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CHAPTER IV
THE HISTORICITY OF RELIGIONS
In the previous chapter I addressed the diversity of religions. It was not a question of making an exposition of this diversity —that would be a course in the history of religions—, but simply of conceptualizing the very characteristics of this diversity. And I showed how to determine the point where in a formal manner the essential difference of religions exists. This point, as we saw, are the ideas, which different religions have about God. These different ideas about God are the terminus, and product of religious thinking. The case of a thinking formally inscribed in a religious situation, which is able to adopt different forms. There is, for example, a phantasmic thinking, and a more logical and conceptual thinking.
At any rate, religious thinking transcends these and other possible ways of thinking, because beyond what it formally says there is what it formally wishes to say. This religious thinking, in its religious dimension, is inscribed on the line, which goes from the power of the real to the divinity itself as something supreme. The problem is on which line is this supremacy to be established. In the {166} sense of faith, there can be, of course, a convergence between the divinity to whom one has accorded one’s personal faith, and the way or line of supremacy through which he wishes to find, by means of his thinking, that supreme divinity. As such, history registers three types of ideas about God. In the first place, a polytheist idea, which in the end consists in the dispersion of the divinity. In the second place, a divinity understood as immanent and constitutive Law, cosmic-moral, of the whole of reality. And, in the third place, the way of monotheism, which is the way of transcendence. It is not the case of a merely metaphysical monotheism, but of a monotheism strictly and formally religious. Then, I asked, In what does the formal characteristic of these ideas consist? I mentioned that the three ideas, the three avenues, are not absolutely false, which then brought the issue of whether they are equivalent. And they are not, because this diversity depends essentially on the line in which one has placed the way towards the supreme, towards the supremacy. That way is the one that goes from a relatively absolute reality, which is man, to the absolutely absolute reality, which is precisely what we call God. In that line there is no room for any other divine reality except one, personal and transcendent. And that brings the problem of what is the meaning of these other ideas about God with respect to the idea of the mónos theós, of the monotheist idea. In the end this constitutes what I have called the diffraction of God in the human spirit, as I pointed out in the previous chapter.
Nevertheless, this explanation is a first approximation, because the diversity of religions has, as we have been observing throughout its exposition, an intrinsically and essentially historical characteristic. Then, the problem of polytheism, monotheism, and pantheism acquires a characteristic, if not different, at least complementary on the line of this {167} historicity. We address that issue in this chapter. The problem covers several points, which sometimes overlap.
In the first place, this historicity must be verified as a fact, just as we did with diversity. It is a question of taking into consideration the historical occurrence of religions.
In the second place, we must face the problem of what the intrinsic historicity of a religion is.
Finally, in the third place, we must ask what the fundament of this intrinsic historicity is.
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§ 1
THE HISTORICAL OCCURRENCE OF RELIGIONS
All religions have been born, all have developed, and some have died. Let us examine these aspects separately.
I. How are religions born?
Actually, we know practically nothing about the birth of religions. The only thing we know is the existence of seven or eight founders of religion. Abraham and Moses, founders of the religion of Israel; Christ, founder of Christianity; Buddha, of Buddhism; Muhammad, of Islam; Confucius, of Confucianism; Zarathustra, of the Gathic religion; Manes, of the Manichaean religion, etc. Regardless how important these founders be, they are so few that we barely know how religions are born. The question is, of course, to know how religions are born in their diversity. The case that the human spirit may have religion is not a matter of historical birth, but rather it is something constitutive: the molding of religation into religion. However, about the birth of religions in their diversity we know almost nothing1.
The only thing that can be affirmed, on the basis of these founders I have mentioned is, in the first {169} place, that historically the founding of a religion, regardless of its character, is always properly and rigorously speaking a reform. Regardless of the greater or lesser novelty of the religion called “new”, its appearance never starts from zero. That would be absolutely false. The same applies to Christianity. The “New” Testament does not start from zero. It starts from everything the Old Testament knew. And in turn the Old Testament also did not start from zero. If we recall the era of the Patriarchs, the biblical text itself (Gn 11:31) connects Abraham with Ur and Haran, main sanctuaries of the Babylonian lunar cult. How could anyone affirm that with Abraham —supposing that he and not Moses is the founder— the founding of his religion begins from zero? The same occurs in other religions. For example, there is no doubt that Confucianism and Buddhism are reforms of a previous religious posture. The case of Zarathustra is quite clear: he did not introduce the cult of Ahura Mazda, and in all probability reformed a cult of Ahura Mazda, which already existed in Iran with a form and details difficult to evaluate.
