It is the idea of the beyond, however, that gradually crowds out all secondary motives and that gives to the mystery cults proper their characteristic stamp, bringing them into sharp contrast with the dominant ideas of the early heroic age. In the earlier period, the idea of the beyond had been enveloped in hopeless gloom; now, it fills the mystic with premonitions of eternal happiness. In striving for this experience, the mystic wishes for a bliss that is not granted to the majority of mortals. Once more all the magic arts of the past are called into play in order that the initiate may secure entrance into the portals of the yonder world; it is thither that he is transported in the ecstasy induced by these magical means. No longer is admiration bestowed upon the heroes of the mythical past, upon a Hercules and a Theseus, as it was in ancient times. The change came about slowly, and yet at the great turning-point of human history, marked by the Hellenistic age, it spread throughout the entire cultural world. Radiating far beyond the Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries, which these hopes of a yonder-world raised to new life, the same idea was appropriated by the cults of Osiris, Serapis, Attis, and Mithra. Theidea of redemption, born of the longing to exchange this world, with its sufferings and wants, for a world of happiness in the beyond, took possession of the age. It is the negation of the heroic age, of the heroes which it prized, and of the gods which it revered. Along with this world, these cults of the beyond repudiate also the previously existent values of this world. The ideals of power and of property fade. Succeeding the hero ideal, as its abrogation and at the same time its consummation, is the ideal of humanity.
At first it is onlyreligiousideals that manifest this shift in values. The enjoyment of the present gives way to hopes for the future, the portrayal of which welds religious feelings into a power that proves supreme over all otherimpulses. It is for this very reason that the future, which the mystic already enjoys in anticipation, comes to be exclusively the reward of thedevout. It is not vouchsafed to the moral man who stands outside the pale of these religious associations, for his activity centres about this world. At a much earlier period, however, these ideas became combined with ethical motives of retribution. If, accordingly, the two motives again become entirely distinct at this decisive turning-point of religious development, this only signifies that, in themselves, they are of different origin, and not that from early times forward there were no forces making for their union. These forces, however, were not so much internal as external in character. They did not spring from the religious experiences themselves, nor, least of all, from the ideas of the beyond. Their source is to be found primarily in a transference of the relations of the earthly State to the divine State, as a result of which the ruler of the latter was exalted to the position of lawgiver in the kingdom of men no less than in that of the gods. Proofs of this transference are to be found in the most ancient customs and legal enactments of all regions. Either the ethical and religious commandments are, both alike, supposed to be the very utterances of the deity, as in the case of the Mosaic decalogue, or, as is illustrated by the Babylonian code of Hammurabi, an earthly ruler expressly promulgates his law in the name of the deity, even though this law is essentially restricted to legal and ethical norms. Thus it came about that every ethical transgression acquired also a religious significance. The ethical norm was not, at the outset, religious in sanction, as is usually believed; it acquired this character only through the medium of the world-ruling divine personality. Nevertheless, the union of the ethical and the religious gradually caused the idea of retribution, which originally had no ethical significance whatsoever, to force its way into the conceptions of the beyond. It was essentially in this way that ethical transgressions came to be also religious offences, whereas, on the other hand, the rewardsof the other-world continued to be restricted to the devout, or were granted to the moral man only on condition that he be devout as well as moral.
In conclusion, we must consider an offshoot of other-world ideas—the belief in thetransmigration of souls. This belief is ultimately grounded in the more general ideas of soul-belief, even though its developed form appears only as a product of philosophical speculation, and has, therefore, found only a limited acceptance. In its motives, the belief most closely resembles the conception of purgatory, in so far as the latter involves the notion that the occupation of animal bodies is a means, partly of transitory punishment, and partly of purification. The idea of lustration, however, is not involved in that of metempsychosis. In its place, there is a new and unique element. It consists in the thought, expressed in Plato's "Republic," that it is proper that man should retain after death the character manifested during life, and that he should therefore assume the form of the animal which exhibits this character. There is thus manifested the idea of a relationship between man and the animal. In the distant past this idea gave rise to the animal totem; in this last form of the animal myth, it leads to the conception of the transmigration of souls. Thus, a complete inversion of values has here taken place. The significance of the totem as an ancestral animal and as an object of cult caused it to be regarded as superior to man. The animal myth, on the other hand, represents transformation into an animal as degrading, even as a severe punishment. It is precisely this difference which makes it probable that the idea of transmigration was not a free creation of Hindoo philosophers—for it was they who apparently first developed it, and from whom it passed over to the Pythagorean school and thence to Plato—but that it, also, was connected with the general development of totemic conceptions. Of course, it is not possible to trace a direct transition of the totem animal into the animal which receives the soul of a human being who is expiating sins that he has committed. It is not probable, moreover, that such a transition occurred.Doubtless, however, the idea of transmigration is connected with the fact that, beginning with the totemic age and extending far down into the period of deity beliefs, the value placed on animals underwent a change. For the Australian, the animal is an object of cult, and the totem animal is frequently also regarded as the incarnation of an ancestor or of some magical being of antiquity; the American Indian calls the animals his elder brothers; Hercules, the hero of the heroic age, is honoured because, among other things, he was instrumental in exterminating wild animals. This change, moreover, is reflected in animal myths even more than in these general evaluations. Indeed, transformation into animals is a dominant characteristic of these myths. Tracing the conception of this magical process, however, we find, step by step, a progressive degradation of the animal. In Australian legends, animal and man are either absolute equals or the animal is the superior, being endowed with special magical powers. In American märchen-myths also, we still frequently find the same conception, although transformation into an animal is here sometimes regarded as a disgrace. Finally, in many African myths, and, particularly, in those of the cultural peoples of the ancient world, such a transformation is regarded either as a serious injury resulting from evil magic or as a punishment for some crime. We may well suppose, therefore, that the Brahmans, who first incorporated this idea into the religious conceptions of retribution, were influenced by the ideas current in popular belief, which, on their part, represented the last development of earlier totem conceptions. These ideas may also have been reinforced by the belief (not even yet entirely extinct) in soul animals, into which the psyche disappears at the moment of death. Whether the Brahmans had as yet come to the notion that transformation into an animal is a simpler and more natural way of conceiving the future of the soul than ideas of a supermundane and a subterranean beyond, need not concern us. In any event, it is noteworthy that, after science had closed the path to heaven as well as that to Hades,Lessing and, in a broader sense, taking into account nature as a whole, Goethe himself, regarded metempsychosis as the most probable hypothesis concerning the way in which the desire for an endless survival of the soul will be satisfied.
