(3) It is thought that the worship of Hea, "the god who determines destinies," is a corruption of the worship of the God of Abraham, for Ea is another form of El, and the followers of Ea were evidently monotheists. In relation to monotheism in the valley of the Euphrates, Mr. Hormuzd Ras sam, the eminent archmologist, who is a native of Assyria, claims that the early Assyrians were wor shipers of the true God, and he bases his claim largely upon his own discoveries. (Trans. Vic. Inst., vol. xiii, pp. 190, 214 ; also vol. xxv, p. 121.) This early worship, however, as in the case of the Egyptians, was soon corrupted, and at length the Assyrians counted no less than 3oo spirits of heaven and 600 of earth.
These examples among the oldest systems of polytheism show how "development" is related to this subject.
(4) In the American Journal of Theology G. M. Grant calls attention to the valued work by Dr. Jevons, above cited, and says : "Totemism, that is, the belief which identified with the divine a species of animals or plants which was regarded as the ancestor of the tribe, is the earliest form of religion known to science. It may be added that the worship originally accorded to the whole species was, after a time, appropriated to one in dividual of the species. As to this faith, while no authority now accepts Mr. Spencer's theory that it originated in the worship of ancestors, it is ad mitted that the religious belief in the pre-totern istic stage is entirely a matter of conjecture." (5) Dr. Jevons, however, argues with great' abil ity that pre-totemism must have been a simple monotheism. He takes issue with those who maintain that, as monotheism is the highest form of belief, it must have developed from the lower forms of totemism and polytheism through inter mediate stages.
He strongly insists that the highest must have been implicit in consciousness from the beginning, and also that evolution and progress are two very different things ; that evolution is constant but progress very rare Indeed, "evolution may well be, from a religious point of view, one long pro cess of degeneration." Progress is certainly as exceptional in religion as in other things, and where it takes place it must be due to exceptional causes. "If evolution takes place, something must be evolved ; and that something, as being continu ously present in all the different stages, may be called the continuum, of religion." (6) Again he says. "We must remember that the facts of consciousness were the same for early as for civilized man, but they were not yet dis criminated. They swam before man's untrained
eye, and ran into one another. But, even so, all was not untrained chaos for man. In the outer world of his experience the laws of nature, which are God's laws, worked with the same regularity then as now. In the world of his inner experi ence, God was not far from him at any time. If his spiritual vision was dim, his consciousness of God was at least so strong, to start with, that he has never since ceased seeking after Him. The law of continuity holds of religions as of other things." (7) Dr. Jevons argues that polytheism was de veloped, not from monotheism, but from totemism. When man realized that the union of the human with the divine had been broken, it was felt that some outward act was needed which would re establish the connection, and totem animals were offered in sacrifice. The totem being supposed to share the common life of both parties, and to be capable of exercising an influence over both, and the blood covenant being the only means known of effecting a union with any one external to the tribe, the sacrifice of the totem and the common sacramental meal were originated. The universal ity of the practice is the most conclusive testimony of the ineradicable craving of man's heart for un ion and communion with God, and to the con sciousness that on such union alone can right rela tions with our fellows be based. Dr. Jevons says: "The whole human race for thousands of years has been educated to the conception that it was only through a divine sacrifice that perfect union with God was possible for man. At times the sac ramental conception of sacrifice appeared to be about to degenerate entirely into the gift theory; but then, in the sixth century before Christ, the sacramental conception woke into new life, this time in the form of a search for a perfect sacri fice—a search which led Clement and Cyprian to try all the mysteries of Greece in vain. But of all the great religions of the world, it is the Christian church alone which is so far heir of all the ages as to fulfill the dumb, dim expectation of man kind; in it alone the sacramental meal commem orates by ordinance of its founder the divine sac rifice which is a propitiation for the sins of all mankind." (8) Dr. Jevons' argument against the derivation of monotheism from polytheism is very forcible, and even those who dissent from it are forced to acknowledge that Jewish monotheism was due to a peculiar cause, whether that cause be called a special revelation or greater power of insight on the part of the prophets of Israel.