Ten Great Religions Part 28

In other words, all spontaneity was absent from the Roman mind. Everything done was done on purpose, with a deliberate intention. This also appears in their religion. Their religion was not an inspiration, but an intention. It was all regular, precise, exact. The Roman cultus, like the Roman state, was a compact ma.s.s, in which all varieties were merged into a stern unity. All forms of religion might come to Rome and take their places in its pantheon, but they must come as servants and soldiers of the state. Rome opened a hospitable asylum to them, just as Rome had established a refuge on the Capitoline Hill to which all outlaws might come and be safe, on the condition of serving the community.

As everything in Rome must serve the state, so the religion of Rome was a state inst.i.tution, an established church. But as the state can only command and forbid outward actions, and has no control over the heart, so the religion of Rome was essentially external. It was a system of wors.h.i.+p, a ritual, a ceremony. If the externals were properly attended to, it took no notice of opinions or of sentiments. Thus we find in Cicero ("De Natura Deorum") the chief pontiff arguing against the existence of the G.o.ds and the use of divination. He claims to believe in religion as a pontifex, while he argues against it as a philosopher. The toleration of Rome consisted in this, that as long as there was outward conformity to prescribed observances, it troubled itself very little about opinions. It said to all religions what Gallio said to the Jews: "If it be a question of words and names and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters." Gallio was a genuine representative of Roman sentiment.

With religion, as long as it remained within the limits of opinion or feeling, the magistrate had nothing to do; only when it became an act of disobedience to the public law it was to be punished. Indeed, the very respect for national law in the Roman mind caused it to legalize in Rome the wors.h.i.+p of national G.o.ds. They considered it the duty of the Jews, in Rome, to wors.h.i.+p the Jewish G.o.d; of Egyptians, in Rome, to wors.h.i.+p the G.o.ds of Egypt. "Men of a thousand nations," says Dionysius of Halicarna.s.sus, "come to the city, and must wors.h.i.+p the G.o.ds of their country, according to their laws at home." As long as the Christians in Rome were regarded as a Jewish sect, their faith was a _religio licita_, when it was understood to be a departure from Judaism, it was then a criminal rebellion against a national faith[268].

The Roman religion has often been considered as a mere copy of that of Greece, and has therefore been confounded with it, as very nearly the same system. No doubt the Romans were imitators; they had no creative imagination. They borrowed and begged their stories about the G.o.ds, from Greece or elsewhere. But Hegel has long ago remarked that the resemblance between the two religions is superficial. The G.o.ds of Rome, he says, are practical G.o.ds, not theoretic; prosaic, not poetic. The religion of Rome is serious and earnest, while that of Greece is gay. Dionysius of Halicarna.s.sus thinks the Roman religion the better of the two, because it rejected the blasphemous myths concerning the loves and quarrels of the heavenly powers. But, on the other hand, the deities of Greece were more living and real persons, with characters of their own. The deities of Rome were working G.o.ds, who had each a task a.s.signed to him. They all had some official duty to perform; while the G.o.ds of Olympus could amuse themselves as they pleased. While the Zeus of Greece spent his time in adventures, many of which were disreputable, the Jupiter Capitolinus remained at home, attending to his sole business, which was to make Rome the mistress of the world. The G.o.ds of Rome, says Hegel, are not human beings, like those of Greece, but soulless machines, G.o.ds made by the understanding, even when borrowed from Greek story. They were wors.h.i.+pped also in the interest of the practical understanding, as givers of earthly fortune. The Romans had no real reverence for their G.o.ds; they wors.h.i.+pped them in no spirit of adoring love, but always for some useful object. It was a utilitarian wors.h.i.+p. Accordingly the practical faculties, engaged in useful arts, were deified. There was a Jupiter Pistor, presiding over bakers. There was a G.o.ddess of ovens; and a Juno Moneta, who took care of the coin. There was a G.o.ddess who presided over doing nothing, Tranquillitas Vacuna; and even the plague had an altar erected to it. But, after all, no deities were so great, in the opinion of the Romans, as Rome itself. The chief distinction of these deities was that they belonged to the Roman state[269].

Cicero considers the Romans to be the most religious of all nations, because they carried their religion into all the details of life. This is true; but one might as well consider himself a devout wors.h.i.+pper of iron or of wood, because he is always using these materials, in doors and out, in his parlor, kitchen, and stable.

