The comparative historical study of religions is one of the means indispensable to the solution of the difficult problem What is religion ?—the other being a psychological study of man. It is one of the pillars on which not a merely speculative and fantastic, and therefore worthless, but a sound scientific philosophy of religion should rest. Still, like every department of study, it has its aim in itself. This aim is not to satisfy a vain curiosity, but to understand and explain one of the mightiest motors in the history of mankind, which formed as well as tore asunder nations, united as well as divided empires, which sanctioned the most atrocious and barbarous deeds, the most cruel and libidinous customs, and inspired the most admirable acts of heroism, self-renunciation, and devotion, which occasioned the most sanguinary wars, rebellions, and persecutions, as well as brought about the freedom, happiness, and peace of nations—at one time a partisan of tyranny, at another breaking its chains, now calling into existence and fostering a new and brilliant civilization, then the deadly foe to progress, science, and art.

Religions, like living organisms, have a history, and therefore this is to be studied first, so far as it can be known,—how they rise and spread, grow and fade away; how far they are the creations of individual genius, and how far of the genius of nations and communities; by what laws, if it is possible to discover them, their development is ruled; what are their relations to philosophy,science,and art, to the state, to society, and above all to ethics; what is their mutual historical relation, that is, if one of them sprang from another, or if a whole group are to be derived from a common parent, or if they only borrowed from one another and were subject to one another’s influence; lastly, what place is to be assigned to each of those groups or single religions in the universal history of religion. The first result of this historical inquiry must be an attempt at a genealogical classification of religions, in which they are grouped after their proved or probable descent and affinity.

However, like every genuine scientific study, historical investigations, if they are to bear fruit, must be comparative. Not only has every religion as a whole, and every religious group, to be compared with others, that we may know in what particular qualities it agrees with or differs from them, and that we may determine its special characteristics, but, before this can be done, comparative study on a much larger scale must precede. Every religion has two prominent constituent elements, the one theoretical, the other practical—religious ideas and religious acts. The ideas may be vague conceptions, concrete myths, precise dogmas, either handed over by tradition or recorded in sacred books, combined or not into systems of mythology and dogmatics, summarized or not in a creed or symbol, but there is no living religion without something like a doctrine. On the other hand, a doctrine, however elaborate, does not constitute a religion. Scarcely less than by its leading ideas a religion is characterized by its rites and institutions, including in the higher phases of development moral precepts, in the highest phases ethical principles. It happens but very seldom, if ever, that those two elements balance each other. In different religions they are commonly found in very different proportions, some faiths being pre-eminently doctrinal or dogmatic, others pre-eminently ritualistic or ethical; but where one of them is wanting entirely religion no longer exists. Not that dogma and ritual are religion; they are only its necessary manifestations, the embodiment of what must be considered as its very life and essence, of that which as an inner conviction must be distinguished from a doctrine or creed—a belief. But we cannot get a knowledge of the belief which lies at the base of a particular doctrine and which prompts peculiar rites and acts, without studying the mythical and dogmatical conceptions and the ritual or ethical institutions in which it takes its shape, and without comparing these with others. This then is the task of what is called comparative theology in its widest sense, of which comparative mythology is only a branch, and in which more space and attention should be given to the hitherto much neglected comparative study of religious worship and of ethics in their relation to religion. It is then only that we can proceed to characterize and mutually compare religions themselves, regarded as a whole, and that we may come to what must be the final result of this historical as well as comparative study, a morphological classification of religions. Here the study of religions reaches its goal, and the task of the philosophy of religion, the other main branch of the so-called science of religion or general theology, begins.

It need scarcely be said that the basis of the comparative historical study of religions must be a patient and critical examination of the sources from which the knowledge of the various religions of the world is to be drawn, viz., written documents and traditions, monuments and works of art, sacred writings and heretical books, and, when we wish to inquire into the religions of the uncivilized tribes that have no history at all, an impartial weighing of the evidence brought by travellers and settlers from different parts of the globe,—in short, an unbiassed ascertaining of facts.

Genealogical Classification. —There is no difficulty in determining the descent and relationship of religions which have taken rise in historical times, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Mohammedanism, and some others of minor importance. But the great majority of ancient religions had their origin in prehistoric times, of which neither documents nor trustworthy traditions are extant. In that case their mutual relation has to be established by reasoning from the myths, ideas, rites, and characteristics common to them. Professor Max Müller (. Lectures on the Science of Religion , pp. 154 sq.) suggests that, whatever classification has been found most useful in the science of language ought to prove equally useful in the science of religion. Now it may be true in general, at least for the most ancient times, that where the languages of a group of nations are proved to belong to one family their religions too most probably “hold together by the same relationship.” But this hypothesis requires proof, and that proof is not to be obtained otherwise than by the comparative study of the religions themselves. Only when the religions of two independent nations agree in doctrine and mode of worship, above all in the notion of the relation between God and man, between the divine and the human, to such a degree and in such a manner that this agreement cannot be accounted for by the universal aspirations and wants of human nature, then only may we feel sure that the one of these religions is the parent of the other, or that both have come from a common stock. If not only two but several religions agree in like manner, or nearly so, we get a family, of religions. At present we can go no farther. The mutual relations of the different families cannot be determined yet; the problem is too difficult and too complicated to be solved in the present state of science. That religions belonging to different families have borrowed myths and customs from one another and have been subjected to one another’s influence may easily be proved. But whether the families themselves are branches of one and the same old tree is an open question to which a satisfactory answer cannot be given now.

