The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 09 of 12)

The theory that Christ was put to death, not as a criminal, but as the annual representative of a god, whose counterparts were well known all over Western Asia, may help to explain his early deification and the rapid spread of his worship.

To conclude this speculation, into which I have perhaps been led by the interest and importance of the subject somewhat deeper than the evidence warrants, I venture to urge in its favour that it seems to shed fresh light on some of the causes which contributed to the remarkably rapid diffusion of Christianity in Asia Minor. We know from a famous letter of the younger Pliny addressed to the Emperor Trajan in the year 112 a. d. that by the beginning of our era, less than a hundred years after the Founder's death, Christianity had made such strides in Bithynia and Pontus that not only cities but villages and rural districts were affected by it, and that multitudes of both sexes and of every age and every rank professed its tenets; indeed things had gone so far that the temples were almost deserted, the sacred rites of the public religion discontinued, and hardly a purchaser could be found for the sacrificial victims.936 It is obvious, therefore, that the new faith had elements in it which appealed powerfully to the Asiatic mind. What these elements were, the present investigation has perhaps to some extent disclosed. We have seen that the conception of the dying and risen god was no new one in these regions. All over Western Asia from time immemorial the mournful death and happy resurrection of a divine being appear to have been annually celebrated with alternate rites of bitter lamentation and exultant joy; and through the veil which mythic fancy has woven round this tragic figure we can still detect the features of those great yearly changes in earth and sky which, under all distinctions of race and religion, must always touch the natural human heart with alternate emotions of gladness and regret, because they exhibit on the vastest scale open to our observation the mysterious struggle between life and death. But man has not always been willing to watch passively this momentous conflict; he has felt that he has too great a stake in its issue to stand by with folded hands while it is being fought out; he has taken sides against the forces of death and decay – has flung into the trembling scale all the weight of his puny person, and has exulted in his fancied strength when the great balance has slowly inclined towards the side of life, little knowing that for all his strenuous efforts he can as little stir that balance by a hair's-breadth as can the primrose on a mossy bank in spring or the dead leaf blown by the chilly breath of autumn. Nowhere do these efforts, vain and pitiful, yet pathetic, appear to have been made more persistently and systematically than in Western Asia. In name they varied from place to place, but in substance they were all alike. A man, whom the fond imagination of his worshippers invested with the attributes of a god, gave his life for the life of the world; after infusing from his own body a fresh current of vital energy into the stagnant veins of nature, he was cut off from among the living before his failing strength should initiate a universal decay, and his place was taken by another who played, like all his predecessors, the ever-recurring drama of the divine resurrection and death. Such a drama, if our interpretation of it is right, was the original story of Esther and Mordecai or, to give them their older names, of Ishtar and Marduk. It was played in Babylonia, and from Babylonia the returning captives brought it to Judaea, where it was acted, rather as an historical than a mythical piece, by players who, having to die in grim earnest on a cross or gallows, were naturally drawn rather from the gaol than the green-room. A chain of causes which, because we cannot follow them, might in the loose language of daily life be called an accident, determined that the part of the dying god in this annual play should be thrust upon Jesus of Nazareth, whom the enemies he had made in high places by his outspoken strictures were resolved to put out of the way. They succeeded in ridding themselves of the popular and troublesome preacher; but the very step by which they fancied they had simultaneously stamped out his revolutionary doctrines contributed more than anything else they could have done to scatter them broadcast not only over Judaea but over Asia; for it impressed upon what had been hitherto mainly an ethical mission the character of a divine revelation culminating in the passion and death of the incarnate Son of a heavenly Father. In this form the story of the life and death of Jesus exerted an influence which it could never have had if the great teacher had died, as is commonly supposed, the death of a vulgar malefactor. It shed round the cross on Calvary a halo of divinity which multitudes saw and worshipped afar off; the blow struck on Golgotha set a thousand expectant strings vibrating in unison wherever men had heard the old, old story of the dying and risen god. Every year, as another spring bloomed and another autumn faded across the earth, the field had been ploughed and sown and borne fruit of a kind till it received that seed which was destined to spring up and overshadow the world. In the great army of martyrs who in many ages and in many lands, not in Asia only, have died a cruel death in the character of gods, the devout Christian will doubtless discern types and forerunners of the coming Saviour – stars that heralded in the morning sky the advent of the Sun of Righteousness – earthen vessels wherein it pleased the divine wisdom to set before hungering souls the bread of heaven. The sceptic, on the other hand, with equal confidence, will reduce Jesus of Nazareth to the level of a multitude of other victims of a barbarous superstition, and will see in him no more than a moral teacher, whom the fortunate accident of his execution invested with the crown, not merely of a martyr, but of a god. The divergence between these views is wide and deep. Which of them is the truer and will in the end prevail? Time will decide the question of prevalence, if not of truth. Yet we would fain believe that in this and in all things the old maxim will hold good —Magna est veritas et praevalebit.

