Johannes Henricus Scholten

“ The clear, blue sky, the light of the sun, the rosy dawn, the storm that spends itself in fruitful rain, the winds and gales which drive away the clouds, the rivers whose fruitful slime overspreads the fields,—these moved the inhabitants of India to the worship of the divine as the beneficent power of nature which blesses man. ”

“ Among the Celtic tribes in Brittany, Ireland, and Gaul, and on both banks of the Rhine, out of an aboriginal life of nature characterized by wildness and license, religion developed itself in the form of the worship of two chief divinities, a male divinity, Hu, the begetting, and a female, Ceridwen, the bearing, power of nature. The priesthood busied itself with speculations about the divine, the origin of the world, and the continued existence of man after death, conceived in the form of the transmigration of souls. ”

“ Jesus fathomed the deep meaning of the religion of his people, and its original fitness to become, through higher development, the religion of the world. Jesus devoted himself to the end of forming the human race into one great society (the kingdom of heaven) , of which religion should be the soul and life, and, convinced of his calling, proclaimed himself as the Son of man, who, as such, belonged not to Israel alone, but to mankind. ”

“ Islamism stands, however, below original Christianity, the religion of Jesus and the Apostles, in that, by separating God, as the abstract one Supreme Being, from the world, it leaves no place for the doctrine of God's immanence, or the indwelling of the Spirit of God in man. Hence in Islamism the divine revelation remains purely mechanical, with no natural point of connection in man, and therefore there is no possibility of an enduring prophetism, which is the fundamental principle of Christianity. ”

“ In spite of the effort to elevate the Deity as Lord and King above nature, most of the Semitic nations gradually sank back into the old nature-worship, and, uniting with the worship of the highest God, Baal and Bel, that of a female divinity under the names of Baaltis, Beltis, Aschera, Mylitta, they made religion to consist in the sacrifice of chastity to the will of the Deity, as the fruitful, productive power of nature, and thus fell into gross immorality. ”

“ The worship was most simple, and, as was the case with the ancient Semites, the Indians of the Veda, and the Greeks, as yet independent of temple service and priestly constraint. The holy places of the Germans were woods, and hills, and fountains, and in the mysterious rustling of the leaves and in the murmuring of the waters the pious spirit caught the breathing of the deity. [5] The father of the house is priest, and the recognition by these races more than elsewhere of worth in woman is apparent also in their religion. ”

“ The first of these forms is exhibited in the fetich and nature-worship of the ancient nations; the second in Buddhism, and in the deification of the human, which reaches its full height among the Greeks. The true religion, prepared in Israel, is the Christian, in which man, grown conscious of his oneness with God, is ruled by the divine as an inner power of life, and acts spontaneously and freely while in the fullest dependence upon God. Since Christ, no more perfect religion has appeared. What is true and good in Islamism was borrowed from Israel and Christianity. ”

“ In Brahminism, God is all, and man, as personal being, nothing; in Buddhism, man is recognized as an individual, but apart from God, while in both systems, the highest endeavor is to be delivered from, according to Brahminism a seeming, according to Sakya-muni a really existing individuality, the source of all human woe, and to lose one's self either in Brahma or in the Nirvana. ”

“ Apollo, the god of light, who shot forth his arrows, not at first identified with Helios, became the god of divination and poetry, who led the choir of the muses; the goddess of light, Athene, became the contentious goddess of wisdom ”

“ To these defects must be ascribed the fact that Islamism, adapted to the need of the East, and therefore spread over a large part of Asia and Africa, has not, with the exception of the empire of Turkey, and for a time also of Spain, penetrated Europe; and, overshadowed by a higher development of humanity, has reached its highest bloom, while Christianity, brought back to its original purity, remains the religion of the civilized world. ”

“ Jesus combated both the formalism and exclusiveness of the Pharisees, and the unbelief of the Sadducees, and with word and deed preached a religion which, independent of all outward form, took hold of the human heart, and which, developing into an independent principle in man, was to find its commission, not in the authority of Scripture or tradition, not even in that of his name, but in its own power and truth. ”

“ Mohammed was seer and prophet, filled with fiery zeal for religion, and, while he stands indeed in this respect, both personally and with regard to the contents of his preaching and the means by which he sought to gain admission for his doctrine, below the seers of Israel, and far below the founder of Christianity, yet, on the other hand, his monotheism, abstract as it is, must be regarded as a wholesome reaction against the ever-increasing polytheistical superstition to which in his time the Christian church of the East especially had sunk. ”

“ The Israelitish religion, which reached its highest stage of development in prophetism, but which among the later Jews after Ezra degenerated, with the Pharisees into formalism and worship of the letter, with the Essenes into mysticism and asceticism, and which with the Sadducees, along with the sacrifice of the prophetic ideal of the future, was subordinated to politics, developed in Christianity, but freed from once cherished national expectations and outward forms, into a purely spiritual knowledge and worship of God. ”

“ The worship of nature, which is seen in its beginnings among the Chinese, exhibits itself among the Egyptians in a more developed form as theogony. Here also the reflecting mind rose to the recognition of two fundamental principles, the producing and the passive power of nature, Kneph and Neith, from which sprang successively the remaining powers of nature, time, air, earth, light and darkness, personified by the fantasy of the people into as many divinities. The Egyptian mythology also (none has as yet been discovered among the Chinese) exhibits a like character. ”