It would be equally premature to venture on drawing up a complete genealogical table of religions. For some families of religions such a classification may be sketched with tolerable certainty; the genealogy of by far the greater number of them can be given in mere outlines only, leaving the fixing of details for further inquiry. We start from what may be held the most certain.

. Aryan or Indo-Germanic Family .—Comparative mythology and the history of religion leave no doubt that all the religions of the Aryan or Indo-Germanic nations, viz., Eastern Aryans (or Indians, Persians, and Phrygians) and Western Aryans (or Greeks, Romans, Germans, Norsemen, Letto-Slavs, and Celts), are the common offspring of one

| primitive Old-Aryan religion. That the same name of the highest heaven-god, Dyaus, Zeus, Ju(piter), Zio (Ty), is met with among Indians, Greeks, Italiotes, Germans, and Norsemen, however great the difference of the attributes and dignity ascribed by each of them to the god thus named may be, is a fact now generally known. Where this name has been lost, as is the case with the Persians, the Slavs, and the Celts, there are other divine names which they have in common with their kindred nations. Still more important is the fact that most Aryans show a tendency to call their supreme god “father,” as is proved by the very common forms Dyaus pitar, Zeus TvaTTjp, Jupiter, Diespiter, Marspiter, AlfbcTr. The supreme god in the Avesta, Ahuramazda, is often called father. Moreover many divine names used by different Aryan nations, though varying in form, are derived from the same root,—which proves the original unity of their conception. Take as examples the root di ( div ), “to shine,” and its derivatives Dyaus, Deva, and their family, Diti, Aditi, Dione, Pandion, Dionysos, Diovis, Dianus (Janus), Diana, Juno; or the root man, “to think” (perhaps equally signifying originally “to shine”), and its derivatives Manu, Minos, Minerva, (Juno) Moneta; or the roots sur ( svar), sar, mar, vas. Especially startling is the use of the same general word for “god” among several Aryan nations, viz., Skr. deva, Iran, daeva, Lat. deus, Litth. dewas (deiwys), Old Norse tivar (plur.), to which belong perhaps also Greek 6e6<s, Irish dia, Cyinr. deiv. Daeva and deiwys are used in a bad sense, but this cannot be original. So too the word asura ( ahura), which, though it too was used by the Indians in relatively modern times in a bad sense, was the name which the East-Aryans gave to their highest gods, and the Norse asa, pi. eesir (orig. ans), are both to be derived from the root as, a?ih. If we add to this the remarkable conformity of the myths and customs in all Aryan religions,—if, above all, by comparing them with those of other races, especially of the Semites, we find that the leading idea embodied in these Aryan myths and rites is everywhere the same, however different the peculiar character of each religion may be, namely, the close relation between God and man, the real unity between the divine and the human economy, so that we may call them the “theanthropic” religions,—if we remember this, there can be no doubt that all of them have sprung from one primitiveOld-Aryanreligion.

However, the degree in which the Aryan religions are mutually related is not always the same. None of them came directly from the Old-Aryanreligion. They consist of five pairs, each of which must have been first a unity:— the Indo-Persian, the Graeco-Roman, the Letto-Slavic, the Norse-Teutonic, and the Gaelo-Cymric. The fact that the members of those pairs are more closely allied with one another than with the other members of the family obliges us to assume five prehistoric Aryan religions:—the Old East-Aryan,the Old Pelasgic, the Old Win dig,the Old German,and the Old Celticreligions, forming so many links between those historical religions and the common parent of all,—the primeval Ar yanworship.

Space forbids us to give the complete proof of this conclusion. We only mention that the Indian and Iranian religions have many gods in common, unknown to the Western Aryans, and therefore probably such as arose after the eastern and western branch of the family had separated, e.g., Mitra—Mitlira, Ary am an—Airyaman, Bhaga—Bagha— Baga (comp, also Aramati—Armaiti, Sarasvati—Hara

Genealogical Table of the Aryan Religions.

qaiti, Ac.), and that the Soma—Haoma sacrifice, equally unknown in Europe, at least in that form, was the principal sacrifice as well in India as in Irân. The close relation of the Teutonic and Norse religions, and of the mythology and rites of the Greeks and Romans, even if we carefully except all that the latter took from the former in historical times, is sufficiently proved. It is not so evident, but still highly probable, that the religions of the north-western and the south-eastern Celts, though differing from one another in historical times, are daughters of one ancient Celtic religion. When we presuppose such a common parent, an ancient Windic religion, for the Letto-Slavic religions, we do so by way of an hypothesis, based on the analogy with the other branches of the family. What we know about these and about the Celtic forms of worship is so defective that we cannot speak more positively. As for the Phrygian religion, it seems to belong to the Iranian stock, and to form the transition from the Persian to the Greek or Pelasgic worship.

