gods. When found, the new bull was conducted in state to the royal stables. The cult of the bull eventually led to the cult of Serapis. However, in the very early period we do not find local gods pictured; for the reverential awe of Egyptians toward their gods was excessive. Herodotus (400's B. C.) commonly called Father of History, came in the course of his wanderings to Egypt; here, he interviewed priests of the temple. It is a matter of regret that through pious reserve Herodotus made no report of what he had learned. But in later times, Egyptians felt the necessity of picturing their deities, and accordingly images of the animalgods were cut on monuments: Anup, the jackal; Har, the hawk; Hekt, the frog; Tahati, the baboon. The god of Memphis was Apis the bull; of ancient Buhasti, Pasht the cat; of Sioot, the god Hapi, the wolf; of Mendes, Ba the goat; and we are told by Plutarch that it was sacrilege to eat the flesh of animals sacred to the city-god. Herodotus tells us that at a fire, the Egyptians were more anxious to save the cat than to quench the flames. Animal-worship evolves into Graeco-Roman Thus after infinitely varied evolution, we find (2000's B. C.) the Egyptians coming to the place where out and out animal-gods were transformed into half-animal, halfman gods, as pictured on the obelisks of Fayyum. We now have for deities all manner of fabulous creatures, such as hawk-headed man-god, jackal-headed man-god, dog man-god. It remained for the Greeks, centuries later, to rise to the conception of a god or a goddess, purged of the bestial. In the ultimate Grecian type of paganism, the immoral gods were deified as titanic humans, each allpowerful, wise, cruel or benign in his or her individual person; and to these extraordinary beings prayers and hymns were made in time of crisis. In the Grecian preChristian evolutionary stage, gods and goddesses no longer expressed the frank animalism of Egyptian congeners of animal-gods, but curiously enough the Grecian types of immortals loved, hated, rejoiced, made war, or expressed humane sentiments, exactly in the manner of common mortals. A mythological element was added, but the old-time power of animals, progressively cast aside as the snake sloughs her skin, now passed to men-gods direct. Softening the harshness and bestiality of primordial ghost-worship, the ancient animalism subdued under poetical explanations became the foundation for later evolutionary pre-Christian expression of man's religious instinct. However, unable to break with the past, Egyptians, long after progressive steps had been made, continued to pay reverence to fabulous creatures as deities, half-man, half-beast. It was difficult for the Egyptians to reject their ancestral teachings, and for that matter the extent to which the dead hand of the past continues to lead modern nations is little suspected. In making the new pattern, man does little more than unravel the old wool, throwing away bits worn beyond use, and then by knotting and mixing old with new wool, makes a "new" work that for a while satisfies the mind; only in the end to tire our sight. The old yarn is now once more unraveled, and the eternal process of knitting a new pattern is renewed generation after generation. In all branches of human life today, religious, scientific, commercial, social, artistic, literary, or what you will, we find always old yarn used over and over again. Regarded from the point of historical evolution, slavery, kingcraft, priestcraft, are undeniable offshoots of very ancient ghost-worship. In the remote Ancient City, we have seen the eldest son in the triple capacity of king, priest and law-giver guard well what later the Romans called the Lares and Penates: the tutelary or protesting divinities supposed to preside particularly over the destinies of the household; and those gods had their familiar place in images on the hearth. The Lares were originally of the Etruscan religion and the Penates of the times of the old Latins, but eventually the terms were blended to denote the worship of ancestors at the home altar, that is to say, fireside worship; for the spirits of the dead were conceived to be visible in the flickering firelight. These spirits of the dead were kind to their own kinsfolk, and were accordingly addressed in prayer. The certified individual spirits together with very many other unknown spirits, were subsequently alloted dominion over earth, air, river, forest-and thus ruled Earth as all-powerful invisible deities. And furthermore the dead had a magical influence, or as Lang puts it (Making of Religion): "Myths thus came into men's minds, to account for the primordial instinct of worship." As long ago as 316 B. C., we find Euemerus uttering these surprising words, modern in their wisdom and intent: "Myths are but history, in disguise." CHAPTER VI COMMON MAN ASSERTS HIS RIGHTS Great Hebrew labor strike under Moses; to We think, in these later times that labor strikes, as we now call them, are necessarily something new in the world; but the hunger-strike as a form of protest was known and practiced many thousand years ago. Ill-fed, half-starved slaves in Egypt now and then rebelled; not in a modern politico-military sense; but in a sullen, personal way, refused to go to work, hiding in dark corners till whipped into submission by the masters. It is glorious to inscribe here the name Moses, who (1400's B. C.), led the first successful labor strike against over-ruling masters; it sums up, in one concrete name, the entire politico-social struggle of innumerable centuries. Do you doubt it? Nimrod, "mighty hunter before the Lord," gained in those remote times undying fame, handed down to this day, for his exploits in ridding Babylonia of wild animals; and a magnificent service that was, to be sure; but human wild-animals have persisted down through trackless and unnumbered centuries, even to the passing hour. Man is incessantly fighting man, that a more equitable distribution of rights and privileges may at last be gained. And this heroic struggle in manifold disguises must go on, for many centuries to come. The Exodus, under Moses, was in fact a vast labor strike, earliest of organized protests against social injustice. Jacob had twelve sons, who multiplied into the Twelve Tribes, and at the time of the great labor strike the men numbered 600,000, or at least 3,000,000, counting women and children. The Hebrews while in captivity worked on pyramids, canals, dykes, but Pharaoh was still dissatisfied called his task masters, saying: "Ye shall no more give the people (Hebrews) straw to make brick, as heretofore; let them go and gather straw for themselves. And the tale of the bricks which they did make heretofore ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish aught thereof: for they be idle; therefore they cry, saying, 'Let us go and sacrifice to our God.' Let, then, more work be laid upon them, that they may labor therein and let them not regard vain words.' And the taskmasters of the people went out, and their officers, and they spoke to the people saying: "Thus sayest Pharaoh, I will not give ye straw. Go ye, get straw where ye can find it: yet not aught of your work shall be diminished. . Ye are idle, ye are idle! Therefore ye say, 'Let us go and do sacrifices to the Lord.' Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks." When this atrocious order came to make bricks without straw, Hebrews scurried far and wide, over the land of Egypt seeking straw, but in vain. Pharaoh's idea seemed to be, speaking in modern terms, to graft still more on Jews; not content with conscripting their labor on an immense scale, Pharaoh now demanded that Jews should actually contribute part of the raw material, used in brick-making. To make bricks without straw stands as a symbol of labor's frightful burden down the ages. Essence of Jewish Commonwealth sustained Over the broad plains of modern Democracy the colossal figure of Moses throws an ever-lengthening shadow-out of the remote past. Moses stands as the first statesman and law-giver who conceived this elemental thought: Natural justice is at the very foundation of Democratic institutions. For 500 years before the dim time of Homer and Hesiod, and 1,000 years before early Roman experiments in republican forms, Moses had already carried out in a practical way his unique conception of social equality, founded on humane considerations |