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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: RAY-RHU |
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RELIGION . The origin of the Latin word religio or relligio has been the subject of discussion since the time of Cicero. Two alternative derivations have been given, viz. from relegere, to gather together, and religare, to bind back, fasten. Relegere meant to gather together, collect, hence to go over- a subject again in thought, from re and legere, to collect together, hence to read, collect at a glance. This view is that given by Cicero (Nat. Deor. ii. 28, 72). He says: " Qui omnia quae ad cultum deorum pertinerent diligenter retractarent et tanquam relegerent, sunt dicti religiosi ex relegendo," " men were called `religious ' from relegere, because they reconsidered carefully and, as it were, went over again in thought all that appertained to the worship of the gods." He compares elegantes from eligere, diligentes from diligere, and continues, " his enim in verbis omnibus inest vis legendi eadem quae in religioso." This view is supported by the form of the word in the verse quoted by Gellius (iv. 9), " religentem esse oportet, religiosum nefas," and by the use of the Greek 6M-yew, to pay heed to, frequently with a negative, in the sense of the Latin negligere (nec-legere), cf. Oeaw (new o1JK i&?d'yo'm (Homer, Il. xvi. 388), heeding not the visitation of the gods, or of; yap K?,cXw1rer Rios . . . IrXcyovtnv (Od. ix. 275). The alternative derivation, from religare, to fasten, bind, is that adopted by Lactantius (Inst. iv. 28), "Vinculo pietatis obstricti, Deo religati sumus unde ipsa religio nomen cepit. " He quotes in support the line from Lucretius (i. 931), " religiosum nodis animos exsolvere." Servius (on Virgil, Aen. viii. 349) and St Augustine (Retract. i. 13) also take religare as the source of the word. It is one that has certainly coloured the meaning of the word, particularly in that use which restrictsit to the monastic life with its binding rules. It also has appealed to Christian thought. Liddon (Some Elements of Religion, Lecture I. 19) says: " Lactantius may be wrong in his etymology, but he has certainly seized the broad popular sense of the word when he connects it with the idea of an obligation by which man is bound to an invisible God." Archbishop Trench (Study of Words) supposed that when " religion " became equivalent to the monastic life, and " religious " to a monk, the words lost their original meaning, but the Ancren Riwle, ante 1225, and the Cursor Mundi use the words both in the general and the more particular sense (see quotations in the New English Dictionary), and both meanings can be found in the Imitatio Christi and in Erasmus's Colloquia. (X.) The study of the forms of belief and worship belonging to different tribes, nations or religious communities has only recently acquired a scientific foundation. The Greek historians early directed their attention to the ideas and customs of the peoples with whom they were brought into contact; and Herodotus has been called the " first anthropologist of religion." Theopompus described the Persian dualism in the 4th century B.C., and when Megasthenes was ambassador to the court of Chandragupta, 302 B.C., he noted the religious usages of the middle Ganges valley. The early Christian Fathers recorded many a valuable observation of the Gentile faiths around them from varying points of view, sympathetic or hostile; and Eusebius and Epiphanius, in the 4th century A.D., attributed to the librarian of Ptolemy
Spencer
The materials at Hume's command, however, were destined to vast and speedy expansion. The Jesuit missionaries had already been at work in India and China, and a brilliant hand of English students, led by Sir William Jones and H. T. Colebrooke, began to make known the treasures of Sanskrit literature, which the great scholars of Germany and France proceeded to develop. In Egypt the discovery of the Rosetta stone placed the key to the hieroglyphics within Western reach; and the decipherment of the cuneiform character enabled the patient scholars of Europe to recover the clues to the contents of the ancient libraries of Babylonia and Assyria. With the aid of inscriptions the cults of Greece and Rome have been largely reconstructed. Travellers and missionaries reported the beliefs and usages of uncivilized tribes in every part of the world, with the result that " ethnography knows no race devoid of religion, but only differences in the degree to which religious ideas have developed " (Ratzel, History of Mankind, i. 40). Meanwhile philosophy was at work on the problem of the religious consciousness. The great series of German thinkers, Lessing, Herder, Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schleiermacher and their' This does not, of course, preclude the possibility of degeneration in particular instances.successors, sought to explain religion by means of the phenomena of mind, and to track it to its roots in the processes of thought and feeling. While ethnography was gathering