The Project Gutenberg e-Book of Introduction to the History of Religions by Crawford Howell Toy, 'Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 4'

1474 The myths connected with Quetzalcoatl (see Brinton, American Hero-Myths, and L. Spence, Mythologies of Ancient Mexico and Peru) do not relate mostly to the movements and deeds of the sun or the winds, but arose from his character as local deity with universal powers. Social and political events were woven into them. His contest with Tezcatlipoca seems to reflect the struggle between two tribes; his defeat signifies the victory of the conquering tribe, and the expectation of his return (by which the invading Spaniards, it is said, profited) was based on the political hope of his people. Cf. similar expectations among other peoples.

1476 B. Beer, Leben Abraham's nach Auffassung der jüdischen Sage, p. 5 and note 34; p. 102, note 30.

1477 Turner, Samoa, Index.

1478 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, chap. xviii.

1479 Pausanias, Description of Greece, passim.

1480 Semitic and other examples are given in W. R. Smith's Religion of the Semites, p. 173 ff.

1481 On the complicated myth of Phaëthon see the article in Roscher's Lexikon.

1482 Isa. xxiv, 21; Tylor, Primitive Culture, i, 356 ff.

1483 The Babylonians were the great astronomers and astrologers of antiquity, but their eminence in this regard belongs to their later period. After the fall of the later Babylonian empire (B.C. 539) the term 'Chaldean' became a synonym of 'astrologer' (so in the Book of Daniel, B.C. 165-164); cf. Jastrow, Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria, p. 259 f.

1484 Brinton, Myths of the New World, passim; Hartland, Primitive Paternity, i, 149 f.; Grey, Polynesian Mythology, p. 1 ff.; Hickson, Northern Celebes; Lane, Arabian Nights, i, 30 ff.; Saussaye, Religion of the Teutons, p. 216 f.; Iliad, xxiii, 198 ff.; Tylor, Primitive Culture, i, 360 ff.; Ratzel, History of Mankind (Eng. tr.), passim.

1485 Iliad, xxiii, 200 f. For some wind-myths see Roscher, Lexikon, articles "Boreaden," "Boreas," "Harpyia." Cf. the Maori myths given in R. Taylor's New Zealand, chap. vi, and for Navaho winds see Matthews, Navaho Legends, p. 226, note 75.

1486 As in Goldziher's Hebrew Mythology (Eng. tr.), a view later abandoned by the author.

1487 By Mannhardt, in Mythologische Forschungen, p. 224 ff.; Frazer, in Golden Bough, 2d ed. (see Index, s.v. Corn); and others.

1488 Cf. Frazer, op. cit., chap. iii, § 16 f.; Roscher, Lexikon, articles "Kybele," "Attis," "Persephone," "Ceres"; and Farnell, Cults of the Greek States.

1489 See above, § 678.

1491 Dan. ii, 22; Rev. xxi, 23.

1492 This is true even in the case of abstract deities; see above, §§ 696, 702 ff.

1493 A myth is a purely imaginative explanation of phenomena; a legend rests on facts, but the facts are distorted. The two terms are often confused the one with the other.

1494 Some peculiar combinations appear in the figures of Semiramis and the Kuretes and the Korybantes; see the articles in Roscher's Lexikon under these headings.

1495 Cf. Gomme, Folklore as an Historical Science; Van Gennep, La formation des légendes.

1496 See the various folk-lore journals; W. W. Newell, article "Folk-lore" in Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia; cf. Gomme, op. cit., and § 881 below.

1497 So in the cases of the Australian ancestors, the Polynesian, Teutonic, Finnic, Slavic, Greek, Phrygian, and other heroes and gods, the Hebrew patriarchs, and many other such figures.

1498 See above, § 859.

1499 See above, § 649.

1500 Such were the Greek rhapsodists (Müller and Donaldson, History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, i, 33 ff.), and probably the Hebrew mashalists (Numb. xxi, 27, Eng. tr., "they that speak in proverbs"). Such reciters are found in India at the present day.

1501 On the value of myths for religious instruction cf. Schultz, Old Testament Theology, Eng. tr. (of 4th German ed.), i, chap. ii.

