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James George FrazerThe Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1890A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Evolution of Belief in Magic to Science
One of the central tenets of The Golden Bough is that, over time, the principles governing societies evolved from magic to religion to science. This is important because, while it shows that humanity has acquired new knowledge to help it effectively interact with the natural world, it also means that ancient mythological practices still form the foundation of modern beliefs. This has both positive and negative ramifications, especially considering the role of Christianity in modern Western culture.
According to Frazer, ancient societies were governed by a belief in sympathetic magic, i.e., by the principle that one thing or event can affect and be used to control another due to the existence connection between them. This connection is based on similarity, which applies to imitative or homeopathic magic, or prior contact, which applies to contagious magic. It was believed that sorcerers could directly influence external events, such as the weather and the harvest, without recourse to any form of divine intervention. The text terms this era the Age of Magic, when people worshipped elements of the natural world, such as fire and the sun, and created totems to contain the human spirit. In The Golden Bough, the Age of Magic is comparable to the Stone Age in its rudimentary understanding of the world.
A religious worldview begins to supplant the magical one when it is realized that the natural phenomena on which humanity depends for survival are beyond human control. At this point, humans imagine their destiny to be in the hands of supernatural beings, although, during the early, transitional phase, these entities are not clearly distinguished from human sorcerers. This period, as represented by the priest-kings of Nemi, is partway between the Age of Magic and the Age of Religion. The priests of Nemi are considered deities incarnate, and for this reason, their practice of succession through murder is notable because challengers believed they were not only killing a man; they were also killing a god. The text uses examples from Greek and Roman mythology, such as The Aeneid (c. 19 BCE), that draw on historical events from around 1000 BCE. The text characterizes this period—from antiquity to the birth of Christ—as the Age of Religion.
If the arrival of religion is marked by a distancing from the natural world, the rise of science is characterized by a renewed but more rational focus on how humans can influence natural phenomena. Frazer terms magic a “pseudo-science” but concedes that the same principles that underly magic—that people can influence the world in predictable, ritualized ways—also underlies the experimental methods of science. He considers both science and magic as pursuits of knowledge but considers magic flawed because it misunderstands natural laws. Both these systems differ from religion in that religion understands natural laws as mutable and subservient to a more powerful god, whereas magic and science consider natural laws fixed; they can be manipulated, but not changed or bypassed.
While Frazer argues for the similarities between magic and science, he reinforces the Eurocentric idea that non-Western cultures represent the “primitive” understanding of the world, while Western culture represents the evolution of human intellect to its highest achievement, which is science.
Christianity and Its Prehistory
Frazer’s The Golden Bough caused substantial controversy at the time of its publication due to its insertion of Christianity into a comparative religious framework and its apparent suggestion that some of the core elements of Christianity evolved from ancient pantheistic beliefs.
The core of Frazer’s argument linking Christianity to its prehistory is that Christ, as a human divinity who died to free the world of evil and was resurrected, was the last in a long line of sacrificial man-gods, including Attis, Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. Traditions of a divine king being sacrificed as part of a fertility rite, as discussed in Book 2, and of a scapegoat dying to alleviate the suffering and sin of the people, as discussed in Book 3, gradually merged over time, coalescing in the narrative of the crucifixion and resurrection. The tears of the Virgin Mary mourning for Christ echoes Aphrodite’s mourning for Adonis, Cybele’s mourning for Attis, and Isis’s mourning for Osiris.
Christ’s death and crucifixion are also linked with fertility and nature worship in the text. Adonis, Attis, and Osiris, who represent Christ figures in their traditions, are vegetation deities associated with corn, trees, and woodlands. Frazer traces various examples of gods, effigies, humans, and animals in these traditions dying as a result of hanging from trees, implying that the crucifix can be placed within this tradition of sacred and sacrificial trees. Frazer then explores the link between Christ’s cross and European May poles and May trees, which derive from folk fertility festivals. The cross is also likened to the sacred pine tree of Attis and the sacred oak tree of Zeus and Jupiter. In hanging from a tree, the sacrificial god is kept suspended between heaven and earth, an action that references the ancient custom of keeping taboo individuals, who are both powerful and dangerous, on elevated surfaces and out of contact with everyday people.
The Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion is also linked to ancient, pre-Christian customs. Book 2, Chapter 21 describes various festivals in which the sacrificial god is symbolically eaten: The corn spirit may be devoured through bread baked into special forms or through the eating the meat and drinking the blood of sacrificial animals. This chapter suggests that the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation—the belief that the sacramental bread becomes Christ’s body and the wine becomes Christ’s blood—has clear origins in these “savage” ideas.
Throughout The Golden Bough, especially in Book 4, Chapter 3, Frazer provides examples of correspondences in date and symbolism of Christian and pantheistic festivals. For instance, the Celtic festival of the dead, Samhain, corresponds with All Saints’ Day on the first of November. Similarly, the Roman feast of Saturnalia, which celebrated the beloved king Saturn, corresponds with the date of Christmas in December. Frazer also suggests that Christ was condemned to die as part of the Jewish harvest festival of Purim, with Christ embodying the role of Haman and dying by crucifixion, while his more fortunate companion, Barabbas, enjoyed temporary kingship, assuming the persona of Mordecai. The contrasting fates of Mordecai and Barabbas are, for Frazer, simply another version of the archetypal death-and-resurrection dichotomy, with Mordecai representing the emergent new life and Haman symbolizing the doomed old god. He suggests that Christianity may have spread so quickly precisely because it tapped into the age-old archetype of the sacrificial king.
When The Golden Bough was written, it was considered unorthodox for inserting Christianity into a study of comparative religion without affording it any kind of special privilege or exceptionalism. In this way, Frazer presents Christian doctrines as existing on a continuum with the religious practices that they gradually superseded.
The Necessity of Sacrifice for Renewal
Throughout The Golden Bough, Frazer provides a series of examples of male demigods who are violently killed then returned to life, in part thanks to the intercession of a more powerful and divine female consort: Virbius and Diana, Attis and Cybele, and Adonis and Aphrodite fall into this archetype. These pairs are presented as predecessors of the Virgin Mary and Christ. In this case, however, there is a shift in both the gender hierarchy (Christ is more powerful than Mary) and in relationship (Christ is Mary’s son, rather than her lover). The text does not comment on these alterations but focuses on the message that across ancient and modern religions, the sacrifice of a powerful being is necessary for a community’s renewal and wellbeing.
Frazer’s exploration of the history of the sacrificial king archetype comes from an understanding of the role of kings and gods in ancient cultures. Frazer posits that in many ancient societies, the king or god was seen as a personification of the natural world’s fertility and vitality. These man-gods and priest-kings were believed to possess divine qualities, making them integral to the land’s health and the community’s welfare. The king or god’s life was symbolically linked to the cycles of nature, such as the changing seasons and the growth of crops. It is then implied that the death and subsequent rebirth of the sacrificial demigod can rejuvenate the natural world, which in turn guarantees the community’s prosperity.
The idea of sacred kingship is central to Frazer’s argument, as in this framework, the king is not just a political leader but also a spiritual figure whose wellbeing directly affects the land’s fertility. The king’s health and vigor are thought to influence the success of the harvest, the fertility of livestock, and the overall prosperity of the community. Consequently, any signs of weakness or decline in the king could be seen as a threat to the community’s survival.
This idea is illustrated by the Kings of the Wood at Nemi, on which Frazer bases his thesis. The priest-king, known as the Rex Nemorensis, could only be replaced by a challenger who successfully killed him. This violent succession ensured that the king remained strong and capable of fulfilling his role as a mediator between the divine and the earthly realms. The golden bough thus symbolized both the sacrifice of the slain king and the renewal of the kingship in a new body. The trope culminates for Frazer in Christ’s crucifixion, death, and resurrection—the last such cycle in the modern world.