There may have been some other intermediate stages, besides those which we have been compelled by the facts to assume, between the historical Aryan religions and the prehistoric Old-Aryan . Thus, e.g., the Vedic religion as well as the Zarathustric cannot be considered as having sprung directly from the East-Aryan . The Rig-Veda appears to be far less primitive than has been generally thought until now. It contains ancient elements, but it is itself the product of relatively modern speculations, and belongs to a period in which a complicated and mystical sacrificial theory was upheld by priests of various functions and ranks. On the other hand it cannot be denied that the Zarathustric dogmas are pure old Aryan myths in a new shape—this is what M. Jas. Darmesteter has proved —but it was doubtless a reformer, or, if Zarathustra was no historical person, a body of reformers, who called the Zarathustric religion into existence. Therefore, between the Vedic and Zarathustric religions and their common ancestor the East-Aryan, there must have existed an Old Indian and an Old-Iranian religion.

This may suffice to justify the genealogical table of the Aryan religions given on last page.

:. Semitic Religions.— Though there is so much wanting in our knowledge of the Semitic religions, especially as regards those of the pre-Christian Aramaeans, of the pre-Islamic Arabs, and of the old Hebrews, all we know about them tends to prove that they too must have descended from a common source. When wo find that the same divinities were worshipped by several North-Semitic nations it might be contended that they were borrowed from one of them, as trade and conquest had brought them from ancient times into close contact with one another. But no such relation existed till the very last centuries of the Assyrian empire between the Northern Semites and the various tribes of the Arabian desert. Therefore gods and religious ideas and customs prevailing alike among the northern and the southern or Arabic branch of the race may be safely regarded as the primeval property of the whole family. Such are the general name for the godhead, Ilu, El, Hah (in Allah), and the gods Serakh or Sherag (2<φαχoς, Assyr., Arab., Cypr.), Keivan (Kaivanu, Babyl., Assyr., Arab., cf. Amos v. 26), Al-Lât, the moon-goddess (Babyl., Assyr., Arab.), as one of three different forms, of which another, the Al-'Uzza of the Arabs, is met with as 'Uza or 'Aza in Phoenician inscriptions, while the corresponding male god Aziz is found among the Aramaeans, and the third, Manât, corresponds to Meni, the “minor Fortune,” the planet Venus of the Hebrews, perhaps also with the Babylonian Manu. The myth of the dying and reviving Thammuz, Dumuzi, common to all Northern Semites, seems not to have been current among the ancient Arabs, though some scholars (Krehl, Lenor-mant) think there are traces of it left in their traditions and rites. Tree worship and stone worship have been pretty general in prehistoric times, and not a few remains of both have survived in all ancient faiths and modern superstitions; but the latter was particularly developed among both Northern and Southern Semites, which is proved by the use of Betyles (7K"ΓP□) j by the black stone in the Ka'ba, the stone at Bethel, that in the temple of the great goddess of Cyprus at Paphos, at Edessa, and elsewhere, by the seven black stones representing the planet-gods at Erech (Uruk) in Chaldaea, Ac. Holy mountains too are very frequent among the Semites, alike in Arabia (Kaçi, Dhu-l-shera, Horeb, Sinai—the two last-named still worshipped by the Saracens in the 6th century of our era) and in Canaan (Hermon, Tabor, comp, the Tabyrios and Zeus Atabyrios in Cyprus, Karmêl, Peniêl, Sion, Moriah, i.e., Gerîzim), in Syria (Lebanon, Anti-Libanus, Amanus; comp, the istirât, the heights of modern Syria), and in Mesopotamia, where the zigurrats or terrace towers represent the holy mountains as the abodes of the gods. Finally, all Semitic religions without a single exception understand the relation between God and man as one between the supreme lord and king (El the mighty, Baal, Bel, Adon, Malik, Sar) and his subject or slave ('Abd, 'Obed, Bod), his client or protected one (Jar, Gel־). They are eminently theocratic, and show a marked tendency to monotheism, which, both in Israel and in Arabia, is the last word of their religious development.

It is not so easy to determine the grade of relationship between the different Semitic religions as it is to show that they all descend from a common parent. Moreover the question is complicated by another problem—Whether the Babylonians and Assyrians borrowed the greater part of their religious conceptions and institutions from a foreign, non-Semitic people, the primitive inhabitants of their country, and if this be the case what they then have of their own and what is due to the influence of that ancient civilization. Whatever may be the final solution of this question, we shall not go far wrong if we distinguish the Semitic religions into two principal groups—the one comprising the southern or Arabic, with perhaps the most ancient Hebrew, the other all the Northern Semitic religions from the Tigris to the Mediterranean,—leaving it undecided whether the undeniable relationship between the north-eastern and the north-western Semitic religions be that of parent and children or that of sisters—in other words, whether it be due to the influence of the superior culture of the former or to the fact that they all have radiated from a common centre. This only is beyond...