V.] Ancient Theology of China. 223 and Only, no others with Him. He is the Only Being living in truth. Thou art One, and millions of beings proceed from Thee. He has made everything, and He alone has not been made. The clearest, the simplest, the most precise conception.' "Then, after local duties had arisen in different places, the same doctrine always reäppears under different names. One idea predominates, that of a single and primeval God; everywhere and always it is one substance, self-existent, and an unapproachable God. This pure monotheism passed through a stage of Sabeism; the sun, instead of being taken as a symbol of life, was taken as a manifestation of God himself. God is selfexistent he is the only being who has not been begotten; hence the idea of considering God under two aspects, the Father and Son. In most of the hymns we come across this idea of the double being who engendereth himself. One soul in two twinsto signify two persons never to be separated. One hymn calls him the One of One. "Are these noble doctrines, then, the result of centuries? Certainly not, for they were in existence more than two thousand years before the Christian era. On the other hand, polytheism, the sources of which we have pointed out, develops itself and progresses without interruption until the time of the Ptolemies. It is, therefore, more than 5,000 years since, in the valley of the Nile, the hymn began to the unity of God and the immortality of the soul, and we find Egypt in the last ages arrived at the most unbridled polytheism. The belief in the unity of the supreme God, and in his attributes as creator and lawgiver of whom he has endowed with an immortal soul-these are the primitive notions, enchased like indestructible diamonds in the midst of the mythological stupefactions accumulated in the centuries which have passed over that ancient civilization." 1Rénouf's Religion of Ancient Egypt, p. 95. 224 Resembles Old Testament. [LECT. Thus far, M. Rougé; and M. Renouf, from still more recent and accurate research, endorses the position of M. Rougé. He writes: "It is incontestibly true that the sublimer portions of the Egyptian religion are not the comparatively late result of a process of developement or elimination from the grosser. The sublimer portions are demonstrably ancient; and the last stage known to Greek and Latin writers, heathen or Christian, was by far the grossest and most corrupt." Thus Mr. Rénouf. 1 Let it also be borne in mind that through the long centuries of the first seventen dynasties, there are no images of gods in their sepulchres, no sculptures or carvings suggestive of idolatry. And the name Nutar used for the Eternal One in Egypt 1,500 or 2,000 years before Moses, has the same meaning as the El-Shaddai of the first chapters of the Bible, an Almighty Power in heaven over-ruling all. Again, the most ancient ethical teachings are the most pure. In fact it is stated that there are words in the very ancient Egyptian language expressive of the finest shades of modern Christian morality, showing the pure loftiness and profound truth of their moral code. Here are some of their maxims :2— "The field that the great God hath given thee to till. 66 If any one beareth himself proudly, he will be humbled by God, who maketh his strength. "Thy treasure hath grown to thee through the gift of God. "A good son is the gift of God. Happy is the man who eateth. his own bread. Possess what thou hast in the joy of thy heart. What thou hast not, obtain it by work. It is profitable for a man to eat his own bread; God grants this to whosoever honors Him. "Praised be God for all his gifts. 1Rénouf's Religion of Ancient Egypt, p. 95. Rénouf's Religion of Ancient Egypt, p. 104. V.] Downward Religious Development. 225 "Pray humbly with a loving heart all the words of which are uttered in secret. He will protect thee in thine affairs; He will listen to thy words; He will accept thine offerings. "Thou shalt make adorations in His name. It is He who granteth genius with endless aptitudes; who magnifieth him who becometh great. The God of the world is in the light above the firmament; His emblems are upon earth; it is to them that worship is rendered daily. "Give thyself to God, keep thyself continually for God, and let to-morrow be like to-day. Let thine eyes consider the acts of God: it is he who smiteth him that is smitten.' Woman was honored with an equal place beside the man, and monogamy continued down to a comparatively recent date. Affection towards the mother was strongly insisted on. The dead were refused burial until proved innocent or an atonement should be made. There was in these ancient races evident fear of a judgment to come, but no clear hope beyond, no consciousness of redemption from sin. There are three distinct stages in the religious history of Old Egypt. 