Psychologically, myth and cult are closely interrelated. Themythis a species ofidea. It consists of ideas of an imaginary and an essentially supersensuous world that constitutes a background for the phenomena of sensuous reality. This supersensuous world is created by the imagination exclusively from sensuous materials. It finds portrayal throughout the various stages of myth development, first in the märchen-myth, then in the heroic saga, and finally in the deity saga. In the latter, there are interwoven ideas of the origin and destruction of things, and of the life of the soul after death.Cult, on the other hand, comprises onlyactions. These relate to the demons or the gods whose lives and deeds are depicted by mythology, at first only in fragmentary sketches, but later, especially in the deity saga, after the pattern of human life. Now, inasmuch as action is always the result of feeling and emotion, it is these subjective elements of consciousness that are dominant in cult, whereas cognition plays its rôle in connection with myth. This contrast is important because of its close bearing on the development of myth as well as on that of religion, and on the essential differentiæ of the two. Not every myth has a religious content. In fact, the majority of the myths prevalent, or once prevalent, in the world, have absolutely no connection with religion, if we give to the latter any sharply defined meaning at all. At the setting of the sun, a flaming hero is swallowed by a dusky demon—this conception of nature mythology may possibly be incorporated in religious conceptions, but, in itself, it possesses no religious significance whatsoever, any more than does the idea that the clouds are demons who send rain to the fields, or that a cord wound about a tree may magically transfera sickness to it. These are all mythological ideas, yet to call them religious would obviously leave one with a most vague conception of religion. Similarly, moreover, not every cult relating to things beyond immediate reality is a religious cult. Winding a cord about a tree, for example, might constitute part of a magic cult which aims at certain beneficent or pernicious results through the aid of demons of some sort. There is no ground, however, for identifying these cult activities with deity cult. From the very beginning, of course, every cult is magical. But there are important differences with respect to the objects upon which the magic is exercised. The same is true with respect to the significance of the cult action within the circle of possible magic actions and of the derivatives which gradually displace the latter. In view of this, it is undeniable that, indeity cult, the cult activity, in part, assumes new forms, and, in part, and primarily, gains a new content. Prior to the belief in gods, there were numerous demon cults, as well, particularly, as single, fragmentary cult practices presupposing demoniacal powers. Moreover, these demon cults and the various activities to which they gave rise, passed down into the very heart of deity cult. The question therefore arises, What marks shall determine whether a deity cult isreligiousin character? These marks, of course, may be ascertained only by reference to that which the general consensus of opinion unites in calling religious from the standpoint of the forms of religious belief prevalent to-day. From this point of view, a religious significance may be conceded to a deity conception if, in the first place, it possesses by its very nature—that is, objectively—anidealworth, and, since the ideal transcends reality, asupersensuouscharacter; in the second place, it must satisfy the subjective need of man for an ideal purpose of life. To one outside of the particular cult community, the value of this ideal may be but slight; to the community, however, at the time when it is engaged in the cult practices, the ideal is of highest worth. As the embodiments of the ideals just mentioned, the gods arealways pictured by the mythological imagination in human form, since it is only his own characteristics that man can conceive as magnified into the highest values in so absolute a sense. Where the deity does not reach this stage, or where, at the very least, he does not possess this ideal value during the progress of the cult activities, the cult is not religious in nature, but prereligious or subreligious. Thus, while myth and cult date back to the beginnings of human development, they acquire a religious character only at a specific time, which comes earlier in the case of cult than in that of the myth. The gods are created by the religious emotion which finds expression in cult, and myth gives them the character of ideal personalities, after the pattern of the heroic figures of actual life. The entire life of man, with all its changes of destiny, is placed in their hands. Their cult, therefore, is no longer associated merely with special circumstances or various recurrent events, as were primitive magic and the conjuration of demons, but is concerned with the whole of life, which is now subordinated to a divine legal order fashioned after the political government. Thus, the god is soon succeeded by thedivine State, and by the cult festivals dedicated to the latter. As an idealized counterpart of the human institution peculiarly characteristic of the heroic era, religious cult appears, from this point of view also, as the most distinctive creation of the age of heroes and gods.
If a conception proves to be too narrow to cover all the phenomena which fall within its sphere, it is legitimate, of course, to broaden it, to a certain extent, to suit our needs. Nevertheless, once we admit that not every mythological conception or magical practice is religious in character, we can no longer doubt that there was never a more significant change in the development of these phenomena than occurred in the case of the myths and cults directly connected with the heroic age. Primarily, therefore, it was the cults of the Babylonians, Egyptians, Israelites, and also those of the Greeks, Romans, Aryans, and Germans, that were religious in the full sense of the word. In theOld World, the Semitic and Indo-Germanic peoples must be regarded, to say the least, as the most important representatives of religious ideals; in the New World, prior to the coming of the Europeans, this distinction belongs to the cultural peoples of the Andes, the Mexicans and the Peruvians. Though the religion of these latter races, no less than the other phases of their culture, was of a cruder sort than that of the former peoples, it frequently throws a remarkable light upon the initial stages of many forms of cult. Of course, there is never a sharp separation of periods; intermediate stages are always to be found. The latter result, particularly, from two conditions. On the one hand, a deity cult may be inaugurated by the introduction of elements of a celestial mythology into the still dominant magical cults. In this case, it is important to note, deity myth is usually far in advance of deity cult. This is exemplified in Polynesia, where we find a rich theogony alongside of cults that have not advanced essentially beyond the stage of totemic magic beliefs. On the other hand, however, a people whose civilization is still, on the whole, totemic, may be influenced by the deity cults of neighbouring cultural peoples, and, as a result, fusions of various sorts may occur. Of this, also, the New World affords instructive examples, namely, the Pueblo peoples of New Mexico and Arizona, who were influenced by Mexican culture.
In the soul-life of the individual,action, together with the feelings and emotions fundamental to it, have the primacy over ideation. The same psychological fact universally accounts for the superior importance of deity cult over deity myth. It is action that constantly influences ideas, changing and strengthening them, and thus arousing new emotions which stimulate to further activities. Thus, the elevation of the gods into ideal beings must be ascribed, in great part, to religious cult, for it came about as a result of the influence which the emotions associated with cult exercised upon the ideas of the gods. Even less than the mythological thought from which it develops does religious reflection consist simply of ideas. The mythicaltales and legends into which ideas are woven excite primarily the feelings and emotions. These it is that cause the exaltation of the religious consciousness, giving rise to action, which, in turn, enhances the emotions. If anywhere, therefore, it is in the psychology of religion that intellectualism is doomed to failure. The intellectualist is unable to explain even the fact of cult, to say nothing of those effects upon religion by virtue of which cult becomes religion's creative force. While, therefore, there are cults—namely, those of magic and demons—which, for specific reasons, we may call prereligious, there is no religion without some form of cult, even though, in the course of religious development, the external phases of cult may diminish in significance. In so far, cult is to be regarded asmoulding, rather than as permanently expressing religious emotions; and it is not merely an effect, but also a source of religious ideas. It is in cult that deity ideas first attain their full significance. By giving expression to his desires in prayer and sacrifice, man enjoys a foretaste of their satisfaction, and this, in reaction, enhances not only the desires but also the mythological conceptions fundamental to them. It is precisely this relationship of myth to cult that extends far back into the totemic age and that causes the dominant magic cults of this period to be displaced by deity cults as soon as gods have arisen through a synthesis of heroes and demons. This accounts for the fact that, in the beginnings of religion, the worship of gods always contained elements that derived from the age of demons. But even the demon cults frequently exhibit one feature, particularly, that remains characteristic also of religion: in the cult the individual feels himself one with the object of worship. This is clearly shown in the case of primitive vegetation festivals. Those who execute the orgiastic cult dances regard themselves as one with the spirits of vegetation, whom they wish to assist, by their actions, in increasing the productive forces of nature. Such vegetation festivals have already been described in our account of totemic cults. Inasmuch, however, as they represent not only the highestof the totemic cults but even partake, in part, of the character of deity cults, it was necessary to refer to them again at this point. Vegetation festivals still prevail in richly developed forms among some of the tribes of North and Central America. It is clear that they represent primarily a transitional stage, for, in addition to totemic ideas, demon and ancestor beliefs are everywhere mingled with elements of a celestial mythology. Spirits of ancestors are thought to be seated behind the clouds, urging the rain demons to activity. Above them, however, are celestial deities, whose abode is in the heavens, and to whom is attributed the supreme control over destiny.
