jonathan z. smith 1998 critical terms for religious studieseditor mark taylor chicago university of...

8/12/2019 Jonathan Z. Smith 1998 Critical Terms for Religious StudiesEditor Mark Taylor Chicago University of Chicago Press Pp 269 284

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Religion Religions ReligiousJonathan Z mith

I n the second earliest account of the Ne,v World published in English, A. Treatyse o he NelVe India (1553) , Richard Eden wrote of the natives of theCanary Islands that, At Columbus first comming thether, the inhabitanteswent naked, without shame, religion or lmowledge of God. In the same year,toward the beginning of the first part of his massive Cr6nica del Peru (1553),the conquistador historian Pedro Cieza de Leon described the north Andeanindigenous peoples as observing no religion at all, as we understand it no . . .religion altJuna) a q ~ t entendemos nor is there any house of worship to befound. While both were factually incorrect, their formulations bear witness tothe major expansion of the use and understanding of the term religion thatbegan in the sixteenth century and anticipate some of the continuillg issuesraised by that expansion: (1) Religion is not a native category. It is not a firstperson term of self-characterization. It is a category imposed fi'om the outsideon some aspect of native culture. It is the other, in these instances colorualists,who are solely responsible for the content of the term. (2) Even in these eal:l),formulations, there is an implicit universality. Religion is thought to be a ubiquitous human phenomenon; therefore, both Eden and Cieza fimt its alleged absence noteworthy. (3) n constructing the second-order, generic category religion, its characteristics are those that appear natmal to the other. In thesequotations tlns familiarity is signaled by tlle phrases lmowledge of God and

religion as we understand it. (4) Religion is an anthropological not atheological category. (Perhaps the only exception is tlle distinctively Americanmneteentll-CentLu)' coinages, to get religion or to experience religion. ) Itdescribes hmnan thought and action, most fi'equently in terms of belief andnorms of behavior. Eden lU1derstands the content of religion largely in tlleformer sense ( withou t religion or lmowledge of God ), whereas Cieza articulates it in the latter ( no religion nor any house of worship ).

The term religion has had a long histOl)', much oEit, prior to the sL {teenthcentury, irrelevant to contempol'al), usage. Its etymology is uncertain, althoughone of the tlu'ee cm'rent possibilities, tllat it stems fi'om the root eig mealung

to bind rather than from roots merullng to reread or to be careful, hasbeen the subj ect of considerable ChriStiall homiletic expallsion from Lactantius'sDivine Institutes (early fomth century) and Augustine's On Trtte R e l i g i 1 ~(eal'lyfifth century) to Willianl Camden's Britannia (1586). In both Roman and earlyChristian Latin usage, the noml forms retigio/ religiones and, most especially, the ..adjectival religiosus and the adverbial religiose were cultic terms referring primarily to the careful performallCe of ritual obligations. This sense smvives in the

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English adverbial construction religiously desigt'lating a eOllscient:ious l epe -tive action such as She reads the morning newspaper religiously. The onlydistinctively Chl istian usage was the fifth-century extension of tills cultie senseto the totality of an individual's life in monastlcism: religion, a life bound bymonastic vows; religious, a monk; to enter religion, to join a monastery. I tis tllls technical vocabulary tilat is first extenqed to non-Christian examples inthe literature of exploration, particularly in e ~ c r i p t i o n sof the complex civilizations of Mesoamerica. Thus Hernan Cortes, n his second arta de Relacion

(1520,64), writes ofTenochtitian:This great city contains many mosques [mezquitas, an eleventh century Spanish loan word fi'om the Arabic, masjid}) or houses foridols The principal ones house persons of their religious orders(personas religiosas de su secta) . All these monks (religiosos) dressin black from tile time they enter the order (entran en la religion).

Cortes's relatively til0ughtiess language of assinlllation is raised to tile level of asystemic category two generations later in the encyclopedic work of the Jesuitscholar Joseph de Acosta, T/je Natural and Moral History of the Indies (1590;

English translation, 1604). While tile vast majority of tile occurrences of theterm religious refer to either Catilolic or native members of religious orders, sometimes expanded to the dual category, priests and monks of Mexico(los sacerdotes y retigiosos de lYlexico) a number of passages strain toward a moregeneric conception. The work is divided into two parts, witi ti e latter, moralhistory, chiefly devoted to religion, governance, and political history. Religion per se is never defined. Its meaning must be sought in words associatedwith it as well as its synonyms. For Acosta, religion is the belief system ti atresults in ceremonial behavior. Religion is ti1at which is used (que usan) intheir rites. Custom (costumbre) superstition s ~ t p e r s t i c i o n )and religion (religion) form a belief series in conjunction with ti e action series of

deed (hecho) rite (rito) idolatry (idolatria) sacrifice (sacrijicio)ceremony (ceremonia) and feasts (fiestas) solemnidades).

