401 religious encyclopedia nationalism

BIBwOVBAPH7: J. M. Reinkens, Joseph Hubert Reinkens, Gotha, 1908; F. Rolert, Biechof Reinkena and seine Helfer, Leipsic, 1888; W. Beyschlag, BiwAof Reinkens and der deutwhs Altkotholieiemus, Berlin, 1898; F. Nippold, Erinnerunpen an Biadlwf Reinkene, Leipsic, 1898; and the literature under OLD CATBowca.

REIHCHLE, rai'shle, MAX WILHELM THEO­DOR: German Protestant; b. in Vienna June 18, 1858; d. at Halle Dec. 11, 1905. He was educated at the universities of Tubingen (1876 80), Gotting­en, and Berlin (1882 83), interrupting his studies while vicar at Gmond, Warttemberg, in 1881 82. He was a lecturer at the theological seminary at Tilbingen (1883 88), having official permission to lecture in the university of the same city. He was then a teacher in a gymnasium at Stuttgart (1888­1892); professor of practical theology at the Uni­versity of Giessen (1892 95); was called to Gotting­en as professor of systematic theology (1895); and in the same capacity to the University of Halle (1896). In theology he belonged to the school of Ritschl. He wrote: Ein Wort zur Kontroverse fiber die Mystik in der Theologie (Freiburg, 1886); Die Frage nach dem Wesen der Religion, Grundlegung zu einer Methodologie der Religimesphilosophie (1889); Dos akademische Studium and der Kampf um die Weltanschauung (Gottingen, 1894); Die Spielen der Kinder in seinem Erziehungswert (1897); Christ­liche Glaubenslehre in Leitsdtzen fur eine akadem­ische Vorlesung entxoickelt (Halle, 1899); Welturteile and Glaubensurteile (1900); Jam Worte von der eungen Bestimmung der Menschenaeele in religions­ge8chiehtlieher Beleuchtung (1902); Theologie and Religionageschichte (Tilbingen, 1904); and the pos­thumous Aufsdfize and Vortrage, ed. T. Haring and F. Loofs (1906), contains biographical introduction.

REITZ, raits, JOHANN HEINRICH: German Reformed and mystic; b. at Oberdiebach (a village near Bacharach, 22 m. s.s.e. of Coblenz) 1655; d. at Wesel (32 m. n.w. of Dusseldorf) Nov. 25, 1720. He was educated at Leyden and Bremen, in the latter city coming under pietistic influences. Com­pleting his studies at Heidelberg, he taught at Fran­kenthal, until 1681, when he was called to the pas­torate of Freinsheim. Here he remained until com­pelled to flee by the War of the Palatinate in 1689, and during this first pastorate completed his Latin translation of the Moses and Aaron of Thomas Godwin (Bremen, 1684). He then became inspec­tor of churches and schools in the district of Laden­burg, only again to be driven out by war. He next preached for a time at Asslaa, and a few years later was made inspector at Braunfels. Here, however, his attempt to convert a mystio to the ways of faith led to his own fall from orthodoxy, and he was de­posed and expelled. For a time he was pastor at Homberg vor derHohe, and then went to Frank­fort, justifying his tenets in his Kurtzer Begriiif des Leidens, der Lehre and de 8 Verhaltem J. H. Reitzens (Offenbach, 1698), manifesting a mixture of Re­formed orthodoxy and ehiliasm, He now wandered about with other enthusiasts, founding " Philadel­phian " societies, and enjoying the favor of noble sympathizers. For some three years he resided at Offenbach, attacking the Heidelberg Catechism in his Kurtzer Vortrag von der Gerechtigkeit, die viir

451 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Reinkene

Bello

truss and in Jehova durch den Glauben haben (n.p., 1701) and preparing a translation of the New Tes­tament (Offenbach, 1703) which was colored by his peculiar views. In 1702  04 he was director of a formed Latin school at Siegen, but was removed for attending meetings for private devotion. He then wandered for some years from place to place, finally becoming administrator for the widowed princess of Nassau Siegen, then residing at her castle of Wisch, near Terborg. Finally, in 1711, he went to Wesel, where, having wearied of his former extravagances and returned to orthodoxy, he set up a successful Latin school, over which he presided until his death.

The chief work of Reitz was his collection of brief biographies entitled Historie der Wiedergeborenen (7 parts, 3d ed., Berleburg, 1724 46), and his wri­tings also include: Geo, fneter Himmel, Erkldrung der sonderbaren'Geheimnisse des Himmelreichs (Wetz­lar, 1707); and the posthumous Naehfolge Jesu Christi (Leipsic, 1730) and Verborgene O, fenbarung Jesu Christi aus dreien Buchern, der inneren and dusseren Natur, and der Schrift erkldrt (Frankfort, 1738). In all these wide scope is given to the " inner light," as among the Anabaptists and Quakers, as well as, under the influence of Cocceius, to contempt of the observance of Sunday and disparagement of the Old Testament. Creeds and an ordained ministry are also lightly regarded as secondary in impor­tance, restorationism is taught, all sorts of mystical ideas are advanced, and it is maintained that Christ assumed, not the flesh of the first Adam, but, as Paul taught, the peccable nature of fallen man.

