
inheritance of each of the two lines of sexual demarcation.

E.B.G.

CONTENTS. ---- CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION

I.--SEX THE FOUNDATION OF THE GOD-IDEA
II.--TREE, PLANT, AND FRUIT WORSHIP
III.--SUN WORSHIP--FEMALE AND MALE ENERGIES IN THE SUN
IV.--THE DUAL GOD OF THE ANCIENTS A TRINITY ALSO
V.--SEPARATION OF THE FEMALE AND MAKE ELEMENTS IN THE DEITY
VI.--CIVILIZATION OF AN ANCIENT RACE
VII.--CONCEALMENT OF THE EARLY DOCTRINES
VIII.--THE ORIGINAL GOD-IDEA OF THE ISRAELITES
IX.--THE PHOENICIAN AND HEBREW GOD SET OR SETH
X.--ANCIENT SPECULATIONS CONCERNING CREATION
XI.--FIRE AND PHALLIC WORSHIP
XII.--AN ATTEMPT TO PURIFY THE SENSUALIZED FAITHS
XIII.--CHRISTIANITY A CONTINUATION OF PAGANISM
XIV.--CHRISTIANITY A CONTINUATION OF PAGANISM --(Continued)
XV.--CHRISTIANITY IN IRELAND
XVI.--STONES OR COLUMNS AS THE DEITY
XVII.--SACRIFICES
XVIII.--THE CROSS AND A DYING SAVIOR

THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

Through a study of the primitive god-idea as manifested in
monumental records in various parts of the world; through
scientific investigation into the early religious conceptions of
mankind as expressed by symbols which appear in the architecture
and decorations of sacred edifices and shrines; by means of a
careful examination of ancient holy objects and places still
extant in every quarter of the globe, and through the study of
antique art, it is not unlikely that a line of investigation has
been marked out whereby a tolerably correct knowledge of the
processes involved in our present religious systems may be
obtained. The numberless figures and sacred emblems which appear
carved in imperishable stone in the earliest cave temples; the
huge towers, monoliths, and rocking stones found in nearly every
country of the globe, and which are known to be closely connected
with primitive belief and worship, and the records found on
tablets which are being unearthed in various parts of the world,
are, with the unravelling of extinct tongues, proving an almost
inexhaustible source for obtaining information bearing upon the
early history of the human race, and, together, furnish
indisputable evidence of the origin, development, and unity of
religious faiths.

By comparing the languages used by the earlier races to express
their religious conceptions; by observing the similarity in the
mythoses and sacred appellations among all tribe and nations, an
through the discovery of the fact that the legends extant in the
various countries of the globe are identical, or have the same
foundation, it is probable that a clue has already been obtained
whereby an outline of the religious history of the human family
from a period even as remote as the "first dispersion," or from a
time when one race comprehended the entire population of the
globe, maybe traced. Humboldt in his Researches observes: "In
every part of the globe, on the ridge of the Cordilleras as well
as in the Isle of Samothrace, in the Aegean Sea, fragments of
primitive languages are preserved in religious rites."

Regarding the identity of the fundamental ideas contained in the
various systems of religion, both past and present, Hargrave
Jennings, in referring to a parallel drawn by Sir William Jones,
between the deities of Meru and Olympus, observes:

"All our speculations tend to the same conclusions. One day it
is a discovery of cinerary vases, the next, it is etymological
research; yet again it is ethnological investigation, and the day
after, it is the publication of unsuspected tales from the Norse;
but all go to heap up proof of our consanguinity with the peoples
of history--and of an original general belief, we might add."

That the religious systems of India and Egypt were originally the
same, there can be at the present time no reasonable doubt. The
fact noted by various writers, of the British Sepoys, who, on
their overland route from India, upon beholding the ruins of
Dendera, prostrated themselves before the remains of the ancient
temples and offered adoration to them, proves the identity of
Indian and Egyptian deities. These foreign devotees, being asked
to explain the reason of their strange conduct declared that they
"saw sculptured before them the gods of their country."