Religion in relation to ritual practice became an item in an inventory ofcultural topics that could be presented eitl1er ethnographically in terms of a particular people, as in Eden or Cieza with reference to the Indies, or in a cross- .cultural encyclopedia lmder the heading of ritual or religion. The encyclopedic version.is illustrated by Joannes Boemus's popular Omnium gentiumm01 es) leges et r t ~ t s(1520), in which ritus was translated as customs in the

English translations by WIlliam Watreman, The Fardle ofFacions; Conteining theAunciente Manners) Customes and Lawes of the People Inhabiting the Two Partesof the Earth (1555) and by Edward Aston, The Manners) Laws and Customs ofall Nations (1611), and by Sebastian Muenster's Cosmographiae universalis :Item omnium gentium mores) leges) retigio (1550). This focus on ritual had anunintended consequence. The myths and beliefs of other foll, could simply be

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recorded as antiquities, to use the term employed by Columbus. They raisedno particular issues for thought. But ritual, especially when it seemed similar toChristian practice or when it illustrated categories of otherness such as idolatry or cannibalism, gave rise to projects of comparative and critical inquiries.Similarity and difference, with respect to ritoal, constituted a puzzle that requiTed explanation by appeals to old apologetic charges of priestlydeceit or t equally apologetic, patristic theories of accommodation, demonicplagiarism, cliffusion, or degeneration. In the case of belief and myth, theirwords were primary; with ritual, our account superseded theirs.

Some two centuries later, this essentially Catholic understanding of religion in close proximity to ritual has been decisively altered. Samuel Johnson, inhis Dictionary oftbe Englisb Language (1755), defines religion as virtue, asfounded upon reverence of God, and expectations offhture rewards and ptullshments. The first edition of tlle Encyclopaedia Britannica (1771) titled itsReligion, or Theology, defining the topic in tlle opening paragraph:

know God, and to render im a reasonable service, are the two principal objectsof religion Man appears to be formed t adore, but not to comprellend, theSuprenle Terms such as reverence, service, adore, and worship in these sorts of definitions have been all but evacuated of ritlJal connotations, and seem more to denote a state of mind, a transition begun by Reformation figures such as Zwingli and Calvin who lIDderstood religion primarily aspiety. The latter term takes on a less awesome cast in subsequent Protestant

discourse, for example, Piety, a Moral vertue which causes us to have affectionand esteem for God and Holy Things (Phillips 1696).

This shift to belief as tlle defining characteristic of religion (stressed in tlleGerman preference for tlle term Glattbe over Religion and in tlle increasi.ng English usage of faiths as a synonym for religions ) raised a host of nterrelatedquestions as to credibility and truth. These issues were exacerbated by the schismatic tendencies of tlle various Protestantisms, with their rival claims to autllority, as well as by tlle growing awareness of the existence of a nlultitude of articulate, non-Christian traditions. The former is best illustrated by the fi st attemptto provide a distribution map for tlle various European Protestantisms: EplmtimPagitt's Cbristianographie or The Description o he Multitt-tde and S ~ t n d 1 ySortsof Christians in the ;VVrldNot Subject to the Pope (1635). The latter is the explicitsubject of the anthropological work by Edward Brerewood, E n q t ~ i r i e sT o ~ t c l J i n gtbe Diversity o Langttages and Religions t11rough the Chieft Pa1 ts o the ~ r l(1614), which distinguished four sorts (Le., species ) of the genus religion - Christianit)', Mohanletanism, Judaism and Idolatry -and providedstatistical estimates for the quantitie and proportion of the parts of the earthpossessed by several sorts (118-19). It is the question of he plural religions(both Christian and non-Christian) that forced a new interest in the singular,generic religion. To cite what is perhaps the first lidely read English book toemploy the plural in its title, PUl chas His Pilgrimage; or, Relations o the ~ r t

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ctnd the Religions Obslwved in U Ages and Places Discovered, The tl'Ue Religioncan be but one, and that which God himselfe teacheth[,] all other l'eligionsbeing but strayings from him, whereby men wander in the darke, and in labyrinthine errour (Purchas 1613, sig. D4r). What is implicit in Purchas becomesexplicit in later seventeenth- and eighteenth-century debates concerning natu-ral religion, a term that became common only in the latter half of the seventeenth century, beginning with works such as the one by the prolific Puritancontroversialist Richard Ba:tter, The Reasons of he Christian Religion (1667), intwo parts: O f Natural Religion, or Godliness, and Of Christianity, and Su

pernatural Religion. (Compare Baxter's earlier but congment terminology, O fSaving Faith That I t Is Not Only Gradually but Specifically Distinct from UCommon Faith [1658]).

