Heathenism

HEATHENISM.

Terms Employed (� 1).
Classification of Religions (� 2).
The Deities of Polytheism (� 3).
Development of Polytheism (� 4).
Mythology and StanWorship (� 5).

Animism Distinguished from Polytheism (1 6).

Shamanism and Fetishism (� 7).

The Old Testament employs the word goyim ("peoples," "nations"; E. V. "Gentiles," "heathen," "nations") as a designation of all peoples other than the chosen one, and uses it in a religious sense. Other nations of antiquity had similar designations for peoples of other faiths, but these had only ethnic or national significance, such as the barbaroi of the Greeks, or the airya or arya by which Indians and Iranians distinguished themselves from others. A name for other peoples founded upon religious differences alone is peculiar to the Jews. The usage of the Old Testament passed over into the New Testament and into the Latin and Gothic versions, where ethne, gentes, thiedos were employed to designate the followers of false religions. In later Latin usage the word paganus ("pagan") came to be applied to those who retained the old faith as distinct from the Christian majority, though the original sense of the word may have been simply "civilian" as opposed to "military;" and it had later the meaning "rustic" or "countryman" (cf. Gothic haithns). In Germany since the time of Luther the term Heide ("heathen") has been much used to name all religions except Judaism and Christianity. These two religions are historically connected, and are regarded as the true religions or religions of revelation. As a rule, Islam is now also admitted to the category of religions of revelation, but is still regarded as false.

In the classification of religions another mark has been used to distinguish the three religions named from all others, namely monotheism. Yet it has to be noted that monotheism was developed in the Hebrew faith, and is a tendency in all polytheistic religions. In all polytheistic faiths there are elements which make for monotheism, and the same is true even of animistic religions. Indeed, in most religions there have been efforts made to discover unity in the midst of diversity and plurality, though these attempts have failed to gain the mastery, and where even small success has attended them it has been confined to narrow circles. Moreover, these attempts toward unity have developed not monotheism so much as pantheism. But religions may be classified as mono- theistic or non-monotheistic, and the term heathen is applied to the latter. The question has been raised whether, among the heathen religions, Buddhism is to be singled out as furnishing another category-atheistic religions, to which a negative answer is returned on the ground that neither in origin nor in development is Buddhism atheistic, though the true disciple is wholly independent of gods and need not worship them. Heathen religions are further distinguished by the character of their objects of worship into polytheistic and animistic. Polytheistic religions are those of the advanced peoples of culture, such as the. Semitic and Indo-Germanic races and other groups of the Old and the New World. Animistic religions are to be distinguished as they reveal fetishism, in which the spirits worshiped are closely connected with material objects; or shamanism, in which the spirits are elemental. In both religions there is worship of souls, and especially of the dead, whose souls are thought to have power for good and evil over the living. The boundary between soul and spirit can not be sharply drawn. Animistic religions lay stress upon magic, i.e., the power of making the spirits serve the will of man.

Most modern investigators of religions, excepting Roman Catholic scholars, connect animism and polytheism as two stages of a development; worship of souls and spirits precedes that of gods. The lofty abstract idea of "god" is not a product of the lower culture either in cult or language. First comes faith in spirits, then polydemonism, then polytheism, and then, in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,

179
monotheism. Yet the conception and the expres sion "god" is earlier than the polytheistic systems historically known. The culture of 3. The the Indo-Germanic peoples before Deities their separation was certainly higher of than that of many tribes of the present, Polytheism. and they already had the word (and therefore the conception). Indeed, be sides the word deva in its various forms, Persians and Slavs had the form baga or bogu, " lord," while Indians and Iranians had asura, ahura, "the living."

Semitic peoples had several names for "god," the most common of which was el or it (see ELomm), the etymology of which is uncertain, while "lord" or " king " was used both for " god " and " God."

Similarly the civilization of Central America had an expression for "god." But in these cases it can not be determined what the original conception was, though the probability is that it expressed not so much the being of deity as the relation of that deity to man; it was not abstract, but concrete, denoting a personal power upon which man felt himself dependent, yet possessing the ability to approach.

Sometimes this appears as the relation of lord and subject; again the expression implies participation in the forms of nature, as in the case of deva, " light,"

which brings out the contrast employed in Indo

Germanic and other religions between light and darkness. Yet the material for adequate knowledge is lacking, as Indo-Germanic language has furnished few words which can be accepted as original names of deities; indeed the Sanskrit Dyaus pitar, Gk.