As the religion of Rome had no doctrinal system, its truths were communicated mostly by spectacles and ceremonies, which chiefly consisted in the wholesale slaughter of men and animals. There was something frightful in the extent to which this was carried; for when cruelty proceeds from a principle and purpose, it is far worse than when arising from brutal pa.s.sion. An angry man may beat his wife; but the deliberate, repeated, and ingenious torments of the Inquisition, the ma.s.sacre of thousands of gladiators in a Roman amphitheatre, or the torture of prisoners by the North American Indians, are all parts of a system, and reinforced by considerations of propriety, duty, and religious reverence.

Mommsen remarks[270], that the Roman religion in all its details was a reflection of the Roman state. When the const.i.tution and inst.i.tutions of Rome changed, their religion changed with them. One ill.u.s.tration of this correspondence he finds in the fact that when the Romans admitted the people of a conquered state to become citizens of Rome, their G.o.ds were admitted with them; but in both cases the new citizens _(novensides_) occupied a subordinate position to the old settlers _(indigites[271]_).

That the races of Italy, among whom the Latin language originated, were of the same great Asiatic stock as the Greeks, Germans, Kelts, and Slavic tribes, is sufficiently proved by the unimpeachable evidence of language.

The old Latin roots and grammatic forms all retain the a.n.a.logies of the Aryan families. Their G.o.ds and their religion bear marks of the same origin, yet with a special and marked development. For the Roman nation was derived from at least three secondary sources,--the Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans. To these may be added the Pelasgian settlers on the western coast (unless these are included in the Etruscan element), and the very ancient race of Siculi or Sikels, whose name suggests, by its phonetic a.n.a.logy, a branch of that widely wandering race, the Kelts[272]. But the obscure and confused traditions of these Italian races help us very little in our present inquiry. That some of the oldest Roman deities were Latin, others Sabine, and others Etruscan, is, however, well ascertained. From the Latin towns Alba and Lavinium came the wors.h.i.+p of Vesta, Jupiter, Juno, Saturn and Tellus, Diana and Mars. Niebuhr thinks that the Sabine ritual was adopted by the Romans, and that Varro found the real remains of Sabine chapels on the Quirinal. From Etruria came the system of divination. Some of the oldest portions of the Roman religion were derived from agriculture. The G.o.d Saturn took his name from sowing. Picus and Faunus were agricultural G.o.ds. Pales, the G.o.ddess of herbage, had offerings of milk on her festivals. The Romans, says Dollinger, had no cosmogony of their own; a practical people, they took the world as they found it, and did not trouble themselves about its origin. Nor had they any favorite deities; they wors.h.i.+pped according to what was proper, every one in turn at the right time. Though the most polytheistic of religions, there ran through their system an obscure conception of one supreme being, Jupiter Optimus-Maximus, of whom all the other deities were but qualities and attributes. But they carried furthest of all nations this personifying and deifying of every separate power, this minute subdivision of the deity. Heffter[273] says this was carried to an extent which was almost comic. They had divinities who presided over talkativeness and silence, over beginnings and endings, over the manuring of the fields, and over all household transactions. And as the number increased, it became always more difficult to recollect which was the right G.o.d to appeal to under any special circ.u.mstances. So that often they were obliged to call on the G.o.ds in general, and, dismissing the whole polytheistic pantheon, to invoke some unknown G.o.d, or the supreme being. Sometimes, however, in these emergencies, new deities were created for the occasion. Thus they came to invoke the pestilence, defeat in battle, blight, etc., as dangerous beings whose hostility must be placated by sacrifices. A better part of their mythology was the wors.h.i.+p of Modesty (Pudicitia), Faith or Fidelity (Fides), Concord (Concordia), and the G.o.ds of home. It was the business of the pontiffs to see to the creation of new divinities. So the Romans had a G.o.ddess Pecunia, money (from Pecus, cattle), dating from the time when the circulating medium consisted in cows and sheep. But when copper money came, a G.o.d of copper was added, aescula.n.u.s; and when silver money was invented, a G.o.d Argentarius arrived.

-- 2. The G.o.ds of Rome.

Creuzer, in speaking of the Italian wors.h.i.+p, says that "one fact which emerges more prominently than any other is the concourse of Oriental, Pelasgic, Samothracian, and h.e.l.lenic elements in the religion of Rome." In like manner the Roman deities bear traces of very different sources. We have found reason to believe, in our previous chapters, that the religion of Egypt had a twofold origin, from Asiatic and African elements, and that the religion of Greece, in like manner, was derived from Egyptian and Pelasgic sources. So, too, we find the inst.i.tutions and people of Rome partaking of a Keltic and Pelasgic origin. Let us now see what was the character of the Roman deities.

