ere any doubt that they might suffer while alive; one myth
tells how Ra, as he walked on earth, was bitten by a magic serpent and
suffered torments. The gods were also supposed to share in a life like
that of man, not only in Egypt but in most ancient lands. Offerings of
food and drink were constantly supplied to them, in Egypt laid upon the
altars, in other lands burnt for a sweet savour. At Thebes the divine
wife of the god, or high priestess, was the head of the harem of
concubines of the god; and similarly in Babylonia the chamber of the
god with the golden couch could only be visited by the priestess who
slept there for oracular responses. The Egyptian gods could not be
cognisant of what passed on earth {3} without being informed, nor could
they reveal their will at a distant place except by sending a
messenger; they were as limited as the Greek gods who required the aid
of Iris to communicate one with another or with mankind. The gods,
therefore, have no divine superiority to man in conditions or
limitations; they can only be described as pre-existent, acting
intelligences, with scarcely greater powers than man might hope to gain
by magic or witchcraft of his own. This conception explains how easily
the divine merged into the human in Greek theology, and how frequently
divine ancestors occurred in family histories. (By the word 'theology'
is designated the knowledge about gods.)

There are in ancient theologies very different classes of gods. Some
races, as the modern Hindu, revel in a profusion of gods and godlings,
which are continually being increased. Others, as the Turanians,
whether Sumerian Babylonians, modern Siberians, or Chinese, do not
adopt the worship of great gods, but deal with a host of animistic
spirits, ghosts, devils, or whatever we may call them; and Shamanism or
witchcraft is their system for conciliating such adversaries. But all
our knowledge of the early positions and nature of great gods shows
them to stand on an {4} entirely different footing to these varied
spirits. Were the conception of a god only an evolution from such
spirit worship we should find the worship of many gods preceding the
worship of one god, polytheism would precede monotheism in each tribe
or race. What we actually find is the contrary of this, monotheism is
the first stage traceable in theology. Hence we must rather look on
the theologic conception of the Aryan and Semitic races as quite apart
from the de