Chapter II · Statement of the Problem and the Evidence.

The subject I have chosen for this course may appear over-ambitious; and the attempt to pass critical judgment upon the facts that arise in this wide comparative survey may be thought premature. For not only is the area vast, but large tracts of it are still unexplored, while certain regions have yielded materials that are ample and promising, but of which the true interpretation has not yet been found. We have, for instance, abundant evidence flowing in with ever-increasing volume of the Sumerian-Babylonian religion, but only a portion of the cuneiform texts has as yet been authoritatively translated and made available for the service of Comparative Religion. The Hittite monuments are witnesses of primary value concerning Hittite religion: but the Hittite script may reveal much more that is vital to our view of it, and without the help of that script we are not sure of the exact interpretation of those religious monuments; but though we have recently heard certain encouraging expressions of hope, the master-word has not yet been found that can open the door to this buried treasure of knowledge. And again, the attempt to gauge accurately the relation and the indebtedness of Greek religion to that of the near East cannot be wholly successful, until we know more of the Minoan-Mycenaean religion; and our hope hangs here partly on the discovery of more monuments, but mainly, I am convinced, on the decipherment of the mysterious Minoan writing, to which great achievement Sir Arthur Evans’ recent work on the Scripta Minoa is a valuable contribution. Therefore the time is certainly not yet ripe for a final and authoritative pronouncement on the great questions that I am venturing upon in this course.

Now there ought to be no prejudice a priori against such a theory, which stands on a different footing from what I may call the Vedic fallacy: and it is childish to allow to the Aryan, or any other racial bias, any malignant influence in these difficult discussions. Those who have worked for years upon the marvellously rich records of Mesopotamian culture, whether at first hand or, like myself, at second hand, cannot fail to receive the deepest impression of its imperial grandeur and its forceful vitality, and of its intensity of thought and purpose in the sphere of religion. Naturally, they may feel, such spiritual power must have radiated influence far and wide over the adjacent lands; and no one could maintain that South-Eastern Europe was too remote to have been touched, perhaps penetrated, by it. For we know that, under certain conditions, the race-barrier falls down before the march of a conquering and dominating religion. And now, in the new light of a wider historical survey, instead of saying, as once was said, “What is more its own than a people’s gods?” we may rather ask, “What is less its own than a people’s gods?” always, however, remembering that race-tradition, inherited instinctive feeling and thought, is very strong in these matters, and that a people will, often unconsciously, cling to its ancestral modes of religious consciousness and expression, while it will freely borrow alien forms, names, and ritual.

The inquiry indicated by the title of these lectures is naturally twofold; it may be applied either to the earlier or the later periods of the Hellenic and Hellenic-Roman history. The question concerning the later period, though much critical research is needed for its clear solution, is far simpler and more hopeful: for the evidence is immeasurably fuller and more precise, and historical dates and landmarks are there to help. The history of the invasion of the West by Mithraism has been masterfully stated by Cumont; the general influence of the Anatolian religions upon Graeco-Roman society is presented and estimated by the same writer in his Religious Orientales; by Toutain, in his Les Cultes Paiens dans l’Empire Romain; by our own scholar, Samuel Dill, in Roman Society in the last Century of the Western Empire; and more summarily by Salomon Reinach in his Orpheus. Therefore I am not going to pursue the inquiry at this end, although I may have to notice and use some of the later evidence. I am going to raise the question concerning the very origins of the Hellenic religious system, so as to test the recently proclaimed dogma of certain Assyriologists, and to determine, if possible, whether the Orient played any formative part in the organic development of Greek religion. For this is just the question which, I venture to maintain, has never yet been critically explored. From what I have said at the beginning, it is obvious that I cannot promise final and proved results. It will be gain enough if we can dimly discern something behind the veil that shrouds the origins of things, can reach to something that has the air of a reasoned scientific hypothesis, and still more if we can indicate the paths along which one day light may come.

