Ancient Faiths And Modern. Thomas Inman
a depth or sublimity of thought that could only be attained by a profoundly intelligent intellect. Moderns might equal it, none could surpass it. Speaking of the beginning, the words run, "Nothing that is, was then; even what is not, did not exist then." The poet then proceeds to deny the existence of the sky, and of the firmament, and yet, unable to bear the idea of an unlimited nothing, he exclaims, "What was it that hid or covered the existing? what was the refuge of what? was water the deep abyss, the chaos which swallowed up everything?" Then his mind, turning away from nature, dwells upon man, and the problem of human life. "There was no death, therefore there was nothing immortal There was no space, no life, and lastly, there was no time—no difference between day and night—no solar torch by which morning might have been told from evening. That One breathed breathless by itself, other than it, nothing since has been. That One breathed and lived; it enjoyed more than mere existence; yet its life was not dependent upon anything else, as our life depends upon the air we breathe. It breathed, breathless. Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled in gloom, profound as ocean without life." Müller then rather describes what the poet means than gives his words; I will, therefore, adopt now, for the rest of the hymn, the metrical version, which he gives at p. 564:—
"The germ that still lay covered in the husk
Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.
Then first came Love upon it, the new spring
Of mind; yea, poets in their hearts discerned,
Pondering this bond between created things And uncreated.
Comes this spark from earth,
Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven?
These seeds were sown, and mighty power arose,
Nature below, and Power and Will above.
Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here?
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?
The gods themselves came later into being.
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?
He, from whom all this great creation came.
Whether His will created or was mute,
The Most High seer, that is in highest heaven,
He knows it; or, perchance, e'en He knows not"
One more hymn is even more distinct in its monotheism, p. 569. "In the beginning there arose the source of golden light. He was the only born Lord of all that is. He established the earth and this sky. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? He who gives life. He who gives strength; whose blessing all the bright gods desire; whose shadow is immortality; whose shadow is death. … He who, through His power, is the only King of the breathing and the awakening world. He who governs all—man and beast. … He whose power these snowy mountains, whose power the sea proclaims, with the distant river. He whose these regions are, as it were, His two arms. … He through whom the sky is bright, and the earth firm. He through whom the heaven was 'stablished, nay, the highest heaven. He who measured out the light in the air. … He to whom heaven and earth, standing firm by His will, look up, trembling inwardly. He over whom the rising sun shines forth. … Where-ever the mighty water-clouds went, where they placed the seed, and lit the fire, thence arose He who is the only life of the bright gods. … He who, by His might, looked even over the water-clouds, the clouds which gave strength, and lit the sacrifice. He who is God above all gods. … May He not destroy us. He, the creator of the earth; or He, the righteous, who created the heaven. He who also created the bright and mighty waters." In this hymn I have only omitted the repeated question—Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
Of the high antiquity of these productions no competent scholar entertains a doubt. It is not certain how many years before our era it was composed, but it is considered that it was prior to BC 2000, long before the time when the ideal Moses is said to have written, and à fortiori anterior, by at least a thousand years, to the authors of the Book of Psalms.
Talboys Wheeler remarks, p. 27—"Having thus sketched generally the individual character of the leading deities of the Aryans as they appear in the Rig Veda, it may be advisable to glance at that conception of One Supreme Being, as in all and above all, which finds full expression in the Vedic hymns. Upon this point the following passages will be found very significant:—'Who has seen the primeval being at the time of His being born? what is that endowed with substance that the unsubstantial sustains? from earth are the breath and blood, but where is the soul—who may repair to the sage to ask this? What is that One alone, who has upheld these six spheres in the form of an unborn?'" Then follows the hymn just quoted from M. Müller.
I may add that the so-called gods Indra, Agni, Surya, the Maruts, &c., are only personifications of the abstract powers of nature, the sky, fire, the sun, the winds, &c. These are the same conceptions as are referred to in Ps. civ. 1–4—they are not deities, but ministers.
It will probably be said by the orthodox that these descriptions of the creation and the Creator are mere efforts of the human mind, and not the products of "revelation." We grant it at once, and answer, why, then, should the comparatively miserable conceptions of one or more Hebrews, who knew nothing of a soul or a future life till they had learned it from the Chaldeans or the Persians, be regarded differently? Was the Jewish ignorance the result of Divine "inspiration?" Did the Devil give to the heathen the knowledge of Satan's origin and power? If so, why did the Jews, and why do Christians, adopt it?
I have already mentioned that the Aryans believed in the efficacy of prayer to their gods: they offered to them, much as we do now, supplications for rain, abundant harvests, prolific cattle, bodily vigour, long life, numerous progeny, &c., just as did, very rarely, the seed of Abraham.
We may now make some quotations from the Egyptian Ritual for the Dead (Bunsen's Egypt, Vol. V.). "O soul, greatest of things created" (p. 165); "I am the Great God, creating himself" (p. 172); "Oh Lord of the great abode, Chief of the gods" (p. 177). Throughout this invocation, however, the lord of the universe seems to be spoken of as the sun under various titles. There is frequent reference to the danger of the soul falling into the power of some malignant deity, and orthodoxy is secured by addressing every good god by his or her proper title. There is no grand conception anywhere, and the endless repetitions disgust the ordinary reader. I must add that the sun, Osiris, and the male organ, are spoken of as emblematic of each other.
If we next turn to the Shemitic religions, we have to contend with the difficulty produced by the paucity of written records, and the doubts which exist about certain epithets that relate to the gods. As far as I can discover, there was an idea of a Supreme Being, whose name was Jeho. Io. Iou., or the like, and Il or El. His ministers were the sun, moon, planets, constellations, and stars. His emblems were the sexual organs, and worship was, to a great degree, licentious. There was no conception of a spiritual life after death, or of a state of future rewards and punishments. Sacrifice was thought much of, but I doubt whether there was anything like what we know as prayer. At any rate, in all those parts of the Bible which seem to be the oldest, there is a singular absence of any formula or command for supplication. Solomon's prayer is comparatively of modern date. Indeed, this vacuity is implied in the expression of one of Jesus' disciples, "Teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples" (Luke xi. 1), thus showing clearly that the practice of prayer was not a Judaic, i.e., Mosaic one.*
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