The religions of China were known even during the last century, thanks chiefly to the conscien tious labors of Roman Catholic missionaries resi dent in the capital of the Chinese Empire. Their knowledge of Chinese was most creditable, and their translations of some of the kings ascribed to Confucius and Laotze enabled European scholars to form a fairly accurate idea of the teaching of these two philosophers which consisted of moral and metaphysical doctrines rather than of what we mean by religious dogma in a more narrow sense. Still in this branch of Oriental scholar ship also great progress has been made by more recent scholars, such as Abel Remusat, Stanislas Julien, Professor Legge, Dr. Wylie, and others, so much so that what is called religious cult in China, whether the ancient popular cult embodied in the writings of Confucius. or the more meta physical and esoteric system ascribed to his con temporary Laotze, or the worship of Fo, i. e., Bud dha. introduced in the first century from India to China. may now be studied as readily by Euro pean students as the religions of Mohammed or of the Old and New Testaments.
Remembering that all of the great religions had their origin in the East, and that the sacred writ ings on which they profess to be founded arc all composed in the ancient languages of• their re spective countries, it may be easily understood why it was only after the rise of Oriental philol ogy in the beginning of our century, that a really scholarlike study of their teaching became pos sible.
4. Religious Literature of Various Coun tries.
We arc now in possession of what may be called authentic religious literature for the following countries : (1) Egypt. Though we do not possess any of the sacred books which seem to have been known to ancient Greek writers, the hieroglyphic and hieratic inscriptions and papyri, particularly the so-called Book of the Dead, are so full of re ligious ideas, and the ancient temples and pictorial representations on their walls have placed before Its such living pictures of their daily life and their solemn cult, that it has been possible for hier oglyphic scholars to give us a fuller knowledge of the religion, mythology and cult of ancient Egypt than we can ever hope to gain of the religious faith and ceremonies of the ancient inhabitants of Greece and Italy. (Sec EGYPTIANS, LITERATURE OF ANCIENT; EGYPTIANS, RELIGION OF ANCIENT.) (2) Babylon and Assyria. The cuneiform inscriptions found in these Mesopotamian king doms, though far less abundant than those of Egypt, have likewise yielded, not indeed what could be called a sacred code, but so many hymns, legends and names of gods, goddesses and heroes, that it has been found possible to trace the gen eral outlines at least of what constituted their re ligion and sacrificial cult. What seems strange is that while some very competent scholars are now inclined to look upon the Babylonian civilization as more ancient than that of Egypt, we find in the oldest Babylonian hymns allusions to an historical environment which, according to our ideas, would indicate a far more advanced progress in the arty of civilized life than we find, for instance, in the hymns of the Rigveda, which are commonly as signed to a much later date. We must not forget
that brilliant as the progress of Babylonian re search has been, these studies are as yet in their infancy, and, considering the ever-increasing wealth of materials, hold out a hope of much greater future discoveries than have hitherto been achieved. (See BABYLONIA, IS; I3ABYLON AND ASSYRIA, RELIGION OF.) (3) Palestine. I need add nothing here about the Old Testament and the religion of the Jews. beyond pointing out that as both the Jewish and the Babylonian religions are of Semitic origin and composed in a Semitic language, they often help to illustrate each other, and share many things in common, such as the legend of the deluge, and, according to some scholars, the legends of the Tower of Babel, of Paradise, and other half his torical traditions of the most ancient Semitic world. (See HEBREWS, RELIGION OF TIIE.) (4) Arabia. There is one more Semitic re ligion, Islam, as founded by Mohammed in the seventh century A. D. Mohammed clearly bor rowed most of his ideas from Jews and Christians, with whom he came in contact while trying to re form the manners and superstitions of the wild tribes of Arabia. Had his informants been able to give him an account of the true doctrines of Moses and Christ, it is not too much to say that Mohammed might have been satisfied with preach ing Jewish and Christian doctrines, instead of be coming the founder of a new religion.
(5) China. Here we possess indeed the lit erary documents on which the three recognized religious systems of the country profess to be founded. The system of Confucius is founded on the Kings. King, however, does not mean what we mean by sacred book or Bible, but simply a book recognized as authoritative on all the sub jects on which it touches. Nor do these books de rive their authority from any supposed miraculous revelation, but chiefly from their age. Confucius who has often been quoted as their author, de cidedly declines that honor for himself and claims no more than to have been the collector and pre server of these books, and in that sense the re storer but not the founder of the ancient religion of his country. To our mind these books are not altogether religious. They teach principles of morality and worldly wisdom, besides those of re ligion, and Confucius actually warns the people not to have too much to do with the spirits, but to honor their fathers and mothers, as a founda tion of a well ordered social life.