up the facts from every part of the globe, psychology began to analyse the forms of belief, of action and emotion, to discover if possiole the key to the multitudinous variety which history revealed. From the historical and linguistic side attention was first fixed upon the myth, and the publication of the ancient hymns of the Rig Veda led Max Muller to seek in the common elements of Aryan thought for the secrets of primitive religion (essay on Comparative Mythology, 1856). The phenomena of day and night, of sunshine and storm, and other aspects of nature, were invoked by different interpreters to explain the conceptions of the gods, their origins and their relations. Fresh materials were gathered at the same time out of European folk-lore; the work begun by the brothers Grimm was continued by J. W. E. Mannhardt, and a lower stratum of beliefs and rites began to emerge into view beneath the poetic forms of the more developed mythologies. By such preliminary labours the way was prepared for the new science of anthropology. Since the appearance of Dr E. B. Tylor's classical treatise on Primitive Culture (1871), the study of the origins of religion has been pursued with the utmost zeal. Comte had already described the primitive form of the religious consciousness as that in which man conceives of all external bodies as animated by a life analogous to his own (Philos. Positive, tome v., 1841, p. 30). This has been since designated as polyzoism or panthelism or panvitalism,' and represents the obscure undifferentiated groundwork out of which Tylor's Animism arises. Many are the clues by which it has been sought to explain the secret of primitive religion. Hegel, before the anthropological stage, found it in magic. Max Muller, building on philosophy and mythology, affirmed that " Religion consists in the perception of the infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man " (Natural Religion, 1899, p. 188). Herbert Spencer
A. PRIMITIVE RELIGION There is a point at which the History of Religion becomes in its predominant aspect a History of Religions. The conditions that we describe by the comprehensive term " civilization " occasion a specification and corresponding differentiation of the life of societies; whence there result competing types of culture, each instinct with the spirit of propagandism and, one might almost say, of empire. It is an age of conscious selection as between ideal systems. Instead of necessitating a wasteful and precarious
2 Comte's own term " fetishism " was most unfortunately misleading (see FETISHISM). Marett proposed the term " Animatism," Folk Lore (1900), xi. p. 171 3 See his treatise on The Making of Religion (1898), and Hartland's article on " The ' High Gods ' of Australia," Folk Lore (1898), ix. p. 290. painful path of conversion. The heretic, having developed powers of rational choice, perceives his heresy, to wit, his want of adaptation to the moral environment, and turning round embraces the new faith that is the passport to survival. Far otherwise is it with man at the stage of savagerythe stage of petty groups pursuing a self-centred life of inveterate custom, in an isolation almost as complete as if they were marooned on separate atolls of the ocean. Progress, or at all events change, does indeed take place, though very slowly, since the most primitive savage we know of has his portion of human intelligence, looks after and before, nay, in regard to the pressing needs of every day shows a quite remarkable shrewdness and resource. Speaking generally, however, we must pronounce him unprogressive, since, on the whole, unreflective in regard to his ends. It is the price that must be paid for social discreteness and incoherency. And the consequence of this atomism is not what a careless thinker might be led to assume, extreme diversity, but, on the contrary, extreme homogeneity of culture. It has been found unworkable, for instance, to classify the religions of really primitive peoples under a plurality of heads, as becomes necessary the moment that the presence of a distinctive basis of linked ideas testifies to the individuality of this or that type of higher creed. Primitive religions are like so many similar beads on a string
string
This fundamental homogeneity of primitive culture, however, must not be made the excuse for a treatment at the hands of psychology and sociology that dispenses with the study of details and trusts to an a priori method. By all means let universal characterization be attemptedwe are about to attempt one here, though well aware of the difficulty in the present state of our knowledgebut they must at least model themselves on the composite photograph rather than the impressionist sketch. An enormous mass of material, mostly quite in the raw, awaits reduction to order on the part of anthropological theorists, as yet a small and ill-supported body of enthusiasts. Under these circumstances it would be premature to expect agreement as to results. In regard to method, however, there is little difference of opinion. Thus, whereas the popular writer abounds in