Upon the subject of the identity of Eastern religions, Wilford
remarks that one and the same code both of theology and of
fabulous history, has been received through a range or belt about
forty degrees broad across the old continent, in a southeast and
northwest direction from the eastern shores of the Malaga
peninsula to the western extremity of the British Isles, that,
through this immense range the same religious notions reappear in
various places under various modifications, as might be expected;
and that there is not a greater difference between the tenets and
worship of the Hindoos and the Greeks than exists between the
churches of Home and Geneva.

Concerning the universality of certain religious beliefs and
opinions, Faber, commenting upon the above statement of Wilford,
observes that, immense as is this territorial range, it is by far
too limited to include the entire phenomenon, that the
observation

"applies with equal propriety to the entire habitable globe; for
the arbitrary rites and opinions of every pagan nation bear so
close a resemblance to each other, that such a coincidence can
only have been produced by their having had a common origin.
Barbarism itself has not been able to efface the strong primeval
impression. Vestiges of the ancient general system may be traced
in the recently discovered islands in the Pacific Ocean; and,
when the American world was first opened to the hardy adventurers
of Europe, its inhabitants from north to south venerated, with
kindred ceremonies and kindred notions, the gods of Egypt and
Hindostan, of Greece and Italy, of Phoenicia and Britain."[1]

[1] Pagan Idolatry, book i., ch. i.

"Though each religion has its own peculiar growth, the seed from
which they spring is everywhere the same."[2]

[2] Max Muller, Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 48.

The question as to whether the identity of conception and the
similarity in detail observed in religious rites, ceremonies, and
symbols in the various countries of the globe are due to the
universal law of unity which governs human development, or
whether, through the dispersion of one original people, the early
conceptions of a Deity were spread broadcast over the entire
earth, is perhaps not settled; yet, from the facts which have
been brought forward during the last century, the latter theory
seems altogether probable, such divergence in religious ideas as
is observed among the various peoples of the earth being
attributable to variations in temperament caused by changed
conditions of life. In other words, the divergence in the course
of religious development has doubtless been due to environment.

In an attempt to understand the history of the growth of the
god-idea, the fact should be borne in mind that, from the
earliest conception of a creative force in the animal and
vegetable world to the latest development in theological
speculation, there has never been what might consistently be
termed a new religion. On the contrary, religion like everything
else is subject to the law of growth; therefore the faiths of
to-day are the legitimate result, or outcome, of the primary idea
of a Deity developed in accordance with the laws governing the
peculiar instincts which have been in the ascendancy during the
life of mankind on the earth.

The erroneous impression which under a belief in the unknown has
come to prevail, namely, that the moral law is the result of
religion; or, in other words, that the human conscience is in
some manner dependent on supernaturalism for its origin and
maintenance, is, with a better and clearer understanding of the
past history of the development of the human race, being
gradually dispelled. On one point we may reasonably rest assured
that the knowledge of right and wrong and our sense of justice
and right-living have been developed quite independently of all
religious beliefs. The moral law embodied in the golden rule is
not an outgrowth of mysticism, or of man's notions of the
unknowable; but, on the contrary, is the result of experience,
and was formulated in response to a recognized law of human
necessity,--a law which involves the fundamental principle of
progress. The history of human development shows conclusively
that mankind GREW into the recognition of the moral law, that
through sympathy, or a desire for the welfare of others,--a
character which had its root in maternal affection,--conscience
and the moral sense were evolved.

While the moral law and the conscience may not be accounted as in
any sense the result of man's ideas concerning the unknowable,
neither can the errors and weaknesses developed in human nature
be regarded as the result of religion. Although the sexual
excesses which during three or four thousand years were practiced
as sacred rites, and treated as part and parcel of religion in
various parts of the world, have had the effect to stimulate and
strengthen the animal nature in man, yet these rites may not be
accounted as the primary cause of the supremacy of the lower
nature over the higher faculties. On the contrary, the impulse
which has been termed religion, with all the vagaries which its
history presents, is to be regarded more as an effect than as a
cause. The stage of a nation's development regulates its
religion. Man creates his own gods; they are powerless to change
him.

As written history records only those events in human experience
which belong to a comparatively recent period of man's existence,
and as the primitive conceptions of a Deity lie buried beneath
ages of corruption, glimpses of the earlier faiths of mankind, as
has already been stated, must be looked for in the traditions,
monuments, and languages of extinct races.