The beginning of a religion is always a reform. A reform, which does not begin at zero. That is the essential point. And precisely because it does not begin at zero, the establishment of a new religion is something essentially historical and progressive. Then, this not starting at zero means, in the second place, that the reform consists formally and positively in a rectification. The founder and reformer of a religion pretends to rectify things, which to his judgment were erroneous or twisted in the previous stage of that religion. This is all we can know about the birth of religions. The great majority of religions we find on Earth are there without knowing exactly how they were born.
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II. Development of religions
Religions develop by virtue of many factors. Here we now find ourselves on firmer ground. We can gather these multiple factors and group them into two.
A) In the first place, the contact, which a religion has with other religions. Of course, it is not a matter of a mere external contact, as it might occur between social or political forms when one knows the other and suffers its influence. Here it is something much more radical and profound. Any contact is possible in a particular dimension. And here the formal dimension in which this contact is possible is precisely the power of the real. Because it is precisely the case of an ascension from the power of the real to the divinity it is possible to have that which we call a contact between religions.
Yet, this contact of religions may have different characteristics. In the first place, a more external and sad one, but which evidently exists at the base of almost all religions: the case of a defensive deployment. The new religion wishes to know nothing about the other. The first religion in turn wishes to ignore the new one except by adopting a defensive position. Defensive attitudes are catastrophic in history at all levels, including the religious one.
Besides a defensive deployment there can be a series of factors, which produce what we might call the internal development of the first religion, which is what we are concerned with here. This development has been called, generically and imprecisely with a term, which we shall have to render more precise, a syncretism. When a second religion {171} influences the first this phenomenon has been called a religious syncretism.
This syncretism may have different characteristics. Sometimes it has a great volume, great historical importance, but it is just a politico-administrative syncretism with no relevance for the subject we are discussing. Let us consider, for example, the famous inscription of the first century B.C. by Antiochus I Commagene. This fine Greek, with his whole Greek cultural background, encounters gods in Iran that have no similarity at all with the Greek ones: Mithras, Verethragna, Ahura Mazda, etc. Then, in his well known inscription, he formulates what has been called the Greco-Iranian syncretism. But it is not a strict syncretism, it is a mere administrative device, which does no more but to homologize certain gods. Thus, Ahura Mazda, with the Greek name Oromásdes, is homologized with Zeus. With the god Mithras of Iran the homologizing is more difficult, because according to the inscription itself there are three Greek gods that share different characteristics of Mithras, such as Apollo, Helios, and Hermes. Antiochus I takes the convolute of the three gods, and homologizes it to the god Mithras. Similarly, the warrior god Verethragna has characteristics of Heracles and Ares, to which he is homologized, just as the Iranian Anahita is more or less homologized to the Greek Artemis. This inscription has great importance from the point of view of general history. But from the point of view of the history of religions its importance is almost nil, because it is the case of a purely external, politico-administrative homologation. Another typical case was the Roman attempt: to compound Christianity with the religion of the Empire, placing Christ at the head of the Roman pantheon. Naturally, Christianity did not admit it, and this attempt failed.
{172} Yet, next to this politico-administrative syncretism there is a strict syncretism, properly religious. This syncretism has different aspects. There is, in the first place, a form of religious syncretism, but purely external. It is not a question here of defining, but simply remembering some trivial examples. It is well known that the feast of Christmas is the Christian equivalent of the feast of the winter solstice of the astral religion, which determined the existence of the Christian feast. Similarly, the Epiphany was placed as a feast on the sixth of January to homologize, and displace the rite of religiously drawing out the waters of the Nile. The cult of the seasons of the year was transformed into the cult of the Ember Days, which is still celebrated today. The feast of renewal and harvest was converted into the feast of St. John, etc.
It is obviously a case of mere external syncretism. The really important one is the internal syncretism, the one that aims to that which constitutes the internal characteristic of a religion. Internal syncretism would not be one that proceeds from an alien religion to the religion under question, but to the reaction of the religion eliminated by a reform, on the religion that has been reformed.
There are some typical examples in the history of religions. One of them in the religion of Iran itself. Zarathustra in the Gâthâs, by his hate to all forms of Indo-Iranian polytheism, takes the Iranian name daiva, which in the Indo-European languages means “god” (that is the meaning of the devas in the Vedas), and applies it to the demons. The name asura, which was used to designate the demons, he applies it to Ahura Mazda. The religion of the Gâthâs is at bottom monotheist, although, as I mentioned, quickly degenerates into a dualism. However, the new religion completely eliminates all the divinities of the Indo-Iranian cult. Yet, not before long all these divinities, {173} through their own devices, in a certain way revenge themselves and gain entry into the Iranian canon, into the canon of Zarathustra, where they occupy the greater portion, receiving the name of recent Avesta. In the recent Avesta we encounter the cults of these divinities, which Zarathustra had eliminated: Tištria, Anahita, Mithras, etc. This is a case of what I call internal syncretism, in which the religion eliminated by the reform invades the jurisdiction of the reformed religion.
