PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Doane, T. W. (Thomas William)
The writer of Jude also alludes to it in saying:
"The angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."[386:4]
According to the Talmudists, Satan, whose proper name is Sammael, was one of the Seraphim of heaven, with six wings.
"He was not driven out of heaven until after he had led Adam and Eve into sin; then Sammael and his host were precipitated out of the place of bliss, with God's curse to weigh them down. In the struggle between Michael and Sammael, the falling Seraph caught the wings of Michael, and tried to drag him down with him, but God saved him, when Michael derived his name,—the Rescued."[386:5]
Sammael was formerly chief among the angels of God, and now he is prince among devils. His name is derived from Simmē, which means, to blind and deceive. He stands on the left side of men. He goes by various names; such as "The Old Serpent," "The Unclean Spirit," "Satan," "Leviathan," and sometimes also "Asael."[387:1]
According to Hindoo mythology, there is a legion of evil spirits called Rakshasas, who are governed by a prince named Ravana. These Rakshasas are continually aiming to do injury to mankind, and are the same who fought desperate battles with Indra, and his Spirits of Light. They would have taken his paradise by storm, and subverted the whole order of the universe, if Brahmā had not sent Vishnou to circumvent their plans.
In the Aitareya-brahmana (Hindoo) written, according to Prof. Monier Williams, seven or eight centuries B. C., we have the following legend:
"The gods and demons were engaged in warfare. The evil demons, like to mighty kings, Made these worlds castles; then they formed the earth Into an iron citadel, the air Into a silver fortress, and the sky Into a fort of gold. Whereat the gods Said to each other, 'Frame me other worlds In opposition to these fortresses.' Then they constructed sacrificial places, Where they performed a triple burnt oblation. By the first sacrifice they drove the demons Out of their earthly fortress, by the second Out of the air, and by the third oblation Out of the sky. Thus were the evil spirits Chased by the gods in triumph from the worlds."[387:2]
The ancient Egyptians were familiar with the tale of the war in heaven; and the legend of the revolt against the god Rā, the Heavenly Father, and his destruction of the revolters, was discovered by M. Naville in one of the tombs at Biban-el-moluk.[387:3]
The same story is to be found among the ancient Persian legends, and is related as follows:
"Ahriman, the devil, was not created evil by the eternal one, but he became evil by revolting against his will. This revolt resulted in a 'war in heaven.' In this war the Iveds (good angels) fought against the Divs (rebellious ones) headed by Ahriman, and flung the conquered into Douzahk or hell."[387:4]
An extract from the Persian Zend-avesta reads as follows:
"Ahriman interrupted the order of the universe, raised an army against Ormuzd, and having maintained a fight against him during ninety days, was at length vanquished by Honover, the divine Word."[388:1]
The Assyrians had an account of a war in heaven, which was like that described in the book of Enoch and the Revelation.[388:2]
This legend was also to be found among the ancient Greeks, in the struggle of the Titans against Jupiter. Titan and all his rebellious host were cast out of heaven, and imprisoned in the dark abyss.[388:3]
Among the legends of the ancient Mexicans was found this same story of the war in heaven, and the downfall of the rebellious angels.[388:4]
"The natives of the Caroline Islands (in the North Pacific Ocean), related that one of the inferior gods, named Merogrog, was driven by the other gods out of heaven."[388:5]
We see, therefore, that this also was an almost universal legend.
The belief in a future life was almost universal among nations of antiquity. The Hindoos have believed from time immemorial that man has an invisible body within the material body; that is, a soul.
Among the ancient Egyptians the same belief was to be found. All the dead, both men and women, were spoken of as "Osiriana;" by which they intended to signify "gone to Osiris."
Their belief in One Supreme Being, and the immortality of the soul, must have been very ancient; for on a monument, which dates ages before Abraham is said to have lived, is found this epitaph: "May thy soul attain to the Creator of all mankind." Sculptures and paintings in these grand receptacles of the dead, as translated by Champollion, represent the deceased ushered into the world of spirits by funeral deities, who announce, "A soul arrived in Amenti."[388:6]
The Hindoo idea of a subtile invisible body within the material body, reappeared in the description of Greek poets. They represented the constitution of man as consisting of three principles: the soul, the invisible body, and the material body. The invisible body they called the ghost or shade, and considered it as the material portion of the soul. At death, the soul, clothed in this subtile body, went to enjoy paradise for a season, or suffer in hell till its sins were expiated. This paradise was called the "Elysian Fields," and the hell was called Tartarus.
The paradise, some supposed to be a part of the lower world, some placed them in a middle zone in the air, some in the moon, and others in far-off isles in the ocean. There shone more glorious sun and stars than illuminated this world. The day was always serene, the air forever pure, and a soft, celestial light clothed all things in transfigured beauty. Majestic groves, verdant meadows, and blooming gardens varied the landscape. The river Eridanus flowed through winding banks fringed with laurel. On its borders lived heroes who had died for their country, priests who had led a pure life, artists who had embodied genuine beauty in their work, and poets who had never degraded their muse with subjects unworthy of Apollo. There each one renewed the pleasures in which he formerly delighted. Orpheus, in long white robes, made enrapturing music on his lyre, while others danced and sang. The husband rejoined his beloved wife; old friendships were renewed, the poet repeated his verses, and the charioteer managed his horses.