wide generalizations on the subject of primitive humanity, the expert has hitherto for the most part deliberately restricted himself to departmental investigations. Religion, for example, seems altogether too vast a theme for him to embark on, and he usually prefers to deal with some single element or aspect. Again, origins attract the litterateur; he revels in describing the transition from the pre-religious to the religious era. But the expert, confining his attention to the known savage, finds him already religious, nay, encumbered with religious survivals of all kinds; for him, then, it suffices to describe things as they now are, or as they were in the comparatively recent fore-time. Lastly, there are many who, being competent in some other branch of science, but having small acquaintance with the scientific study of human culture, are inclined to explain primitive ideas and institutions from without, namely by reference to various external conditions of the mental life of peoples, such as race, climate, food-supply and so on. The anthropological expert, on the other hand, insists on making the primitive point of view itself the be-all and end-all of his investigations. The inwardness of savage religionthe meaning it has for those who practise itconstitutes its essence and meaning likewise for him, who after all is a man and a brother, not one who stands really outside. In what follows, then, we shall, indeed, venture to present a wholesale appreciation of the religious idea as it is for primitive man in general; but our account will respect the modern anthropological method that bids the student keep closely to the actualities of the religious experience of savages, as it can with reasonable accuracy be gathered from what they do and say. We have sought to render only the spirit of primitive religion, keeping clear both of technicalities and of departmental investigations. These are left to the separate articles bearing on the subject. There the reader will find the most solid results of recent anthropological research. Here is he merely offered a flimsy thread that, we hope, may guide him through the maze of facts, but alas! is only too likely to break off short in his hand. Definition of Primitive Religion.In dealing with a development of culture that has no immutable essence, but is intrinsically fluid and changing, definition must consist either in a definition of type, which indicates prevalence of relevant resemblance as between specimens more or less divergent, or in exterior definition, which delimits the field of inquiry by laying down within what extreme limits this divergence holds. Amongst the numberless definitions of religion that have been suggested, those that have been most frequently adopted for working purposes by anthropologists are Tylor's and Frazer's. Dr E. B. Tylor in Primitive Culture (I), i. 424, proposes as a " minimum definition" of religion " the belief in spiritual beings." Objections to this definition on the score of incompleteness are, firstly, that, besides belief, practice must be reckoned with (since, as Dr W. Robertson Smith has made clear in his Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, 18 sqq., ritual is in fact primary for primitive religion, whilst dogma and myth are secondary); secondly, that the outlook of such belief and practice is not exclusively towards the spiritual, unless this term be widened until it mean next to nothing, but is likewise towards the quasi-material, as will be shown presently. The merit of this definition, on the other hand, lies in its bilateral form, which calls attention to the need of characterizing both the religious attitude and the religious object to which the former has reference. The same form appears in Dr J. G. Frazer's definition in The Golden Bough (end ed.), i. 63. He understands by religion " a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life." He goes on to explain that by " powers" he means " conscious or personal agents." It is also to be noted that he is here definitely opposing religion to magic, which he holds to be based on the (implicit) assumption " that the course of nature is determined, not by the passions or caprice of personal beings, but by the operation of immutable laws acting mechanically." His definition improves on Tylor's in so far as it makes worship integral to the religious attitude. By regarding the object of religion as necessarily personal, however, he is led to exclude much that the primitive man undoubtedly treats with awe and respect as exerting a mystic effect on his life. Further, in maintaining that the powers recognized by religion are always superior to man, he leaves unclassed a host of practices that display a bargaining, or even a hectoring, spirit on the part of those addressing them (see PRAYER). Threatening or beating a fetish cannot be brought under the head of magic, even if we adopt Frazer's principle (op. cit. i. 64) that to constrain or coerce a personal being is to treat him as an inanimate agent; for such a principle is quite inapplicable to cases of mere terrorism, whilst