An attempt at this type of internal syncretism is exemplified by the Christian community of Jerusalem. Christianity presents itself as a different religion or, at least, as an essential reform of the religion of Israel. But this did not prevent the appearance of the problem whether one should pass first through Judaism by being circumcised. The positive solution had many followers. It was the beginning of Judeo-Christianity. It is not just a matter of merely external speculation to the Church: the Apostle St. James seems to have been some sort of head of this movement. Saint Paul, naturally, reacted strongly against him, and with him the so called Council of Jerusalem. It was an attempt at internal syncretism.
All things considered, syncretism, neither in its external form nor in its internal one is, strictly speaking, a syncretism, because it is not at all a question of a krásis, that is, of a mixture of religions. If it were so it would be a phenomenon of degeneration, and would be of no interest at all. It is a case of something different. What the second religion provides to the first are not material elements, like the date in which a festivity is celebrated. Internally it contributes something quite different, namely, that element, which forces a religion under its influence to develop internally the inventory of its own possibilities. This is quite a different matter. The important fact is not that on the twenty fourth of June the {174} feast of St. John may be celebrated, more or less the seasonal heir of the renewal of spring, but the deep and radical change of meaning. While in the pagan religion that rite had the characteristics of a cult to Mother Earth as goddess, here it is a completely different thing, it is a symbol of the palingenesía, the baptismal regeneration. This clearly demonstrates that syncretism is not really a syncretism, but a revealer and dilator of the internal possibilities that constitute a religion. It is an enlargement of its list of possibilities.
B) Furthermore, not only is there this group of factors called the contact of religions, but something even more important for the development of a religion. There is a second group of factors, which affects the positive internal development taken in itself. It consists of an enlightenment, an obturation, and at least a modification of the internal possibilities that a god or gods offer.
This modification may occur through different ways. In the first place, by way of specialization. Thus, for example, the god of heaven, in the primitive religions, is the one that sends everything that comes from heaven. But if lightning and thunder have great importance, then that god is converted into a god of thunder and lightning. With this the heavenly vault remains as a second divinity. By specialization two divinities have been born where there was only one before. Specialization phenomena are numerous in Christianity, even though from the theological point of view they may be qualified as distortions. Take the distinction between the devotion to one Virgin or another. Or in the grace one asks from the Christ of Limpias2, and not from the {175} Christ of Ayala3. Specializations are unfortunately a very spontaneous tendency in the human spirit, even extending to a kind of pluralization of the divinity. Hence, the saints are converted into small gods specializing in particular illnesses, like Saint Blaise for throat illnesses, etc. A simple fact of a natural and constitutive tendency in all religions.
b) There can be a reverse process: not a specialization, but an amplification4. This is the case, for example, of Varuna in the Vedic religion. Originally he was a god of the heavens, who afterwards assumes the function of god of the sovereignty, which maintains the order and unity of the universe.
c) There is, in the third place, a different phenomenon, the appropriation of the gods by social groups. Thus, for example, what is called in the time of the patriarchs “the religion and God of the fathers”, by the time of Moses it converts into something different: the religion of the people of Israel, and not simply of the fathers. It is now the religion of Israel. And only by the internal development of these possibilities, the religion of Israel converts into a religion somewhat universalized. In general, the Semites have always associated themselves around their gods. For this reason all the social conflicts not only have resonated in the religious order, but have been covered or have incorporated attempts to show them justified by religious motives5. This is the case of the Amorites who conquer {176} Babylon and enthrone Marduk, as I mentioned above. Conversely, when the Amorites are defeated, the Assyrians carry Marduk away tied with a rope through the deserts and the steppes.
d) Besides specialization, amplification, and appropriation by social groups there is, in the fourth place, the social extension. The social extension consists in an amplification of the religious community. It is what must be formally called propagation. This propagation may obtain very different characteristics. In the first place, we have the propagation, which the religion of Israel had with the Diaspora. Proselitism began with it, and has been ever present making the people of Israel a people without a land for centuries, but with a religion. In the second place, there is propagation, not for proselitism, but for a mission. Not all religions, by far, are missionary. Only some, like Manicheism, Buddhism, and Christianity, etc. In the third place, there is another vehicle for propagation, which is neither proselitism nor mission: the political and social imposition. This is the case, for example, of Islam.
