Magic and Religion

. Frazer writes:[6] 'Lacking the idea of eternal duration, prim

orn deathless. Death came in by an accident, or in consequence of an error, or an infraction of a divine command. To this effect we have Zulu, Australian, Maori, Melanesian, Central African, Vedic Aryan, Kamschadal, and countless other myths; not to

thing as belief in natural death; however old or decrepit a man or woman may be when this takes place, it is at once supposed that it has been brought about by the ma

origin they had no idea, rather supposing him to be eternal.' But, in Tongan, the metaphysical idea of eternity is only expressed in the meaning of the god's name, 'wait-there-Tooboo.' This god occasionally inspires the How, or elective

Mr. Frazer clearly means that when man was no longer primitive, he conceived the gods to be mortal like himself. I have elsewhere given many examples of the opposite belief among races of many grades of culture, from the Australian blacks to the immortal gods of Homer.[10] The point will be found to be important later, and I must firmly express my

utely essential to Mr. Frazer's argument, perhaps the point had better be settled.

d souls hope to descend at death.' Let us trust that 'No Dogs are Admitted.' This Greenland divine being, Torngarsuk, I so clearly held his place as supreme deity in the native mind that,' as Cranz the missionary relates, 'many Greenlanders h

n Greenlanders, communicated to a person not named by Mr. Frazer, but quoted in a work of 1806.[13] At the best the Greenland evidence is contradictory; all Greenlande

the Dei

deid, the D

the Dei

ed in Ki

he's ri

ain, ris

he's ri

the Hiela

kslied' scientifically represents the conflict of opinion as unsettled, despite the testi

a general belief in the mortality of Greenland g

e being of most barbaric races is regarded as otiose, inactive, and so may come to be a mere name and by-word, like the Huron Atahocan,[15] 'who made everything,' and the Unkulunkulu of the Zulus, who has been so thrust into the background by the competition of ancestral spirits that his very existence is doubted. 'In process of time we have come to worship the spirits only, because we know not what to say about Unkulunkulu.' 'We seek out for ourselves the spirits that we may not always be thinking about Unkulunkulu.'[16] In the same way, throughout the beliefs of barbaric races, the competition of friendly and helpful spirits push

he Philippine Islanders did believe in a Creator. The grave may have been the result of the usual neglect of the supreme being alre

d for by the theory of successive lives and deaths. But so had Tammu

s; 'the bricks are alive to testify to it.' But that the Greeks regarded their gods as mortal cannot be seriously argued, while they are always styled 'the immortals' in contrast to mortal men; and while Apollo (who had a grave) daily inspired the Pythia

ad, with tombs and mummies in every province. But the

t the sight of his glory.' 'King of eternity, great god ... whoso knoweth h

ie. Despite myth and ritual the gods of Egypt lived

, Mr. Frazer mentions a theory that not Pan, but Adonis or Tammuz wa

death of the King of the Jinn. The Jinn are not go

is 'immortality.'[19] But Mr. Frazer's hypothesis derives the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ from the opinion that he represented, in death, a long line of victims to a barbarous superstition.[20] And that superstition

hape, human in their passions, and human in their fate; for like men they were born into the world, and like men they loved and fought and even died.'[21] How many of them died? If they were dead in religious belief, how did they

o lovest to give

g of heaven

ffording li

h of life

o life, thou bringest thi

fice? There were at least scores of gods, all of them, if I understand Mr. Frazer, in the same precariou

of heaven, may th

ymn to I

is manifest that the Babylonian gods are not dead but living, otherwise they could not attend the yearly divine assembly, nor could they be addressed in prayer. Moreover, if they cou

, unless kept alive by sacrifices of their hum

not

sly to k

happier world ... where he might rest with them,' and so on.[26] Yet, 'lacking the idea of eternal duration, primitive man naturally supposed the gods to be mortal like himself.' Mr. Frazer has, we see, also told us that they did not believe their gods to be mortal. Probably, then, the belief in their immortality was a late stage in a gradual process.[27] Yet it had not prevailed when the grave of Zeus was shown 'about the beg

lain to keep alive the god who is incarnate in them, of which he does not give one example. His instances of beliefs that the hi

o god, because he died when stabbed, which a genuine god would not have done. This, of course, proves that these benighted he