“ The human spirit is a part of Brahma, but perverted, misled by this same illusion to the conceit that he is individual. This illusion is done away with by a deeper insight, by means of which the dualism vanishes from the wise man's view, and the conceit gives place to the true knowledge that Brahma alone really exists, that nature, on the contrary, is nought, and the human spirit nothing else than Brahma himself. ”

“ Is this union unnatural, then the effort of the wise man should be to free himself, through the perception that the soul is not bound to the body, from the dominion of matter. In this system, there is no room for an infinite being, for, if a material world exist, then must God be limited by its existence, and therefore cease to be infinite, that is God. The Sankya philosophy here came in conflict with the orthodox doctrine of the Brahmins, and prepared the way for Buddhism. ”

“ While Dionysus, Demeter, Hades, and Persephone remained earthly, and Helios, Eos, Iris, and Hecate, heavenly divinities, and Oceanus, Poseidon, Amphitrite, Proteus, and Nereus ruled the waters, Zeus was conceived as the god of the sky and of thunder, who hurled the bolts, the great king and lawgiver, the father of men, and Hera, originally the air, became the protecting goddess of married life ”

“ From all this it seems fair to conclude that the religion of the oldest forefathers of Israel had its root originally in one and the same soil with the religion of the other Semites. Out of an earlier nature-religion there developed among the Semites the conception of Baal, the lord of nature, and of Molech with his inhuman worship. ”

“ In the mythology of the people, Indra, god of light, aided by Vayu and Rudra, wages war with Vritra,—who, as god of the clouds, holds back the rain and the light,—and appears as opponent of the destructive Ahi. ”

“ From this separation of God and man, the Mohammedan doctrine of predestination, in distinction from the Christian, acquires its abstract and fatalistic character, whereby man, instead of being regarded as a being in whose free activity God's power and life are glorified, is conceived as a passive instrument of a higher power. ”

“ Thirdly, circumcision, already before Moses [21] the bloody symbol of consecration to God, [22] and also the right of Jahveh to the first-born, and the necessity of ransoming them from him, [23] imply an earlier conception of the deity as a being, who, although on a higher development of the religion he is not indeed any longer thought to desire human sacrifice, nevertheless has a right to such a sacrifice, and thus demands indemnity for remitting it. ”

“ While Brahminism drew a distinction between man and man, and with hierarchical pride took no thought of the Sudra or lower class of the people, and limited wisdom to the priestly caste, Sakya-muni preached the equality of all men, came forward as a preacher to the people, used the people's language, and chose his followers out of all classes, even from among women. ”

“ He is not, as the Christians of Mohammed's time taught, the Son of God in a metaphysical sense, much less God himself,—Allah is one, he neither begets nor is begotten,—but a prophet of human descent. The greatest and last prophet is Mohammed himself, in whom prophetism reached its fulfillment. ”

“ Hence it followed that Christianity was not prized as the highest religion, existing along with less developed forms of religion, but was opposed as the only true religion to all others, which were regarded as the fruit of imposture and error, an opinion to which the religious and political struggles in which Islam and Christendom have been involved also richly contributed. ”

“ The monsters, the Sphinx, the Minotaur, the Cyclops, the Centaurs, symbols of a yet unhuman or half human power of nature, were overcome by the Greek heroes, Perseus, Hercules, Jason, Theseus, Œdipus, the types of human strength and valor. ”

“ Aphrodite, born of the foam of the sea, once the symbol of the fruitful power of nature, later, encircled by the Graces, became the type of womanly beauty and charm, to which the strength of man, personified in Ares, corresponds. ”

“ All that takes place upon the earth befalls according to the eternal decree of God, a conception in which, at least among the Orthodox Moslems, the Sunnites, who are distinguished in this respect, as in others, from the dissenting Shiites, there is no place left for human freedom. ”

“ In this also there is evidently an effort to bring the deity, conceived as the abstract One, into closer union with man, an effort which is likewise visible in the later Yoga system of the Brahmins, in which, by the admission of Buddhistic elements, the visible world is recognized as real, the old rigid asceticism mitigated, Vishnu represented as the soul of the world, and immortality taught as a return of the individual soul to Brahma. ”

“ With this higher development of religion, the names of the Supreme Being, Baal and Molech, originally common to the whole race, came more and more into contempt, and were regarded as the expression of abominable idolatry, [37] while even the worship of Jahveh under the form of a calf, originally permitted, was later branded by the prophets as heresy. ”

“ Although it is probable that every nation passed through different forms of religious belief before its religion reached its highest development, yet the earlier periods lie in great part beyond the reach of historical investigation. ”

“ Fifthly, even in the orthodox Jahveh-worship, some symbols, as the twelve oxen in the porch of the temple, [25] the horns of the altar for burnt-offerings, [26] perhaps also the in part oxlike form of the cherubim, [27] point to an earlier worship of the deity under the form of an ox, the symbol of the highest might, especially among the Semitic races. ”