it may be doubted if it even renders the sense of the savage magician's typical notion of his modus operandi, viz. as the bringing to bear of a greater mana or psychic influence (see below) on what has less, and must therefore do as it is bidden. Such definitions, then, are to be accepted, if at all, as definitions of type, selective designations of leading but not strictly universal features. An encyclopaedic account, however, should rest rather on an exterior definition which can serve as it were to pigeon-hole the whole mass of significant facts. Such an exterior definition is suggested by Mr E. Crawley in The Tree of Life, tog, where he points out that " neither the Greek nor the Latin language has any comprehensive term for religion, except in the one teat, and in the other sacra, words which are equivalent to `sacred.' No other term covers the whole of religious phenomena, and a survey of the complex details of various worships results in showing that no other conception will comprise the whole body of religious facts." It may be added that we have here no generalization imported from a higher level of culture, but an idea or blend of ideas familiar to primitive thought. An important consequence of thus giving the study of primitive religion the wide scope of a comparative hierology is that magic is no longer divorced fi out religion, since the sacred will now be found to be . oextensive with the magicoreligious, that largely undifferentiated plasm out of which religion and magic slowly take separate shape as society comes more and more to contrast legitimate with illicit modes of dealing with the sacred: We may define, then, the religious object as the sacred, and the corresponding religious attitude as consisting in such manifestation of feeling, thought and action in regard to the sacred as is held to conduce to the welfare of the community or to that of individuals considered as members of the community. Aspects of the Nature of the Sacred.To exhibit the general character of the sacred as it exists for primitive religion it is simplest to take stock of various aspects recognized by primitive thought as expressed in language. If some, and not the least essential, of these aspects are quasi-negative, it must be remembered that negationswitness the Unseen, the Unknown, the Infinite of a more advanced theologyare well adapted to supply that mystery on which the religious consciousness feeds with the slight basis of conceptual support it needs. (I) The sacred as the forbidden. The primitive notion that perhaps comes nearest to our " sacred," whilst it immediately underlies the meanings of the Latin sacer and Sanctus, is that of a taboo, a Polynesian term for which equivalents can be quoted from most savage vocabularies. The root idea seems to be that something is marked off as to be shunned, with the added hint of a mystic sanction or penalty enforcing the avoidance. Two derivative senses of a more positive import call for special notice. On the one hand, since that which is tabooed is held to punish the taboo-breaker by a sort of mystic infection, taboo comes to stand for uncleanness and sin. On the other hand, since the isolation of the sacred, even when originally conceived in the interest
The Activity of the Sacred.The foregoing views of the sacred, though starting from distinct conceptions, converge in a single complex notion, as may be seen from the many-sided sense borne by such a term as wakan, which may stand not only for " mystery," but also for " power, sacred, ancient, grandeur, animate, immortal " (W J McGee, r5th Report of U. S. Bureau of .Ethnology, 182). The reason for this convergence is that, whereas there is found great difficulty in characterizing the elusive nature of tthe sacred, its mode of manifesting itself is recognized to be much the same in all its phases. Uniform characteristics are the fecundity, ambiguity, relativity and transmissibility of its activity. (1) Fecundity. The mystic potency of the sacred is no fixed quantity, but is big with possibilities of all sorts. The same sacred person, object, act, will suffice for a variety of purposes. Even where a piece of sympathetic magic appears to promise definite results, or when a departmental god is recognized, there would seem to be room left for a more or less indefinite expectancy. It must be re-membered that the meaning of a rite is for the most. part obscure to the participants, being overlaid by its traditional character, which but guarantees a general efficacy. " Blessings come, evils go," may be said to be. the magico-religious formula implicit in all socially approved dealings with the sacred, however specialized' in semblance. (2) Ambiguity. Mystic potency, however, because of the very indefiniteness of its action, is a two-edged sword. The sacred is not to be approached lightly. It will heal or blast, according as it is handled with or without due circumspection. That which is taboo, for instance, the person of the king, or woman's blood, is poison or medicine according as it is manipulated, being inherently just a potentiality for