e) There is a fifth factor in the evolution of religions, which is essential. The case of the articulation or disarticulation between what man asks from a religion, and what the religion in question can give him, and actually gives him. This is a crucial moment in the history of the development of a religion. Taken both at the same time both factors constitute what we might call the attraction: the fundament by which man surrenders his personal being to a personal reality qua true. This factor, like the others, constitutes a {177} spontaneous tendency in the human spirit. For example, there is no doubt that Buddhism in its pure and canonical form does not admit of a personal divinity. The cosmic-moral Law, the dharma, constitutes the very structure of heaven, inside which there are several gods, who are not, however, supreme beings: men who comply with the dharma can be happier and more blessed than any god. Nevertheless, this has not been an obstacle for the popular conscience, if not theologic, at least theological, to end up divinizing Buddha. I will soon return to this6.
III. Death of religions
Religions not only develop, but also, at least in some cases, die. And they die because of different factors.
1) Every religion, I was saying above, appears as our religion. Of course, when the social body to which the religion belongs disappears, the religion also disappears. Of the Assyro-Babylonian civilization and its religion there were no traces except a few mounds of sand until the first excavations at Nineveh. But this is not as trivial as it may appear. Even though hypothetically the social body and the religion might have subsisted, that religion ceases to be our religion. It loses its reason for existing for those people in question. That is the important point. With the extinction of a people, the extinction of {178} that which constituted the essential reason for there being a religion in the first place is also extinguished, it is not just a simple exhaustion of the fact of existence.
2) In the second place, of course, a religion may disappear because of oppression.
3) In the third place, there can be disappearance of religions by reason of internal consumption. A typical case is Manichaeism, which extended itself throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia, from Cadiz to the Chinese Turkistan, and from south Africa to central Europe. Reading their texts of profound religious inspiration, one can understand how they may have conquered the world. However, from my point of view, it disappeared through consumption, and only a few remnants were left, which vaguely remind us of what Manichaeism had been: the Bogomils in Bulgaria, and the Albigensian in the south of France.
4) The problem of the articulation between what man asks for and what religion provides was already mentioned above. As a factor in the death of religions we have the possible dissociation between religion as a social body and religion as a personal life. This is the decisive point for a religion and a religious life to disappear from the Earth. A religion disappears from a social body when it becomes inoperative or useless for that body. A great historian of religions wrote not too many years ago that the cult of the gods in Rome was a civic duty, while the cult of the gods of foreign mysteries was an expression of personal faith; this is what allowed the Empire to open their doors to forms of religion different from the purely civic, causing the easy victory of the Greek and oriental gods during the later centuries of the republic7. The social and political organization may give the impression that it is reinforcing a religion; generally it perforates it.
{179} And what happened in Rome also happened in the religion of Israel. Suffice it to read the famous text of the prophet Hosea, which the Vulgate, following the Greek text of the Septuagint, translated as misericordiam volui et non sacrificium (Hos 6:6). But the Hebrew text says khésed. In Hebrew khésed does not mean compassion or mercy, but something quite different: the good internal disposition, which when dealing with God with respect to man the new Testament will translate as cháris, grace. And concerning man with respect to God is the internal piety, his internal religion. The text means “I want interior religion, and no sacrifices”. In other words, He wishes to break the dissociation between religion as institutional body, and religion as internal personal life.
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1 Cf. the following appendix on the hypothesis of “primitive religion”.
2 [Tr. note: a much venerated sculpture of the crucified Christ in a church located in the town of Limpias, a few kilometers south of the port of Laredo on the northern coast of Spain facing the Cantabrian Sea]
3 [Tr. note: another venerated sculpture of the crucified Christ in a church on Ayala Street, Madrid, located in a downtown residential section popularly known as “Salamanca”]
4 Zubiri added in the 1965 Madrid seminar: “because there has been an increment in the normal ambit of the possibilities of a divinity”.
5 In the 1965 Madrid seminar Zubiri said: “Evidently, Christianity does not nationalize any God, but there is no doubt that there exists an imminent risk in Christianity, not to ascribe the Christian God to a people or a nation, but rather to a form of civilization, for example, to Western civilization, which was constituted by the internal acceptance of Greek metaphysics, Roman law, and the religion of Israel, as if Christianity were actually one thing with Western civilization or at least essentially ascribed to it”.
6 In the 1965 Madrid seminar Zubiri added: “Religion is not just a matter for theologians and clerics; it is a thing lived by the people, and these processes are not exclusively speculative ones, but can be and are, to a large extent, processes occurring throughout the entire social structure.
7 “Le culte de dieux de Rome était un devoir civique, celui des dieux étrangers est l’expression d’une foi personelle”, F. Cumont, Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain, Paris, 1929, pp. 40-41.