In many prayers we find formulas preserved which are no longer understood; and very frequently the power of the prayer is believed to be increased by repeating it a number of times. The prayer choruses of nearly all savage tribes offer endless examples of this. The notion of increased force by repetition, a notion founded on the augmented suggestive power of the Word through its iteration, to which I have already referred, is so common that it was especially noted and condemned by Jesus as of no spiritual value.
This form of prayer, indeed, degenerated into a mere magical formula, as we see was the case with the apostolic benediction of the Christian church during the middle ages, which became a charm in use by necromancers and sorcerers.
In its sublimest essence, however, prayer has been recognised as something far beyond any form of suppliancy. It is, as an orthodox authority says, “the habitual state of a being who constantly lives in relation to God, and cultivates a constant exchange with Him.”[128] So understood, it is even more than inspiration; it is a communion of spiritual life, a dwelling in God. This is the precise mental condition of many of the mystics and devotees of primitive religions. They are with the god, the god with and in them.
II. THE WORD FROM THE GODS.—If the mere name of the god was thus mighty and thus venerated, how much more the words he himself uttered! The “Word of God,” as understood by the worshippers, is the kernel and core of every faith on earth. Every religion is, to its votaries, a revelation. None is so material, none so primitive, as to claim any other foundation than the expressed will of divinity. None is so devoid of ritual as to lack some means of ascertaining this will.
The word from the gods is clothed under two forms, the Law and the Prophets,—in other terms, Precept and Prediction. In every religion, from the most primitive to the highest, we find these two modes of divine utterance.
In the earliest phases of religion, the law is essentially prohibitory. It is in the form of the negative, “Thou shalt not——.” Ethnologists have adopted for this a word from Polynesian dialects, _tabu_, or _tapu_, akin to _tapa_, to name,[129] that which was solemnly named or announced being sacred, and hence forbidden to the _profanum vulgus_.