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The same distinguished scholar traces the early existence of monotheism in a series of brief and rapid references to nearly all the scattered Aryans not only, but also to the Turanians on the North and East, to the Tungusic, Mongolic, Tartaric, and Finnic tribes.
We know that among the Jews, probably the direct descendants of the shepherd-chiefs who visited Cheops, and certainly close kinsmen of theirs, and akin to them also in their monotheism, the belief in astrology was never regarded as a superstition. In fact, we can trace very clearly in the books relating to this people that they believed confidently in the influences of the heavenly bodies.
Among the moderns the majority leans to a contrary opinion; nevertheless, many authors of weight, distinguishing the public worship of the common people from the doctrine of the Druids, assert the monotheism of this sacerdotal caste.
To interpret Zeus or Jupiter as originally the supreme Aryan god, and to regard classic paganism as one of the degraded remnants of a primeval monotheism, is to sin against the canons of a sound inductive philosophy. Philology itself teaches us that this could not have been so. Father Dyaus was originally the bright sky and nothing more.
The gods of monotheism will join the gods of polytheism and Yahveh and his associates will occupy in the minds of men the position now held by the gods of Olympus. To our ancestors Jupiter and Yahveh will have the same significance. "In a little time the cathedrals and churches will have taken upon themselves the proud, poetical glamour of abandoned temples.
Varuna, Agni, and Indra appear in the hymns, each in his turn, as supreme. The rôle of Varuna seems to be practically identical with that of the Iranian Ahura, but unlike the latter he does not succeed in expelling his brother divinities. This difference of development between the Hindu and the Iranian people we cannot hope to explain. India moved not toward monotheism, but toward pantheism.
The religion to which they were feeling their way was a monotheism, a service of the one God of Abraham, but not that of Judaism with its exaltation of the Jewish race, nor that of Christianity, in which God had a Son for his companion. Submission to the one God was to them the essence of religion.
In all this it is easy to see that much has been borrowed from the Christian conception of God's character and attributes, but the value of this Aryan testimony lies in the fact that it claims for the ancient Vedas a clear and positive monotheism. If we consult the sacred books of China, we shall find there also many traces of an ancient faith which antedates both Confucianism and Taouism.
Obviously the only theology which could now be satisfactory to philosophy or to common-sense was some form of monotheism; some system of doctrines which should represent all men as spiritually subjected to the will of a single God, just as they were subjected to the temporal authority of the Emperor.
Seems to have started out as a Great Mother cult; then it picked up a lot of gods borrowed from other peoples; then it turned into a dualistic monotheism; then it picked up a lot of minor gods and devils new devils usually gods of the older pantheon.
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