History of Religion: A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems
History of Religion: A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems
Written in the late 19th century, 'History of Religion' by Allan Menzies provides a historical account of the development of religious beliefs from primitive origins to major world religions. Menzies presents religion as an organic whole, exploring the continuity and evolution of various belief systems. He introduces the study of religion as a scientific field, emphasizing the universal nature of early religious practices and the connections between contemporary religions and their primitive roots. This work is notable for its comparative approach to understanding the essence and transformation of religious expression throughout history.
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“much depended; and so was the great lake or the ocean. This is what M. Réville calls the great Nature-worship, in comparison with the minor Nature-worship to be noticed presently. We do not now enter on the subject of mythology; that is to say, of the names men very early began to give to the great natural objects of worship, the characters they ascribed to them, the stories they told about them. That process of myth-making began very early, and is to be found at work in every part of the world. But at first it was simply the natural being itself, conceived as living, that was worshipped, not a spirit or a person thought to dwell in it. Of this, abundant evidence has survived in the great religions. Jupiter is just the sky, the Greek god Helios is just the sun, and the goddess Selene the moon. In China heaven itself is worshipped to this day. The Babylonians worshipped the stars. The Vedic gods are primarily the elements. From savage life examples of this earliest state of matters can also be quoted, though mythology has nearly everywhere greatly confused it. The Mincopies adore the sun as a beneficent deity, the moon as an inferior god. To the Natchez the sun is the supreme god; with some tribes of North America the chief god is heaven blowing, the sky with a wind in it, what Longfellow calls the "Great Spirit" or blowing. The Incas invoked together the Creator and the Sun and Thunder. Thunder was one of the great””
— Allan Menzies
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Menzies, Allan. History of Religion: A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems. Lex, lex-books.com/book/history-of-religion-a-sketch-of-primitive-religious-beliefs-and-practices-and-of-e15e9d88-2c8c-4da8-9551-3e5d30959dbc.Menzies, A. (n.d.). History of Religion: A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/history-of-religion-a-sketch-of-primitive-religious-beliefs-and-practices-and-of-e15e9d88-2c8c-4da8-9551-3e5d30959dbcMenzies, Allan. History of Religion: A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/history-of-religion-a-sketch-of-primitive-religious-beliefs-and-practices-and-of-e15e9d88-2c8c-4da8-9551-3e5d30959dbc.