Israel and Humanity - Other traces of monotheism in ancient pagan traditions

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VII.

Other traces of monotheism in pagan antiquity.

As proof of the existence of monotheism in ancient paganism, we may cite the absence of certain deities, such as for the older gods of the Vedas, of well-defined character, a distinct individuality. The differences are vague and roles are often reversed. The same thing happened after the advent of Christianity, so that any god invoked indiscriminately for any need in particular, so that the fullness of power was successively assigned to all.

Use also prevailed throughout all the gods together in a common home or pantheon is also significant and implies a certain idea of unity.

Finally we can put the number of indirect manifestations of religious unity that the trend observed across approximate, confused and identify particular deities of a people and those of other nations. This tendency to unity, it is the result of intellectual development, as reiterated [1] rationalists, or a primitive monotheism whose traces could never be erased, as 'says Judaism, seems to have gone two phases to the Gentiles, the national phase and the humanitarian phase. As the first step, we can cite the amphictyonat Greece. "The oath by which Amphyctions undertook not reverse any of the cities the right to amphictyonat honored," said Maury, naturally accustomed to have people for gods Amphictyonic fear and extreme respect. These deities became really big national gods, and they were to some extent regarded as superior in power to those which were unique to each country and each people, as they governed all states in common, while other taking special care of nations under their tutelage special "[2]

As the humanitarian phase, it began the day the concept of humanity came to be superimposed on that of nationality, that is to say, the early days of the Roman Empire, bringing under one government the countries most distant heathen minds accustomed to regard the world as the home of a single humanity, and had done since time immemorial Judaism. To oversee this one humanity on earth, it was not difficult to imagine when one god in heaven. That is what is true in the Christian conception according to which the unity of the Roman Empire was a providential means to prepare the world for the messianic unity. Otherwise, history is there to prove you can not see at this time that the outbreak of the sense of human solidarity and not the fullness of time announced by the prophets. Still, the relationship between natural whole idea of human unity and the unity of divine and almost scientific language translation of this article of faith that predicted for the Jewish Messianic confession of unity God of all men united in justice and love.

It should not be confused with the traces of a primitive monotheism a phenomenon which at first glance seems similar, but requires in reality different ideas. We refer to the predominance of a particular god on the other, following the victory of the people who worship on other nations [3] It says in an Assyrian inscription: "This because people have refused the god Assur, my lord, the tributes and royalties due to him as the ruler of Nineveh led his armies against them. Because they are wicked at the same time as it appears without rebels pity. Perhaps we should see in this inscription and a few other memories of war propaganda to secure business people to worship the gods of Nineveh. In any case there is far from the subordination of one deity to another by right of conquest and after the bloody struggle to dominate any natural exercised the God of Israel in the minds of its worshipers. The gods of paganism, fighting among themselves as equals, sometimes victorious, sometimes defeated, the God of Israel punishes them. This is the meaning of the verse of Exodus: "I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt" Exodus [4].

There is reason to wonder whether the ancient pagan was aware of the identity primitive and fundamental of the various religions. There is no reason to believe that she reached this conclusion, but could find here and there the feeling of that identity, which manifested itself in certain circumstances, when the Gentiles come into touch with each other came to read their respective faiths. So was it such that the Etruscans had, apparently, used to compare with their old gods as the gods they admitted in their worship, and when their identity seemed obvious to impose the names of ancient deities. As for Greeks, we know that at the time of Herodotus they were widespread in Egypt and they compared the deities and religious practices of that country with those of the Hellenism. Travelers and conquerors Greeks and Romans discovered their own gods everywhere. They found in turn Venus, Mars, Neptune, Mercury. Tacitus took the goddess Hertha worshiped in ancient Saxons for Tellus Mater Rome and his conjecture was correct.

Not only the ancient gods own towers easily identified with those of other nations, but it was not unusual that people would adopt the gods of its neighbors, or that they find some resemblance with his own, is that there would in any Olympus vacuum to fill, or whether the gods [5] of humanity were conceived as hierarchically organized and ethnographically, but to be adored by little bit everywhere. This is what happened to the Roman empire which included many nationalities and races. As soon as the unity of the empire began to settle, we see a phenomenon occur entirely different from that observed at the origin. While in the early days of Rome's history, the national individualism showed itself resistant to any outside influence, the result of Roman conquest was at hand in the republic to introduce a sense of universality and we gladly welcomed the foreign gods, so much so that the Emperor Heliogabalus would give a place in the pantheon of statues of Abraham and Jesus.

The identification of various deities was an illusion of past and she is on a scientific basis? All indications are that under their various names the pagan gods of antiquity can be reduced to some general types and a modern critic has claimed to find in all the goddesses Isis figure whose history, inclinations and jobs been diversified with the changing country, dress and name. These equivalences that we can not easily establish by force of research and comparisons to assume the origin is a historical unity, God having made known to various people under various names, is an ideological unity of types that repeat themselves wherever there is a thinking humanity.

The concept of religious unity among the nations was in any case obscure and confined to an elite, moreover, it was not revealed at intervals. The idea of having a universal God was mostly implicit and when they rose to the conception of a Supreme Being, they glimpsed almost always purely passive: it was like a God rest in anticipation of a humanity that did not exist. For Jews this belief to the contrary was clear, continuous and widespread throughout the nation. Not only were they aware of the existence of a doctrine formerly common to all mankind an article of their faith, but they claimed to be the sole and legitimate custodians of this religious tradition and hold it in reserve for centuries to come. [6]


References

  1. Page 129
  2. Religions of Greece. Vol. II, p. 13.
  3. Page 130
  4. , XII, 12
  5. Page 131
  6. Page 132