But while the greater phenomena of nature, by the fact that they possess a kind of physical universality, were a means of help ing the mind to rise to the conception of deities of wider range and power, all gods are not to be explained thus. For some of them have their origin in the cult. The Hindu Soma is the power of the sacrificial libation, and Brahma the power of the sacrificial prayer personified. The Greek Hestia and the Roman Vesta (q.v.) have grown out of the sacred hearth as the centre of family life. Again, aspects of the cultural life, such as war and agriculture, have suggested deities who preside over them. In some cases men remarkable for their power and deeds have been exalted to the rank of divine, or semi-divine beings, e.g., the Greek Herakles and Asklepios (q.v.). The motives which develop polytheism are complex.
(2) The Characterization of the Gods.—As social life expands, its values become more varied, and the representations of the gods gain correspondingly in content. A god takes on new qualities and aspects in response to the needs and desires of his worshippers, and this process appears in all religions. Few gods have acquired so varied qualities and offices as the Greek Apollo. His identifica tion with the sun is comparatively late, and his original character obscure. But he came to figure as the lord of flocks and herds, the master of oracles and prophecy, the god of healing, of purifi cation, and of poesy. The imaginative process which predicated diversified attributes to a deity at the same time expressed the interests and aspirations of his worshippers. And the cultus was the chief medium by which these tendencies were developed and took concrete form.
The problem of organization is urgent where a religion arises out of the fusion of different cultures. Conspicuous instances are Babylonian and Greek religion. The Semitic invaders of Baby lonia absorbed the older Sumerian culture, and found a place for Sumerian deities within their own pantheon. Greek civilization, as we now know, was the result of a fusion of two races, a race of Aryan invaders with the "Helladic" race. And it is almost certain that some of the Hellenic deities, e.g. Athene, Artemis, and Aphro dite, were adopted by the Greeks from the older culture. Yet it is always hard to achieve organization in the religious complex of polytheism even when a fusion of cultures seems to render it essential. The local associations and the cult-interests of the dei ties of the conquered race resist absorption. This difficulty may be overcome by fitting them into the enlarged pantheon as sons or servants of greater gods. Even then the older cults and beliefs will linger on. Homeric religion is no doubt an example of organi sation; but it is artificial and literary, it does not fairly represent the actual beliefs and cult-practices in Greece. Still, however im perfectly the process may work itself out, there is behind poly theistic religion an impulse towards order and system. The de velopment of social life, with its well-marked departments and functions, prompted the mind to conceive the divine world after the pattern of the human. The needs of worship, where not dom
inated by magical ideas, led in the same direction. For worship at the higher level cannot be easily apportioned among a number of divine beings whose mutual relations are quite indefinite. Some order and gradation are necessary.
The cultus is the focus of a religion : here it is concentrated and symbolized. As the focus of religious life the cultus be comes the point at which the sense of the sacred is most con centrated and intense. Radiating from this centre the sacred suffuses associated elements, investing with religious significance things and persons, places and times.
(I) The Sacred Place.—In early religion a place or thing be came sacred through the presence in it of a spirit or power: numen inest. But when men began to build houses, when the house became the centre of family life, the thought lay to hand that there must be a house for the deity to be the focus of his worship. So the temple arose, reared often on sacred spots or "high places," hallowed by immemorial associations. As the deity was supposed to be more intimately present in his temple, it often became a centre of oracles and prophecy.
(2) Sacred Men: the Priesthood.—To holy places correspond holy men. The priest has his precursor in the wizard of the lower culture. The priest is a man endowed with a special knowledge of the cultus, is possessed of ritual purity, and embodies in his person the power of the sacred. At first priestly functions were not the exclusive privilege of a class. The head of the family, or the king as head of the people, offers sacrifice, so in the old Hebrew and Roman religions. But with the growing value at tached to sacred functions there was the tendency to assign the priestly office to a particular class, as in the Hebrew, Persian and Hindu religions. Nowhere have the priests formed a more strict and exclusive caste than in Brahmanism.
(a) Prayer.—Perhaps nowhere does the spirit of a religion reveal itself more intimately than in its prayers. Yet even in the higher religions the idea of prayer as the free outpouring of the soul to the divine comes late. Primitive prayer is closely allied to the spell, and it must take a fixed form of words to be effec tive. The elevation of prayer comes with the development of inner life and an enhanced sense of ethical and spiritual values. Some knowledge of the kind of prayers offered in the cultus may be gathered from liturgical forms, e.g. from the sacrificial hymns of the Gathas and the Vedas. Prayer as petition to the gods is uni versal. But only in a few religions do we find prayers contain ing confessions of sin e.g. in the penitential psalms of the Hebrew and the Babylonian religions. Nowhere is the mysterious potency of prayer so exalted as in Brahmanism. Here prayer becomes a cosmic power which constrains the gods, and is finally construed as the divine principle of things. But wherever prayer ceases to be the expression of a fundamental dependence on the Divine, it loses its essential meaning and value. An intrinsically efficacious form of words is really a reversion to the magic spell. (See