Zeus patter, Lat. Juppiter or Diespiler are almost alone, and express the idea of the heaven-god. In other religions also the god of the heaven appears to be the earliest, and in later times the chief deity.

The original Indo-Germanic deities must have been few, though comparison of Iranian and Indian con ceptions shows a larger number common to both, but with many changes introduced. Dyaus is in India replaced by Varuna, in Persia by Ahura Mazda, " the living " or " wise lord," and alongside this highest god in both countries are six other deities closely connected with him. In historic times all the Indo-Germanic peoples developed rich pantheons which included not only nature deities, but personifications of ethical and religious ideas.

Even in the Vedas the original nature sources of some of the deities are partly forgotten in an ethical or religious relationship, and this is true of the other branches of the family in historic times. Even in the case of original nature deities it may not be held that that was the only idea present and that no ethical re lations were conceived; indeed the ethical was often a result of the phase of natural relationship to the world represented by a particular deity, as in the case of a god of light who battled with the powers of darkness.

Polytheism seems to have come about through gaining in nature a conception of deity followed by a differentiation of natural phenomena 4. Develop- and specialization of functions of the ment of powers conceived as producing them. Polytheism. This is confirmed by the fact that, often several gods are found connected with the same phenomena, as when in India, Surya, Pushan, Vishnu, Tvashtar, Savitar, and Vivasvant are all connected with the sun. Further development comes in the unfolding of purely ethical conceptions into deities which had no relationship to natural phenomena. It has been objected to this that such a development would lead to the worship of all the gods of a circle in any given place or time, whereas historically, as among the Greeks, only certain of the gods were honored in any one city. Then polytheism is the result of a syncretism of varied cults brought about through extraneous political or other circumstances, which later involved a partition of the realms of nature among the several deities. But comparison shows that the condition in historic times among Greeks, Slavs, Egyptians, Babylonians, and others was due to differentiation in an original system of deities. The first tendency of polytheism then is not toward monotheism, but away from it. Purely ethical ideas of the being of the gods are not a consequence of polytheism, but rather exist in spite of it. Religious feeling demanded of its gods omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, righteousness, and holiness, attributes which the cults show were originally given to them, for the possibility of a cult is dependent upon the omnipresence of the deity, through which men can have access to him. And so with the other attributes of deity. The religious mode of viewing things appears in the fact that to the highest god absolute deity is attributed, while many times the other deities are creations. Polytheism seems to reveal not a development to higher views, but a coarsening of conceptions. Most polytheistic religions set apart special places for the worship of deities through sacred symbols or images. Originally these were but external expressions of the presence of deity, but for the majority they became deity itself, and were so worshiped, examples of which are given in the image-worship of Roman Catholic peoples, among Greeks and Romans of the first century of our era, and in modern Brahmanism. Sacrifice, originally an expression of dependence, became a means of magic, and the entire cult is hardly distinguishable from fetishism and shamanism.

A further matter of importance is the development of myth in the polytheistic religions. Myth is the setting forth of occurrences and opera s. Mythology tions of nature in the guise of the and events and happenings of divine or Star- semidivine persons, so far as these Worship. have religious meanings, or at least are brought into connection with religious conceptions and usages (see Comparative Religion, VI., 1, a, §§ 7-8). Myth is not to be confused with the saga, which often means what has developed out of the myth, and has to do with heroes rather than with deities. The myth is generally an article of faith, which the saga is not, at least in the religious sense. The characteristic of the myth is its anthropomorphism carried over to the domain of nature, so that operations in that sphere appear as the acts of persons with the feeling and niethods of men, as when the storm is pictured as the battle of a deity with the cloud-demons. Myth stands in close relationship with polytheism, and has undergone the same development; as the gods

