The Idea of God in Early Religions

With the exception of the coat of arms at the foot, the design on the title page is a reproduction of one used by the earliest known Cambridge printer, John Siberch, 1521

PREFACE

In The Varieties of Religious Experience the late Professor William James has said (p. 465): 'The religious phenomenon, studied as an inner fact, and apart from ecclesiastical or theological complications, has shown itself to consist everywhere, and at all its stages, in the consciousness which individuals have of an intercourse between themselves and higher powers with which they feel themselves to be related. This intercourse is realised at the time as being both active and mutual.' The book now before the reader deals with the religious phenomenon, studied as an inner fact, in the earlier stages of religion. By 'the Idea of God' may be meant either the consciousness which individuals have of higher powers, with which they feel themselves to be related, or the words in which they, or others, seek to express that consciousness. Those words may be an expression, that is to say an interpretation or a misinterpretation, of that consciousness. But the words are not the consciousness: the feeling, without which the consciousness does not exist, may be absent when the words are spoken or heard. It is however through the words that we have to approach the feeling and the consciousness of others, and to determine whether and how far the feeling and the consciousness so approached are similar in all individuals everywhere and at all stages.

F. B. JEVONS.

HATFIELD HALL, DURHAM. October, 1910

CONTENTS

PAGE

BIBLIOGRAPHY ix

I. INTRODUCTION 1

II. THE IDEA OF GOD IN MYTHOLOGY 30

III. THE IDEA OF GOD IN WORSHIP 60

IV. THE IDEA OF GOD IN PRAYER 103

V. THE IDEA AND BEING OF GOD 152

INDEX 167

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Grant. The Evolution of the Idea of God. London, 1897.

Anthropology and the Classics. Oxford, 1908.

Bastian, A. Volks- und Menschenkunde. Berlin, 1888.

Bousset, W. What is Religion? (English Translation). London, 1907.

Crawley, A.E. The Idea of the Soul. London, 1909.

Fossey, C. La Magie Assyrienne. Paris, 1902.

Frazer, J.G. Early History of the Kingship. London, 1895.

---- The Golden Bough. London, 1900.

---- Psyche's Task. London, 1909.

Gardner, P. Modernity and the Churches. London, 1909.

Hobhouse, L.T. Morals in Evolution. London, 1906.

Höffding, H. The Philosophy of Religion (English Translation). London, 1906.

Hollis, A.C. The Masai. Oxford, 1905.

---- The Nandi. Oxford, 1909.

James, W. The Varieties of Religious Experience. London, 1902.

Jastrow, M. Jun. Study of Religion. London, 1901.

Jevons, F.B. Introduction to the History of Religion. London, 1896.