As David Pail an (1994) has demonstrated, the notion ofnatuxal religion hasbeen employed in the literature to designate at least eleven significantly different notions, some of which have significant sub-divisions ranging from religious beliefs and practices that are based on rational understanding that allpeople allegedly can discover for themselves and can vvarrant by rational reflection to that which is held to be common to the different actual faiths that havebeen and are present in the world. The former definition largely grew out ofintra-Christian sectarian disputation and relied primarily on processes of introspection; tlle latter arose from study of the religions, and involved processesof comparison. The essentially antlll'opological project of describing natmal religion privileged similarity, often expressed by claims of universality or llulateness; tlle explanation of difference was chiefly historical, whetller it emphasizedprogressive or degenerative processes. This double enterprise had the effect ofbluning tlle distinctions between questions of trutll and questions of origins.For example, tlle title of Matthew Tindal's faidy pedestrian but widely readtreatise, published anonymously as Christianity s Old as the Creation; ot) The

Gospel) a Republication of the Religion of Nature (1730; she printings by 1732,and tlle British Muse btm General Catalogu,e lists more than forty replies in the17308), contains early English uses of he terms religion of nahu'e and Christianity. Tindal argues:

If God, tllen, :om the Begimllng gave Men a Religion[,] he musthave giv'n them like,;vise sufficient Means of knowing it f Godnever intended Mankind shou'd at any Time be without Religion, orhave false Religions; and there be but One Tme Religion, which ALLhave been ever bOlU1d to believe, and profess[,] All Men, at allTimes, must have had sufficient Means to discover whatever God de-sign'd tlley shou'd know and practice [He] has giv'n them noother Means for tllls, but the use of Reason There was from the Be-ginning but One Tme Religion, willch all Men might know was tlleirDuty to embrace By ):his] Natttral Religion I understand the Be-

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lief of he Existence of a God, and the Sense and Practice of hose Duties, which result from the Knowledge, we, by our Reason, have ofHim and his Perfections; and of ourselves, and our own Imperfections;and of he Relations we stand in to him, and to our Fellow-Creatures;so that the Religion of Nattwe takes in every Thing that is fOlmded onthe Reason and the Nature of Things. (pp. 3-7,13)

While Tindal acknowledges some relativity- I do nQt mean by TIllS that Allshou'd have equal Knowledge; but that All shou'd have what is sufficient for theCircumstances they are in (p. 5 his usual explanation for variation is the historical institution and wiles of priestcraft :

Religion either does not concern the Majority, as being incapable offorming a Judgement about it; or must carry such internal Marks ofits Truth, as Men of mean Capacity are able to discover; or else notwithstanding the infinite Vaxiety of Religions, All who do not understand the Original their traditional Religions are V\lrittenin, which is all Mankind, a very few excepted, are alike bound in allPlaces to'pin their Faith on their Priests, and believe in Men, whohave an Interest to deceive them; and who have seldom faiI'd to doso, when Occasion serves. (p. 232)

n Tindal's self-description,

He builds nothing on a Thing so uncertain as Tradition) which differs in most Countries; and of ' ' 'hich, in all Countries, the Bulle of

Mankind are incapable of judging; but thinks he has laid down suchplain and evident Rules, as may enable Men of the meanest Capacity,to distinguish between Religion) and Superstition. (p. iii)

When Tindal argued on logical grounds; the preslmlption of the unity oftruth, that natural religion differs not from Reveat)d) but in the manner of itsbeing commurucated: The One being the Intemal, as the Other the ExternalRevelation (p, 3) he signaled the beginning of the process of transposing religion from a supernatural to a natural history, from a theological to an antlu'opological category. This process was complete only when the distinctions be

tween questions oftJ. U.th

and questions of origin were firmly established. Whilenot without predecessors, the emblem of this tJ.'ansposition is David Hume's essay The a t ~ w a lHistory of Religion) written between 1749 and 1751 and firstpublished in his collection Fmtl Dissertations 1757).

The question Hurne sets out to answer in the atural History is that of religion's origin in human nature. He begins by disposing of the innateness thesis. I f religion is defined as the belief of invisible, intelligent power, then,aldl0Ugh widely distributed, it is not universal, nor is there commonality: notwo nations, and scarce any two men, have ever agreed precisely in the same

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s,ntiments, Religion fails the minimal requirements for innateness, that it beabsolutely universal in all nations and ages and has always a precise, determinate

object, which it inflexibly pursues, Therefore, religion is not an originalinstinct or primary impression of nature, and the first religious principles mustbe secondary. n addition, because they are s e ~ o n d a r y ,religious principlesmay easily be perverted by various accidents and causes (p. 25). In this open

ing move, a major thesis is forecast. There may well be a primalY and valid humanexperience that gives rise to the secondalY religious interpretation, but the truthof the experience is no guarantee of the validity of dIe interpretation.

The rich details ofBume's exposition need not concern us here but only theal'gument with respect to this issue. Polytheism or idolatry was the firstand most antient religion of mankind. Its origin must be sought in the ordinary affections of human life. Filled with allXtety, human beings seek dIe unknown causes that become dIe constant object of our hope and fear. TheprinlalY human experience, hope and feal', becomes a secondalY religious interpretation when these mlknown causes al e personified drrough imagination (pp. 26,31-33).

