_2. The Festal Function._—I have already referred to the fact that although the fear of demons and ghosts prevailed generally in early faiths, their prevailing character was by no means always gloomy.
In early conditions the public religious ceremonies have an atmosphere of joyousness about them. They are thanksgivings and merrymakings, such as still exist among us in pale survivals in our harvest homes, Christmas festivities, and Easter-tide amusements. In ancient Greek and Roman rites this is still more visible. “Worship the gods with a joyous heart,” prescribes Cicero; and true to the precept, the Romans included among their acts of worship such cheering adjuncts as theatrical performances, horse races, games, and dancing girls. No sign of mourning was permitted, no word of lamentation was allowed, and a serene mood, a joyous countenance and bright garments were enjoined, that the gaiety of the occasion might not suffer diminution.[219]
There was nothing in this peculiar to the Romans. The same is well known to be true of the Greeks; Jacob Grimm is our authority that the religious rites of the ancient Germans were as a rule cheerful, and those which were most cheerful were “the earliest and the commonest”; while Robertson Smith testifies to the effect that the early Semitic ceremonies were likewise gay and festal, passing at times into a truly orgiastic character.[220]
Probably most of us will feel some surprise when this trait of early and heathen religions is pressed upon our attention. We have been accustomed to hear of their dark and cruel mysteries, their immolations and holocausts, their cries of anguish and blood-stained altars, until we have imagined that light-hearted gaiety was even farther from their teachings than it is from our own faith, whose cardinal principle is the holiness of suffering and self-abnegation.
Nothing could be wider from the truth. Probably the first of all public rites of worship was one of joyousness, to wit, the invitation to the god to be present and partake of the repast. To spread a meal and ask the deity to share it, that which is called _commensality_, belongs to the most archaic of ceremonies. Captain Clark tells us of the Western Indians that “feasts form an essential part of every ceremony.” There is a certain solemnity observed about them, even when not strictly religious in character. The first mouthful is offered to the gods, and “something in the manner of a grace” is usual when the person begins and finishes his meal.[221]