Some souls wandered in vast forests between Tartarus and Elysium, not good enough for one, or bad enough for the other. Some were purified from their sins by exposure to searching winds, others by being submerged in deep waters, others by passing through intense fires. After a long period of probation and suffering, many of them gained the Elysian Fields. This belief is handed down to our day in the Roman Catholic idea of Purgatory.
A belief in the existence of the soul after death was indicated in all periods of history of the world, by the fact that man was always accustomed to address prayers to the spirits of their ancestors.[389:1]
These heavens and hells where men abode after death, vary, in different countries, according to the likes and dislikes of each nation.
All the Teutonic nations held to a fixed Elysium and a hell, where the valiant and the just were rewarded, and where the cowardly and the wicked suffered punishment. As all nations have made a god, and that god has resembled the persons who made it, so have all nations made a heaven, and that heaven corresponds to the fancies of the people who have created it.
In the prose Edda there is a description of the joys of Valhalla (the Hall of the Chosen), which states that: "All men who have fallen in fight since the beginning of the world are gone to Odin (the Supreme God), in Valhalla." A mighty band of men are there, "and every day, as soon as they have dressed themselves, they ride out into the court (or field), and there fight until they cut each other into pieces. This is their pastime, but when the meal-tide approaches, they remount their steeds, and return to drink in Valhalla. As it is said (in Vafthrudnis-mal):
'The Einherjar all On Odin's plain Hew daily each other, While chosen the slain are. From the frey they then ride, And drink ale with the Æsir.'"[390:1]
This description of the palace of Odin is a natural picture of the manners of the ancient Scandinavians and Germans. Prompted by the wants of their climate, and the impulse of their own temperament, they formed to themselves a delicious paradise in their own way; where they were to eat and drink, and fight. The women, to whom they assigned a place there, were introduced for no other purpose but to fill their cups.
The Mohammedan paradise differs from this. Women there, are for man's pleasure. The day is always serene, the air forever pure, and a soft celestial light clothes all things in transfigured beauty. Majestic groves, verdant meadows, and blooming gardens vary the landscape. There, in radiant halls, dwell the departed, ever blooming and beautiful, ever laughing and gay.
The American Indian calculates upon finding successful chases after wild animals, verdant plains, and no winter, as the characteristics of his "future life."
The red Indian, when told by a missionary that in the "promised land" they would neither eat, drink, hunt, nor marry a wife, contemptuously replied, that instead of wishing to go there, he should deem his residence in such a place as the greatest possible calamity. Many not only rejected such a destiny for themselves, but were indignant at the attempt to decoy their children into such a comfortless region.
All nations of the earth have had their heavens. As Moore observes:
"A heaven, too, ye must have, ye lords of dust— A splendid paradise, poor souls, ye must: That prophet ill sustains his holy call Who finds not heavens to suit the tastes of all. Vain things! as lust or vanity inspires, The heaven of each is but what each desires."
Heaven was born of the sky,[391:1] and nurtured by cunning priests, who made man a coward and a slave.
Hell was built by priests, and nurtured by the fears and servile fancies of man during the ages when dungeons of torture were a recognized part of every government, and when God was supposed to be an infinite tyrant, with infinite resources of vengeance.
The devil is an imaginary being, invented by primitive man to account for the existence of evil, and relieve God of his responsibility. The famous Hindoo Rakshasas of our Aryan ancestors—the dark and evil clouds personified—are the originals of all devils. The cloudy shape has assumed a thousand different forms, horrible or grotesque and ludicrous, to suit the changing fancies of the ages.
But strange as it may appear, the god of one nation became the devil of another.
The rock of Behistun, the sculptured chronicle of the glories of Darius, king of Persia, situated on the western frontier of Media, on the high-road from Babylon to the eastward, was used as a "holy of holies." It was named Bagistane—"the place of the Baga"—referring to Ormuzd, chief of the Bagas. When examined with the lenses of linguistic science, the "Bogie" or "Bug-a-boo" or "Bugbear" of nursery lore, turns out to be identical with the Slavonic "Bog" and the "Baga" of the cuneiform inscriptions, both of which are names of the Supreme Being. It is found also in the old Aryan "Bhaga," who is described in a commentary of the Rig-Veda as the lord of life, the giver of bread, and the bringer of happiness. Thus, the same name which, to the Vedic poet, to the Persian of the time of Xerxes, and to the modern Russian, suggests the supreme majesty of deity, is in English associated with an ugly and ludicrous fiend. Another striking illustration is to be found in the word devil itself. When traced back to its primitive source, it is found to be a name of the Supreme Being.[391:2]