(F. W. CuNot.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. G56e1, GeachicUe des chrialichen Lebens in der rheiniseh wMphdliechen evangelixhen Kirche, vol. ii., Coblentz, 1852; C. W. H. Hochhuth, H. Horche and die philadelph. Gemeinden in Hessen, Giltersloh, 1876; F. W. Cuno, GedncUnisbuch deutecher Fiarstm and Pura­innen reformirten Bekenntnisses, vol. ii., Barmen, 1883; E. Saehsee, Ursprung and Wesen des Pidismus, Wiesba­den, 1884; T: GOmbel, GesehkUe der protestantischen Kirche der Pfa&, Kaiselsloh, 1885.

RELAND (REELAND, RELANTT), ADRIAN: Dutch orientalist and geographer; b. at Rijp (a village near Alkmaar, 20 m. n.n.w. of Amsterdam) July 17, 1676; d. at Utrecht Feb. 5, 1718. He was educated at Amsterdam (1686 58) and Utrecht (1688 93), completing his studies at Leyden. In 1699 he was appointed professor of physics and metaphysics at Harderwijk, but in the following year was called to Utrecht as professor of oriental languages and sacred antiquities, retaining this chair until his death. His studies ranged over clas­sical philology, Persian and Arabic literature, the languages of India and Farther India, China, Japan, and South America. He devoted special attention, however, to the Bible and cognate subjects. His writings of theological interest were as follows: Analeda Rabbinica (Utrecht, 1702); Antiquitates sacrte veterum Hebreeorum (1708); Dissertationes quinque de nummm roeterum Hebrteorum qui ab in­scriptarum literarum forma Samaritani appellantur (1709); Palastina ex monumentis mteribus Qua­trata (1714); and De spdiis templi Hierosoymitani in arcu Titiano (1716), as well as a number of essays in his Dissertationes misce4aneee (3 parts, 1706 08).

The Palcestina is still indispensable. He was the

author also of the De religione Mohammedwa 4W

duo (Utrecht, 1705; Eng. transl. by A. Bobovius,

3 parts, London, 1712). (H. GUTHE.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Niceron, Mkmmoires, i. 339 349, x. 62 83; K. Burmann, Trajeetum eruditum, pp. 293 301, Utrecht, 1738; L. G. Michaud, Biogmphie universelle, xxxvii. 308­311, Paris, 1824 sqq.; A. J. Van der Aa, Biopraphisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden, x. 45 47, Haarlem, 1874; R. Rdhricht, Bibliotheca pmpmphica Palaatina, pp. 296­297, Berlin, 1890.

RELIC: The body, or some part of the same, of a saint, or an object supposed to have been con­nected with the life and person of Christ, a saint, or a martyr, and preserved for religious veneration, especially in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Churches. The term was received from the clas­sical Latin meaning " remains from dead bodies " (reliquia=" ashes "), and was applied to relics from the martyrs. Later it was extended to in­clude the bodies themselves (Vita Sancti Maxentii; ASM, i. 567) and everything that had come into contact with the saints or their bodies (Gregory the Great, Dialogorum, II., xxxviii.). In" The Epist. of the church at Smyrna concerning the martyr dour of Polycarp " (xviii.; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 43) the bones of the martyr, after the body was con­sumed in the fire, are represented as " more precious than the most exquisite jewels, and more refined than gold " and (xvii.; Eng. transl., i. 42) many " desired to become possessors of his holy flesh." In the next century Cyprian and Dionysius of Alex­andria bear witness that congregations considered it their right and duty to bury the bodies of their martyrs (Cyprian, Epist., viii. 3, xii. 1; Eng. transl., ANF, v. 281, 315; Eusebius, Hist. eccl., vii. 11, 22; Eng. tranal., NPNF, ser. 2, i. 301, 307). The pos­session of the body, or at least the relics, was taken as securing a continuation of fellowship with the deceased. This view throws light upon the custom of assembling at the graves of the martyrs to cele­brate the agape and the Eucharist (Epist. de mar­tyrio Polycarpi, xviii.; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 43; Cyprian, Epist., xxxix. 3; Eng. transl., ANF, v. 313), and of the desire for burial in the vicinity of the martyr. The aversion to touching the bodies of the dead apropos of the survival of the ceremonial law of the Jews could not long impede this develop­ment.

The transition from the veneration of entombed bodies to that of relics occurred during the latter half of the third sad the beginning of the fourth centuries, and evidently falls into connection with the persecutions under Decius, Valerian, and Dio­cletian. In Egypt the dead bodies of saints were not buried but retained for veneration in the houses (Vita Antonii magni, xc.; ASB, ii. 120 141). Op­tatus (De schismate Donatistarum, i. 16) speaks of a certain Lucilla of Carthage, who kissed the bone of a martyr; and of the Christians at Tarragona it is said that after the death of Fructuosus (q.v.) and his associates each one appropriated, so far as pos­sible, some of their ashes (Acts Fructuosi, vi.; ASB, ii. 339 341). In each of those three instances the act was disapproved by the church leaders, but in spite of this the veneration became general. In addition it was soon believed that the inanimate

Relic

Religion

THE NEW SCHAFF HERZOG

body had miraculous virtue, acquired by the long habitation of the soul. Egypt, particularly, seemed to have been a rich treasure house of these objects. The church in Jerusalem was famed for possessing the chair of James (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., vii. 19; Eng. transl., NPNF, 2 ser., i. 305) and a remnant of the oil miraculously multiplied by Bishop Nar­cissus (Eusebius, ut sup., vi. 9; Eng. transl., i. 255).

