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S i d e b a r
A Dim Memory of Eden:
Original Monotheism
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This Rock
Volume 19, Number 2
 February 2008 
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In original monotheism, the ultimate principle of religion is located in God. Nineteenth-century priest and scholar Fr. Wilhelm Schmidt recognized the problems with the evolutionary theory and learned from them. His aim was to discover which cultures really were the most primitive. In order to do this, he developed the method of ethnohistory, or what is now more commonly called cultural anthropology.
Through his research, he identified a number of stages in cultural development, establishing his methodology on the principle that particular cultural achievements occur only once within a certain region. For instance, it cannot be expected that a unique style of art, agricultural practice, or tool would have been simultaneously developed by two geographically separated cultures within a given region. Rather, by limiting our consideration to a certain region such as India or Africa, through ethnohistory, we can chronicle the technological advancement of cultures and determine which ones originated a cultural innovation and which ones borrowed it. In this way, the progression from the Stone Age to the Neolithic and beyond could be posited with reliable probability.
Through his study, Fr. Schmidt determined four cultural stages: primordial (hunter-gatherer societies), primary (nomadic cattle herders, hunters, and horticulturalists), secondary (agriculturalists), and tertiary (city builders). He learned that though there was some admixture of pagan practices and magic in the cultures he studied (such as the African pygmies, Australian Aborigines, and some Native American tribes), there nevertheless seemed to be a common theme underlying the religion of the most primordial cultures: namely, the idea of a single God, or what Fr. Schmidt termed "original monotheism."
Fr. Schmidt’s original monotheism discerns a number of unique beliefs among the world’s most technologically primitive cultures. His research showed that the majority of these cultures recognize a single God. It is only in younger cultures that more than one god appears, which represents an aberration from the original monotheism.
Moreover, God is conceived as Father (though there are a few cultures among the horticulturalists in which God is feminine). God is also the "Skydweller," an idea recognizing his transcendence. His dwelling place is not among humans but at the peak of a mountain or some other elevated place. God is also Creator, which is how primitive cultures know him. That is, there is a dim memory of our lost Eden among the world’s peoples. God is also the Superior One, the Everlasting One, the Omniscient One, the Omnibeneficent One, and the Almighty. Obviously, all of these terms are expressed in the specific culture’s own idioms, yet it is significant that Fr. Schmidt was able to show how these squared with many ideas supremely expressed in Christian theology.
If original monotheism provides an alternative to the evolutionary theory of religion, we must ask whether it makes sense. Theologically speaking, it makes a great deal of sense. Both the book of Genesis teaches and Pope Pius XII affirmed in Humani Generis that mankind originated from a single person, Adam. A cursory reading of the opening of Genesis proves the idea that God had a special, intimate relationship with our first parents. Is it any wonder that a faint memory of this original monotheism is retained in many of the world’s cultures?
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