In reviewing this matter we shall doubtless observe the fact that
if the stage of a nation's growth is indicated by its religious
conceptions, and if remnants of religious beliefs are everywhere
present in the languages, traditions, and monuments of the past
through a careful study of these subjects we may expect to gain a
tolerably correct understanding not alone of the growth of the
god-idea but of the stage of development reached by the nations
which existed prior to the beginning of the historic age. We
shall be enabled also to perceive whether or not the course of
human development during the intervening ages has been
continuous, or whether, for some cause hitherto unexplained, true
progress throughout a portion of this time has been arrested,
thus producing a backward movement, or degeneracy.

If we would unravel the mysteries involved in present religious
faiths, we should begin not by attempting to analyze or explain
any existing system or systems of belief and worship. Such a
course is likely to end not only in confusion and in a subsequent
denial of the existence of the religious nature in mankind, but
is liable, also, to create an aversion for and a distrust of the
entire subject of religious experience. In view of this fact it
would appear to be not only useless but exceedingly unwise to
spend one's time in attempting to gain a knowledge of this
subject simply by studying the later developments in its history.

If we are really desirous of obtaining information regarding
present religious phenomena, it is plain that we should adopt the
scientific method and turn our attention to the remote past,
where, by careful and systematic investigation, we are enabled to
perceive the earliest conception of a creative force and the
fundamental basis of all religious systems, from which may be
traced the gradual development of the god-idea.

CHAPTER I.

SEX THE FOUNDATION OF THE GOD-IDEA.

In the study of primitive religion, the analogy existing between
the growth of the god-idea and the development of the human race,
and especially of the two sex-principles, is everywhere clearly
apparent.

"Religion is to be found alone with its justification and
explanation in the relations of the sexes. There and therein
only."[3]

[3] Hargrave Jennings, Phallicism.

As the conception of a deity originated in sex, or in the
creative agencies female and male which animate Nature, we may
reasonably expect to find, in the history of the development of
the two sex-principles and in the notions entertained concerning
them throughout past ages, a tolerably correct account of the
growth of the god-idea. We shall perceive that during an earlier
age of human existence, not only were the reproductive powers
throughout Nature, and especially in human beings and in animals,
venerated as the Creator, but we shall find also that the
prevailing ideas relative to the importance of either sex in the
office of reproduction decided the sex of this universal creative
force. We shall observe also that the ideas of a god have always
corresponded with the current opinions regarding the importance
of either sex in human society. In other words, so long as
female power and influence were in the ascendency, the creative
force was regarded as embodying the principles of the female
nature; later, however, when woman's power waned, and the
supremacy of man was gained, the god-idea began gradually to
assume the male characters and attributes.

Through scientific research the fact has been observed that, for
ages after life appeared on the earth, the male had no separate
existence; that the two sex-principles, the sperm and the germ,
were contained within one and the same individual. Through the
processes of differentiation, however, these elements became
detached, and with the separation of the male from the female,
the reproductive functions were henceforth confided to two
separate individuals.

As originally, throughout Nature, the female was the visible
organic unit within whom was contained the exclusive creative
power, and as throughout the earlier ages of life on the earth
she comprehended the male, it is not perhaps singular that, even
after the appearance of mankind on the earth, the greater
importance of the mother element in human society should have
been recognized; nor, as the power to bring forth coupled with
perceptive wisdom originally constituted the Creator, that the
god-idea should have been female instead of male.

From the facts to be observed in relation to this subject, it is
altogether probable that for ages the generating principle
throughout Nature was venerated as female; but with that increase
of knowledge which was the result of observation and experience,
juster or more correct ideas came to prevail, and subsequently
the great fructifying energy throughout the universe came to be
regarded as a dual indivisible force--female and male. This
force, or agency, constituted one God, which, as woman's
functions in those ages were accounted of more importance than
those of man, was oftener worshipped under the form of a female
figure.

Neith, Minerva, Athene, and Cybele, the most important deities of
their respective countries, were adored as Perceptive Wisdom, or
Light, while Ceres and others represented Fertility. With the
incoming of male dominion and supremacy, however, we observe the
desire to annul the importance of the female and to enthrone one
all-powerful male god whose chief attributes were power and
might.