1. A prehistoric worship of Nutar, God, Almighty. He was Creator, holy, conscious, free, ruling all things and taking cognizance of man. A tendency to worship emanations as local deities. 2. An increase in the heavenly gods and their manifestations, but they are still ethical beings. Natural phenomena were supposed to be involuntary emanations of the divine. Somewhat pantheistic. 3. Pure polytheism, nature worship, worship of animals, formal ceremonial, hypocritical outward show, and awful moral depravity of conduct. This was the last stage, a time that is as well known now as the history of ten years ago, from which time Egypt fades from history. The Egyptian character was naturally religious and earnest, 226 The Development of [LECT. having much that reminds us of the still existent childlike trust of Ham's descendants, and appears for a long time to have withstood the natural downward tendency; but when the culmination came it was awful. Polytheism descended to the hideous worship of animals and insects, even to the most loathsome vermin of filth. The will of the gods was supposed to be indicated by the contortions of a pampered reptile rolling on a cushion of richest velvet in splendid temples. If a cat died in a house the inmates shaved their eyebrows; if a dog, all the hair of their bodies. And many a rich man would spend a fortune in burying a dead dog. Here is a prayer to a cat 400 B.C.:-"Oh thou wise cat! thy head is the head of the sun-god. Thy nose is the nose of Toth, the doubly great Lord of Hermopolis. Thy ears are the ears of Osiris, who hears the voice of all who call upon him. Thy mouth is the mouth of Atmu, the Lord of Life, he has preserved thee from all filth," etc., etc. And morality became equally beastly. The ideas of God and man in strange contrast to those of 3,000 or 4,000 years before, when the God of Egypt was very much like the God of the Bible, and the theology evidently drawn from the same primal source. II.-China. The next oldest civilization that history discloses to us is the Chinese. We have already seen that the historic Chinese came from Western Asia. Another proof is the similarity of the primitive idea of God among the Chinese with that prevalent in olden Egypt, in Western Asia, and in the oldest chapters of the Bible. The very word Ti is similar in sound and meaning with that which gave the Indians daeva, the Greeks zeus, the Latins deus, the English Deity, and was used in the same sense as Nutar of the Egyptians and the El-Shaddai of the Old Bible. There has been and still is a great deal of controversy on the subject of the use of Shang-ti for God in China, a controversy in 227 which I have no desire to mix, and which has in reality little to do with the real principle of my argument. It seems, however, very evident that through all the mass of ancient Chinese superstitions, one clear line of worship to an over-ruling, creative Power runs back to the hoariest antiquity, preserved to-day in the worship performed by the Emperor alone; but traced back and back it becomes more and more the property of the people as well, until among the very first of all the characters of the language, indications of the very first thoughts of the people, Ti or Shang-ti is found as the object of worship. That this worship of one Supreme Lord is not the evolution of time out of a low idolatry, but the relic of a purer primitive cult, which the people exchanged for superstition, and the Imperial house preserved as a badge of superiority, would seem to be clear beyond a doubt. But this Ti, Supreme Power, or Shang-ti, Lord of Heaven, is rather the name of rank of the one Ruler of all. In the Shuh King and the Shi King we have the ideas of the Chinese from 2,000 B.C. down to Confucius. In these books, what is predicated of Shang-ti can only be predicated of the true God.1 "He is the ruler of men and of all this lower world. Men in general, the mass of the people, are his peculiar care. He appointed grain to be the chief nourishment of all. He watches over kings, exalts them for the good of the people, while they reverence him, and fulfil their duties in his fear, with reference to his will, taking his ways as their pattern. He maintains them, smells the sweet savor of their offerings, and blesses them and their people with abundance and general prosperity. When they become impious and negligent of their duties, he punishes them, takes away the throne from them, and appoints others in their place. His appointments come from fore-knowledge and foreordination. Sometimes he appears to array himself in terrors, and the course of his providence is altered. The evil in the 1 1 Legge, Religions of China, 27. |