The God-Idea of the Ancients | Page 4

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,