180
lost their old nature-connection, so with the myths. Hence they speak of the acts and lot of a deity in which, as a rule, the deity does not act from a relig ious motive, and are so far subversive of religious ideas. Original myths often bear the unmistakable marks of their origin in the -operations of nature, later they are put forth often as historical doings. A distinction is to be made between those in which deities are the actors and those in which elemental spirits appear. Modern theory regards these as stages, but probably both stood side by side in the beginning. Star-worship (see Stars), which is almost a specialty of Semites, is not an original form of polytheism, but came in late through the iden tification of certain stars with individual deities. Traces of these are found in the Avesta. The two forms of animism (see Comparative Religion, VI., 1, a, §§ 1-4), Fetishism and shamanism (qq.v.), have in common that they deaLaet with gods, but with spirits, as objects of worship. 6. Animism Spirits are distinguished from gods Dis- chiefly by their number. Developed tinguished polytheism has only a limited number from of deities, while the spirits of animism Polytheism. are innumerable. These last are for the most part without names, only those credited with being most powerful having this distinction. In general these spirits have nothing to do with creation, though there may be a great spirit to whom this function is ascribed. They are also not ethical in influence, since prohibition is the essence of the law they give. A second distinction between polytheism and animism is that gods are thought of as beneficent; maleficent deities are not original, but the result of a secondary development. The spirits of animism are, on the contrary, by nature maleficent. Consequently the purpose of the cult is different. The purpose in polytheism is to bespeak the good-will of deity, or to regain his favor when that has been forfeited through a fault. In animism the cult has the aim of averting un toward action of spirits or of bending that action through magic to the will of man. Generally in polytheism the worshiper does not need the inter cession of the priest; in animism this help is neces sary, since the priest alone knows the means of using the magic. The hypothesis that the origin of religion was fear of unknown powers would be justified if animism were shown to be the original form of religion. But historical proof of this is lacking, since nowhere is it apparent that poly theism has developed from animism. Indeed, the shamanism of the Finns implies an early polytheism, which is probably of equally ancient standing. Fre quently among polytheistic peoples there is in use a magic which is decidedly animistic together with reminiscences of fetishism. This is often explained as the evidence of an earlier animism and fetishism out of which polytheism has developed, but without sufficient grounds. The charms of India and Baby lon are polytheistic, and can be no older than the belief in gods. Shamanism, the worship of elemental spirits or of the souls of the dead, is best known among the Turanian peoples of Asia, America, and Australia. Special manifestations of this are the Totemism

(see Comparative Religion, VI., 1, b, §§ 2-6) of North American Indians and the Taboo (see Comparative Religion, VI., 1, c, §§ y. Shaman- 1-3) of South Sea Islanders. By a ism and totem is meant an animal or a Fetishism. -plant from which a stock or a family is said to have sprung, which also acts as protector of the stock, while in turn the individuals of the totem family are worshiped. Taboo is found chiefly among Polynesians, and denotes prohibition of certain things or localities for common use because belonging to spirits. It has an important influence upon social relations. Fetishism, which is confined to Africa, is religious veneration of an object regarded as the home of spirits. The two chief forms of animism can not be entirely separated the one from the other; outside of the worship of spirits, both have the use of magic, soothsaying, and the worship of departed spirits. Shamanism has many fetishistic elements. Upon ethical conceptions these religions have no influence.

The designation of heathen religions as poly theistic, shamanistic, and fetishistic is based upon the expression of these in terms of cult; it does not imply that the entire religious thought and feeling of the peoples who employ them is expressed. Poly theism, it has been shown, often contains elements of lower form; animism has also indications of higher forms; but in each case these do not change the total character of the religion in question. Numerous remains are found in Christianity of the older heathenism, and they are classed under the name of superstitions. For a different view of the subject see Comparative Religion; see also articles on the different forms of heathen religions (Fetishism; Polytheism; Shamanism, etc.), ar ticles on particular religions (Brahmanism; Buddhism; etc.), and articles on heathen lands (China; India; etc.).

(B. Lindner.)

Bibliography: A. Wuttke, Geschichte des Heidenthume, Breslau, 1852-53; T. Waits, Anthropologie der Naturn61 ker, Leipsic, 1858-72; %. Werner, Die Religionen and Bulte des roorchriatlichen Heidenthums, Sebaffhauseu, 1871; A. Pesch, Der Goueebegriff in den heidniacAen Retigionen des Altertuma, Freiburg, 1885; idem, Der Gouesbegri# in den heidniaden Religionen der Neuzeit, ib. 1888; J. Vi, son, Les Religions actuelles, Paris, 1887; A. C. Kruyt, Animieme in den Indischen Arehiped, The Hague, 1908; A. Bros, La Religion des peuples non cicilisfa, Paris, 1907; and particularly the literature given under COMPARATIVE RELIGION, where the subject is fully treated.