Even these relatively primitive vegetation cults manifest still another trait, which later comes more and more to characterize all cult, namely, theunion of many cult motives. The great vegetation festivals of Central America attract not only those in health but also the sick. The latter are in search of healing. Hence there come to be special cults alongside of those that serve more universal needs. Moreover, the initiation of youths into manhood is also celebrated during these great festivals. Finally, the individual seeks to expiate some sin which he has committed in the past. Thus, numerous supplementary and subsidiary cults cluster about the great cult festivals. This was true even of the cults that reach far back into the age of magic and demon beliefs, when gods still played a secondary rôle, and conditions remained the same up to the time of the highest forms of deity cult. Furthermore, the incentive, or impelling motive, which originally brought cult members together for these comprehensive festivals seems everywhere to have been the same. The aim in view was to secure the prosperity of the crops, for, on the threshold of this higher civilization, these formed man's chief food-supply. The prominence of this motive in the earliest deity cults, moreover, indicates that the latter were genuine products of the general culture of this period. The roving hunter and nomad were giving place to the settled tiller of the soil, who utilized the animal for the services of man, and thus engaged more systematicallyin the breeding of domestic animals, though also perfecting, in addition to the arts of peace, the agencies of war. The motives that gradually elevated vegetation cults to a higher plane consisted in every case of those that at the outset found expression in the subsidiary cults. The concern for thespiritual welfareof mankind finally supplanted materialistic purposes. This is clearly shown by the history of the Greek mystery cults. These, however, were obviously influenced, particularly at a later time, by the similar cults of the Egyptians, as well as by the Babylonians and other peoples of western Asia. Among all these peoples, the chief cults were vegetation cults, and, as such, they occurred at stated seasons. In the Orient, particularly, the festivals were held at the solstices. Surviving remnants of seedtime and harvest festivals—which were solstice festivals and were prevalent throughout the entire Oriental world—allow us to conclude, even with respect to many regions in which a complete historical tradition is lacking, that agricultural festivals probably represent the earliest deity cults. Hence it is that these remnants still contain so many elements characteristic of demon beliefs.
It is the contrast of spring, of newly awakened Nature and its sprouting and growing crops, with winter and its dying vegetation, that first finds expression in the deity myths which inspire the vegetation festivals. The more permanent significance of these cults, however, is due to the fact that the gods of vegetation gain an increasing sphere of influence. The reason for this is obviously to be found in the fact that subsidiary motives come to be incorporated into the main cults of the earliest cultural peoples.Onefactor is of particular importance. Though inconspicuous in the earliest of these cults, it becomes increasingly prominent as the cults become more highly developed. I refer tohopes of a beyond. Of course, many phases of the cult remain hidden to us. Due to the combinations already mentioned and to the incorporation, in this case, of magical and mystical elements, these cults acquired a secret nature in proportion as they concerned themselves with the riddle ofthe beyond. The more carefully the individual cult member guarded the secrets of the group, the richer the blessings that he might hope to receive. Nevertheless, the general psychological motives underlying this development enable us to supplement the historical tradition. In this way it is possible to gain a fairly positive knowledge of the process by which, with an apparently almost universal uniformity, vegetation cults came to combine with soul cults. The ideas of changing seasons, of summer and winter, of the budding and the withering of grain, are naturally associated with those of life and death. Winter and bleak nature resemble death; and, just as lifeless nature is again resuscitated in the spring, so also will the soul awaken to a bright and joyous existence in the future. The connection is so obvious that poetry and even myth itself everywhere refer to it. Hence also it could not have been overlooked by the mythologists. Generally, however, this has been regarded as an ingenious allegory by means of which man sought to gain a vivid realization of the resurrection of the soul. In fact, such allegorical reinterpretations occur in later cult legend itself. Particularly characteristic of this is the legend of the Eleusinian mysteries. Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, goddess of the crops, is stolen by Pluto, ruler of the underworld, and the goddess-mother wanders about on the earth seeking her child. Resentfully she withdraws from the heavens and avoids the assemblages of the gods. During this period of mourning, however, she devotes all of her care to mankind. She protects not only the vegetation but also the germinating human life, the child. Thus she becomes a benefactress upon earth. The gods, however, mourn her absence, and Zeus makes a compact with the lord of the underworld. Persephone is to remain in the underworld with her husband, Pluto, during only one-half of the year; during the other half she is to return to her mother. Appeased, Demeter herself returns to the heavens. The allegorical significance of this legend cannot fail to be recognized, nor the fact that it was probably only as a result of a poetical elaboration of the mythological material thatthis allegorical character was acquired. The same is true of all other similar cult legends, from the descent into hell of the Babylonian Ishtar down to the legends of Dionysos and Osiris, and other vegetation legends of the Hellenistic period. In the form in which these have come down to us, they are all products of priestly invention, replete with a conscious symbolism such as cannot be ascribed to the original mythical material upon which they were based. Nevertheless, it is customary not only to regard all of this original content as allegorical, but also to surpass even the traditional legend itself, if possible, in allegorical interpretation. In the legend of Demeter, for example, Demeter is supposed to be the mother earth, and Persephone the seed that is thrown into the earth to grow up and blossom. Analogously, he who participates in the cult hopes that, while his soul, similarly, is at first buried in the earth with his body, it will later ascend to heaven as did Demeter. Back of the myth, therefore, there is supposed to be a symbolical allegory, and to this is attributed the original union of the soul cult with the vegetation festival. When, then, the former lost its influence, the symbolism it thought to have remained as the chief content of the mystery. No original cult, however, shows the least sign of connection with such subtle allegories. On the other hand, there are many indications that the vegetation cults developed into these higher forms of soul cults in an entirely different way. Soul cults of a lower order had, of course, long been prevalent. But these were absolutely distinct from any vegetation myths that may have existed. They pictured souls as demons, against whom it was necessary to be on one's guard, or, at a later stage, as beings whom one might conciliate and win over as helpful spirits. Now, the cults of Demeter practised in Eleusis had as their aim, not only an increased productiveness of the soil, but also success in the interests and activities of this world. Since they related to happiness in general, it was but natural that, as soon as the ideas of a beyond reached a point of development at which the yonder-world became the focusof desires and hopes, the cults also should necessarily concern themselves with happiness in a life after death. Thus, interest in the beyond came to be one of the further cult motives that linked themselves to the dominant vegetation cults. The latter, however, held the primacy, as is still clearly apparent by reference to the vegetation festivals of the semi-cultural peoples of America. It is only natural that this should have been the case. When agriculture was in its beginnings, the most pressing need of life was that of daily bread. For the tiller of the soil, moreover, the changes of seasons marked by seedtime and harvest, represent sharply defined periods, suitable above all others for the festivals to which tribal associates assemble from near and far. The later allegories connected with these cults had nothing to do with their transition into soul cults, but, as their whole character indicates, were creations of the priestly imagination. As a result of the reaction of cult activities upon the emotions, however, concern for the future happiness of the soul finally came more and more to overshadow the desires connected with this world. Thus, the cults of Demeter eventually passed over, in all essentials, into cults of the beyond. The same is true of the Dionysos cults of the Greeks, of the Egyptian worship of Isis and Osiris, of the Persian Mithra cult, and of many other mystery cults of Oriental origin. All of these express the same passion for a future bliss that shall begin at the close of earthly life and endure endlessly.
