The God-Idea of the Ancients | Page 4

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;