The advance to superstitious veneration occurred principally in the period of Constantine; and the bringing of the relics of Timothy, Andrew, and Luke to Constantinople (356 357) points to the transference of relics as begun under Conatantius. At this time appears the practise, instead of bury­ing the remains of martyrs, of dividing them for wider distribution (Gregory of Nyasa, in his third address on the forty martyrs; MPG, xlvi. 783). The Greek authorities of this and the next period are unanimous in commending the religious ven­eration of relics. In the West Ambrose brought to light the relics of Protasius and Gervasius, which was the beginning of a series of similar discoveries and translations. Jerome and Paulinus of Nola particularly promoted this form of piety, the latter almost to the borders of creature worship (" a local star and a cure," Poemata, xix. 14, xxvii. 443). Nothing indicates better the broadcast possession of these objects than the frequent mention of forged relics. However, there was no lack of protests, at least against accretions. Pope Damasus discredited the effort to obtain burial near the tombs of mar­tyrs. The rescript of Theodosius for the protection of the bodies of martyrs was ineffectual in the East; in the West Gregory the Great, in a letter (Epist., iv. 30; Eng. transl. in NPNF, 2 ser. xii. 154 156) to the Empress Conatantma, declared that the practise in the East of touching and removing the bodies of martyrs must be taken as sacrilege, and that permission was given only to bring cloths to the tombs with which to touch the bodies, and that these cloths were henceforth relics. While parts of the bodies of saints appear here and there in the West; yet the dismemberment of bodies was openly censured. In general it may be assumed that the majority of relics in the West at this time consisted of memorials of the graves and places of the saints supposed to be endowed with miraculous and sanctifying virtues; such as, parts of clothing, a key from the tomb of Peter, and water from their wells. This restriction, however, could not be main­tained against the popular demand. In the ninth century most relics were bodies or parts of them, and the Synod of Mainz (813; Hefele, Concilien­geschichte, iii. 763, canon 5), which renewed the prohibition against removals, sanctioned the per­mission given by rulers, bishops, and synods. The Church promoted the veneration by the decision that relics shall be deposited within every altar.

The beginning of the collocation of martyr's tomb and church can not be traced farther back than the fourth century, when the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul appeared upon the sites of " the trophies of the apostles " at the Vatican and the Ostian way (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., ii. 25; Eng. transl., NPNF, 2 ser., i. 130). Ambrose refused consecra­tion to churches without relics and Pope Severinus

(640) collected them in great numbers for the border churches on the Danube. The seventh ecumenical council (Nice&, 787) forbade the bishops to conse­crate churches without relics under penalty of ex­communication. The English Synod of Celchyt (816) allowed exceptions (Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, iii. 580); yet the more relics multiplied, the less frequently the exceptions occurred, so that the Synod of Mainz (888) presupposed also relics in portable altars. The belief that the relics are instruments of divinely wrought miracles still firmly prevails in the Roman Catholic Church (Council of Trent, xxv. 469). (A. HAuc$.)

While the principle of veneration of Christian relics is not derived from ethnic practise, the diffu­sion of the custom reflects a profound sense of regard for men who have served their race in religious de­velopment. Thus it is reported that Gautama's body was burned and the relics, apportioned among his disciples, were widely dispersed, of which the "Stupas" (q.v.) are monuments. India may be called the home of relics, a large proportion of its smaller shrines being built around objects of this class. The cult is found even in Mohammedanism, in spite of its rigid monotheism, and was an occa­sion of the rise of the Wahabis and an object of attack by them. o. w. a.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Early treatises are: Guibert of Nogent, in MPL, clvi. 807 809, cf. A. Lefranc, in Ptudes d hist. du moven dpe, dedikes h Gabrid Monod, Paris, 1898; Peter the Venerable, De miraculis, in MPL, clxxxix. A very useful and comprehensive treatment is to be found in DCA, ii. 1768 85. Consult further: J. Launoy, De cura eecleaim pro sandis et sanctorum reliquiis, Paris, 1660; J. Mabillon, Lettre d'un Bbnididin touchant Is discerns. ment des anciennes reliques, ib. 1700; G. de Cordemoy, Traitk des saintes reliques, ib. 1719; J. A. S. C. de Plancy, Didion ire critique des reliques, ib. 1821; E. S. Harts­horne. Enshrined Hearts, London, 1881; P. Parfait, La Foire aua rdiques, Paris, 1879; S. Beissel, Die Verehrunp der Heiligen and ihrer Reliquien in Deutschland, Freiburg, 1890; P. Vignon, The Shroud of Christ, New York, 1903; H. Siebert, Beitrdpe zur vorrejorneatorischen Heiligen  and Rdiquienverehrunp, Freiburg, 1907; F. Pfister, Der Re­liquenkult im Altertum. 1. Das obiekt des Rdinquen­kults, Giessen, 1909; Schaff, Christian Church, v. 1, pp. 844 aqq.; %L, x. 1030 11 For interesting lists of relics consult: Gelenius, De admiranda sacra d civili magni­tudine, Colonies;, Cologne, 1645; Mai, Nova collectio, i. 37 52; H. Canisius, Thesaurus monumentorum, III., ii. 214 eqq., Antwerp, 1725.

