. It
seems quite possible, therefore, that a too restrictive definition of
monotheism may prove too much, by opening the way for a claim that even
the Jewish and Christian faith, with its old Testament names of God, its
angels, its theophanies, and its fully developed trinity, is not
strictly monotheistic. For our present purpose, traces of the worship of
one supreme God--call it monotheism or henotheism--is all that is
required.

With these limitations and qualifications in view, let us turn to the
history of some of the leading non-Christian faiths. Looking first to
India, we find in the 129th hymn of the Rig Veda, a passage which not
only presents the conception of one only supreme and self-existing
Being, but at the same time bears significant resemblance to our own
account of the creation from chaos. It reads thus:

"In the beginning there was neither naught nor aught,
Then there was neither atmosphere nor sky above,
There was neither death nor immortality,
There was neither day nor night, nor light, nor darkness,
Only the EXISTENT ONE breathed calmly self-contained.
Naught else but He was there, naught else above, beyond.
Then first came darkness hid in darkness, gloom in gloom;
Next all was water, chaos indiscrete,
In which ONE lay void, shrouded in nothingness."[132]

In the 121st hymn of the same Veda occurs a passage which seems to
resemble the opening of the Gospel of St. John. It reads thus, as
translated by Sir Monier Williams:

"Him let us praise, the golden child that was In the beginning, who
was born the Lord, Who made the earth and formed the sky."

"The one born Lord" reminds us of the New Testament expression, "the
only begotten Son." Both were "in the beginning;" both were the creators
of the world. While there is much that is mysterious in these
references, the idea of oneness and supremacy is too plain to be
mistaken. Professor Max Mueller has well expressed this fact when he
said: "There is a monotheism which precedes polytheism in the Veda; and
even in the invocation of their (inferior) gods, the remembrance of _a_
God, one and infinite, breaks through the mist of an idolatrous
phraseology like the blue sky that is hidden by passing clouds."[133]
These monotheistic conceptions appear to have been common to the Aryans
before their removal from their early home near the sources of the Oxus,
and we shall see further on that in one form or another