wonder-working in any direction. Not but what primitive thought shows a tendency to mark off a certain kind of mystic power as wholly bad by a special name, e.g. the arungquiltha of Central Australia; and here, we may note, we come nearest to a conception of magic as something other than religion, the trafficker in arungquiltha being socially suspect, nay, liable to persecution, and even death (as amongst the Arunta tribe, see Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of C. Australia, 536), at the hands of his fellows. On the other hand, wholly beneficent powers seem hardly to be recognized, unless we find them in beings such as Mungan-ngaur (" father-our" ), who derive an ethical character from their association with the initiation ceremonies and the moral instruction given thereat (cf. Lang, l.c.). (3) Relativity. So far we have tended to represent the activity of the sacred as that of a universal force, somewhat in the style of our " electricity" or " mind. " It remains to add that this activity manifests itself at numberless independent centres. These differ amongst themselves in the degree of their energy. One spell is stronger than another, one taboo more inviolable than another. Dr W. H. R. Rivers (The Todas, 448) gives an interesting analysis of the grades of sanctity apparent in Toda religion. The gods of the hill-tops come first. The sacred buffaloes, their milk, their bells, the dairies and their vessels are on a lower plane; whilst we may note that there are several grades amongst the dairies, increase of sanctity going with elaboration of dairy ritual (cf. ibid. 232). Still lower is the dairyman, who is in no way divine, yet has sanctity as one who maintains a condition of ceremonial purity. (4) Transmissibility. If, however, this activity originates at certain centres, it tends to spread therefrom in all directions. Dr F. B. Jevons (in An Introduction to the History of Religion, vii.) distinguishes between " things taboo," which have the mystic contagion inherent in them, and " things tabooed," to which the taboo-infection has been transmitted. In the former class he places supernatural beings (including men with many as well as ghosts and spirits), blood, new-born children with their mothers, and corpses; which list
the sacred; though it is important to add, firstly, that such such reinforcement, so that religion becomes largely a matter association takes place under the influence of a selective interest
B. Results.Hitherto our account of primitive religion has had to move on somewhat abstract lines.' His religion is, however, anything but an abstraction to the savage, and stands rather for the whole of his concrete life so far as it is penetrated by a spirit of earnest endeavour. The end and result of primitive religion is, in a word, the consecration of life, the stimulation of the will to live and to do. This bracing of the vital feeling takes place by means of imaginative appeal to the great forces man perceives stirring within him and about him, such appeal proving effective doubtless by reason of the psychological law that to conceive strongly is II therefore inappropriate to the purposes of anthropological description. (I) Acquisition. Mystic power may be regarded as innate so far as skill, luck or queerness are signs and conditions of its presence. On the whole, however, savage society tends to regard it as something acquired, the product of acts and abstinences having a traditional character for imparting magicoreligious virtue. An external symbol in the shape of a ceremony or cult-object is of great assistance to the dim eye of primitive faith. Again, the savage universe is no preserve of man, but is an open field wherein human and non-human activities of all sorts compete on more or less equal terms, yet so that a certain measure of predominance may be secured by a judicious combination of forces. (2) Concentration. Hence the magicoreligious society or individual practitioner piles ceremony on ceremony, name of power on name of power, relic on relic, to consolidate the forces within reach and assume direction thereof. The transmissibility of the sacred ensures the fusion of powers drawn
interest is primarily a collective product, being governed by a social tradition which causes certain possibilities of ideal combination alone to be realized, whilst it is the chief guarantee of the objectivity of what they suggest. The Exploitation of the Sacred. A. Methods.It is hard to find terms general enough to cover dealings with the sacred that range from the manipulation of an almost inanimate type of power to intercourse modelled on that between man and man. Primitive religion, however, resorts to either way of approach so indifferently as to prove that there is little or no awareness of an inconsistency of attitude. The radical contrast between mechanical and spiritual religion, though fundamental for modern theology, is alien to the primitive point of view, and is End of Article: RELIGION If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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