1

J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua (The Hague, 1886), pp. 266 sq., 305, 357 sq.; compare id., pp. 141, 340.

2

Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904), p. 474.

3

J. Pearse, “Customs connected with Death and Burial among the Sihanaka,” The Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine, vol. ii., Reprint of the Second four Numbers (Antananarivo, 1896), pp. 146 sq.

4

Ivan Petroff, Report on the Population, Industries, and Resources of Alaska, p. 158.

5

H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda (Berlin, 1894), p. 322.

6

J. Spieth, Die Ewe-Stämme (Berlin, 1906), p. 800.

7

Pausanias, vii. 23. 3.

8

P. J. de Arriaga, Extirpacion de la Idolatria del Piru (Lima, 1621), p. 29.

9

This I learned from my friend W. Robertson Smith, who mentioned as his authority David of Antioch, Tazyin, in the story “Orwa.”

10

R. Andree, Ethnographische Parallele und Vergleiche (Stuttgart, 1878), pp. 29 sq.

11

“Lettre du curé de Santiago Tepehuacan à son évêque sur les mœurs et coutumes des Indiens soumis à ses soins,” Bulletin de la Société de Géographie (Paris), Deuxième Série, ii. (1834) p. 182.

12

Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), pp. 309 sq.

13

C. Hupe, “Korte Verhandeling over de Godsdienst, Zeden enz. der Dajakkers,” Tijdschrift voor Neêrlands Indië, 1846, dl. iii. pp. 149 sq.; F. Grabowsky, “Die Theogonie der Dajaken auf Borneo,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, v. (1892) p. 131.

14

J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines (Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, 1881), p. 59.

15

W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), i. 164 sq.

16

Rev. J. Roscoe, “The Bahima, a Cow Tribe of Enkole,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, xxxvii. (1907) p. 103.

17

Rev. J. Cole, “Notes on the Wagogo of German East Africa,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxiii. (1902) p. 313.

18

Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), pp. 343 sq.

19

Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir (London, 1904), p. 146.

20

Central Provinces, Ethnographic Survey, iii., Draft Articles on Forest Tribes (Allahabad, 1907), p. 63.

21

M. v. Beguelin, “Religiöse Volksbräuche der Mongolen,” Globus, lvii. (1890) pp. 209 sq.

22

J. G. F. Riedel, “Die Landschaft Dawan oder West-Timor,” Deutsche geographische Blätter, x. 231.

23

J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua (The Hague, 1886), p. 340.

24

R. H. Codrington, D.D., The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 186.

25

G. F. de Oviedo, Histoire du Nicaragua (Paris, 1840), pp. 42 sq. (Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, Relations et Mémoires originaux, pour servir à l'Histoire de la Découverte de l'Amérique).

26

P. J. de Arriaga, Extirpacion de la Idolatria del Piru (Lima, 1621), pp. 37, 130. As to the custom compare J. J. von Tschudi, Peru (St. Gallen, 1846), ii. 77 sq.; H. A. Weddell, Voyage dans le Nord de la Bolivia et dans les parties voisines du Pérou (Paris and London, 1853), pp. 74 sq. These latter writers interpret the stones as offerings.