RELIEF ACT: An act of parliament passed in 1791 (31 George III. c. 32) relieving Roman Catho­lics Of certain political, educational, and economic disabilities. It admitted Roman Catholics to the practise of law, permitted the exercise of their re­ligion, and the existence of their schools, relieved them Of the oath of supremacy and declaration against transubstantiation and of the necessity of enrolling deeds and wills. On the other hand, chapels, schools, officiating priests and teachers were to be registered, assemblies with locked doors, as well as steeples and bells to chapels, were forbid­den; priests were not to wear their robes or to hold serrzce in the open air; children of Protestants might not be admitted to the schools; monastic orders and endowments of schools and colleges were prohibited.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. H. Overton and F. Relton, The English Church (171.¢ 1800), pp. 226 227, London, 1906.

RELIEF SYNOD. See PRESBYTERIANS, I.

463 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Relic

RELIGION.

I. General Treatment. Inner Experience Necessary (§ 1). science of Religion PoseibleT (§ 2). Comparative Method U 3). Introspection (§ 4).

Telic Consciousness; Freedom (¢ b). Religion and Clod ($ e). Regeneration (¢ 7). Summary (¢ 8).

II. Special Methods of Study.

I. General Treatment: A knowledge of religion can express only the individual's participation in it. Those to whom it is foreign will either confess ignorance of it, or will declare it to be an illusion, to be resisted or used. If it be regarded as an illu 

sion, it is taken as an accumulation of :. Inner human fears and as the cultivation of Experience such delusions in order to conceal the Necessary. fate producing them. This explana 

tion finds support in the fact that the reality of which religion speaks is not to be discov­ered in the experience before whose necessities hu­man aspiration and concern must remain silent. It can also not be concealed that religion, while tran­scending this experience accessible to all, is inti­mately connected with inner human needs. Natu­rally the charge that religion originates from them is regarded by religion itself as a hostile act; but to refute it with arguments so as to convince every one is not possible. It is not even desirable; for were this possible, an antithesis upon which the life of religion itself depends would disappear; the an­tithesis of its mystery with the profane. However, religion can otherwise meet the effort to reduce it to an illusion. Where realized as an awakening from illusions, its purpose to be unreservedly vera­cious can not remain unrecognized in its environ­ment. It fortifies itself outwardly by acquiring inner firmness and clearness, capable of challenging from without inquiry concerning its truth. It can then make reply to everyone who states that re­ligion is an illusion of human necessity by saying that he fails to know its real life. Those who prefer to regard religion as either conscious or unconscious self deception are not to be convinced by argument; but all those who have experienced religion as an internal conquest of self deception stand on the common ground of possessing, and of being capable of possessing, knowledge of religion. Religion can be apprehended only by participating in it. In this respect it is no worse off than every purely historical phenomenon, whose origin, unlike a simple fact of nature, can not be pursued farther than to the inner processes in particular individuals. Such a phe­nomenon can be grasped only as one coeaperiences the inner processes in which it is rooted. As a par­allel, he who from native resources is incapable of contributing to the creation of the state, is unable to know what the state is. This is preeminently characteristic of religion, which will appear the more evident the more the source of its vital energy is discovered in contrast with all other historical phenomena..

It is true of religion beyond all other empirical life that it affords no objective perception. His­torical phenomena, however, approximate the ob­jectivity of demonstrable reality in proportion as,

Possible Modes of Studying Reliefan (i 1). History of Religion (§ 2). Science of Religion (§ 3). Psychology of Religion (1 4). Philosophy of Religion (¢ 8).

in their origin, universally disseminated and tangible psychological tendencies of the human soul life coop­erate. This is true, in a high degree, s. Science of the State, for by those who come to of Religion regard the same as an illusion of des­Possible ? potism, not only are their active in­terest and a sense of the dignity of the State sacrificed, but in addition certain natural tendencies exercised in political conduct. Religion in its realization makes requisition upon all the no­tives of life, but that in which it enters life can not be apprehended as a product of those powers and is to be viewed only as an incident. The field of religious perception is therefore introspection, and to deduce the nature of religion from the compari­son of a multitude of examples results in self decep­tion. For, first, no one to whose life religion is for­eign can possibly realize how it determines in others the character to assert itself. Secondly, he who is religiously conscious can only rediscover in others traces of his own, perhaps retarded or transposed, perhaps developed in a degree impossible to him. He who could properly estimate the religions in his­tory would have to possess a view of his own, un­satisfiable by anything else. But if such has grown out of his own religious life only and he can not impart it in the form in which he possesses it, there is no possibility for a science of religion. For science is the knowledge of an objective or demonstrable actuality. But neither what religion proposes to be for itself nor the actuality which it envelops is so constituted that others can be led by proof to perceive anything in it but suppositions. This opinion of the situation begins to spread at the present time. Striking is its appearance in that quarter where an effort is held forth to produce an assumed science of religion; i.e., in comparative religion. One of its advocates remarks as follows: " It is self evident that a real understanding of re­ligion is only possible if the different religions are studied entirely impartially and purely from the historical standpoint " (E. Troeltseh, Die Philoso­phie im Begins des ,20. JAhrhunderts, i. 134, 1904). " Impartial " study is here utterly impossible; for what religion presumes to be, or the reality it asserts, is evident only to him who in his own existence attains to religious life. His own religious self existence is filled in every impulse with an incommunicable conviction. A man thus knowing religion in the reality asserted by itself, opposed to others in his personal conviction, is from the out­set partizan, and is qualified for the inner fellowship which unites human beings altogether differently from the grouping of objective perception, or sci­ence. If, for instance, in the attempt at compara­tive generalization the various elements of simple supernaturalism of all religions be disregarded, the