1502 Geffcken, article "Allegory" in Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics.

1503 Phædrus, 229; Cratylus, 406 f.; Republic 378.

1504 Cf. Müller and Donaldson, History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, chap. xxvi.

1505 1 Cor. ix, 9 f.; x, 1-4; Gal. iv, 24 ff.; Heb. vii, 2; Origen, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and commentators generally up to the sixteenth century and later.

1506 Origine de tous les cultes ou religion universelle (1794).

1507 Science of Language, 2d series; cf. his Hibbert and Gifford lectures.

1508 It is elaborated in G. W. Cox's Mythology of the Aryan Nations.

1509 Op. cit. § 864. Cf. article "Panbabylonianism" in Harvard Theological Review for January, 1910.

1510 Astralmythen der Hebräer, Babylonier und Aegypter (1896-1907).

1511 So in folk-tales the same motif appears in a hundred different settings; but this is not necessarily a sign of borrowing.

1512 Op. cit., p. 190.

1513 See above, § 826, note.

1514 No well-defined Arabian myths are known.

1515 Most of the Old Testament mythical material has been worked over by Hebrew monotheistic editors.

1516 P. Jensen, Das Gilgamesch Epos in der Weltliteratur.

1517 Cf. article "Panbabylonianism" cited in § 866, note.

1518 As, for example, those of New Zealand, Babylonia, and Greece.

1519 Cf. Keightley, Fairy Mythology, 2d ed., p. 14 f.

1520 Bacon, Wisdom of the Ancients; in Biblical exposition many recent writers.

1521 See above, § 864 ff.; cf. Jastrow, Study of Religion, p. 28 ff.

1522 Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker (1810-1812).

1523 Antisymbolik (1824-1826).

1524 Buttmann, Welcker, Lobeck, and others.

1525 Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie (1825).

1526 See above, § 865.

1527 See above, § 359. Cf. Grant Allen, The Evolution of the Idea of God.

1528 Darwin and Spencer (evolution), Bastian (ethnology), and others.

1529 In his Early History of Mankind and Primitive Culture. Cf. C. de Brosses (Du culte des dieux fétiches, 1760), who expressed a similar view.

1530 A. Lang, Custom and Myth and Myth, Ritual, and Religion, and other works; Frazer, Golden Bough, 2d and 3d edd.; W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites; and others.

1531 Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte and Mythologische Forschungen.

1532 See the bibliography at the end of this book.

1533 Beginnings for such a survey have been made in the Teutonic, American, and some other areas.

1534 Confucianism, if it can be called a religion, is an exception.

1535 See the bibliographies in Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia, article "Fairy-lore," and La Grande Encyclopédie, article "Fée"; Maury, Croyances et légendes du moyen âge, new ed.; Hartland, The Science of Fairy-tales.

1536 Tylor, Primitive Culture, Index, s.v. Magic; Frazer, Golden Bough, 2d ed., Index, do.; id., Early History of the Kingship, Index, do.; Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Index, do.; Westermarck, Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, Index, do.; S. Reinach, Orpheus, Index, do.; Hubert and Mauss, in Année sociologique, vii; Marett, Threshold of Religion; articles "Magie" in La Grande Encyclopédie and "Magic" in Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.; article "Magia" in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines.

1537 Examples are cited in the works mentioned above.

1538 On the view that many quasi-magical acts are spontaneous reactions of the man to his environment see I. King, Development of Religion, chap. vii. According to this view the thought suggests the act. The warrior, thinking of his enemy, instinctively makes the motion of hurling something at him (as a modern man shakes his fist at an absent foe), and such an act, a part of the excitation to combat, is believed to be efficacious.

1539 Westermarck, Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, s.v. The Evil Eye.

1540 On mana see above, § 231 ff. Though the theory of mana was necessarily vague, the thing itself was quite definite.

1541 Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 85.

1542 Isis and Osiris, 73.

1543 Frazer, Golden Bough, 2d ed., i, 154 ff.

1545 Cf. Lord Avebury, Marriage, Totemism, and Religion, p. 135.

1546 Alexander, Short History of the Hawaiian People.

1547 Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 263.

1548 Matthews, Navaho Legends, p. 36.

1549 Cf. W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites, lecture iii.

1550 Teit, Thompson River Indians, p. 53 f.

1551 1 Cor. x, 20 f.

