"Shintō is not our national religion. A faith existed before it, which was its source. It grew out of superstitious teaching and mistaken tradition. The history of the rise of Shintō proves this."--T. Matsugami. "Makoto wo moté KAMI NO MICHI wo oshiyuréba nari." (Thou teachest the way of God in truth.)--Mark xii. 14. "Ware wa Micni nuri, Mukoto nari, Inochi nari."--John xiv. 6.--The New Testament in Japanese. CHAPTER III - "THE KOJIKI" AND ITS TEACHINGS "The Kojiki" mid its Myths of Cosmogony. As to the origin of the "Kojiki," we have in the closing sentences of the author's preface the sole documentary authority explaining its scope and certifying to its authenticity. Briefly the statement is this: The "Heavenly Sovereign" or Mikado, Temmu (A.D. 673-686), lamenting that the records possessed by the chief families were "mostly amplified by empty falsehoods," and fearing that "the grand foundation of the monarchy" would be destroyed, resolved to preserve the truth. He therefore had the records carefully examined, compared, and their errors eliminated. There happened to be in his household a man of marvellous memory, named Hiyéda Aré, who could repeat, without mistake, the contents of any document he had ever seen, and never forgot anything which he had heard. This person was duly instructed in the genuine traditions and old language of former ages, and made to repeat them until he had the whole by heart. "Before the undertaking was completed," which probably means before it could be committed to writing, "the emperor died, and for twenty-five years Aré's memory was the sole depository of what afterwards received the title of 'Kojiki.' ... At the end of this interval the Empress Gemmiō ordered Yasumarō to write it down from the mouth of Aré, which accounts for the completion of the manuscript in so short a time as four months and a half,"[1] in A.D. 712. It is from the "Kojiki" that we obtain most of our ideas of ancient life and thought. The "Nihongi," or Chronicles of Japan, expressed very largely in Chinese phrases and with Chinese technical and philosophical terms, further assists us to get a measurably correct idea of what is called The Divine Age. Of the two books, however, the "Kojiki" is much more valuable as a true record, because, though rude in style and exceedingly naïve in expression, and by no means free from Chinese thoughts and phrases, it is marked by a genuinely Japanese cast of thought and method of composition. Instead of the terse, carefully measured, balanced, and antithetical sentences of correct Chinese, those of the "Kojiki" are long and involved, and without much logical connection. The "Kojiki" contains the real notions, feelings, and beliefs of Japanese who lived before the eighth century.