And here we come to the difficult inquiry whether
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the animal is a symbol or a fetich, that is, a tenement of a god ; and we may doubt also whether in different parts of the world, as in Egypt and on this continent, the same conceptions lay under this species of cultus. In Egypt the sacred bulls Apis and Mnevis were cer- tainly regarded as incarnations ; but may not symbol have preceded and given rise to this belief? The rep- resentations with which the Egyptian religion abounds of gods in a composite form, partly human, partly bes- tial, hawk- or jackal-headed, etc., show a symbolizing of particular qualities united to the expression of in- telligence like that of man. But, on the other hand, the worship of animals elsewhere, the great number of sacred animals in Egypt, which it was a crime to kill, and the mummies of which were preserved, seem to point to a stage of worship in that strange country where the marvellous instincts and powers of animals pointed to a god within them all.
After what has been said in another place we need not speak at length of fetich-worship. The vagueness of the word ought to be cured by definitions, or it ought to be driven out of works on the pagan religions. If a fetich is a material in which a god or spirit is con- ceived to dwell for the time, a spell-bound protector and coadjutor of those who offer him worship, this is a distinct idea; or if it is a tenement chosen by the worshipper for his god, that too is distinct enough ; but when we find, together with stones, mountains, water, wind and fire, plants, animals, and men, heav- enly bodies also in a certain stage of human culture reckoned as fetiches, it seems as if fetich-worship might be made to include everything. In Greece the Thessalian sorceresses were thought to be able to bring the moon down out of the skies, and to work magic arts by her help. That is, Hecate, the mocn- goddess, was believed to be wandering abroad at night, and, being identified with the moon, was thought to come down from the skies. The same general notion of power over objects of nature ap- pears in the rude fetich-worship of Africa. A clear line cannot be drawn between the religious con- ceptions of paganism in the lower and in its higher culture.
We have spoken of mixed human and animal forms, where the symbol was the main idea. The highest attainment of idol-worship is to represent the divinity under the form of man. God made man in his image ; the pagan lover of beautj' makes his god in man's image, a reversal of the true idea, and yet ex- pressive of a relationship. The Greek, by his anthro- pomorphic representations of his divinities, employed the highest conceptions of beauty in the service of re- ligion ; and thus, while he laid the foundation of the highest art, subjected himself to the condemnation, "thou though test that I was altogether such a one as thyself."
The image and sj'inbol brought the god into mind, and gave him a visible connection with the worship- per. Hence, in part, the fascination of idolatry. To a great extent, even in the most refined countries of paganism, the divinity was thought — not indeed by the philosopher, but by the vulgar — to inhabit the statue, and to this both the Scriptures and the early Chris- tian writers constantly allude. The idol was not only used at places of common worship, but in families, and gave the feeling of protection a certain vividness, as if the divine shape were there.
(3.) The images of the gods, rather than the desire of shelter for the worshipper, gave rise to the temples, which were houses of a divinity ; thus vaug is a god's dwelling, from a root meaning to dwell, and cedes, in Latin, in the singular is usually a temple, but in the plural a human abode. But neither image nor temple was as important for worship as the altar, which might stand afar from any temple, or near a temple and out- side of it, or, it might be, within the temple's walls, with no roof, or with an opening in the roof, for the purpose
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ef givii id the smoke of light is equally effectual (Wuttke, ». *. vol. ii, § 106,
into the upper air. When the altar of the his Btatue were near one another, tit*- statue -i 1 above, that the worshipper might look
from Manu, u,87, 101, 102).
The offerings and sacrifices of a public nature were usually attended by lustrations, which are not to be
ntaiioii of the divinity. The confounded with purgations of a propitiatory ehar-
tatue, in the progress of refine- acter practiced by those who Bought cleansing from
■•■ guilt. Both kinds of lustrations, however, bad the
same moral idea, 1 1 » < - necessity of a pure mind, for their
ol the ritualistic spirit, gained an importance
them in the earlier times. It
principally that architecture in most
iikI the motive for it- cultivation,
I ; he gods chiefly which promoted
: of st ulpture. We have alreadj had occa-
,\ thai in the Persian religion there were
qo altars nor temples. The veneration be-