27

Baron E. Nordenskiöld, “Travels on the Boundaries of Bolivia and Argentina,” The Geographical Journal, xxi. (1903) p. 518.

28

C. Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico (London, 1903), ii. 282.

29

Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique-Centrale (Paris, 1857-1859), ii. 564; compare iii. 486. Indians of Guatemala, when they cross a pass for the first time, still commonly add a stone to the cairn which marks the spot. See C. Sapper, “Die Gebräuche und religiösen Anschauungen der Kekchi-Indianer,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, viii. (1895) p. 197.

30

F. F. R. Boileau, “The Nyasa-Tanganyika Plateau,” The Geographical Journal, xiii. (1899) p. 589. In the same region Mr. L. Decle observed many trees or rocks on which were placed little heaps of stones or bits of wood, to which in passing each of his men added a fresh stone or bit of wood or a tuft of grass. “This,” says Mr. L. Decle, “is a tribute to the spirits, the general precaution to ensure a safe return” (Three Years in Savage Africa, London, 1898, p. 289). A similar practice prevails among the Wanyamwezi (ibid. p. 345). Compare J. A. Grant, A Walk across Africa (Edinburgh and London, 1864), pp. 133 sq.

31

Cowper Rose, Four Years in Southern Africa (London, 1829), p. 147.

32

Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir (London, 1904), p. 264.

33

S. Kay, Travels and Researches in Caffraria (London, 1833), pp. 211 sq.; Rev. H. Callaway, Religious System of the Amazulu, i. 66; D. Leslie, Among the Zulus and Amatongas (Edinburgh, 1875), pp. 146 sq. Compare H. Lichtenstein, Reisen im südlichen Africa (Berlin, 1811-1812), i. 411.

34

W. Gowland, “Dolmens and other Antiquities of Corea,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxiv. (1895) pp. 328 sq.; Mrs. Bishop, Korea and her Neighbours (London, 1898), i. 147, ii. 223. Both writers speak as if the practice were to spit on the cairn rather than on the particular stone which the traveller adds to it; indeed, Mrs. Bishop omits to notice the custom of adding to the cairns. Mr. Gowland says that almost every traveller carries up at least one stone from the valley and lays it on the pile.

35

D. Forbes, “On the Aymara Indians of Peru and Bolivia,” Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, ii. (1870) pp. 237 sq.; G. C. Musters, “Notes on Bolivia,” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, xlvii. (1877) p. 211; T. T. Cooper, Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce (London, 1871), p. 275; J. A. H. Louis, The Gates of Thibet, a Bird's Eye View of Independent Sikkhim, British Bhootan, and the Dooars (Calcutta, 1894), pp. 111 sq.; A. Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, ii. (Leipsic, 1866) p. 483. So among the Mrus of Aracan, every man who crosses a hill, on reaching the crest, plucks a fresh young shoot of grass and lays it on a pile of the withered deposits of former travellers (T. H. Lewin, Wild Races of South-Eastern India, London, 1870, pp. 232 sq.).

36

A. d'Orbigny, Voyage dans l'Amérique Méridionale, ii. (Paris and Strasburg, 1839-1843) pp. 92 sq.

37

(Sir) F. E. Younghusband, “A Journey across Central Asia,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, x. (1888) p. 494.

38

F. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde (Heilbronn, 1879), pp. 274 sq.

39

F. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 274; J. B. Holzmayer, “Osiliana,” Verhandlungen der gelehrten Estnischen Gesellschaft zu Dorpat, vii. (1872) p. 73.

40

Spenser St. John, Life in the Forests of the Far East2 (London, 1863), i. 88.

41

E. H. Gomes, Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo (London, 1911), pp. 66 sq.

42

Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo (London, 1912), i. 123.