One of the oldest and also most original of the G.o.ds of Rome was the Sabine G.o.d Ja.n.u.s. He was the deity who presided over beginnings and endings, over the act of opening and shutting. Hence the month which opened the year, January, received its name from this G.o.d, who also gave his name to Janua, a gate or door[274], and probably to the hill Janiculum[275].

The Romans laid great stress on all beginnings; believing that the commencement of any course of conduct determined, by a sort of magical necessity, its results. Bad success in an enterprise they attributed to a wrong beginning, and the only remedy, therefore, was to begin anew. Ovid (Fasti, I. 179) makes Ja.n.u.s say, "All depends on the beginning." When other G.o.ds were wors.h.i.+pped, Ja.n.u.s was invoked first of all. He was G.o.d of the year. His temple had four sides for the four seasons, and each side had three windows for the months. That his temple was open in war, but closed in peace, indicated that the character of Rome in times of war was to attack and not to defend. She then opened her gates to send her troops forth against the enemy; while in seasons of peace she shut them in at home. This symbol accords well with the haughty courage of the Republic, which commanded victory, by not admitting the possibility of defeat[276].

This deity is believed by Creuzer and others to have had an Indian origin, and his name to have been derived from the Sanskrit "Jan," _to be born_.

He resembles no Greek G.o.d, and very probably travelled all the way from Bactria to Rome.

On the Kalends of January, which was the chief feast of Ja.n.u.s, it was the duty of every Roman citizen to be careful that all he thought, said, or did should be pure and true, because this day determined the character of the year. All dressed themselves in holiday garb, avoided oaths, abusive words, and quarrels, gave presents, and wished each other a happy year.

The presents were little coins with a Ja.n.u.s-head, and sweetmeats. It was customary to sacrifice to Ja.n.u.s at the beginning of all important business.

Ja.n.u.s was the great G.o.d of the Sabines, and his most ancient temple appears to have been on Mount Janiculum[277]. The altar of Fontus, son of Ja.n.u.s, and the tomb of Numa, a Sabine king, were both supposed to be there. Ovid also[278] makes Ja.n.u.s say that the Janiculum was his citadel.

Ampere remarks as a curious coincidence, that this G.o.d, represented with a key in his hand, as the heavenly gate-keeper, should have his home on the hill close to the Vatican, where is the tomb of Peter, who also bears a key with the same significance. The same writer regards the Sabines as inhabiting the hills of Rome before the Pelasgi came and gave this name of Roma (meaning "strength") to their small fortress on one side of the Palatine.

In every important city of Etruria there were temples to the three G.o.ds, JUPITER, JUNO, and MINERVA. In like manner, the magnificent temple of the Capitol at Rome consisted of three parts,--a nave, sacred to Jupiter; and two wings or aisles, one dedicated to Juno and the other to Minerva. This temple was nearly square, being two hundred and fifteen feet long and two hundred feet wide; and the wealth acc.u.mulated in it was immense. The walls and roof were of marble, covered with gold and silver.

JUPITER, the chief G.o.d of Rome, according to most philologists, derives his name (like the Greek ?e??) from the far-away Sanskrit word "Div" or "Diu," indicating the splendor of heaven or of day. Ju-piter is from "Djaus-Pitar," which is the Sanskrit for _Father of Heaven_, or else from "Diu-pitar," _Father of Light_. He is, at all events, the equivalent of the Olympian Zeus. He carries the lightning, and, under many appellations, is the supreme G.o.d of the skies. Many temples were erected to him in Rome, under various designations. He was called Pluvius, Fulgurator, Tonans, Fulminator, Imbricitor, Serenator,--from the substantives designating rain, lightning, thunder, and the serene sky. Anything struck with lightning became sacred, and was consecrated to Jupiter. As the supreme being he was called Optimus Maximus, also Imperator, Victor, Invictus, Stator, Praedator, Triumphator, and Urbis Custos. And temples or shrines were erected to him under all these names, as the head of the armies, and commander-in-chief of the legions; as Conqueror, as Invincible, as the Turner of Flight, as the G.o.d of Booty, and as the Guardian of the City.

There is said to have been in Rome three hundred Jupiters, which must mean that Jupiter was wors.h.i.+pped under three hundred different attributes.