There is a universal tendency amongst mankind to conceive all beingslike themselves, and to trallsfer to every object those qualities, withwhich they are familiarly acquainted, and of which dley are intimatelyconscious No wonder, then, that mankind, being placed in suchan absolute ignorance of causes, and being at dIe same time so allXlOllS concerning their future fortunes, should immediately acknowledge a dependence on invisible powers, possest of sentiment andintelligence. The un mown ca1ues which continually employ theirthought, appeal'lng always in dIe sanle aspect, are all apprehended tobe of the sanIe kind or species [as themselves]. Nor is it long beforewe ascribe to dIem dlought, and reason, and passion, and sometimeseven the limbs and figures of men, in order to bring them nearer to aresemblance widI ourselves. (pp. 33-34)

What Bume here raises is the issue of dIe adjectival form religious. Whatsort of primary human experience or activity does it modifY? What constitutes itsdistinctive secondary interpretation? Bow may religious interpretation be as- .sessed in relation to odler sorts of interpretation of the same experience or activity? The religious (the mucnown that dIe scholar is seeking to classifY andexplain) becomes an aspect of some other human phenomenon (the known). AsWalter Capps (1995, 9) has argued, in the eighteenth-century Enlightenmentdebates the goal of the inquiry was to make religion intelligible by discoveringprecisely where it is situated within the wi5ie range of nteractive hUmall powersand faculties. n which of he genera of common individual human capacities isthe religious a species? Most frequendy, the religious is identified with ratio-nality, morality, or feeling. .

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A different set of taxonomic questions were raised by the religions and became urgent by the nineteenth century:,Are the diverse religions species of ageneric religion ? Is religion the unique beginner, a stimmtim gentts) or is itbest conceived as a subordinate cultural taxon? How might the several religions be classified?

The question of the religions axose in response to an explosion of data.Increased mastery of non-European languages led by the latter part of theeighteenth century to a series of translations and editions of religious texts. Missi6naries, colonial officials, and travelers contributed ethnographic descriptions.Encyclopedias of religions, lexica, and handbooks t h ~latter, fi-equently bearingthe title History of Religions ) were produced to organize these materials. Oneof the earliest handbooks, Historische-theologische Bericht pom Unterschied derReligiomn die Hetite Zti Tage auf Erden s i 1 ~ dby the Lutheran scholar JohannHeinrich Ursin (1563), focused heavily on the various Christian denominations,establishing a pattern that holds to the present day: that the history of the major

religions is best organized as sectarian history, thereby reproducing the apologetic patristic heresiological model. By the time ofBrerewood's Enquiries Tottching the Diversity of Langtiages and Religions (1614) this horizon had beenextended to require inclusion of not only Christian data but also Jewish, Muslim, and idolauy. This fourfold schema was contilmed by otller writers fi-omthe seventeentll centulY (for example, Guebhart Meier, Historia religionttm)Christianae)J tdaeae) Gmtilis) Mahtimedanae [1697]) until well into the nineteenth century (Hannah Adanls, A Dictionary of ll Religions M d Religious Denominations; Jewish) Heathen) M a h o m e t M ~and Christian) ncient and Modern

[1817]; David Benedict, Hist01'y of ll Religions) s Dipided into Paganism)Mahometism)Judaism) and Christianity [1824]; J. Newton Brown, Encyclopediaof Religious Kl1.owledge:or) Dictionary . . . C011.taining Definitions of l l ReligiousTerms; n Impartial Account of the Principal Ch1'istian Dmominations thathave Existed in the tViwld from the Birth of Christ to the Presmt Day with theirDoctrines) Religious Rites and Ce1'emonies)as well as those of he Jews) Mohammedans) and Heathen Nations) together with the Manners a11d Customs of the East[1835b]; Vmcent Milner, Religious Dmominations of the World: Comprising aGmeral View of the Origin) History and Condition of the Various Sects of Christians) the Jews) and Mahometans) s "fillet as the Pagan Forms of Religion Existingi the Different C01;tntries of he Earth [1872]). The bulk of the subsequent expansion occurred in Brerewood's fourtll category, Idolatry, with data addedon Asian religions and on those of u-aditional peoples. Beginning with AlexanderRoss, Pansebeia; or A View of ll Religions i the Worldfrom the Creati011 to TheseTimes (1614), there was a steady stream of reference works t llat undertook thistask, including Bernard Picart and J. F Be1'11ard, Ceremonies et coutumes de tOtiSpeuples du monde 1723-43); Antoine Baniel , Historie general des ceremonies, ..moeurs; et couttimes nligieuses de tOtiS les peuples dti monde (1741); ThomasBroughton, n Historical Dictionary of l l Religions, from the Creati011 of the

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World to the Present Time (1742); Clu-istopher Meiners, Grundl iss del Ge-schichte aller Religionen (1785) and Allgemeine Izritische Geschichte der Retigionen(1806-7); John Bellemy, The History of l l Religions (1812); and BenjaminConstant, De la religion consideree dans sa source ses formes et ses developpements(1824-31). This undertaking invented the familiar nomenclature, Boudhism(1821), Hindooism (1829, which replaced the earlier seventeenth-centuryusages Gentoo [from gentile ] religion and Banian religion ), Taouism(1839), and Confucianism (1862). The urgent agendum was to bring order

to this variety of species. Only an adequate ta..-xonomy would convert a naturalhistory of religion into a science.