43

A. C. Haddon, “A Batch of Irish Folk-lore,” Folk-lore, iv. (1893) pp. 357, 360; Laisnel de la Salle, Croyances et Légendes du Centre de la France (Paris, 1875), ii. 75, 77; J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 309; Hylten-Cavallius, quoted by F. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 274; K. Haupt, Sagenbuch der Lausitz (Leipsic, 1862-1863), ii. 65; K. Müllenhoff, Sagen, Märchen und Lieder der Herzogthümer Schleswig, Holstein und Lauenburg (Kiel, 1845), p. 125; A. Kuhn, Märkische Sagen und Märchen (Berlin, 1843), p. 113; A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche (Leipsic, 1848), p. 85; A. Treichel, “Reisighäufung und Steinhäufung an Mordstellen,” Am Ur-Quelle, vi. (1896) p. 220; Georgeakis et Pineau, Folk-lore de Lesbos, p. 323; A. Leared, Morocco and the Moors (London, 1876), pp. 105 sq.; E. Doutté, “Figuig,” La Géographie, Bulletin de la Société de Géographie (Paris), vii. (1903) p. 197; id., Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord (Algiers, 1908), pp. 424 sq.; A. von Haxthausen, Transkaukasia (Leipsic, 1856), i. 222; C. T. Wilson, Peasant Life in the Holy Land (London, 1906), p. 285; W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), i. 267 sq.; J. Bricknell, The Natural History of North Carolina (Dublin, 1737), p. 380; J. Adair, History of the American Indians (London, 1775), p. 184; K. Martin, Bericht über eine Reise nach Nederlandsch West-Indien, Erster Theil (Leyden, 1887), p. 166; G. C. Musters, “Notes on Bolivia,” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, xlvii. (1877) p. 211; B. F. Matthes, Einige Eigenthümlichkeiten in den Festen und Gewohnheiten der Makassaren und Büginesen, p. 25 (separate reprint from Travaux de la 6e Session du Congrès International des Orientalistes à Leide, vol. ii.); R. A. Cruise, Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in New Zealand (London, 1823), p. 186.

44

Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 50.

45

Captain James Cook, Voyages (London, 1809), vi. 479.

46

E. Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest (Edinburgh and London, 1888), i. 311, 318.

47

H. Lichtenstein, Reisen im Südlichen Africa (Berlin, 1811-1812), i. 349 sq.; Sir James E. Alexander, Expedition of Discovery into the Interior of Africa (London, 1838), i. 166; C. J. Andersson, Lake Ngami, Second Edition (London, 1856), p. 327; W. H. I. Bleek, Reynard the Fox in South Africa (London, 1864), p. 76; Th. Hahn, Tsuni-Goam, the Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi (London, 1881), p. 56. Compare The Dying God, p. 3.

48

Th. Hahn, “Die Buschmänner,” Globus, xviii. 141.

49

Th. Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, ii. (Leipsic, 1860) p. 195, referring to Raffenel, Nouveau Voyage dans le pays des nègres (Paris, 1856), i. 93 sq.

50

Eijūb Abēla, “Beiträge zur Kenntniss abergläubischer Gebräuche in Syrien,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palaestina-Vereins, vii. (1884) p. 102.

51

Note by G. P. Badger, on The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema, translated by J. W. Jones (Hakluyt Society, 1863), p. 45. For more evidence of the custom in Syria see W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book (London, 1859), p. 490; F. Sessions, “Some Syrian Folklore Notes,” Folk-lore, ix. (1898) p. 15; A. Jaussen, Coutumes des Arabes au pays de Moab (Paris, 1908), p. 336.

52

A. Treichel, “Reisig- und Steinhäufung bei Ermordeten oder Selbstmördern,” Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, 1888, p. (569) (bound up with Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, xx. 1888).

53

Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), pp. 20 sq., 46 sq., 124 sq., 126 sq., 289 sq. Stones are not mentioned among the missiles hurled at ghosts, probably because stones are scarce in Uganda. See J. Roscoe, op. cit. p. 5.

54

Father Finaz, S.J., in Les Missions Catholiques, vii. (1875) p. 328.

55

“Der Muata Cazembe und die Völkerstämme der Maraves, Chevas, Muembas, Lundas, und andere von Süd-Afrika,” Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde, vi. (1856) p. 287.

56

Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, lxxii. Part iii. (Calcutta, 1904) p. 87.

57

A. W. Nieuwenhuis, In Centraal Borneo (Leyden, 1900), i. 146.

58

Euripides, Electra, 327 sq.

