The Journal of Abnormal Psychology | ||
CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM. By J. B. Hannay. (Francis Griffiths, London; pp. 394).
This is an attempt to expound the symbolism of the Christian religion. It is divided into three main parts: ancient cults (phallism and sun worship); ancient cults in the Old Testament; ancient cults in the New Testament. The author's main thesis can be stated in a sentence: the essential constituents of every religion, and the underlying meaning of its symbolism, are phallicism and sun worship. Of these the former is the more important, more primary, and more wide-spread; the latter is a superimposed layer better adapted to more civilized and educated people, but rarely penetrating into the hearts of the common people to the extent that the former has. "The great branches under which all the religious systems of the past have developed may be classed as
Now in spite of the fact that the reviewer fully accepts the main thesis of the book, as stated above, and therefore has no prejudice or hostility on the score of the conclusions encunciated being distasteful, his judgment of the book is entirely unfavourable, for the following reasons: In the first place, any presence of the book to be a scientific, and therefore impartial, contribution to knowledge is invalidated by the author's moral bias evident from beginning to end, against religion in general, and Christianity in particular, which he maintains is the most phallic of all religions. His point of view is that of the older rationalists, to whom religion is nothing but an unfortunate instinct for "delight in the miraculous," expressing itself in phallic and sun worship, and fostered by the exploiting tendencies of priests. His desire seems to be, in writing the book, to "show up" religion and, by discrediting it, hasten its end.
In the second place, there is not a single new idea in all its closely packed pages, and therefore no excuse for writing them, since the material here laboriously brought together is easily accessible in other books. It never seems to dawn on the author that pointing out the sexual basis of religion, which countless other writers have already done, is but the beginning of the problem, the starting-point of all sorts of complex riddles. Having dogmatically divided all religious symbols into male and female, he is self-satisfied enough to think that he has explained religion. There is no inkling of the points of view suggested by such words
Side by side with all this goes a disorderly arrangement and very imperfect powers of criticism. The latter feature is especially marked in the field of etymology, where the author fairly lets himself run wild. The following gem is a typical example (p. 110): "Bacchus became degraded into the God of Wine, and his fêtes became drunken orgies, but he was originally the beneficent sun who ripened the fruits, and hence God of Wine, from which, indeed, is derived the English name of all our gods, angels, prophets, or even parsons,—"divines," "dei vini," "Gods of Wine." Jesus was the "True Vine."
The merits of the book are that it may direct the attention of some people to the connection between sex and religion, if there are any who are still unaware of this, and that it possesses a good index that may be useful to readers with limited facilities for looking up particular symbolisms; it is also well illustrated.
ERNEST JONES.
The Journal of Abnormal Psychology | ||