1552 Certain ceremonies of the higher religions produce effects that must be regarded as magical.

1553 Lubbock, Origin of Civilization, p. 188. Similar logic appears in the story of the origin of Goodwin Sands, told by Bishop Latimer (in a sermon preached before Edward VI). An old man, being asked what he thought was the cause of the Sands, replied that he had lived near there, man and boy, fourscore years, and before the neighboring steeple was built there was no Sands, and therefore his opinion was that the steeple was the cause of the Sands.

1554 So among the old Hebrews, according to 1 Sam. xxviii, 9. For Rome cf. Fowler, Religious Experience of the Roman People, lecture iii.

1555 Cf. above, § 889.

1556 In some cases the priest is a magician (Grey, Polynesian Mythology, p. 114 ff.)—he acts as the mouthpiece of a god, and in sympathy with the god. Cf. Westermarck, Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, ii, 658. On a connection between the magician and the poet see Goldziher, in Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Orientalists.

1557 Cf. above, § 889.

1558 Dixon, The Northern Maidu, p. 267 f.; id., The Shasta, 471 ff.

1559 Ellis, Tshi, p. 120.

1560 Dixon, The Shasta, loc. cit.; Miss Fletcher, Indian Ceremonies, p. 280.

1561 M. Kingsley, Studies, p. 136.

1562 Grey, Polynesian Mythology, p. 278.

1563 Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 267 f.

1565 Apuleius, Metamorphoses, bk. ii f.

1567 Women, however, are sometimes shamans in such tribes, as in the California Shasta (while in the neighboring Maidu they are commonly men). See Dixon, The Shasta, p. 471; The Northern Maidu, p. 267 f.

1568 Tiele, Elements of the Science of Religion, ii, 140; cf. Spiegel, Eranische Alterthumskunde, iii, 564 f., 587 f.; Jackson, in Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, ii, 630, 671, 692.

1569 Sophocles, Œdipus Tyrannus, 387; Euripides, Orestes, 1498. Hence the term 'magic' as the designation of a certain form of procedure.

1570 So in the Thousand and One Nights, passim.

1571 Tylor, Primitive Culture, i, 113 ff.; Castrén, Finnische Mythologie, pp. 186 ff., 229; Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 162; Rivers, The Todas, p. 263; Crooke, Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, ii, 283 ff. For modern usages see Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, 2d ed., pp. 131, 241.

1572 A magician, as a man of special social prominence and of extraordinary power over the forces of the world, becomes, in some cases, the political head of his community (as a priest sometimes has a like position). Where the divinization of men is practiced, the magician may be recognized as a god. But no general rule can be laid down. The office of king had its own political development, and a god was the natural product of the reflection of a community. The elevation of the magician to high political or ecclesiastical position was dependent on peculiar circumstances and may be called sporadic. Cf. Frazer, Early History of the Kingship, p. 107 ff. and lecture v.

1573 Cf. Frazer, Golden Bough, 2d ed., Index, s.v. Kings.

1574 See Lord Avebury, Marriage, Totemism, and Religion, chap. iv.

1575 The plant or animal may be a totem, but its magical power is not derived from its totemic character. Magical potency may dwell in nontotemic objects; in magical ceremonies connected with totems (as in Australia) it is the ceremony rather than the totem that is efficacious. Cf. Marett, Threshold of Religion, p. 22 f.

1576 Cf. Marett, "From spell to prayer," in his Threshold of Religion, p. 33 ff.

1577 Cf. J. H. King, The Supernatural, Index, s.v. Charm; Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii, 148; article "Charms and Amulets" in Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics.

1578 Eng. tr. by Bloomfield, in Sacred Books of the East.

1579 L. W. King, Babylonian Magic and Sorcery.

1580 Records of the Past, first series, vols. ii, vi; Griffith, article "Egyptian Literature" in Library of the World's Best Literature; Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, p. 212 ff.; Breasted, History of Egypt, Index, s.v. Magic.

1581 Cf. Macdonald, Religious Attitude and Life in Islam, Index, s.v. Magic.

1582 Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, article "Magia"; cf. articles "Medeia" and "Kirke" in Roscher's Lexikon.