59

Propertius, v. 5. 77 sq.

60

M. Merker, Die Masai (Berlin, 1904), p. 193.

61

A. C. Hollis, The Masai (Oxford, 1905), pp. 305 sq.

62

E. D. Clarke, Travels in various Countries of Europe and Asia, vi. (London, 1823) p. 165.

63

W. H. D. Rouse, “Notes from Syria,” Folk-lore, vi. (1895) p. 173. Compare F. Sessions, “Some Syrian Folklore Notes, gathered on Mount Lebanon,” Folk-lore, ix. (1898) p. 15.

64

E. Doutté, Magie et Religion dans l' Afrique du Nord (Algiers, 1908), pp. 420-422.

65

E. Doutté, Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord, p. 440, quoting De Ségonzac, Voyage au Maroc, p. 82.

66

I follow the exposition of E. Doutté, whose account of the sanctity or magical influence (baraka) ascribed to the persons of living Mohammedan saints (marabouts) is very instructive. See his Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord, pp. 438 sqq. Mr. E. S. Hartland had previously explained the custom of throwing stones and sticks on cairns as acts of ceremonial union with the spirit who is supposed to reside in the cairn. See his Legend of Perseus, ii. (London, 1895) p. 128. While this theory offers a plausible explanation of some cases of the custom, I do not think that it will cover them all. M. René Dussaud argues that the stones deposited at shrines of holy men are simply material embodiments of the prayers which at the same time the suppliants address to the saints; and he holds that the practice of depositing stones at such places rests on a principle entirely different from that of throwing stones for the purpose of repelling evil spirits. See René Dussaud, “La matérialisation de la prière en Orient,” Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d' Anthropologie de Paris, V. Série, vii. (1906) pp. 213-220. If I am right, the fundamental idea in these customs is neither that the stones or sticks are offerings presented to good spirits nor that they are missiles hurled at bad ones, but that they embody the evil, whether disease, misfortune, fear, horror, or what not, of which the person attempts to rid himself by transferring it to a material vehicle. But I am far from confident that this explanation applies to all cases. In particular it is difficult to reconcile it with the custom, described in the text, of throwing a marked stone at a holy man and then recovering it. Are we to suppose that the stone carries away the evil to the good man and brings back his blessing instead? The idea is perhaps too subtle and far-fetched.

The word baraka, which in North Africa describes the powerful and in general beneficent, yet dangerous, influence which emanates from holy persons and things, is no doubt identical with the Hebrew bĕrakhah (ברכה) “blessing.” The importance which the ancient Hebrews ascribed to the blessing or the curse of a holy man is familiar to us from many passages in the Old Testament. See, for example, Genesis xxvii., xlviii. 8 sqq.; Deuteronomy xxvii. 11 sqq., xxviii. 1 sqq.

67

E. Doutté, Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord (Algiers, 1908), pp. 430 sq.; J. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums2 (Berlin, 1897), p. 111. The explanation given in the text is regarded as probable by Professor M. J. de Goeje (Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, xvi. ,1904, p. 42.)

68

Etymologicum Magnum, s. v. Ἑρμαῖον, pp. 375 sq.; Eustathius on Homer, Odyssey, xvi. 471. As to the heaps of stones see Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium, 16; Babrius, Fabulae, xlviii. 1 sq.; Suidas, s. v. Ἑρμαῖον; Scholiast on Nicander, Ther. 150; M. P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 388 sqq. The method of execution by stoning may perhaps have been resorted to in order to avoid the pollution which would be entailed by contact with the guilty and dying man.

69

Plato, Laws, ix. 12, p. 873 a-c λίθον ἕκαστος φέρων ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν τοῦ νεκροῦ βάλλων ἀφοσιούτω τὴν πόλιν ὅλην.

70

Satapatha Brahmana, ix. 1. 2. 9-12, Part iv. p. 171 of J. Eggeling's translation (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xliii., Oxford, 1897). As to Nirriti, the Goddess of Destruction, see H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda (Berlin, 1894), pp. 323, 351, 354, 489 note 3.