The most conmlon form of classifYing religions, found both in native categories and in scholarly literature, is dualistic and can be reduced, regardless of whadifferentium is employed, to theirs and ours. By the time of the fourthcentury Christian Latin apologists, a strong dual vocabulary was well in place andcould be deployed interchangeably regardless of the individual histories of theterms: our religion'; their religion, with the latter often expressed throughgeneric terms such as heathenism, paganism, or idolatry ; true religion'; fulse religion ; spiritual (or internal ) religion '; mater ial (or external ) religion ; monotheism (although this term, itself, is a relatively late construction ) / ' polytheism ; religion'; superstition ; religion'; magic. Thislanguage was transposed to intrareligious disputation with respect to heresies,and later revived in positive proposals of original), recovery in Christian Renaissance hermetism as well as most massively and insistently, in Protestant polemicsagainst Roman Catllolicism .fu such, it was at hand for the evaluation of thenewly encolUltered religions begimung in tlle sixteentll centlUy. Lifting up thefourfold enumeration of religions-Clu-istialuty, Judaism, Islam, and Idolatry -Clu-istialuty, in some imagination of its ideal form, becanle the norm in

wluch Judaism and Islalll problematicallyshal-e.

Adopting a termfi-om

Muslimdiscourse, tllese three Abrallanuc religions form one set over and against alllmdifferentiated other:

t is indeed probable, that all the idolatrous systems of religion,wluch have ever existed in tlle world, have had a common origin, alldhave been modified by the different fancies and corruptions of different nations. The essence of idolatly is every where tlle same. t isevery where abominable in its principles and its rites, and evelYwhere tlle cause of ndescribable and manifold wretchedness_ (Brown1835a,229) ,

The initial problem for a classification of the religions is the disaggregation otlus categOlY_

One of the more persistent stl-atagems was tlle conversion of tlle epistemological duality natural/supernatural into a characterization of he object of belie

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Judaism was to be demoted in that from a Christian apologetic perspective, itwas the very type of a fleshly religion ; Buddhism was to be promoted becausein the two-century history of the Western imagination of Buddhism, it had become the very type of spiritual religion. .

Fairbairn adjusted his model such that the ultimate duality was betweenspontaneous or natural religions and instituted religions, with the latter

having two classes, each characterized by the same powerfully positive Protestantterm: Reformed Natural (including the archaic religion of Israel [ Mosa

ism J, Zoroastrianism, ComlIcianism, Taoism), and Reformed Spiritual, m-ited only to the new triad (Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity).All other religions fell into one of three classes of natural, the replacementterm for the older category, idolatry.

The most enduring device was the invention of the taxon world or uni-versal religions, a division dIat appeared to recognize bodl history and geography. The term was introduced and placed in a classificatory scheme dlat synthesized previous ta.. C01l0mic divisions in a work that stands as dle first classic in thescience of religion, Cornelius Petrus Tiele's work O u t l i ~ eof h History of Reli-gion to th Spread of nivmal Religions (1876), and was reworked in Tiele'sartiele Religions in dIe nindl edition of he Bncyclopaedia Britannica 1884).Tiele's morphological classification, whiell schematizes dle stage of development each religion has attained, has as its fundamental principle of division

natural religion and ethical religion, which he self-consciously correlateswith Whitney's distinction between race religion and founded religion.

Natural religion has drree fiunilies, one of which has two genera. The firstfamily comprises polydaemonistic magical religions under dle control of animism. To dns class belong [all] dIe religions of dIe so-called savages or un-civilized peoples. Recognizing, perhaps, dle effects of colO1nalism, he addsdlat dleu' present forms are only degraded remnants of what they once musthave been.

The second fanilly of nature religions is dlat of purified or organizedmagical religions, vvhich Tiele terms dleriandrropic polytheism, accordulg towInch dIe gods are sometimes represented in human form, more frequendy indlat of an animal. These are politically divided mto two families, unorganized ( tribal) and organized (imperial). The unorgru.nzed include dIeJapanese kami traditions, the Dravidians, dle Finns, the old Arabic religions,old Pelasgic religion, old Italiote religions, Etruscan religion before its admixturewidl Greek elements, [and] the old Slavonic religions. The organized ulclude

dle semi -civilized religions of America, the ancient religion of the Chineseempire, ancient Babylonian (Chaldaean) religion, [and] the religion of Egypt.

The dlird family, anthropomorphic polytheism, is characterized by theworship of manlike but superhuman and senli -ethical beings (the latter mdi

catlilg that while dIe gods are often represented as bemg concerned with goodand evil, they are also depicted as essentially amoral). Belongulg to this class are

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the ancient Vaidic religion (India), the pre-Zarathustrlan Iranic religion, theyounger Babylonian and Assyrian religion, the religions ~ the other civilizedSemites, the Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic and Graeco-Roman religions.

