The god can no more exist without his people than the nation without its god. William Robertson Smith Read Quote
The myths connected with individual sanctuaries and ceremonies were merely part of the apparatus of the worship; they served to excite the fancy and sustain the interest of the worshipper… no one cared what he believed about its origin. William Robertson Smith Read Quote
This being so, it follows that mythology ought not to take the prominent place that is too often assigned to it in the scientific study of ancient faiths. William Robertson Smith Read Quote
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 one side of the general scheme of conduct prescribed for him by his position as a member of society. William Robertson Smith Read Quote
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 whole nation in its national organisation appears as the religious unit. William Robertson Smith Read Quote
But, strictly speaking, this mythology was no essential part of ancient religion, for it had no sacred sanction and no binding force on the worshippers. William Robertson Smith Read Quote
The god, it would appear, was frequently thought of as the physical progenitor or first father of his people. William Robertson Smith Read Quote
This, it may be said, is no more than a hypothesis… only of that force of precedent which in all times has been so strong to keep alive religious forms of which the original meaning is lost. William Robertson Smith Read Quote
But if it not be true, the myth itself requires to be explained, and every principle of philosophy and common sense demand that the explanation be sought, not in arbitrary allegorical categories, but in the actual facts of ritual or religious custom to which the myth attaches. William Robertson Smith Read Quote
