The God-Idea of the Ancients | Page 7

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