Introduction to the History of Religions: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV — John Shaqi
Introduction to the History of Religions: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IVToy, Crawford Howell
HistoryHistory
Introduction to the History of Religions: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV
Toy, Crawford Howell
Mythology; Religion -- History; Religions -- History; Rites and ceremonies
+90+. The birthplace of this latter doctrine appears to have been the
region in which Mazdaism arose, the country south of the Caspian Sea.
Windischmann infers from Herodotus, iii, 62, that it appears as a
Mazdean belief as early as the sixth century B.C.[187] This is doubtful,
but it is reported as a current belief by Theopompus.[188] Its
starting-point was doubtless the theory of reincarnation, which, we may
suppose, the Iranian Aryans shared with their Indian brethren. Precisely
what determined the Iranian movement toward this specific form of
reincarnation we have no means of knowing. It may be due to the same
genius for simple organization that led the Zoroastrians to discard the
mass of the old gods and elevate Ahura Mazda to the chief place in the
pantheon; their genius for practical social religious organization may
have induced them to select human reincarnation as the most natural and
the most effective morally, and to discard other forms as unworthy.[189]
The dead man's own body would then be the natural dwelling place of his
soul; but a refined body (as in 1 Cor. xv) might be regarded as better
suited to the finer life of the future. Whatever the cause, they adopted
this conception, and probably through their influence it passed to, or
was formulated by, the Jews, among whom it appears in the second century
B.C. (in the Book of Daniel).[190] In Daniel and 2 Maccabees
resurrection is confined to the Jews; in Enoch it is sometimes similarly
confined, sometimes apparently universal.[191] In the New Testament also
the same diversity of statement appears; resurrection seems to be
confined to believers in some passages[192] and to be universal in
others.[193] In the former case it is regarded as a reward of piety and
as a consequence of the intimate relation between the man and God or
Christ; unbelievers then remain in hades, where they are punished. But
universal resurrection was probably thought of as involved in the
grandiose conceptions of a final judgment and a final moral
restoration.[194]
5. POWERS OF THE SOUL
+91+. Savage lore takes account of the powers of the separated soul
only; the qualities and functions of the earthly incorporate soul are
accepted as a part of the existing familiar order, and are not analyzed
or discussed. It was different with the departed soul, which, because of
its strangeness and mystery, was credited with extraordinary powers, and
this part of savage science was gradually developed, through observation
and inference, into an important system. In the search for causes, the
Shade, its independent existence once established, came to be regarded
as the agent in many procedures of which no probable account could
otherwise be given.
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