Distinct from these nature religions are those belonging to the second major division, ethical religions, which are subdivided into national nomistic(nomothetic) religious communities characterized by being founded on a lawor holy scripture, that is, Taoism and Confuciarusm . . . Brahmanism, with itsvarious ancient and modern sects, Jainism and primitive Buddhism, Mazdaism(Zarathustrianism) with its sects, Mosaism [and] Judaism, and universalisticreligious communities, a class vvith only three memb,ers: Islam, Buddhism,Christianity. They are distinguished in not being devoted to the special interestsof a nation or people but to humankind in general; they are proselytizingtraditions.

Mter discussing at some length the relative merits of the labels wnversalistic, ''tmiversal,'' and world religions, Tiele employs blwlt inlperialistic language to defend ills use of world religions to

distinguish the three religions which have fowld their way to different races and peoples and all of winch profess the intention to conquer the world, from such commtmities [that is, national, nomisticreligions ] as are generally limited to a single race or nation, and,where they have extended farther, have done so only in the train of,and in connection with, a superior civilization. Strictly speaking,there can be no more than one tmiversal or world religion, and i f oneof tlle existing religions is so potentially, it has not yet reached itsgoal. TIns is a matter of belief wInch lies beyond the limits of scientific.classification . . . . Modern Instory of religions is clnefly tlle Instory ofBuddhism, Clu-istianity and Islam, and of their wrestling witll tlleancient faiths and prinntive modes of worslnp, wInch slowly fadeaway before tlleir encroachments, and which, where tlley still survivein some parts of the world and do not reform themselves after tllemodel of the superior religion, draw nearer and nearer to extinction.

Furtllermore, he apologetically insists, the tllree wor ld religions are not on anequal plane. Islam is not original, not a ripe fmit, but ratller a wild offshoot ofJudaism'and Christianity, in its external features [it] is little better than anextended Judaism. Buddhism neglects the divine and while atlleistic in itsorigin, it very soon becomes infected by the most fantastic mythology and tllemost childish superstitions. Christianity alone preaches a worship in spirit andin truth . . . the natural result of its purely spiritual character, Christialnty ranksincommensurably illgh above both its rivals. Despite the latter assertion, Tieleinsists that we are giving here neither a confession of faith nor an apology . . .we have here to treat Cruistianity simply as a subject of comparative study, fi'oma scientific, not from a religious point of view. (Tiele 1884,20: 358-71.)

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Later scholars expanded the number of world religions to seven by collapsingTide's two classes of ethical religions in an odd ventme of plmalistic etiquette:i Christianity and Islam count as world religions, then it would be rude to exclude Judaism (ironically, the original model for the opposite type, nationalnomistic religions ). Likewise, i Buddhism is included, then Hinduism cannot be ignored. And again, i Buddhism, then Chinese religions and Japanesereligions.

It is impossible to escape the suspicion that a world religion is simply a religion

like oms, and dlat it is, above all, a tradition that has achieved sufficient powerand numbers to enter om history to form it, interact widl it, or thwart it. Werecognize both the unity withfu and the diversity among dle world religionsbecause they correspond to important geopolitical entities with which we mustdeal. All primitives, by way of contrast, may be llUllped together, as may dIe

minor religions, because they do not confront our history in any direct fashion. From the point of view of power, they are invisible.

Attempting to avoid such strictmes and suspicions, odler scholars have tmnedto alternative modes of classification. Following the implied correlation in Brerewood's Enquiries o ~ t c h i n gthe iversity of Languages nd Religi01ts F. MaxMOOer (1873, 143) argued that dle only scientific and truly genetic classification of eligions is the same as the classification oflanguages, while Brerewood'sinterest in statistics has led to geographical taxonomies, either demographic(Haupt 1821 is an early example) or in terms of spatial distribution (for example,Deffontaines 1948). Others combine these elements with edll10graphic classifications maintaining that any particular religion derives its character fi'om thepeople or race who develop it or adopt i t (Ward 1909, 64). All of these resultin projects deso'ibing the religion of such and such a geographical region orfollc arguing that dlese eschew the imposed uruversalisms or barely disguised

apologetics of their predecessors in dIe name of a new ethic of ocality that oftenfavors native categories. Thus, Clifford Geertz introduces his early work The Re-ligion of Java (1960) by emphasizing dIe copresence of nativistic, Islanlic, and

Hinduist elements, argui)ig that dlese three main sub traditions are notconstructed types, but terms and divisions the Javanese themselves applyAny simple unitary view is certain to be inadequate; and so I have tried toshow variation in ritual, contrast in belief, and conflict in values (pp. 6-7) .What remains tIDCert;tin is what he intends by the singular religion in his tide.

s in dIe eighteenth centmy, so too in the late Dventieth do dIe issues attending dIe religions force dle definitional question of religion. Two definitions com

mand \videspread scholarly assent, one essentially dleological, the other anthropological. Paul Till,ich, reversing his previous formulation that religion is concernfor the ultimate, argued dlat

religion, in the largest and most basic sense of dIe vord, is ultimateconcern manifest in the moral sphere as the unconditional seri-

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a concept such as language plays in linguistics or cull1.lre plays in anthropol-ogy. There can be no disciplil1ed study of religion 'without such a horizon.