Religion THE NEW SCHAFF HERZOG 454

philosophy of religion has on the whole lost its sub­ject. But if upon the assumed science of religion be imposed the recognition of all these in any other sense than psychological fact, namely, in the sense of thoughts arising from inner conviction, and if religion is treated in accordance with what it claims to be, the result is no longer science, whose deduc­tions are universally accepted, where the powers of intellectual culture have developed, but theol­ogy, which, by means of scientific logic, seeks to describe and clarify the religious content prevalent within a particular life circle. The philosophy of religion that would be adequate to religion is from the outset theology; for no one released from his own individual position can have a conception of the reality of religion.

A correct sense of the essence of religion contracts considerably the significance of comparative relig­ious history. If religion appears to us only by what it self evidently is in us, no solution can be expected

by a retrospect of historical examples 3. COM  of religions so called. So much is ad 

parative mitted. But not so much the religious

Method. processes as the primitive forms of re 

ligion are to be determined, and types abstracted from these are to afford the understand­ing of the higher religions. That little was to be accomplished over against the higher religions with the categories of the history of religion as hitherto wrought out from the materials of primitive forms is not surprising, seeing that whoever would under­stand and estimate religion must first know its nat­ural and intact reality. But it is likewise admitted that such research is unconcerned about what re­ligion is in itself, what phenomena are primary, what secondary, or what have nothing to do with religion. A science that contents itself thus can only incidentally contribute anything to throw light on religion of the higher order, and the ac­knowledgment that it has accomplished little to this effect is not unexpected. It is also difficult to perceive how a collection of ethnological material, the original significance of which is unknown, can ever provide safe contributions to the understand­ing of religion. The history of religion can not es­tablish the understanding of religion, for this it presupposes. If it thus fails, it reduces itself to a mere collection of ethnological curios. He who by virtue of his own religious life can view that of others may become aware of the limitations of his own; but the analysis of a religious manifestation in another can not furnish him with the understand­ing of religion on the whole, much less can the pur­suit of highly improbable generalities among the remnants of primitive development. Whoever at­tempts to make religion an object of scientific knowl­edge or to include it in the demonstrable reality of things, has either no clear idea of religion or does not know what science is. All that science touches is dead. * Religion is life. It is absurd that one

* Is not botany a science, and do not flowers live t Simi­larly it may be remarked that anthropology is a science, and so of other branches of knowledge. Modern opinion is de­cidedly trending against the assumption that the application of scientific study to religion is either barred or impossible. Indeed, theologians are growing more favorable to science as furnishing aid in establishing a firmer basis for theolo¢n.

should experience the reality of the living spirit and then surrender this to science, which it tran­scends, as if it did not deserve real worth until sci­ence had passed it through its process. In biology just as soon as life is treated within the scope of conceivable reality it has ceased to be life and has become mechanism; so with religion. Personal piety does not originate from an heirloom, but is vital in its origin. To aim to apprehend it in a cate. gorical correlation with another is to annul it for oneself.

The first thing encountered in an examination of subjective experience is its state of concealment. The field of inquiry is, for the pious, his inner life, and the community where individuals of similar inner experience approach each other in confidence.

Religion is actual only in the exami 

4. Intro  nation of inner states in which the sub 

spection. ject distinguishes himself from the

world of experience, which is corre­lated by law and admissible to all. This takes place

Iii by attention to the inner processes which afford a sense of the self existence and exclusiveness of the subjective life. The intuition of the inner life is made possible by the desire for self expression. In the exercise of will the conscious living being dis­tinguishes between that which it includes with its self existence and that which it deducts from self, so as to be aware of that activity and of that which it puts in relation with itself; therefore in its fear and hope, in its hate and love, the human subject obtains a perception of its inner life. In this inner private order, in distinction from the universal outer order, the fact of religion is to be sought. This does not mean that religion is the product of the desire of self assertion; no man is pious who includes self­seeking in what he regards as religion. Genuine piety involves voluntary passiveness to truth and reality. Religion can not arise from desire but from the recognition of the actual, or knowledge. Here begins also science; but no scientific knowledge however sublimated can belong to the forces of the religious life; for that lies in the open light, this wells up in the undisclosed. But the knowledge in which only religion can subsist is of a peculiar kind. It is not the apprehension of the objectively actual but reflection upon subjective experience. The dis­advantage appears here over against objective knowledge, in that conformity with law in relation to the latter facilitates the discrimination of truth from appearance. As to the former, on the con­trary, there is no method of discrimination that may illustrate itself by comparison with others, for there is no formal unity of the representations so­cording to law, such as obtains for the universal. Only this remains to consider, how the clear cer­tainty of genuine experiences springs up, which is capable of guarding against evanishment in the further development of life. To promote this, it is not necessary as in objective cognition to set bounds to the will of self expression so that cognition be not interfered with, for the activity of this volition alone creates scope for subjective experience; but security against deception is to be gained here in that the will of self expression becomes really true in itself.

