the representative of n heism was thus raised or
depressed, that he took the place of another displaced supreme _,r.>d. '>r himself gave way to Odin (Wuotan)? 1 lie true explanation is that the b< ad of the gods, dif- fering in rank Inn not in nature from the rest, rose and fell in his Btation, or even dropped out of worship alto- gether, owing to changes within a nation or race which we cannot now explain. This is only one ofthe manj changes through which polytheism passed. i\ never bad any stability or permanent condition. Weonlyadd ' u- can be explained, as etymology points out, to l"- the personification ofthe bright sky or daylight, this again must prevent us from regarding such a di- vinity as handing down the monotheistic idea, because this was only one of the mosl prominent of visible ob- i ime remarks in general maj be made in to the religions of all cultivated races the \ — -yrini and Babylonian, the Egyptian and the Mexican religions, lor instance. We do not deny that individual reflection may have risen above the level of the rc- nemselves, or that philosophical doctrine maj ighl to mix itself with the prevailing my- thologies, but that the polytheistic religions, including their highest divinities, did not hand down a distorted monotheism, but Bl 1 on essentially another founda- tion, (e) Can the actual monotheistic religions be explained on the hypothesis of elimination? This
would mean that all the gods exce] e faded out of
the religious Bystem of a nation, or of certain nations. [I i- a matter of fact chat there has been but one such
nation. All the inoiioi heisin in the world came from
Judaism into Christianity and Mohammedanism. Can th.- worship of one god in Judaism he accounted lor on the hypothesis just spoken of. that there was a time when several gods dn ided the allegiance of the nation anion- them, and that one. by the adulation, as Mr. :>- it. or the Buperior zeal of his worshippers, out the others from the minds of the people. ■ j small ground tor such a hy- The descendants of Jacob had Buch a hank- theism and idolatry that their whole n< u objects of ontinually, notwithstanding the eSiirts "' prophcu to inculcate what all regard a- a "ally m . ligion. The tradition carried
not perhaps under that htj God, the maker ol and earth to Abraham and to his pro - i itors, nay, to the very beginnin and the very idea of Judaism, that which has given to the race its historic impor- tance, i- its - paratiori nf J< hovah, from nil the real ol the world. "Thou -hah have no gods • ." - fhou shall not make an} graven image,"
are th'- two "articuli stantis vel cadentis Judaismi." Without (Hi. rin- into this subject at length, we will only add that no hypothesis of tin- rise of Judaism can stand which derives it from a previous polytheism. It must have come from philosophical reflection, or from primeval tradition, or from revelation. It- unique character shows that it is no work of man. and its place in the education ofthe human race- -how- i hat it had an important place in the scheme of Providence (corap. <>. Pfleiderer, /'<>-■ Wtsen <l< r Religion,!, 11).
•_'. Among the objects worshipped by polytheista, which wen- tie- earliest? However we may answer ihi- question, it oughl to he laid down, before we at- tempt an answer, that the objects of worship must have been thought of as having personal qualities and rela- tions to man. Worship, the recognition of a divine superintending power, did not begin, could not begin, in the adoration of dead matter: of a BUD invested with
material qualities, for instance, then personified, and
finally converted into a person with will, feeling, and agency in the world. We must start with attributing to man a religious sense or sentiment. The world, to the first polj'theistSj was lull of divine power ami agency; they did not create to themselves the divine life in nature, quickening it into life by a personifying imagination, hut it was there lor them to recognise; they felt their dependence upon it; it surrounded them on every side. But it was broken up to their minds into the many -real objects on which tiny depended; it nut them everywhere, and they worshipped this divine power and will in its part- as the source of benefits. With this premised, we may say that the heavenly bodies, the phenomena of day and of light,
the earth it-elf. the sea, the sky or heaven, were among the primeval objects of heathen worship. The sun. lor instance, not only as a sun-god, hut also, in what was perhaps an earlier form of religion, the visible luminary itself, was among the first divinities of heathenism. The luminary was considered as alive, and possessed of the power of seeing things upon the earth. When Hades snatched away the virgin Proserpine, and car- ried her to his realms below through a chasm ofthe earth to be his wifc.no one heard her eric- lor help except Helios, son of Hyperion and Hecate. Zeus, to whom she cried for help, "was sitting apart from the gods in a thronged temple, and receiving choice offer- ings from mortal men." so he did not h( ar hi r | Hymn. in l'ir. •-'."> 29). The attributes of Helios in the (.reek religion, in which he wa- by no mean- a verj im- portant deity, .are all to be referred to the heavenly body, endowed with perception, and noticing as will as hearing what takes place here below. The people be- lieved that the sun was a living being, ami the philos- ophers had the same faith. Anaxiniander is said to have ascribed a fiery body and a vital principle to it; and Anaxagoras so offended the Athenians by his doc- trine that the sun was a red-hot stone or mass of metal that he was accused of impiety, and. although