Another name of this G.o.d was Elicius, from the belief that a method existed of eliciting or drawing down the lightning; which belief probably arose from an accidental antic.i.p.ation of Dr. Franklin's famous experiment.

There were no such myths told about Jupiter as concerning the Greek Zeus.

The Latin deity was a much more solemn person, his whole time occupied with the care of the city and state. But traces of his origin as a ruler of the atmosphere remained rooted in language; and the Romans, in the time of Augustus, spoke familiarly of "a cold Jupiter," for a cold sky, and of a "bad Jupiter," for stormy weather.

The Juno of the Capitol was the Queen of Heaven, and in this sense was the female Jupiter. But Juno was also the G.o.ddess of womanhood, and had the epithets of Virginensis, Matrona, and Opigena; that is, the friend of virgins, of matrons, and the daughter of help. Her chief festival was the Matronalia, on the first of March, hence called the "Women's Kalends." On this day presents were given to women by their husbands and friends. Juno was the patroness of marriage, and her month of June was believed to be very favorable for wedlock. As Juno Lucina she presided over birth; as Mater Matuta,[279] over children; as Juno Moneta, over the mint.

The name of Minerva, the Roman Athene, is said to be derived from an old Etruscan word signifying mental action.[280] In the songs of the Sabians the word "promenervet" is used for "monet." The first syllable evidently contains the root, which in all Aryan languages implies thought. The Trinity of the Capitol, therefore, united Power, Wisdom, and Affection, as Jupiter, Minerva, and Juno. The statue of Minerva was placed in schools.

She had many temples and festivals, and one of the former was dedicated to her as Minerva Medica.

The Roman pantheon contained three cla.s.ses of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. First, the old Italian divinities, Etruscan, Latin, and Sabine, naturalized and adopted by the state. Secondly, the pale abstractions of the understanding, invented by the College of Pontiffs for moral and political purposes. And thirdly, the G.o.ds of Greece, imported, with a change of name, by the literary admirers and imitators of h.e.l.las.

The genuine deities of the Roman religion were all of the first order.

Some of them, like Ja.n.u.s, Vertumnus, Faunus, Vesta, retained their original character; others were deliberately confounded with some Greek deity. Thus Venus, an old Latin or Sabine G.o.ddess to whom t.i.tus Tatius erected a temple as Venus Cloacina, and Servius Tullius another as Venus Libertina,[281] was afterward transformed into the Greek Aphrodite, G.o.ddess of love. If it be true, as is a.s.serted by Naevius and Plautus, that she was the G.o.ddess of gardens, as Venus Hortensis and Venus Fruti, then she may have been originally the female Vertumnus. So Diana was originally Diva Jana, and was simply the female Ja.n.u.s, until she was transformed into the Greek Artemis.

The second cla.s.s of Roman divinities were those manufactured by the pontiffs for utilitarian purposes,--almost the only instance in the history of religion of such a deliberate piece of G.o.d-making. The purpose of the pontiffs was excellent; but the result, naturally, was small. The wors.h.i.+p of such abstractions as Hope (Spes), Fear (Pallor), Concord (Concordia), Courage (Virtus), Justice (aequitas), Clemency (Clementia), could have little influence, since it must have been apparent to the wors.h.i.+pper himself that these were not real beings, but only his own conceptions, thrown heavenward.

The third cla.s.s of deities were those adopted from Greece. New deities, like Apollo, were imported, and the old ones h.e.l.lenized. The Romans had no statues of their G.o.ds in early times; this custom they learned from Greece. "A full river of influence," says Cicero, "and not a little brook, has flowed into Rome out of Greece[282]." They sent to Delphi to inquire of the Greek oracle. In a few decades, says Hartung, the Roman religion was wholly transformed by this Greek influence; and that happened while the senate and priests were taking the utmost care that not an iota of the old ceremonies should be altered. Meantime the object was to identify the objects of wors.h.i.+p in other countries with those wors.h.i.+pped at home. This was done in an arbitrary and superficial way, and caused great confusion in the mythologies[283]. Accidental resemblances, slight coincidences of names, were sufficient for the identification of two G.o.ds. As long as the service of the temple was unaltered, the priests troubled themselves very little about such changes. In this way, the twelve G.o.ds of Olympus--Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestos, Hermes, Here, Athene, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hestia, and Demeter--were naturalized or identified as Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, Mercury, Juno, Minerva, Diana, Venus, Vesta, and Ceres, Dionysos became Liber or Bacchus; Persephone, Proserpina; and the Muses were accepted as the Greeks had imagined them.