466 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA 8eltgioa

The veritableness of volition or desire consists in

the unchangeableness of the end or aim assumed

by the conscious willing subject out of its own

knowledge. A real willing occurs only where the

subject connotes all that he under­

g. Telic takes in time in a supreme voluntary

Conscious  act which possesses an eternal end.

ness; But in no momentary act of self ex­

Freedom. pression can the individual regard his

existence as eternally warranted; hence

in every act of will another element acts in combi­

nation with the impulse, namely, the consciousness

of its final object. The abstraction from momen­

tary self existence and concentration upon the eter­

nal purpose reflects the dawn of the consciousness

of the human will unchangeable. An inner life of

a higher order with an imperishable content is the

result. This will grounded upon the eternally valid

is the ethical sense. In the true willing of the eth­

ical, positive self denial becomes self expression.

What is directly willed is not the life of the soul,

but the overcoming of mere appearance in obedi­

ence to the truth and in the tendency of the telic

aim. The first impulses of ethical perception lead

the soul toward the consciousness of freedom. This

is attained not in a state of individual seclusion but

in society amid the stream of historical life. Con­

tact with morally awakened fellow beings stimu­

lates confidence and respect, the experience of which

is the dawn of moral perception in every human

being. A true power of will is born in him who, in

the experience of a love which concerns itself for

him, becomes conscious of a state of life in men,

imperceptible to sense, and has confidence in

them. But in this the capacity of religious ex­

perience has come into being. When that is

earnestly practised which is given in this con­

duct of trust, there is a sense of being possessed

of a power affording an experience of some­

thing otherwise entirely remote. This wonder has

oftentimes been conceived and described in its

glory. Wherever religion has given itself expres­

sion the wonder has at least been touched upon.

The incomparable boon given in the impulse of

trust is the inner situation in which the human sub­

ject may be wholly overwhelmed. Men in whom

this is not possible are isolated by their inner ex­

clusiveness. It is a rescue from darkness to ap­

proach a power that has open access to the soul.

This takes place the moment in which one bows in

trust .and reverence before the beneficence of a

personality, which becomes noticeable by the act

of transfixing one in the motive of those impulses.

Release from deadly isolation, or unfree selfishness,

is possible if in trust in a person one becomes con­

scious of him so as to impose an unconditional re­

quirement upon himself. Naturally one confides

in another only so far as the other inspires the con­

viction that he is not self seeking, but acts in obe­

dience to an absolute command given by the single­

ness of his willing. But there must also arise in the

subject the recognition of the unconditionally nec­

essary to which his will adheres, or candid trust

becomes impossible. As one trusts another that

he is inwardly true, he becomes such himself. As

one sets up before himself what shall bind him eter 

nally, there arises in him the sense of freedom, in which he realizes himself as wholly in submission.

The consciousness of freedom emerging from the elementary ethical transaction is a condition of the life of religion. For reflection upon religion that is

experienced reveals that therein one 6. Religion knows himself dependent upon a power and God. from which there is no escape. A hu 

man being who finds himself in the movement of history, because by voluntary serv­ice to others he is promoted to confidence and there­fore to ethical perception, is on the way to religion, if the challenge to unqualified reality embraces also those individual experiences. Only in the complete contemplation of all the real can God be approached. Religion can be a blessed certainty only to one who can uprightly confess that when he found it he con­fronted naught but reality in all its terrors. Most important of all experiences must be that in which that power by which man is conscious of being wholly vanquished becomes distinct. This becomes possible only where, by voluntary service of others, one arrives at ethical self determination, or the ex­perience of love. Were there in a man no echo of grateful respect to others, he would be God forsaken. Only from recollections which awaken in the soul does the irresistible inward ruling power arise. But this experience vanishes again when much appears in the same person that militates against such con­fidence. Men themselves afford the means, in the ascent to ethical knowledge, of comparing them with that which reveals their human limitations. Relig­ion becomes real in that moment when the spiritual power ah eady known in experience is abstracted from the individual places of revelation and asserts itself for human consciousness as a self existent life which answers to pure submission in human expe­rience. How this transpires is unknown, but where it occurs it means, first, the surrender to the power of the good, or morality, and also the revelation of God as the power from which there is no escape and which reveals itself as seeking love. It is the same power that, in individual impulses to confidence, moves man to humility and benevolence, but is now extended as omnipotent goodness over all existence.

To make the power or the certainty of religion more evident one must not only consider its source but also its operation. It was a felicitous step when the Reformers designated faith or obedience to the experienced revelation of God as regeneration.

With every closer approximation of q. Regen  the inner life to God, affording a new

eration. and deeper grounding of faith in him,

the certainty of religious assurance ad­vances. The spiritual power which overcomes man in this act of self surrender ever carries him beyond the previous limits of his strength. Every moment in which man is inwardly possessed, God is to him the one who rules supremely in all the depths of his being; and yet, at the same time, he is brought to the full realization of his inward autonomy. The inner self existence of the truly vital is possessed only as one breaks through the confines within which he moved before. That which is retained of the past the blind instinct of self preservation of

8eliglon

THE NEW SCHAFF HERZOG

the natural life attempts to assert. Therefore in every vital impulse death is prepared. But to find God means the overcoming of this fate. During every moment experienced in religious progress, whose import is regarded as of divine operation, the old and lifeless is simply discarded so that there is nothing to assert itself against the spiritual power that ever effects new miracles of complete victory and free submission.

