THE PANORAMA OF RELIGIONS

Twice in the history of the world has it been possible to survey a wide panorama of religions, and twice has the interest of travellers, men of science, and students of philosophy, been attracted by the immense variety of worships and beliefs. In the second century of our era the Roman Empire embraced an extraordinary range of nationalities within its sway. In the twentieth the whole history of the human race has been thrown open to the explorer, and an overwhelming mass of materials from every land confronts him. It may be worth while to take a hasty glance at the chief groups of facts that are thus disclosed, and make a sort of map of their relations.

I

The scientific curiosity of the ancient Greeks was early awakened, and Thales of Miletus (624-546 B.C.), chief of the seven "wise men," and founder of Greek geometry and philosophy, was believed to have studied under the priests of Egypt, as well as to have visited Asia and become acquainted with the Chaldean astronomy. Still more extensive travel was attributed to his younger contemporary Pythagoras, whose varied learning was explained in late traditions by his sojourn east and west, among the Persian Magi, the Indian Brahmans, and the Druids of Gaul. The first great record of observations is contained in the History of Herodotus of Halicarnassus on the coast of Asia Minor. Born in 484 B.C., six years after Marathon, and four years old when the Greeks put Xerxes to flight at Salamis, he devoted his maturity to the record of the great international struggle. Hither and thither he passed, collecting information, an eager student of human things. In Egypt he compared the gods with those of Greece, and attempted to distinguish two sets of elements in Hellenic religion, Egyptian and Pelasgic. He left notes on the Babylonians and the Persians, on the Scythians in the vast tracts east of northern Europe, on the Getæ south of the Danube.

When the conquests of Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) threw open the gates of Asia, a stream of travellers passed into Persia and India, whose reports were utilised by the geographers of later days. The religion of Zoroaster, whose name was already known to Plato, attracted great attention. At the court of Chandragupta on the Ganges, at the opening of the third century B.C., Megasthenes, the ambassador of Seleucus (who had succeeded to the dominions of Alexander in Asia), set down brief memoranda on the usages and belief of the Hindus among whom he resided. Nearer home the representatives of Mesopotamian and Egyptian learning commended their national cultures to their conquerors. Berosus, priest of Bel in Babylon, translated into Greek a Babylonian work on astronomy and astrology, and compiled a history of his country from ancient documents; while his contemporary, Manetho, of Sebennytus in the Nile Delta, undertook a similar service for his native land.

Meanwhile the great library and schools at Alexandria had been founded. Hither came students from many lands; and the Christian fathers Eusebius and Epiphanius in the fourth century attributed to the librarian of the royal patron of literature, Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), the design of collecting the sacred books of the Ethiopians, Indians, Persians, Elamites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Romans, Phœnicians, Syrians, and Greeks. The Jews had settled in Alexandria in considerable numbers; they began to translate their Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, and little by little they planted their synagogues all round the Eastern Mediterranean, and finally established their worship in Rome. The Egyptian deities in their turn went abroad. The worship of Serapis was introduced at Athens. Isis, the sister-wife of Osiris and mother of Horus, goddess of many functions—among others of protecting sailors—was carried round the Levant to Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and as far north as the Hellespont and Thrace. Westwards she was borne to Sicily and South Italy. In due time she entered Rome, and in spite of senatorial orders five times repeated (in the first century B.C.), to tear down her altars and statues, she secured her place, and received homage all through the West from the outskirts of the Sahara to the Roman wall north of our own Tyne.

The introduction of Greek gods had begun centuries before. As early as 493 B.C., at a time of serious famine, a temple had been built to Demeter, Dionysus, and Persephonê; many others followed; resemblances among the native gods quickly led to identifications; and new forms of worship tended to displace the old. After another crisis (206 B.C.) the "Great Mother," Cybelê, the Phrygian goddess of Mount Ida, was imported. The black aerolite which was supposed to be her abode, was presented by King Attalus to the ambassadors of the Roman senate. The goddess was solemnly welcomed at the Port of Ostia, and was ultimately carried by noble Roman ladies on to the Palatine hill.

The history of later days was full of notes upon religion. Cæsar interspersed them among the narratives of his campaigns in Gaul; Tacitus drew on his recollections as an officer in active service for his description of the Germans. There was as yet no literature in Wales or Ireland to embody the Celtic traditions; and the Scandinavian Saga was unborn. But the geographers, like Strabo (first century A.D.), collected a great deal of material that must have been gathered ultimately from travellers, soldiers, traders, and slaves. A wise and gentle philosophic Greek, Plutarch of Chæronea in Bœotia (A.D. 46-120), student at the university of Athens, lecturer on philosophy at Rome, and finally priest of Pythian Apollo in his native city, is at home in many religions. Beside altars to the Greek gods Dionysus, Herakles, and Artemis, in his own streets, were those of the Egyptian Isis and Anubis. The treatise on Isis and Osiris (commonly ascribed to him) is an early essay in comparative religion. In the latter half of the second century the traveller Pausanias passes through Greece, describing its sacred sites, noting its monuments, recording mythological traditions, and observing archaic rites. In this fascinating guide-book to religious practice are survivals of ancient savagery, still lingering at country shrines, set down with curious unconsciousness of their significance. The historical method is as yet only in its infancy. But Pausanias rightly discerned that its first business is to know the facts.

In Rome, where ritual tradition held its ground with extraordinary tenacity amid the decay of belief, Marcus Terentius Varro, renowned for his wide learning (116-28 B.C.), devoted sixteen books of his great treatise on Antiquities to "Divine Things." Like so many other precious works of ancient literature it has disappeared, but its contents are partly known through its use by St. Augustine in his famous work on "The City of God." Following a division of the gods by the chief pontiff Mucius Scævola, he treated religion under three heads. In the form presented by the poets' tales of the gods it was mythical. Founded by the philosophers upon nature (physis) it was physical. As administered by priests and practised in cities it was civil. It was an old notion that religion was a legal convention imposed by authority for purposes of popular control; and Varro does not disdain to declare it expedient that States should be deceived in such matters. This police-notion long regulated public custom, and tended to render the identification of deities presenting superficial resemblances all the more easy.

By this time the origin of the term "religion" had begun to excite interest, as its meaning began slowly to change. Varro's contemporaries, Cicero (106-43 B.C.) and Lucretius (about 97-53), discussed its