The character of these cults is shaped, in a decisive measure, by other influences, whose source is to be found in the hopes of a beyond. Even in the vegetation festivals of the semi-cultural peoples of America, with their elements of totemism and ancestor worship, an important place is occupied byecstaticfeatures—by the orgiastic dance, and by the ecstasy that results from sexual excitement and from narcotic poisons, such as tobacco. Conjurations, prayer, sacrifice, and other cult ceremonies aid in stirring the emotions. Doubtless it was due to these ecstatic elements that the cult of Dionysos gained supremacy over the oldercults of Demeter in the Greek mysteries, and that Dionysos himself was eventually given a place in the Demeter cult. For is he not the god of wine, the most potent of all the means for creating a condition of bliss that elevates above all earthly cares? In the mystery cults, however, the central feature of the cult activity was the vision experienced in the ecstasy. The mysterious equipment of the place, the preliminary ascetic practices, the liturgic conjurations and sacrifices, the wine, which originally took the place of the blood sacrifice, and, among the Hindoos, the soma, which was itself deified—all of these served to transport consciousness to another world, so that the cult became increasingly concerned with the world beyond, and finally devoted itself exclusively to this interest. As a result of this change, the hopes centring about the beyond forced their way overpoweringly into cult, whereas the cult, in turn, reacted in an important measure to enhance these hopes.
Over against the tendency toward unification inherent in vegetation cults and in the other-world cults which sprang from them, the increasing diversity of needs and interests now introduces influences toward a progressive differentiation of cults. Separate deity cults come to be fostered by the various social groups and classes, just as had occurred in the case of the totem cults of the preceding age, which differed according as they were practised by the tribe, the sex, or the individual. The desire for protection against dangers and for security in undertakings gives rise to guardian gods no less than it did to guardian demons. Since, however, this more general desire branches out into a considerable number of special desires, advancing culture results in a progressive differentiation of cults. The foundation of cities and the separation into classes and occupations lead to special cults for each of these divisions of society. The personal characteristics of the gods and the purposes of the cult come to be affected, each by the other. Each specific cult chooses from among the members of the pantheon that god who best suits its purpose, and it then modifies his character according to its needs. The characteristics of thegods thus undergo a change of significance analogous to that of the forms of speech and custom. This change, however, is due mainly to cult, and to the fact that the human beings who practise the cult have need of protection and aid. The influence of saga and poetry is only secondary, being, at best, mediated through cult.
In addition to the increasing diversity of human interests, and interplaying with it in various ways, are two further factors that tend toward the differentiation of cult. In the first place, divine personality as such awakens man to the necessity of establishing a cult. As a personal being who transcends human stature, the god calls for adoration by his very nature, even apart from the special motives which are involved in the specific deity cults and which, in the further course of development, give to the latter their dominant tone. Pure deity cults, thus, are the highest forms of cult, and give best expression to ideal needs. Outstanding examples of this are the Jahve cult of the Israelites, and the cults of Christ and Buddha. The latter, in particular, show the great assimilative power of cults that centre about an objective ideal, in contrast with those that are subjective in nature, springing entirely from human desires and hopes, and especially with that most subjective of all cults, the cult of the beyond. Moreover, this idealizing impulse may also create new cults, by deifying heroes who were originally conceived as human. Besides the ancient hero cults, the most prominent examples of such cults are again those of Christ and of Buddha. For there can be no doubt that Christ and Buddha alike existed as human beings and that originally they were also regarded as such. The fact that their heroic character consists entirely in the spiritual qualities of their personalities does not preclude them from consideration in this connection. These qualities proved all the more effective in bringing about the exaltation of the human into the divine. Thus, they enable us to understand how it was possible for the cult of the original deities to be crowded into the background by that of those who later came to be gods. This isemphatically brought out in the Buddha legends, many of which represent the ancient Hindoo gods of the Veda as the servants of the divine Buddha.
In addition to the fact that divine personalities call forth homage by their very nature, the multiplication of cults results also from the fusion of the gods of various peoples. This is the most external factor, and yet it is by no means the least potent one. It not infrequently happens that cults gain their supreme importance only in the territory into which they have been transplanted. Dionysos, for example, was a god introduced from elsewhere into Greece. Through his connection with the mystery cults, however, he later came to surpass all other Greek gods in religious significance. The original cults of the native Italian deities, with their numerous elements carried over from the age of demoniacal and ancestral spirits, were but few in number. Through the assimilation of Greek deities, however, and later, at the time of the empire, of Oriental gods, differing widely in character, Rome acquired a multiplicity of cults to which history doubtless affords no parallel. Yet we must not overlook the fact that in certain other cases—such, for example, as the Babylonian-Assyrian and the Egyptian cults—the fusions may perhaps have become more complete at an early period, and thus have precluded the juxtaposition of the many separate cults that existed in the Rome of the Empire.
This multiplicity of cults, increasing with the advance of civilization both as regards the ends that are desired and the gods who are worshipped, is by no means paralleled by the number ofcult agencies. The only possible exception might be in the case of the means which the cults of the beyond employed for arousing ecstasy. Even here the difference lies not so much in the means themselves as in the extent to which they were used. Moreover, the secrecy surrounding these cults is itself an externalindication of the fact that they differed from the cults concerned with the things of this world, for the latter generally sought publicity. And yet there was no form of cult in which ecstatic features were altogether lacking; such features are inherent, to a certain extent, in cult practices as such and, in so far, are absolutely universal. Differences in the specific purposes of the cults and in the deities to whom the acts were dedicated did indeed cause certain variations. These, however, we may here neglect, inasmuch as they do not affect the essential nature of cult itself. From early times on, there were certain activities that were universally characteristic of deity cults, and their fundamental purposes remained the same, namely, to gain the favour of the deity and thereby to obtain the fulfilment of personal wishes. As regards this motive, thethreecult agencies—prayer, sacrifice, andsanctification—are absolutely at one. In this order of sequence, moreover, these agencies represent a progressive intensification of the religious activity of cult.
