It is only in times of social dissolution, as in the last age of the small Semitic states, when men and their gods were alike powerless before the ad….

Belief in a certain series of myths was neither obligatory as a part of the true religion, nor was it supposed that, by believing, a man acquired rel….

The dissolution of the nation destroys the national religion, and dethrones the national deity..

That the God-man died for his people, and that His death is their life, is an idea which was in some degree foreshadowed by the older mystical sacrif….

This, it may be said, is no more than a hypothesis, but it satisfies the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis, by postulating the operation of no un….

Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man h….

In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place of dogma; that is, the sacred lore of priests and people... and these stories afford the only….

In better times the religion of the tribe or state has nothing in common with the private and foreign superstitions or magical rites that savage terr….

The myths connected with individual sanctuaries and ceremonies were merely part of the apparatus of the worship; they served to excite the fancy and ….

We are so accustomed to think of religion as a thing between individual men and God that we can hardly enter into the idea of a religion in which a w….

Thus a man was born into a fixed relation to certain gods as surely as he was born into a relation to his fellow-men; and his religion... was simply ….

Even the highest forms of sacrificial worship present much that is repulsive to modern ideas, and in particular it requires an effort to reconcile ou….

But we must not forget, this ritual expressed, certain ideas which lie at the very root of true religion, the fellowship of the worshippers with one ….

But, strictly speaking, this mythology was no essential part of ancient religion, for it had no sacred sanction and no binding force on the worshippe….

The land of a god corresponds with the land of his worshipers..

The god, it would appear, was frequently thought of as the physical progenitor or first father of his people..