16. It is not necessary, however, that the individuality and
specialization of function of the supreme beings recognized by any
religious system should be so conspicuous as they are in this case, or
in the Greek or Roman Pantheon, to mark it as in its essence
polytheistic or of polytheistic tendency. It is quite enough that the
immortals are deemed to be capable of hearing and answering the prayers
of their adorers, and of interfering actively in passing events, either
for good or for evil. This, at the root of it, constitutes the crucial
difference between polytheism and monotheism; and in this sense the
Roman Catholic form of Christianity, representing the oldest undisturbed
evolution of a strictly monotheistic doctrine, is undeniably
polytheistic. Apart from the Virgin Mary, there is a whole hierarchy of
inferior deities, saints, and angels, subordinate to the One Supreme
Being. This may possibly be denied by the authorized expounders of the
doctrine of the Church of Rome; but it is nevertheless certain that it
is the view taken by the uneducated classes, with whom the saints are
much more present and definite deities than even the Almighty Himself.
It is worth noting, that during the dancing mania of 1418, not God, or
Christ, or the Virgin Mary, but St. Vitus, was prayed to by the populace
to stop the epidemic that was afterwards known by his name.[1] There was
a temple to St. Michael on Mount St. Angelo, and Augustine thought it
necessary to declare that angel-worshippers were heretics.[2] Even
Protestantism, though a much younger growth than Catholicism, shows a
slight tendency towards polytheism. The saints are, of course, quite
out of the question, and angels are as far as possible relegated from
the citadel of asserted belief into the vaguer regions of poetical
sentimentality; but--although again unadmitted by the orthodox of the
sect--the popular conception of Christ is, and, until the masses are
more educated in theological niceties than they are at present,
necessarily must be, as of a Supreme Being totally distinct from God the