S U G G E S T E D R E D I N G S

Almond, Philip C. 1988. The British Discovery of Buddhism.Bianchi, Ugo, Fabio Mora, and Lorenzo Bianchi, eds. 1994. The Notion ofccRe

tigion in Comparative Research: Selected Proceedings of the Sixteenth Con

gress of the International Association for the History of Religions Rome3 8 September 1990.

Capps, Walter H 1995. Religious Studies: The Making of a Discipline.Despland, Michael. 1979. La Religion en Occident.Feil, Ernst. 1986. Religio: Die Geschichtes eines neuzeitlichen Grtcmdbegriffi vom

FriiJJchrisentum bis ziir Reformation.Harrison, Peter. 1990. Retigion Y and the Religions in tl Je English Enlightenment.Manuel, Frank E. 1959. The Eighteenth Century Confronts the Gods.

David A 1984. Attitudes to Other Religions: Comparative Religion inSeventeenth- and Eightt;enth-Century Bri tain.

Penner, Hans H. 1989. Impasse and Resolution: A Critiqtcte of the Study ofReligion.

Preus, J Samuel. 1987. Rocplaining Religion: Criticism and Theory from Bodinto Freud.

Smith, Wilfi:ed Cantwell. 1963. The Meaning and End of Religion.Spiro, Melford E. 1966. Religion: Problems of Definition and Explanation.

In Anthropological Approaches to the Sttctdy of Religion edited by MichaelBanton.

R E F E R E N C E S

Acosta, Joseph de. 1604. The N a t 1 ~ r a land M01 al Hist01 Y of he Indies, translation of the originalSpanish edition, published in Seville in 1590. London: V Sims for E. Blount and W Aspley.

Adams, Hannall. 1817. A Dicti01tary of All Religions and e l i g i o l ~ sDenominations, Jewish, Heathen,Mahometan, and Christian, Ancient and o d e 1 I ~ .4th ed. Boston: Cummings and Hilliard.

Aston, Edward, trans. 1611. The blan/1cl s, Laws, and Customs of All Nations, by Joannes Boemus.London.

Baird, Robe,rt D. 1971. Catego/ y Formation. and the History of Religions. The Hague: Mouton deGruytcr.

Banier, Anto ine. 1741. Histoire generale des ceremonies, moetl1 s, et cotltmms l eligietlscs de tOtiS lespett-

pies dtl mondc. Paris.Baxter, Richard. 1658'. Of Saving Faith, That It s Not Only Gradually but SpecificallyDistinct rom

All Common Faith. London.1667. The Reasons of he Ch1 istian Religion. London: Printed by R. White for Fran. Titan.

Bellemy, John. 1812. The History of All Religions, Comprehending the Dijfirfmt Doctri1tcS, Cltstoms,and O1 de1 of Worship in the Churches . . from the Beginning of Time to the Present Day.Londo,n.

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R E L I G I O N R E L I G I O N S R E L I G I O U S

Benedict, David. 1824. History of All Religions, As Divided into Paganism, Mahometism,Judaism,and Christianity. Providence, R.I.

Bernard, J. F. 1723 -43 . Ceremonies et coutumes de tOtHpeuples dt(. monde. Amsterdam.Boemus, Joannes .1520. Omniumgentium mores, leges, etritus. Augsburg.Brerewood, Edward. 1614. Enquiries Touching the Diversity of Languages and Religions through the

Chieft Parts of he World. London.

Broughton, Thomas. 1742. An Historical Dictionary of All Religions,from the Creation of he Worldto the Present Time. London.Brown, J. Newton. 1835a. Buddhism. In Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Brattleboro, Vt.

. 1835b. Encyclopedia ofReligiotH Knowledge; or, Dictionary . . . Containing Definitions ofAllReligious Terms: An Impartial Accotint of he Principal Christian Denominations That HaveExisted in the VVorldfrom the Birth of Christ to the Present.Day with Their Doctrines, ReligiousRites, and Ceremonies, and Heathen Nations, Together with the Manners and Customs of heEast. Brattleboro, Vt.

Camden, William. 1586. Britannia. London.Capps, Walter H. 1995. Religious Stttdies: The Making of a Discipline. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.Christian, William A. 1964. Meaning and Thtth in Religion. Princeton, N.J.Cieza de Leon, Pedro. 1553. Cr6nica del Peru. 4 vols. Seville. Reprint 1918, edited by D. Enrique

de Vedia, Historiadores primitivos de Indias, 2 vols. Madrid: Imprenta de los Sucesores deHernando.

Constant, Benjamin. 1824-31. De la religion consideree dans sa source, ses formes, et ses d e v e l o p p e ~ments. Paris.

Cortes, Hermln. 1520. Cartas de Relacfon. Reprint 1971, edited by Manuel Alcala. Sepan Cuantos,no. 7. Mexico City: Editorial Porrua.