In the records of ancient civilized peoples we meet with a great number ofprayers, representing all the forms developed by this simplest and most common of the means of cult. The most primitive form of prayer isconjuration. Conjuration passed over from demon cult into the beginnings of deity cult, and is intermediate between a means of magic and a petition. This also indicates the direction of the further development of the prayer. Conjuration is succeeded by theprayer of petition, whose essential differentia consists in the fact that, however earnestly the suppliant may strive for the fulfilment of his desires, he nevertheless ultimately commits them to the will of the deity. The development of the prayer of petition out of conjuration becomes possible only because gods possess a characteristic which demons lack—namely, personality. Once this personality attains to its ideal sublimity, the exercise of magical power over the deity ceases to be possible, or is so only under the presupposition that the will of the deity is in itself favourably inclined toward the suppliant. The idea underlying conjuration neverthelesscontinues for a time to remain a supplementary factor in the prayer of petition; even where no clearly conscious trace of it appears, it survives in the depth of emotion that reinforces the petition. That conjuration blends with petition is particularly evident in the case ofonecharacteristic, whose origin must be traced to magical conjuration. I refer to the fact that thewords of the petitionarerepeatedin the same or in a slightly changed form, and that, at a later stage of development, there is a constant recurrence of the same content, even though this is variously expressed. This is a derivative characteristic of the prayer of petition. Originally, it was thought that repetition brought about an intensification of the magical effect, particularly in the case of word-magic. We are already familiar with conjurations of this sort as elements of totemic cults. With but few changes, they recur in the older songs of the Avesta and Veda, as well as in some of the Biblical Psalms. In these cases, however, the repetitions are somewhat more extensive, for there is a more detailed statement of that which is desired. And yet the Biblical Psalms, particularly, are an illustration of the fact that, with submission to the will of the deity, the petition becomes less urgent in tone. Even when the petition is repeated the expression more and more assumes a somewhat altered form. It is probably this enhancement through repetition—itself, in turn, due to the dynamic character of the emotions of desire—that accounts for the so-called 'parallelism of members,' characteristic especially of Hebrew poetry. The view, once entertained, that this is a sort of substitute for the rhythm arising from emphasis and sentence arrangement is doubtless incorrect, for recent investigations demonstrate the ingenious rhythm of Hebrew poetry. We would not, of course, deny that the repetition of the thought in a changed form intensifies the rhythmic expression. The real basis of the repetition, however, lies not in this fact but in the motive underlying petition. This is clear, above all, from the fact that repetition is most pronounced particularly in those psalms and prophetic songs which are of the nature of a prayer of petitionand of the praises closely connected with it. Later, repetition was also employed in other forms of religious expression. In the case of the hymn of praise, particularly, the tendency to repetition is augmented, by virtue of the enthusiastic exaltation of the divine personality whom the hymn extols.
Besides the prayer of petition we find theprayer of thanksgiving. Petition and thanksgiving are properly correlative, the one expressing a wish to the deity and the other acknowledging its fulfilment. Not infrequently, therefore, they are combined, particularly in the more advanced forms of the prayer cult, into a single prayer of thanksgiving and petition. He who prays returns thanks for the blessings which he has received and adds a request for further divine aid. This combination occurs very frequently in the Psalms, but it is to be found also in other hymnodies. The extent to which the request for further favours is subordinated to the thanksgiving for past aid, is a measure of the humility involved, and represents a fair criterion of the maturity of the religious feeling underlying the prayer. Nevertheless, it may also be noticed that he who prays always aims first to gain the divine favour through his thanksgiving, in the hope that the gods may thereby be rendered more disposed to grant his request. Typical examples of this are to be found, not only in the Biblical Psalms, but also in the ancient Babylonian texts which recent discoveries have brought to light. That the prayer of thanksgiving is a higher form of prayer than is petition, is shown by the very fact that it occurs in deity cult alone. More clearly even than petition does thanksgiving presuppose a personal being, capable of appreciating the feeling of gratitude. It is at most in the fact that the prayer of thanksgiving still seeks to obligate the deity to future favours, that demon-conjuration has left its traces upon it. And yet deity cult is characterized precisely by the fact that the compulsion of magical conjuration has entirely disappeared in favour of the free volition of the deity. That prayer is regarded as imposing an obligation upon the god no less than upon man, is extremely well brought out in the conception thatthe relation of the two is that of a contract, or of a covenant sealed in the cult. This idea, reinforced by the national significance of the deity, is fundamental in the Jahve cult of the Israelites.
Praise, or, as it is called in its poetic forms, thehymn, is an even more pronounced feature of deity cult than is the prayer of thanksgiving. The hymn is not usually classified as a form of prayer because, when externally regarded, it may entirely lack the motive of petition, and it is from the latter that the prayer has derived its name. In view, however, of the continuity of the development of the cult forms which find expression in speech, we cannot escape including also the song of praise. Indeed, it generally adduces the blessings conferred by the god as an evidence of his glory; not infrequently, moreover, it concludes with a hope for the future favour of the deity. Artistically perfect examples of such prayers are the compositions known as the Homeric Hymns, which, of course, belong to a much later age than the Homeric epics. They are pæans in praise of Demeter, Apollo, Dionysos, and Hermes, in which the laudation of the beneficent activity of these deities takes the form of a recital of some incident in their lives, followed by a prospective glance at the favour which they may be expected to bestow in the future.
In these cases, the song of praise clearly represents a development of the prayer of thanksgiving. The final and most mature form of prayer, however, thepenitential prayer, or, as it is usually called, thepenitential psalm, may in a certain sense be called a subform of the petitional prayer. In it, either external need or the consciousness of personal guilt leads the individual to call upon the gods for mercy and for forgiveness of the committed sin. Typical examples are again available in the Hebraic and Babylonian psalms. These psalms contain, in the first instance, prayers of cult, which were offered on the occasion of national disasters and needs, such as crop failure or drought, or, as in the case particularly of the Israelites, were repeated at stated times in penitence for thesins of the community. Such being the motives, the most universal form of prayer, that of petition, may here also be discerned in the background. Not only is the penitential psalm in and for itself a particular form of petition, containing as it does a plea for the forgiveness of committed sins, but it is frequently combined with a direct prayer for the favour of the deity and for renewed manifestations of grace through a fortunate turn of destiny. In spite of this egoistic strain, however, which, just as in the case of the song of praise, is seldom absent, the penitential prayer is, religiously speaking, the highest form of prayer, and may be found only at an advanced stage of deity cult. Above all other forms of prayer, its emphasis falls on the inner life; where it comes to expression in its purity, it seeks not external goods, but only peace of conscience. Moreover, more than anywhere else, we find in it a resignation to the will of the deity. This resignation, in turn, draws its strength from the belief that human destiny is in the absolute control of the gods, everything experienced by the individual or by the cult community being interpreted as a divine punishment or reward. Thus, the penitential prayer is closely bound up, on the one hand, with the idea of a divine providence and, on the other, with ideas of retribution. Neither the idea of providence nor that of retribution is to be found in early deity cult; both are products of the subsequent religious development. Moreover, the issue is not changed by raising the question whether the retribution is regarded as occurring here or in the beyond. As a matter of fact, the retributive idea is far from being implicated with other-world hopes. The conviction that punishment will overtake the guilty man even in this world, because of the direct connection between present fortune and misfortune and the worship of the gods, is itself the immediate source of the idea of a divine power ever controlling the destinies of mankind.
In addition to prayer, however, and usually bound up with it, there is a second important form of cult practice, namely,sacrifice. The usual conception of sacrifice is altogethertoo narrow—just as is the case with prayer. Hence the origin and significance of sacrifice have been misunderstood. In view of one of its prominent features in the more highly developed cults, sacrifice is usually regarded as a gift to the deity, and the various meanings that a gift may have are then simply held to apply to sacrifice itself. Accordingly, the purpose of sacrifice is limited either to disposing the god favourably toward the sacrificing individual or community, or to obtaining forgiveness for committed sins. In the Priests' Code of the Israelites, this second form of sacrifice—the trespass or sin-offering—also served the former purpose, thus acquiring the significance of an act of reconciliation which at the same time blotted out any transgressions of the past. The sin-offering, on the other hand, was concerned with purification from a single, definite sin for which the forgiveness of the deity had to be obtained. The peace-offering, therefore, was a cult that was celebrated in common and on a specific day, whereas the sin-offering was brought only on special occasions, when an individual or a restricted group felt the burdens of conscience because of a committed sin. Corresponding to the different purposes indicated by the words 'reconciliation' and 'forgiveness' was the manner in which the sacrifice was brought. The peace-offering was taken to definitely established centres of cult, primarily to the temple at Jerusalem. Those bringing the sacrifice shared its enjoyment with the deity in the sacrificial meal, which was an expression of the covenant concluded with the deity for the future. The sin-offering was made whenever occasion demanded, and the sacrifice was designed for the deity alone. After the removal of the portion reserved for the priesthood, the remainder was burned—those making the sacrifice could enjoy none of it. If we regard both kinds of sacrifice as forms of gift, the peace-offering would correspond more closely to an actual gift with a certain tinge of bribery, though this conception is rendered less crude by the fact that the sacrifice represents also a covenant which receives expression in the sacrificial meal. The sin-offering,on the other hand, is more of the nature of a penalty, similar to that which a judge imposes in satisfaction of a crime.
