es. The latest and at present most popular
of these extreme views is that so well expounded by Dr. Max Mueller in
his various essays on these subjects, and which traces at least the
Indo-European theogony to a mere personification of natural objects.
The views given in the text are those which to the author appear alone
compatible with the Bible, and with the relations of Semitic and Aryan
theology; but, as the subject is generally regarded from a quite
different point of view, a little further explanation may be
necessary.

1. According to the Bible, spiritual monotheism is the primitive faith
of man, and with this it ranks the doctrine of a malignant spirit or
being opposed to God, and of a primitive state of perfection and
happiness. It is scarcely necessary to say that these doctrines may be
found as sub-strata in all the ancient theologies.

2. In the Hebrew theology the fall introduces the new doctrine of a
mediator or deliverer, human and divine, and an external symbolism,
that of the cherubic forms, composite figures made up of parts of the
man, the lion, the ox, and the eagle. These forms are referred back to
Eden, where they are manifestly the emblems of the perfections of the
Deity, lost to man by the fall, and now opposed to his entrance into
Eden and access to the tree of life, the symbol of his immortal
happiness. Subsequently the cherubim are the visible indications of
the presence of God in the tabernacle and temple; and in the
Apocalypse they reappear as emblems of the Divine perfections, as
reflected in the character of man redeemed. The cherubim, as guardians
of the sacred tree, and of sacred places in general, appear in the
worship of the Assyrians and Egyptians, as the winged lions and bulls
of the former, and the sphinx of the latter. They can also be
recognized in the sepulchral monuments of Greek Asia and of Etruria.
Farther, it was evidently an easy step to proceed from these cherubic
figures to the adoration of sacred animals. But the cherubic emblems
were connected with the idea of a coming Redeemer, and this was with
equal ease perverted into hero-worship. Every great conqueror,
inventor, or reformer was thus recognized as in some sense the "coming
man," just as Eve supposed she saw him in her first-born. In addition
to this, the sacredness of the first mother as the mother of the
promised seed of the woman, led to the introduction of female deities.

3. The earliest ecclesiastical system