Deffontaines, Pierre. 1948. Geographie et religions. Paris.Eden, Richard. 1553. A Treat) se of he Newe India. London.Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1771. 1s t ed. Edinburgh.Fairbairn, A. M. 1876 . Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History. London.Geertz, Clifford. 1960. The Religion of ava. Glencoe, III.: Free Press.Haupt, Karl G. 1821. Tabetlarischer Abriss del vorziiglichstenReligionen und Religionsparteim del

jetzigm Erdebewohner. Leipzig.Hume, David. 1757. The Natural History of Religion. In Four Dissertations. London: Printed for A.

:Millar. Variorum ed\tion, 1976, edited by A. Wayne Colver, Oxford, Clarendon Press. (Pagenumbers cited in text are from tl1e Variorum ed.)

Johnsono Samuel, compo and ed. 1755. A Dictionary of he English Language. London: ViT Strahan,for J. and P. Knapton.

King, Wmston L 1954. Introduction to Religion. New York: Harper and Row.Leuba, James H. 1912. A Psychological Study of Religion. New York: Macmillan.Meier, Guebhart. 1697. Historia l eligionum, Christianae, Judaeae, Gmtilis, Mahumedanae.

Helmstadt.Meiners, Christophcr. 1785. Grundriss del Geschichte aller Religionm. Lcmgo.

. 1 8 0 6 7 . Allgemeine kritische Geschichte del Religionen. Hannover: Helwing.Milner, Vincent. 1872. Religious Denominations of he World: Comprising a Gmeral VtetV of he Ori-

gin, Histor)\ and Condition of he Various Sects of Christians, the Jews, the lvlahometans, aswellas the Pagan Forms of Religion ~ i s t i n gin the Dijfel ent Countries of he Earth. Philadelphia.

Mirabaud, M. [Paul Henry Thiery, Baron d'Holbach]. 1770. Systeme de la nature; ou, Des lois dumonde physique et du monde moral. [First English translation 1820, n.p.]

Muenster, Sebastian. 1550. Cosmographiae universalis : Item omniumgmtium mores, leges, religio.Basel.

Muller, F. Ma.x. 1873. Introduction to the Scimce of Religion. London: Longmans, Green.Pagitt, Ephraim. 1635. Christianographie; or, TI1e Description of he Multitude and Sundry Sorts of

Christians in the World Not Subject to the Pope. London.

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Pnilan, David. 199 .1:. Nllturnl Rellgioll. Paper presented at the nnnunl meeting o f the AmerlcnnAcademy ofRellgion, Chicago.

Penner, Hans H. 1989. Impasse and Resoltttion: A C1 itiqtle of the Study of Religi01t. New York:Peter Lang.

Phillips, Edward. 1696. A New World of English Words; or, A Gmcral Dictional-y Contah.ing theInterpretation of Such Hard Words s re Deriped from Other Languages. London: E. Tylerfor Nathanael Brooke at the Sign of he Allgel in Cornhill.

Picart, Bernard, and J F. Bernard. 1723-43. Ceremonies ct CO'lltumes de tous peuples du mondo.Amsterdam.

Purchas, Samuel. 1613. Purchas His Pilgrimage; or, Relations of he World and the Religions Obserpcd

in ll Agesalld Places Discovered, in Fotl1'e Parts. London.Ross, Alexander. 1614. Pansebeia; 01A View of ll Religions in the World from the Creatioll to nese

Times, TOgether with the Discoveryof ll Known Heresies, in ll Ages and Places. London.Smart, Ninian. 1983. vVortdvien's: Cross-CII/tm'al }i-.;pt01'ations of Human Belief;. New York:

Scribner's.Spiro, Melford E. 1966. Religion: Problems of Definition and Explanation. In Anthropological

Approac/aes to the Study of Religion, edited by 1:YIichaei Banton. London: Tavistock.Stark, Rodney, and William S. Bainbridge. 1987. A neory ofReligi01t. New York: Peter Lang.Tiele, Cornelius Petrus. 1877. Outline oftlae History of Religion to tlae Spread of Universal Religions,

translation of the original Dutch edition, published in Amsterdan1 in 1876. London.. 1 8 8 4 . Religions. In Encyclopaedia Bdtannica. 9th ed.

Tillich, Paul. 1959. 117eology ofCZlttnre, edited by Robert C. Kimball. New York: Oxfolid UniversityPress.

Tindal, Matthew. 1730. Clrrimanit) s Old s the Creation; 01, 111 Gospel, a Repllbtication of heReligion ofNat/wc. London.

Ursin, Johann Heinrich. 1563. Hist011sche-theologische Bericht 1'om Unterschied der Religionen dieHetitc ~ Tage Mt/Erden sind. Nuremberg.

Ward, Duren J H. 1909. 11ac Classijicatioll of Religions. Chicago: 'Open Court .Watreman, William, trans. 1 555 . The Fardte of Faciol1s, Contehting the Almciente lvIanners, CtlStams,

and Lawes afthe People Inhabiting tlat 7lvo Partes of he Earth, y Joannes Boemus. London.Whitney, W. D. 1881. O n the So-Called Science o f Religion. Princeton RC1 ie:)v 57, pt. 1:

429-52.

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