Notwithstanding the efforts which during the historic period have
been put forward to magnify the importance of the male both in
human affairs and in the god-idea, still, no one, I think, can
study the mythologies and traditions of the nations of antiquity
without being impressed with the prominence given to the female
element, and the deeper the study the stronger will this
impression grow.

During a certain stage of human development, religion was but a
recognition of and a reliance upon the vivifying or fructifying
forces throughout Nature, and in the earlier ages of man's
career, worship consisted for the most part in the celebration of
festivals at stated seasons of the year, notably during seed-time
and harvest, to commemorate the benefits derived from the grain
field and vineyard.

Doubtless the first deified object was Gaia, the Earth. As
within the bosom of the earth was supposed to reside the
fructifying, life-giving power, and as from it were received all
the bounties of life, it was female. It was the Universal
Mother, and to her as to no other divinity worshipped by mankind,
was offered a spontaneity of devotion and a willing
acknowledgment of dependence. Thus far in the history of mankind
no temples dedicated to an undefined and undefinable God had been
raised. The children of Mother Earth met in the open air,
without the precincts of any man-made shrine, and under the
aerial canopy of heaven, acknowledged the bounties of the great
Deity and their dependence upon her gifts. She was a beneficent
and all-wise God, a tender and loving parent--a mother, who
demanded no bleeding sacrifice to reconcile her to her children.
The ceremonies observed at these festive seasons consisted for
the most part in merry-making and in general thanksgiving, in
which the gratitude of the worshippers found expression in song
and dance, and in invocations to their Deity for a return or
continuance of her gifts.

Subsequently, through the awe and reverence inspired by the
mysteries involved in birth and life, the adoration of the
creative principles in vegetable existence became supplemented by
the worship of the creative functions in human beings and in
animals. The earth, including the power inherent in it by which
the continuity of existence is maintained, and by which new forms
are continuously called into life, embodied the idea of God; and,
as this inner force was regarded as inherent in matter, or as a
manifestation of it, in process of time earth and the heavens,
body and spirit, came to be worshipped under the form of a mother
and her child, this figure being the highest expression of a
Creator which the human mind was able to conceive. Not only did
this emblem represent fertility, or the fecundating energies of
Nature, but with the power to create were combined or correlated
all the mental qualities and attributes of the two sexes. In
fact the whole universe was contained in the Mother idea--the
child, which was sometimes female, sometimes male, being a scion
or offshoot from the eternal or universal unit.

Underlying all ancient mythologies may be observed the idea that
the earth, from which all things proceed, is female. Even in the
mythology of the Finns, Lapps, and Esths, Mother Earth is the
divinity adored. Tylor calls attention to the same idea in the
mythology of England,

"from the days when the Anglo-Saxon called upon the Earth, 'Hal
wes thu folde fira modor' (Hail, thou Earth, men's mother), to
the time when mediaeval Englishmen made a riddle of her asking
'Who is Adam's mother?' and poetry continued what mythology was
letting fall, when Milton's Archangel promised Adam a life to
last
'. . . till like ripe fruit thou drop
Into thy Mother's lap.' "[4]

[4] Primitive Culture, vol. i., p. 295.

In the old religion the sky was the husband of the earth and the
earth was mother of all the gods.[5] In the traditions of past
ages the fact is clearly perceived that there was a time when the
mother was not only the one recognized parent on earth, but that
the female principle was worshipped as the more important
creative force throughout Nature.

[5] Max Muller, Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 279.

Doubtless the worship of the female energy prevailed under the
matriarchal system, and was practised at a time when women were
the recognized heads of families and when they were regarded as
the more important factors in human society. The fact has been
shown in a previous work that after women began to leave their
homes at marriage, and after property, especially land, had
fallen under the supervision and control of men, the latter, as
they manipulated all the necessaries of life and the means of
supplying them, began to regard themselves as superior beings,
and later, to claim that as a factor in reproduction, or
creation, the male was the more important. With this change the
ideas of a Deity also began to undergo a modification. The dual
principle necessary to creation, and which had hitherto been
worshipped as an indivisible unity, began gradually to separate
into its individual elements, the male representing spirit, the
moving or forming force in the generative processes, the female
being matter--the instrument through which spirit works. Spirit
which is eternal had produced matter which is destructible. The
fact will be observed that this doctrine prevails to a greater or
less extent in the theologies of the present time.

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