It must be granted that there is a stage in the development of sacrificial cult in which the gift motive is dominant. Nevertheless, even here there are concomitant phenomena which clearly indicate that the sacrifice cannot originally have had the significance of a gift. On the contrary, there has been, in part, a change in meaning and, in part, an arbitrary reinterpretation of phenomena. The Jewish peace-offering was not a true gift. This is evidenced by the fact alone that one of its chief features was the sacrificial feast, which involved the idea of the deity's participation in the meal. In connection with this idea of communion with the deity, the offering of parts of the consumed sacrifice was manifestly only a secondary motive. Nor was the renunciation required of the sacrificer in connection with the Jewish sin-offering a feature which had anything in common with a gift. It was similar rather to punishment. Moreover, all resemblance whatsoever to a gift disappears when we call to mind the earliest forms of sacrifice, as well as the objects that were offered. One of the oldest sacrifices, found even within totemic culture, was that offered to the dead. In its broadest sense, this comprehends everything that was given over to the deceased, or that was burned with him, in case cremation was practised. Such objects originally included some of the belongings of the deceased, particularly his weapons and personal decorations. After despotic forms of government arose, the death of a chief or of a person of influence demanded also the sacrifice of his animals, slaves, and wives. We are already familiar with the change of motives that here occurred. At first, the aim was to keep the deceased from approaching the living; later, it was to equip him with whatever might be of service in his future life. The sacrifice then became an offering to the demon of the deceased, designed to win his aid for the living. Finally, it was devoted to the gods, whose favour was sought both for the deceased and for the survivors.A survey of the development as a whole shows that the gift motive was at first entirely lacking, and that even later it was of relatively little importance. The idea of magic was predominant. The aim was to bring the power of magic to bear upon the deceased and his demon, and finally upon the gods. The demon was to be kept at a distance, just as in the case of burial and of the binding of the corpse, and the gods were to be won over to a friendly attitude. This appears even more clearly when we consider the objects that were sacrificed. In this respect, there was an important change, first mediated, probably, by the cult of the dead, and thence carried over to sacrifice in general. The sacrificer offered such parts of his own body as were held to be the specific vehicles of the soul. Homer tells us that Achilles deposited the two locks of hair, which he had once promised to his native river god, upon the dead body of Patroclus. The use as a sacrifice to the dead of a gift dedicated to a god, clearly indicates that the two forms of sacrifice possessed an identical significance. The deceased takes with him into the underworld part of the person of the sacrificer. Similarly, it was believed that the psychical powers of the deity are, on the one hand, strengthened through the soul which he receives in sacrifice, and are, on the other hand, inclined toward the one who brings the offering. In animal sacrifice, the blood was poured out beside the sacrificial stone for the enjoyment of the god. Of the inner parts of the bloody sacrifice, it was again those that were in ancient times regarded as the chief vehicles of the soul, the kidneys with the surrounding fat, that were particularly set aside for the god. Closely connected with this is the sacrifice which, through self-mutilation, the priests and temple servants offered in the case of ecstatic cults (pp. 294 f.). In all of these instances the ideas of magic and of gift intermingle. The soul-vehicles which are offered are also gifts to the deity, intended for his enjoyment. In partaking of them, however, a magical influence is released by means of which the will of the deity is controlled, or, in the view of a more advanced age, is favourably inclined toward the sacrificer.The same idea prevails when public sacrifice demands a human being, instead of an animal, as a vicarious offering for the sacrificing community. Indeed, human sacrifice also has its prototype in the sacrifice to the dead, though the sacrificial idea is in this case kept in the background, inasmuch as the dominant purpose is to equip the deceased with that which he requires for his further life. Human sacrifice proper, therefore, is at most connected with faint survivals of this older practice. In contrast with the latter custom, the individual sacrificed to the deity serves as asubstitutefor the community. In this form, however, human sacrifice does not antedate animal sacrifice, as has been believed, but follows upon it. Still later, of course, it was again displaced by the latter, as is graphically portrayed in the Biblical legend of Abraham and Isaac. The priority of animal sacrifice is attested, first of all, by its incomparably wider distribution. Human sacrifice, and traditions indicative of it, appear to be altogether restricted to the great agricultural festivals and solstice-cults in which the one who is sacrificed serves, on the one hand, as a substitute for the sacrificing community which offers itself to the deity in his person, and, on the other hand, as the representative of the god himself. Convincing proof of this is furnished by the traditions regarding the seasonal cults of the ancient Mexicans, as these have been reported by K. Th. Preusz. Prior to the sacred festival at which an individual was offered in sacrifice, he was himself reverenced as a god. The twofold significance of the human sacrifice becomes perfectly intelligible in the light of the above-mentioned fusion of the ideas of gift and of magic. Dedication to the deity and union with him merge so completely that they become a single conception. Even the blood poured out upon the sacrificial altar was not merely an offering, but, as a vehicle of the soul, was supposed to transfer to the deity who received it the desires of the offerer. What was true of the blood was quite naturally pre-eminently true when the object of sacrifice was the person himself.In this case, all the organs were offered, and, therefore, the entire soul. This is the most extreme form of the sacrificial idea, and occurs only in the sacrificial cult of fairly large political and religious communities. As is characteristic of legend, the 'Abraham and Isaac' story individualizes the ancient tradition, construing the latter as an account of a test of obedience to the god—an interpretation very obviously to be regarded as an invention of later priestly wisdom. On the other hand, the Roman Saturnalia, the Persian festival of Sacæa, and other agricultural cults of the ancient world, exhibit traces of the sacrifice of a human being who represents the deity himself. Along with these we might probably mention also the Babylonian festival of Tammuz and the Jewish feast of Purim. Finally, the Christian conception of the sacrificial death of Jesus combines the same ideas, though their religious significance is transformed and reinforced by the thought of redemption, which has displaced the older protective and fortune-bringing magic. The sacrificial community has here become the whole of mankind, and the one who by his death brings about a reconciliation with the deity is himself the god. For this reason dogma insists—with a logic that is perhaps unconscious and mystical in nature, yet all the more compelling—on the unity of the divine personality with that of the redeemer who died the sacrificial death. This fusion of sacrificial conceptions thus gave rise to the most impressive and effective story that the human mind ever conceived.
