FullReads

What, then, is religion? Decomposed into its elements, as they are found in Christianity, how many powers for acting on the heart of man, does, by possibility, this great agency include? According to my own view, four.[Footnote: there are six, in one sense, of religion: viz. 5thly, corresponding moral affections; 6thly, a suitable life. But this applies to religion as subjectively possessed by a man, not to religion as objectively contemplated. ] I will state them, and number them.

1st. A form of worship, a cultus.

2dly. An idea of God; and (pointing the analysis to Christianity in particular) an idea not purified merely from ancient pollutions, but recast and absolutely born again.

3dly. An idea of the relation which man occupies to God: and of this idea also, when Christianity is the religion concerned, it must be said, that it is so entirely remodelled, as in no respect to resemble any element in any other religion. Thus far we are reminded of the poet’s expression, ‘Pure religion breathing household laws;’ that is, not teaching such laws, not formally prescribing a new economy of life, so much as inspiring it indirectly through a new atmosphere surrounding all objects with new attributes. But there is also in Christianity,

4thly. A doctrinal part, a part directly and explicitly occupied with teaching; and this divides into two great sections, Î�, A system of ethics so absolutely new as to be untranslatable[Footnote: This is not generally perceived. On the contrary, people are ready to say, ‘Why, so far from it, the very earliest language in which the Gospels appeared, excepting only St. Matthew’s, was the Greek.’ Yes, reader; but what Greek? Had not the Greeks been, for a long time, colonizing Syria under princes of Grecian blood,–had not the Greek language (as a lingua Hellenistica) become steeped in Hebrew ideas,–no door of communication could have been opened between the new world of Christian feeling, and the old world so deaf to its music. Here, therefore, we may observe two preparations made secretly by Providence for receiving Christianity and clearing the road before it; first, the diffusion of the Greek language through the whole civilized world (Î� Î�Î�χÎ�Î�Î�Î�Î�Î�) some time before Christ, by which means the Evangelists found wings, as it were, for flying abroad through the kingdoms of the earth; secondly, the Hebraizing of this language, by which means the Evangelists found a new material made plastic and obedient to these new ideas, which they had to build with, and which they had to build upon.] into either of the classical languages; and, Î�, A system of mysteries; as, for instance, the mystery of the Trinity, of the Divine Incarnation, of the Atonement, of the Resurrection, and others.

Here are great elements; and now let me ask, how many of these are found in the Heathen religion of Greece and Rome? This is an important question; it being my object to show that no religion but the Christian, and precisely through some one or two of its differential elements, could have been an organ of political movement.

Most divines who anywhere glance at this question, are here found in, what seems to me, the deepest of errors. Great theologians are they, and eminent philosophers, who have presumed that (as a matter of course) all religions, however false, are introductory to some scheme of morality, however imperfect. They grant you that the morality is oftentimes unsound; but still, they think that some morality there must have been, or else for what purpose was the religion? This I pronounce error.

All the moral theories of antiquity were utterly disjoined from religion. But this fallacy of a dogmatic or doctrinal part in Paganism is born out of Anachronism. It is the anachronism of unconsciously reflecting back upon the ancient religions of darkness, and as if essential to all religions, features that never were suspected as possible, until they had been revealed in Christianity.[Footnote: Once for all, to save the trouble of continual repetitions, understand Judaism to be commemorated jointly with Christianity; the dark root together with the golden fruitage; whenever the nature of the case does not presume a contradistinction of the one to the other.] Religion, in the eye of a Pagan, had no more relation to morals, than it had to ship-building or trigonometry. But, then, why was religion honored amongst Pagans? How did it ever arise? What was its object? Object! it had no object; if by this you mean ulterior object. Pagan religion arose in no motive, but in an impulse. Pagan religion aimed at no distant prize ahead: it fled from a danger immediately behind. The gods of the Pagans were wicked natures; but they were natures to be feared, and to be propitiated; for they were fierce, and they were moody, and (as regarded man who had no wings) they were powerful. Once accredited as facts, the Pagan gods could not be regarded as other than terrific facts; and thus it was, that in terror, blind terror, as against power in the hands of divine wickedness, arose the ancient religions of Paganism. Because the gods were wicked, man was religious; because Olympus was cruel, earth trembled; because the divine beings were the most lawless of Thugs, the human being became the most abject of sycophants.