1583 Apuleius, Metamorphoses; Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ii, 535 ff.; Friedländer, Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire (Eng. tr.), i, 260 f.; Fowler, The Religious Experience of the Roman People, p. 57 ff.; cf. Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans, Index, s.v. Magic.

1584 1 Sam. xxviii; Isa. viii, 19.

1585 In the later Judaism Solomon is the great master of magic; see the story of the Queen of Sheba in the Second Esther Targum; Baring-Gould, Legends of Old Testament Characters. For the Arabian legends of Solomon (borrowed from the Jews) see Koran, sura xxxviii; History of Bilkis, Queen of Sheba, compiled from various Arabic sources, in Socin's Arabic Grammar (Eng. tr., 1885).

1586 Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe; Westermarck, Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, Index, s.vv. Magic and Witches.

1587 These Powers, including mana, may all be called "divine" as distinguished from the purely "human."

1588 A superhuman phenomenon, if produced by a deity, is called a "miracle," and is held to be beneficent; if produced by a nontheistic process, it is called "magical," and is looked at doubtfully.

1589 Cf. Westermarck, Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, ii, 696; Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Index, s.v. Magic and Morals.

1590 Ultimately, in early religious theory, all objects are divine or abodes or incarnations of divine beings and capable of independent action; sometimes, doubtless, the recognition of the natural character of a thing (as of courage and other qualities in animals) coalesces with the belief in its guiding power.

1591 Cf. article "Magia" in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, p. 1496.

1592 Rivers, The Todas, p. 254.

1593 Cf. article "Bantu" in Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, p. 358.

1594 1 Sam. x, 5; xix, 24.

1595 Breasted, History of Egypt, p. 513 f. The envoy not only failed to procure cedar for the sacred barge of Amon but was ordered by the prince to leave the city; the youth intervened successfully (ca. 1100 B.C.).

1596 So Teiresias (Odyssey, x, 492 ff.; Œdipus Tyrannus, 92) and Samuel (1 Sam. ix).

1597 Mic. i, 8; cf. 2 Kings iii, 15 (music as a preliminary condition of inspiration).

1598 As among the Hebrews, the Greeks, and other ancient peoples.

1599 Formerly, says Cicero (De Divinatione, i, 16), almost nothing of moment, or even in private affairs, was undertaken without an augury.

1600 For a tabulation of omens and other signs and of forms of divinatory procedure see article "Divination" in La Grande Encyclopédie.

1601 Cicero, De Divinatione, i, 1-4; Diodorus Siculus, i, 70, 81; Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, p. 216 ff.; Steindorff, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 113 ff. (cf. Gen. xliv, 5, 15, which may point to an Egyptian custom of divination by cup); Jastrow, Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens, and Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria; Hopkins, Religions of India, pp. 256, 328; De Groot, Religious System of China, i, 103 ff.; iii, chap. xii; Buckley, in Saussaye's Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, 2d ed. (China); articles "Divination" in Encyclopædia Biblica, Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, and Jewish Encyclopedia; Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquité;; articles "Divinatio" and "Haruspices" in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines; Gardner and Jevons, Greek Antiquities, chap. vii; Stengel and Oehmichen, Die griechischen Sakralaltertümer; Wissowa, Religion der Römer, p. 450 ff.; Fowler, Religious Experience of the Roman People, lecture xiii; Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentumes, pp. 126 ff., 148 ff.; article "Celts" in Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics; Hastings, op. cit., ii, 54 ff.; Saussaye, Religion of the Teutons, Index, s.v. Divination.

1602 Turner, Samoa, Index, s.v. Omens.

1603 These animals were originally themselves divine, and therefore, by their own knowledge, capable of indicating the course of events; cf. § 905, note.

1604 Hollis, The Masai, p. 323 f.; id., The Nandi, p. 79.

1605 Ellis, Tshi, p. 203.

1606 Conolly, Journey to the North of India, 2d ed., 1838, ii, 137 ff.

1607 Tylor, Primitive Culture, i, 78, etc. For South Africa cf. Callaway, The Amasulu, Index, s.vv. Omens, Divination, Diviners; Kidd, The Essential Kafir, Index, s.v. Divining; article "Bantu" in Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, p. 362.