Herewith we reach the culminating point in the development of the idea of a gift offered to the deity, and here also the sacrificial object attains its highestworth. That the sacrificer, however, is little concerned with the value of the objects which he brings, is obvious from the fact that these are frequently without any objective value whatsoever. Such, for example, are the small pictures offered in Chinese ancestor cult, and also the miniature representations of desired objects which are placed on votive altars—instances in which, of the two ideas combined in sacrifice, that of the gift again entirely vanishes, leaving as the solemotive the more primitive idea of magic, which never completely disappears. Wherever sacrifice is dominated by the idea of a gift offered to the deity, the sacrificer, in turn, seeks to gain certain ends in return for the value of his gifts. The scale of values may be either quantitative or qualitative, or both combined. Even in the case of the bloody sacrifice both criteria are, as a rule, involved. At the great festivals of Athens and other Greek cities, one hundred steers were sacrificed to the gods, the greater part of the sacrifice, of course, serving as food for the people. In Israel, the rich man sacrificed his bullock, the poor man, his young goat. It was the conception of value that caused especially the fruits of the field, as well as the products of the cattle industry, milk and butter, to become objects of sacrifice. Later, sacrificial offerings were also made in terms of jewels and money. These were brought to the temple for the decoration of the house of the god and for the support of the cult or the relief of the poor. This development was influenced by another change, connected with the transition from the earlier bloody sacrifice to the bloodless sacrifice. Prior to the influence of the sacrificial customs, the bloody sacrifice involved the loss of the sacrificial animals. These were either entirely burned and thus given to the gods, or their flesh was consumed by the cult members at the sacrificial feast, the god receiving only those parts that were prized as the vehicles of the soul. Now, bloodless sacrifice belongs to a higher stage both of culture and of cult. In general, it presupposes an advanced agricultural and cattle industry, as well as the existence of more extensive cult-needs whose satisfaction the sacrifice is designed to secure. Thus, the two conditions mutually reinforce each other. The products of agriculture cannot be directly offered to the deity as can the burnt offering, which ascends to heaven in the smoke. On the other hand, the cult cannot dispense with certain means, and these are obtained by utilizing in its interests the economic foresight which has been acquired by the agriculturist and the cattle-raiser in the course of their work. In place ofthe direct products of husbandry, the succeeding age more and more substitutes costly jewels and money. Thus, the development which began with the burnt offering concludes with the money offering. This later offering is no longer made directly to the deity, or, at most, this occurs in the accompanying prayer; the offerer bestows his gifts upon the temple, the priests, or the poor. By so doing he hopes to win the divine favour indirectly, through the merit which such gifts possess or through the cult activities which are purchased by means of them.
The earliest forms of sacrifice are thus more and more displaced by cult agencies which, to a certain extent, themselves approximate to purification ceremonies. This transformation, however, cannot suppress the original sacrificial purpose, which was solely that of exercising a direct magical influence upon the deity. We now meet with phenomena in which this purpose asserts itself all the more potently, because of the above development—phenomena from which the idea of a gift possessing objective value is entirely absent. We refer particularly to votive and consecration gifts. These very names, indeed, are evidence of the confusion which a one-sided emphasis of the gift-idea has introduced into the interpretation of sacrifice. For votive and consecration gifts generally consist of artificial objects which are ordinarily devoid of any artistic or other value. They are deposited on the altars of the gods, or, in the Catholic cult, on those of the saints, either to make known a wish, as does the 'gift of consecration,' or, less frequently, to render thanks for the fulfilment of a desire, as in the case of the 'votive offering.' Although these offerings, even in their beginnings, are inseparable from a fairly developed deity cult—since they presuppose altars upon which they are placed, and, therefore, temples consecrated to the gods—it is practically the amulet alone that may be said to rival them in extent of distribution. They occur in ancient Egypt, as well as in Greece and Rome. They were known also to Germanic antiquity, from whence they probably found their way into the Catholic cults of Maryand the saints. The consecration gift corresponds to the prayer of petition, the votive offering to the prayer of thanksgiving; these prayers, accordingly, are spoken when the object is placed upon the altar. The gift of consecration is the earlier and more common, just as the prayer of petition precedes that of thanksgiving. The peculiarity of this cult, however, consists in the fact that the object offered as a sacrifice is an artificially fashioned image, usually reduced in size, of the object in connection with which aid is sought. This obviously gives it a certain relationship with the fetish, on the one hand, and with the amulet, on the other. As a matter of fact, the so-called 'consecration gifts' are not in the least real gifts. The sick man presents a figure of the diseased part of his body, fashioned of clay, bronze, or wax, and the peasant who has suffered a loss of cattle brings a representation of the animal. In themselves, these objects are valueless; nor can they be of service to the deity to whom they are brought, as was doubtless believed by the sacrificers to be true in the case of the animal that was slaughtered, as well as of the blood, and doubtless also of the fruits which were offered. The significance of such a gift of consecration lies solely in its subjective value, just as does that of the primitive amulet, which is likewise an article without any objective worth. To believe, however, that this value consists in the fact that the consecration gift symbolizes the submissive reverence of the offerer would be to read back a later stage of religious thought into an age to which such symbols are entirely foreign. Moreover, the purposes of this sacrifice make such an interpretation impossible. The vast majority of consecration sacrifices have another similarity to amulets, in addition to that just mentioned; those who bring them seek healing from disease. Hence, in ancient times, such offerings were brought chiefly to the temple of Æsculapius. Just as the amulet, in its most common forms, is designed as a protection against dreaded sicknesses, so also does the consecration gift aim at relief from actual suffering. The amulet, however, may be traced far back into the period of demon-cult, and itscharacteristic types, therefore, are patterned on the more prevalent expressions of demon-belief, such as cord magic. The consecration gift, on the other hand, is associated with deity cult, and takes the form of sacrifice. Moreover, it reverts to the most primitive kind of sacrifice, to the purely magical offering. The leg of wax offered by the lame is simply a means of magic. Since it possesses no objective value, it is worthless as a gift, and, as a means of magic, it is again of the most primitive sort. The sacrificial object is regarded as having a soul, quite in the sense of early animism. Through its immanent psychical power it is to exercise magical coercion over the soul of the god or the saint. Its potency is precisely the same as that which the soul of the sacrificial animal or human being is supposed to possess. The only difference is that the external characteristics of animistically conceived objects ordinarily force into the background the idea that the sacrifice magically becomes identical with the deity who receives it, whereas this conception comes out with especial clearness when the offering consists of an animal or of a human being. This is strikingly shown by the above-mentioned sacrificial festivals, in which, prior to being offered as a sacrifice, the individual was himself reverenced as the god to whom he was to be offered. True, the fact that the human individual, as well as the animal, possesses a value for those who bring the sacrifice, also introduces the idea of a gift; added to this, moreover, in the case of human sacrifice, is the further thought that the sacrifice is a substitution for the sacrificial community.
Thus, the idea of a magical effect upon the deity is combined with that of a gift designed to gain his favour. This appears also in connection with the sacrifice of thefirst-fruits of the harvestor, with what is only a transference from the fruits of the field to the animal used in its cultivation, that of the first-born of the cattle. From the standpoint of the gift theory, such an offering is regarded as a particularly valuable gift. But this greater value is again exclusively of a subjective nature. Objectivelyspeaking, the mere fact that it is the first of the fruits or the first-born of the cattle that is offered, does not give the sacrifice any additional value. Very probably the decisive factor is the preference which man gives the gods in the enjoyment of the fruits of the field. It certainly cannot be denied that this motive is operative, particularly in later development. That it was the original notion, however, is improbable. Obviously, this offering is closely related to the custom, common even to-day, of leaving the last sheaf in the harvest-field. This custom, which W. Mannhardt was able to trace from ancient times down to rural festivals that are still prevalent, is also of the nature of a sacrifice. On such occasions, an egg, a piece of bread, or the picture of a human being or of an animal, is sometimes tied to the first or to the last sheaf of the harvest and left upon the field. Such acts are obviously due to the need of attributing to the garnered grain life and a soul, as well as the ability to influence by its soul the vegetation demons of the field, and, in later times, the gods who protect the cultivated soil. The custom could scarcely have originated except for the presence, from the very outset, of the idea of a psychical power resident in the sprouting seed. Later, the idea of a gift here also forced the magical motive into the background. Indeed, it may well be that this caused the sacrificial usages which originally, as it appears, marked the end of the harvest, to be put forward to its beginning.