We may then begin at once with stating more clearly what are the necessary conditions for a successful solution of the problem. First, we must accomplish a thorough exploration of the religions of the Anatolian and Mesopotamian lands; secondly, we must explore the Minoan-Mycenaean religion, and estimate the strength of its influence on the later period; thirdly, we must be able to decide what beliefs and practices the Hellenes brought with them from the North; lastly, before we can hope for any precision in our results, we must be able to answer with some degree of accuracy a burning chronological question: What was the date of the arrival through the Balkans from the North of those Aryan-speaking tribes that by mingling with the Southerners formed the Hellenic people of history? For only then shall we be able to test the whole question, by considering the position of the Eastern powers at this momentous epoch. The third of these inquiries, concerning the aboriginal religious ideas of the earliest Aryan Hellenes, is perhaps the most troublesome of all. I may venture upon it at a later occasion, but it is far too difficult and extensive to combine it with the others in a short treatise. Nor can I do more than touch lightly on the Minoan-Mycenaean period; for I wish to devote the greater part of these lectures to the comparative survey of Greece, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia, as this task has never yet been critically performed. Something like an attempt was made by Tiele in his Histoire des anciennes Religions, but when that book was written much of the most important evidence had not yet come in.

Therefore this great problem of old-world religion is no light one; and fallacies here can only be avoided by the most critical intelligence trained on the best method of comparative religious study. We must endeavour to seize and comprehend the most essential and characteristic features of the Babylonian-Assyrian cults and theology; we must discover all that is at present possible, and trust to the future for discovering more, concerning the Hittite religion; and then we must glean all we can of the earliest forms of cult in vogue among the other peoples of the Asia-Minor coast, and in the early world of the Minoan-Mycenaean culture.

And if the phenomena of this area present us with certain general resemblances to the Hellenic, we must not too hastily assume that the West has borrowed from the East. For often in comparing the most remote regions of the world we are struck with strange similarities of myth and cult; and, where the possibility of borrowing is ruled out, we must have recourse to the theory of spontaneous generation working in obedience to similar psychical forces. The hypothesis of borrowing, which is always legitimate where the peoples with whom we are concerned are adjacent, is only raised to proof either when the linguistic evidence is clear, for instance when the divine names or the names of cult-objects are the same in the various districts, or when the points of resemblance in ritual or religious concept are numerous, striking, and fundamental, or peculiar to the communities of a certain area. This is all the more necessary to insist on, because many superficial points of resemblance will be found in all religions that are at the same stage of development.

Now, in beginning this wide comparative survey, one’s first difficulty is to arrange the material in such a way as to enable one to present a comparison that shall be definite and crucial. It would be useless to attempt a mere synoptical outline of the Babylonian-Sumerian religion; those whom that might content will find one in Dr. Pinches’ handbook, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, or Mr. King’s Babylonian Religion, while those who desire a more thorough and detailed presentation of it will doubtless turn to the laborious and critical volumes of Prof. Jastrow, Die Religion Babyloniens u. Assyriens. But for me to try to present this complex polytheism en bloc would be useless in view of my present object; for two elaborate religious systems cannot effectively be compared en bloc. A more hopeful method for those who have to pass cursorily over a great area, is to select certain salient and essential features separately, and to see how, in regard to each one, the adjacent religious systems agree or differ. And the method I propose to pursue throughout this course is as follows: Ignoring the embryology of the subject, that is to say, all discussions about the genesis of religious forms and ideas that would contribute nothing to our purpose, I will try to define the morphology of the Mesopotamian and Anatolian religions; and will first compare them with the Hellenic in respect of the element of personality in the divine perception, the tendency to, or away from, anthropomorphism, the relation of the deities to the natural world, to the State, and to morality, and I will consider what we can deduce from the study of the famous law-code of Hammurabi. A special question will arise concerning the supremacy of the goddess, a phenomenon which may be of some importance as a clue in our whole inquiry. The comparison will then be applied to the religious psychology of the different peoples; and here it will be useful to analyse and define that element of the religious temper which we call fanaticism, and which sometimes affords one of the crucial distinctions between one religion and another.

We may also obtain evidence from a comparison of the cosmogonic ideas prevalent over this area, so far as the records reveal any, as well as of the eschatological beliefs concerning man’s future destiny and his posthumous existence. Finally, we must compare the various cult-objects and forms of ritual, the significance of the sacrifice; the position and organisation of the priesthood; and here it will be convenient to consider the ritual of magic as well as of the higher service and the part played by magic within the limits of the higher religion. If under each of these heads we have been able to discover certain salient points of divergence or resemblance between the Hellene and the Mesopotamian, we may be able to draw a general deduction of some probability concerning the whole question. In any case we may be encouraged by the assurance that the comparison of two complex and highly developed religions is fruitful and interesting in itself, whether it yields us definite historical conclusions or not.