The essence of religion is the awakening of man to self contemplation. The first vital impulse is reverence for the real. A further step is the reflec­tion upon one's utmost experience, the inquiry con­cerning the might in whose power all are. This proves to be the power which alone overcomes him,

gains possession of his inmost self, and

& Sum  approaches in beneficence to humiliate

mary. him and sacrifice itself for him. Total

realization of religion follows when, in

the divine revelation received by experience, this

spiritual power abstracts itself from the times and

places of its manifestation, and becomes the sum

of life. Then religion consists in intercourse with

God, which is the immanence of the omnipotence of

God and the obedience of a full submission that

would conceive his presence and accept his com­

mand in every experience. The operation of re­

ligion in man is to the effect that the enemies of

life are overcome and eternal life is imparted to

him. This eternal life means not endless time space

but power to vanquish death, a life whose days are

creative and whose inner riches overflow its envi­

ronment as love and goodness. All vital religion

in history requires to resolve itself again and again

upon these simple fundamentals of all true relig.

ion. Its wholeness involves also the grateful re­

spect for the human and for men through whom it

is connected with the creative power of God. A

fatal danger in connection with this is the tempta­

tion, in regarding the mediators of redemption, to

overlook redemption, even God himself. In Chris­

tianity this danger is averted if Jesus Christ becomes

known to men in his actuality and in the undeniable

power of his inner life. For then, and only then, is

piety toward him submission to the one God.

(W. HERRMANN.)

II. Special Methods of Study: Even if there be a secret and incommunicable element in religious ex­perience, this does not preclude a legitimate inquiry

into the place and nature of religion in :. Possible human historical life. The depart 

Modes of menu into which this investigation

Studying naturally falls are the history, science,

Religion. Psychology, and philosophy of religion.

Religion has embodied itself in cus­toms, institutions, and ideals, and may therefore be studied in its historical conditions. It is, moreover, subject to the same laws of scientific explanation as are other human facts. As a matter of inner per­sonal experience, it is amenable to psychological analysis and description. So far as religion involves a theory of reality of first cause and final end, of the grounds of knowledge and the validity of the ideal, of man's relation to ultimate Being and to the infinite future it invites the aid of philosophy and metaphysics. In actual practise these four depart 

468

ments can not be so separated that one is treated irrespective of the others; the divisions which are logical and made for convenience tend continually to fade out or to merge one into the other.

The history of religion deals with religious facts as facts. At every point the human race as it emerges in history already practises religion. Of the religious life of prehistoric man

2. History many facts are indeed hopelessly lost,

of Religion. but many may still be recovered by the

aid of archeology, ethnology, historic

peoples in undeveloped condition, and analogy (see

COMPARATIVE RELIGION, II. V.). The aim here is

to bring to description every custom, ordinance,

myth, doctrine, and institution which rises in or

expresses the religious feeling. The particular his­

torian may conceive as his task to present these in

concrete images without attempt at analysis or

even at correlation (so Herodotus, in his " History");

or his purpose may be to fit these facts into a scheme

of religious interpretation (Herbert Spencer, Prinr

cipW of Sociology, London, 1882). As a result of

this historical process, three facts stand out; that

religion is a social phenomenon, that its object or

objects are personal even though in the form of

symbols, and that its development is associated

with objects so different in form that no one of these

can be held to be essential to religion.

The science of religion is concerned with expla, nation of the facts provided by historical inquiry. Its field is the same as that of the history of relig­ion beliefs, customs, institutions, and

3. Science ideals which have been determined by

of Religion. man's relation to the supernatural. It is to be observed, however, that it con­siders religious phenomena only on their human side; it is in no way concerned with thg reality of God and his self revelation, with the truth of man's relation to God, or with the ground of his hopes. The science of religion treats its material after the aumner of other sciences. It makes use of psychol­ogy as disclosing the nature of consciousness; of sociology as occupied with social relations; of an­thropology as revealing the history of man. It in­volves judgments in arranging religions as lower and higher, and determining the various stages of religious development and degeneration, together with the aspects that are pathological; and the judgments must be impartial, i.e., not without prejudice but free from unscientific bias. This sci­ence of religion aims, through discovering the stages, the direction, and the laws of development, to de­termine under what conditions religion develops or deteriorates, and finally to ascertain what is essen­tial to it. It is legitimate to seek for the highest type of religion, partly by disclosing the element common in all religions, and partly by tracing this sentiment as it embodies itself in those religions in which it has come to its freest and most natural expression (see COMPARATIVE RELIGION).

Psychology opens a different pathway into the interpretation of religion. Inquiries here resolve themselves into various directions: the psycholog­ical origin of religion, the method and means of its development, the essential unity of the phenomena, the varieties which characterize these, and particular

457 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Religion

aspects of religious experience. Psychology traces

the religious sentiment to the feeling of dependence

and the feeling of mystery or awe.

