saints

• evolutionary origin of sainthood

85:6.3Tribal chiefs died and were de­i­fied. Later, dis­tin­guished souls passed on and were sainted. Un­aided evo­lu­tion never orig­i­nated gods higher than the glo­ri­fied, ex­alted, and evolved spir­its of de­ceased hu­mans. In early evo­lu­tion re­li­gion cre­ates its own gods. In the course of rev­e­la­tion the Gods for­mu­late re­li­gion. Evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion cre­ates its gods in the im­age and like­ness of mor­tal man; rev­e­la­tory re­li­gion seeks to evolve and trans­form mor­tal man into the im­age and like­ness of God.

• bones of s. regarded superstitiously

88:2.1It was a sup­posed pref­er­ence of ghosts to in­dwell some ob­ject which had be­longed to them when alive in the flesh. This be­lief ex­plains the ef­fi­cacy of many mod­ern relics. The an­cients al­ways revered the bones of their lead­ers, and the skele­tal re­mains of saints and heroes are still re­garded with su­per­sti­tious awe by many. Even to­day, pil­grim­ages are made to the tombs of great men.

• practiced continence

89:3.6It was only nat­u­ral that the cult of re­nun­ci­a­tion and hu­mil­i­a­tion should have paid at­ten­tion to sex­ual grat­i­fi­ca­tion. The con­ti­nence cult orig­i­nated as a rit­ual among sol­diers prior to en­gag­ing in bat­tle; in later days it be­came the prac­tice of “saints.” This cult tol­er­ated mar­riage only as an evil lesser than for­ni­ca­tion. Many of the world’s great re­li­gions have been ad­versely in­flu­enced by this an­cient cult, but none more markedly than Chris­tian­ity. The Apos­tle Paul was a devo­tee of this cult, and his per­sonal views are re­flected in the teach­ings which he fas­tened onto Chris­tian the­ol­ogy: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” “I would that all men were even as I my­self.” “I say, there­fore, to the un­mar­ried and wid­ows, it is good for them to abide even as I.” Paul well knew that such teach­ings were not a part of Je­sus’ gospel, and his ac­knowl­edg­ment of this is il­lus­trated by his state­ment, “I speak this by per­mis­sion and not by com­mand­ment.” But this cult led Paul to look down upon women. And the pity of it all is that his per­sonal opin­ions have long in­flu­enced the teach­ings of a great world re­li­gion. If the ad­vice of the tent­maker-teacher were to be lit­er­ally and uni­ver­sally obeyed, then would the hu­man race come to a sud­den and in­glo­ri­ous end. Fur­ther­more, the in­volve­ment of a re­li­gion with the an­cient con­ti­nence cult leads di­rectly to a war against mar­riage and the home, so­ci­ety’s ver­i­ta­ble foun­da­tion and the ba­sic in­sti­tu­tion of hu­man prog­ress. And it is not to be won­dered at that all such be­liefs fos­tered the for­ma­tion of celi­bate priest­hoods in the many re­li­gions of var­i­ous peo­ples.

• spiritual menace in galaxy of

195:4.2Dur­ing these dark and de­spair­ing cen­turies, re­li­gion be­came vir­tu­ally sec­ond­handed again. The in­di­vid­ual was al­most lost be­fore the over­shad­ow­ing au­thor­ity, tra­di­tion, and dic­ta­tion of the church. A new spir­i­tual men­ace arose in the cre­ation of a galaxy of “saints” who were as­sumed to have spe­cial in­flu­ence at the di­vine courts, and who, there­fore, if ef­fec­tively ap­pealed to, would be able to in­ter­cede in man’s be­half be­fore the Gods.