To find the true Roman wors.h.i.+p, therefore, we must divest their deities of these Greek habiliments, and go back to their original Etruscan or Latin characters.

Among the Etruscans we find one doctrine unknown to the Greeks and not adopted by the Romans; that, namely, of the higher "veiled deities,"[284]

superior to Jupiter. They also had a dodecad of six male and six female deities, the Consentes and Complices, making a council of G.o.ds, whom Jupiter consulted in important cases. Vertumnus was an Etruscan; so, according to Ottfried Muller, was the Genius. So are the Lares, or household protectors, and Charun, or Charon, a power of the under-world.

The minute system of wors.h.i.+p was derived by Rome from Etruria. The whole system of omens, especially by lightning, came from the same source.

After Ja.n.u.s, and three Capitoline G.o.ds (Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva), above mentioned, the Romans wors.h.i.+pped a series of deities who may be cla.s.sed as follows:--

I. G.o.ds representing the powers of nature:--

1. SOL, the Sun. A Sabine deity. In later times the poets attributed to him all the characters of Helios; but as a Roman G.o.d, he never emerged into his own daylight.

2. LUNA, the Moon. Also regarded as of Sabine origin.

3. MATER MATUTA. Mother of Day, that is, the dawn. Wors.h.i.+pped at the Matronalia in June, as the possessor of all motherly qualities, and especially as the protector of children from ill-treatment. As the storms were apt to go down at morning, she was appealed to to protect mariners from s.h.i.+pwreck. The consul Tib. Semp. Gracchus dedicated a temple to her B.C. 176.

4. TEMPESTATES, the tempests. A temple was dedicated to the storms, B.C.

259.

5. VULCa.n.u.s. This name is supposed to be from the same root as "fulgeo,"

_to s.h.i.+ne_. He was an old Italian deity. His temple is mentioned as existing B.C. 491.

6. FONTUS, the G.o.d of fountains. The Romans valued water so highly, that they erected altars and temples to this divinity, and had a feast of fountains (Fontinalia) on October 13th. There were also G.o.ddesses of fountains, as Lynapha Juturna, the G.o.ddess of mineral springs. Egeria is the only nymph of a fountain mentioned in Roman mythology.

7. DIVUS PATER TIBERINUS, or Father Tiber, was of course the chief river G.o.d. The augurs called him Coluber, the snake, from his meandering and bending current.

8. NEPTUNUS. The origin of this word has been a great puzzle to the learned, who, however, connect it with nebula, a cloud, as the clouds come from the sea. He had his temple and his festivals at Rome.

Other deities connected with the powers of nature were PORTUNUS, the G.o.d of harbors; SALACIA, a G.o.ddess of the salt sea; TRANQUILLITAS, the G.o.ddess of calm weather.

II. G.o.ds of human relations:--

1. VESTA, an ancient Latin G.o.ddess, and one of the oldest and most revered. She was the queen of the hearth and of the household fire. She was also the protector of the house, a.s.sociated with the Lares and Penates. Some offering was due to her at every meal. She sanctified the home.

Afterward, when all Rome became one vast family, Vesta became the G.o.ddess of this public home, and her temple was the fireside of the city, in which burned always the sacred fire, watched by the vestal virgins. In this wors.h.i.+p, and its a.s.sociations, we find the best side of Roman manners,--the love of home, the respect for family life, the hatred of impurity and immodesty. She was also called "the mother," and qualified as Mater Stata, that is, the immovable mother.

2. The PENATES and LARES. These deities were also peculiarly Roman. The Lar, or Lares, were supposed to be the souls of ancestors which resided in the home and guarded it. Their images were kept in an oratory or domestic chapel, called a Lararium, and were crowned by the master of the house to make them propitious. The paterfamilias conducted all the domestic wors.h.i.+p of the household, whether of prayers or sacrifices, according to the maxim of Cato, "Scito dominum pro tota familia rem divinam facere[285]." The Penates were beings of a higher order than the Lares, but having much the same offices. Their name was from the words denoting the interior of the mansion (Penetralia, Penitus). They took part in all the joys and sorrows of the family. To go home was "to return to one's Penates." In the same way, "Lar meus" meant "my house "; "Lar conductus," "a hired house "; "Larem mutare" meant to change one's house. Thus the Roman in his home felt himself surrounded by invisible friends and guardians. No other nation, except the Chinese, have carried this religion of home so far.