4. Psy  The feeling of dependence involves

chology of ethical causality and teleology. In

Religion. the feeling of mystery is involved

reverence for the indefinitely great

or the infinite. The process here is twofold: that

of " ejection," by which the self reads into the

other (or God) the contents of its own feeling; and

that of reading back into one's self both the known

qualities of the other (or God) derived from the

sense of dependence, and the unknown or mysteri­

ous qualities of God which give rise to the feeling

of awe or reverence. This investigation of religion

is confirmed by a study of the genesis of personal

self consciousness in the child. Religion is thus

traced not to an instinct but to an impulse which is

incapable of further analysis. In the development

of religion, anthropology shows that no one thought­

content is essential to religion, that the objects of

religious sentiment are symbolic and yet ever per­

sonal, and that religion as an experience is a social

phenomenon. The unity of religious experience is

interpreted from the normal action of conscious­

ness, in which appears the social nature of religion,

the personal object of it, and the unfolding of this

type of consciousness as a function of personal de­

velopment wherein religion is seen to be an integral

part of normal human consciousness. Its non ap­

pearance in adult life is an indication of arrested

development. The varieties of religious experience,

whether normal or pathological, are referred to per­

sonal idiosyncrasies, due to expansive or repressive

emotions, to ideas which arise from different philo­

sophical postulates, and to alterations of personal­

ity which set up distinct or separate centers of ac­

tion within the same individual. Psychology has

also its inquiry concerning particular aspects of the

religious life as, e.g., with reference to conversion

as an adolescent phenomenon cr as an adult expe­

rience, the nature of religious belief (J. B. Pratt,

The Psychology of Religious Belief, New York, 1907),

mysticism (W. James, Varieties of Religious Bzpe­

rience, ib. 1907), and the psychology of suggestion

and the crowd (Boris Sidis, The Psychology of Sug­

gestion, ib. 1909; E. A. Ross, Social Psychology, ib.

1908). In this field exploration has scarcely more

than blazed the way, but already the work entered

upon unconsciously by Augustine in his " Confes­

sions," by Jonathan Edwards (q.v.) with clear pur­

pose in his Treatise on. the Religious Affections, and

by Homes Bushnell (q.v.) in his Christian Nurture

has produced results of massive and rewarding

worth (cf. E. D. Starbuek, The Psychology of Re­

ligion, London, 1899; G. A. Coe, The Spiritual Life,

New York, 1900; J. M. Baldwin, Social and Ethical

Interpretations in Mental Development, ib. 1899;

F. M. Davenport, Primitive Traits in Religious Re­

vivals, ib. 1905; J. M. Baldwin, Dictionary of Phi­

losophy and Psychology, ii. 458 aqq., ib. 1902; G. B.

Cutten, The Psychological Phenomena of Christian­

ity, ib. 1908. So far as religion is conceived of as

consciousness of social values, it is an attitude, a

"construct," built up through overt activities of

primitive groups which were either spontaneous

and playful or with reference to practical needs of the process of life, for the most part socially medi­ated. This view finds strong allies in ethnology and functional psychology. The activities and attitudes mutually condition each other, and their difference in different individuals and races is ac­counted for by reference to the varying social conditions in which they appear and of which they are products (cf. I. King, The Development of Re­ligion, ib. 1910; E. S. Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience, Boston, 1910).

The philosophy of religion assumes data drawn from the science of religion and seeks for the ultimate grounds of the beliefs there given, or by an epistemo 

logical process endeavors to prove the

5. Philoso  limitations of human knowledge and phy of so found religion on revelation alone.

Religion. As a name it has displaced " Natural

Theology." It is susceptible of many kinds of treatment. (1) It may involve the problem of our real knowledge of the Absolute as opposed to agnosticism, to pure feeling, to immediate intuition, and to logical demonstration; the problem of the necessity of religion and the essential meaning of revelation; and the problem of the ultimate inter­pretation of the idea of religion in the identity of God and man as self conscious Spirit, resulting in a moral idealism wherein is affirmed the unity of all spiritual life of finite persons among themselves, and of these with the Infinite (cf. J. Caird, An In­troduction to the Philosophy of Religion, Edinburgh, 1880). (2) The philosophy of religion may be re­stricted to theism. Accordingly, its aim is to es­tablish the validity of belief in the supreme reality of the world or God. This is attempted from vari­ous points of view in harmony with the particular philosophical assumptions by which different wri­ters are guided. Thus the inquiry is based wholly on revelation as the source of religion (H. Mansel, Limits of Religious Thought, London, 1858), upon evolutionary doctrine and personalism (J. Fiske, Idea of God, Boston, 1885), intuitional philosophy (S. Harris, The Philosophical Basis of Theism, New York, 1887), mystical idealism (C. B. Upton, Bases of Religious Belief, London, 1893), ethical considera­tions (A. Seth, Two Lectures on Theism, Edinburgh, 1897), transcendental idealism (J. Royce, The World and the Individual, New York, 1900 01; cf. A. Caldecott, Philosophy of Religion, ib. 1901). (3) The philosophy of religion may aim at a still wider scope and in so doing traverse most of the questions which arise in systematic theology. Thus it investigates the nature, origin, and development of religion, the nature and relations of man to a higher being, re­ligion as a life both in what it offers and in what it realizes, the reconciliation of the ethical idea of God with the scientific and philosoph~i4al doctrine of the world, and the destiny both of Things and of per­sons in their relation to the m#mto and absolute self (cf. G. T. Ladd, Philosophy of Religion, ib. 1905). (4) The philosophy of religion may en­deavor to establish the truth of its axiom of the conservation of value by considerations drawn from epistemology, psychology, and ethics (cf. H. Hoff­ding, Philosophy of Religion, London, 1906).

C. A. BECKWITH.

Religion