It is only ideas of magic, furthermore, that can account for the practice ofdivination. Connected with sacrifice are various phenomena that are accidental in nature and unforeseeable on the part of the sacrificer. These phenomena are such as to be sometimes regarded as indications of the acceptance or the rejection of the sacrifice on the part of the deity, while at other times they are interpreted from a different point of view, as general prophetic signs. In the case of the burnt offering, for example, the direct ascent of the smoke to the heavens was regarded as a sign that the deity graciously accepted the offering. Similarly, the examination of entrails, common among Oriental as well as Occidentalpeoples, originally, doubtless, had the purpose of discovering whether the animal possessed a nature pleasing to the gods. Later, however, it became one of a large class of general prophetic signs (prodigia), such as the flight of birds, lightning, clouds, and other incalculable phenomena of nature by which the future was predicted, particularly in respect to the success or failure of enterprises about to be undertaken. Because of the general relationship of magic and divination, the sacrificial cult borders upon theoracle. In the oracle, man wishes to read the future; in the sacrifice, he wishes to influence it by his action. This of itself implies that sacrifice occupies the higher plane. The belief in prophetic signs passed over from demon cult to deity worship with relatively little change, except that it became connected with particular gods or priesthoods and was therefore more strictly regulated. The hopes of a beyond, which were involved in the ecstatic practices of the orgiastic cults, opened up a new field to prophecy, and supplied divination with additional methods—the dream and the vision. Though connected in various ways with sacrificial cult, these phenomena are far from containing the wealth of religious motives involved in the former. Nor do they develop any common cult. This is due particularly to the fact that ecstatic visions are dependent upon a certain psychological predisposition, a fact which also enables us to understand the influence exercised by the individual seer and prophet upon religion and cult.
A third, and the highest, form of cult practice consists insanctification ceremonies. Just as sacrifice is bound up with the various forms of prayer—conjuration, petition, thanksgiving, and penitence—so, in turn, is the sanctification ceremony closely connected with both sacrifice and prayer. On the one hand, it is reinforced by accompanying prayers; on the other, it results directly from sacrifice, particularly whenever the latter takes the form of a cult practice that brings mankind into association with the deity. In this event, the ceremony of sanctification represents an activity supplementary to sacrifice. The impulse to sanctificationgains the dominance over the sacrificial idea as soon as the desires relating to the personal worth of the sacrificer himself gain ascendancy over the external motives which at first prevailed. This subjective interest, of course, appears only after the religious life has become relatively mature; at the outset, moreover, it is still everywhere combined with sacrificial practices that centre about external possessions. Once it has finally freed itself, and has become purely a sacrifice designed to enhance personal worth, it becomes ameans of sanctification. When sacrifice has reached this highest stage, however, the idea of a gift presented to the deity by the sacrificer completely disappears—in so far, there is a resemblance to the very earliest sacrifices, which were of a purely magical nature and were in no sense intended as gifts. If, therefore, the sacrifice of self-sanctification retains any connection at all with the conception of a gift, the sacrificer must not only be said to offer himself to the deity but the deity must likewise be regarded as giving himself to the sacrificer.
Nevertheless, the origins of sanctification ceremonies and of sacrifice are essentially diverse. At the outset, moreover, these cult practices adopt different paths, meeting only at the height of their development. True, the sanctification ceremony is rooted in magic belief, just as is sacrifice. In primitive sacrifice, however, the magic is directed externally; in the case of sanctification, on the other hand, the object of the magic is the human being himself who performs the cult action or who permits it to be performed upon him. Even in the earliest stages of these practices, therefore, the sanctification ceremony occupies the higher level; hence, also, this ceremony is subsequent in origin to sacrifice. And yet practices presaging sanctification may be found in much more primitive cults, in thepurification ceremonies, whose beginnings may be traced far back into the totemic age. We have already mentioned the fact that water and fire were used as means of magical purification even in the period of demon-belief (pp. 201 ff). So long as they retain this significance, they may both be classed asagencies of counter-magic. Their function is to counteract the evil spells that result from contact with a corpse or with some other object that is regarded as taboo. Purification by fire has the same significance. Because of the more elaborate preparations which it requires, however, such purification tends, from the very beginning, to take the form of a public cult celebration. As a result, it passes over directly from the field of counter-magic into that of magic proper—a reversal common in the field of magical usage. At this point, purification becomes sanctification. For, the original purpose of the means which the latter employs is always that of affording protection againstfutureattacks on the part of the demoniacal powers that threaten man from without, or, in a later and a religiously purified interpretation, against personal transgressions resulting from man's inner nature. Herewith the development reaches the stage of the sanctification ceremony proper. The belief that sanctification is necessary for the individual can arise only in connection with deity beliefs, for it is bound up with ideas of retribution. The latter, in turn, depend upon the feeling of the personal guilt of the individual no less than upon the belief in the existence of personal gods who avenge the sins that are committed. Precisely the same change that takes place in the development of purification by fire transpires also in the case of water, the second and more common means of lustration. Here this transition is most clearly evident in connection withbaptism. True, even Christian baptism still partly retains the idea of lustration. For, though the newborn child who is baptized is not himself conscious of any wrongdoing, he is nevertheless tainted, according to the doctrine of inherited guilt, by the original sin from which he must be cleansed. Baptism thus incorporates the meaning both of purification and of sanctification. The latter conception, however, asserts its dominance. And yet the Anabaptists, though insisting that man is unworthy of the sacred act unless he submits to it of his own free will, have also wished to preserve, along with the idea of sanctification, the idea of purification, whichis both more original and, for sense perception, more real. Moreover, baptism also occurs with this twofold meaning outside the pale of Christianity, not only among the Hebrews, to whom the Christian religion is indebted for the cult, but even elsewhere, particularly among Semitic and African peoples. Sometimes it occurs alongside of another very common custom, that ofcircumcision; sometimes, as in Christendom, it is found where the latter is lacking; in still other regions, circumcision is practised, whereas there is no real baptism aside from the ordinary rites of lustration. This diversity itself testifies to the essential difference between the two cult practices—for that circumcision also must be classed as such there cannot be any doubt. Circumcision, however, is not a means either of purification or of sanctification, but is of the nature of asacrifice. Along with the offering of hair in the cult of the dead and with the pouring out of blood in connection with deity worship, it belongs to that form of sacrifice in which the sacrificial object gains its unique value by virtue of its being the vehicle of the soul. Thus, the object of sacrifice, in the case of circumcision, may perhaps be interpreted as a substitute for such internal organs as the kidneys or testicles, which are particularly prized as vehicles of the soul but which can either not be offered at all, on the part of the living, or whose sacrifice involves serious difficulties.