The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion

Scottish anthropologist James George Frazer published The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion in 1890 in two volumes. It is considered Frazer’s magnum opus and, in its 1936 third edition, was expanded into 13 volumes. Subsequent editions abridged the text to the currently used single-volume text. The title is taken from Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid, in which Aeneas uses a golden bough (or branch) to gain admission into the underworld. Though elements of the text have been debunked, Frazer’s general thesis, that world cultures have moved from believing in magic to religion to science, has remained a relevant topic of debate. The work influenced early-20th-century thinkers, such as American poet T. S. Eliot, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, and Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud. The text’s main themes include The Evolution of Belief in Magic to Science, Christianity and Its Prehistory, and The Necessity of Sacrifice for Renewal.

This guide will refer to the abridged edition published by Oxford World Classics in 2009.

Content Warning: Frazer’s text reflects a 19th-century colonialist and Eurocentric perspective. It contains elements of antisemitism and questions some fundamental tenets of the Christian faith. It also uses language for Indigenous and non-Christian peoples that is considered outdated and offensive.

Summary

The abridged edition of The Golden Bough contains four books, each of which contains a varying number of chapters. Many of the chapters contain subchapters that were longer sections in the original work. The book follows a single line of argument, which includes a series of comparisons between ancient and Christian religious rituals, a discussion of nature and crops as symbols of fertility, and the retelling of myths that involve the killing of priest-kings across various cultures. These elements coalesce in the conclusion that all cultures require real or symbolic sacrifices to secure their continued existence and confirm their belief that they can influence the world through either magic or science. The book uses the symbol of the golden bough, which is a branch of mistletoe picked from an oak tree, to unify the argument because it appears in a variety of cultural myths that symbolize the union of life and death.

Book 1 begins with a discussion of the painting The Golden Bough (1834) by English painter J. M. W. Turner, which depicts the golden bough scene from The Aeneid, in which Aeneas plucks a golden bough from a nearby forest to protect him during his journey to the Underworld. The painting and myth are set in the woods of Nemi, a region in Italy dedicated to the worship of the Roman goddess Diana. The priests of Diana, called the Kings of the Wood, won their titles by plucking a golden bough from the grove, challenging the current king, and killing him in ritual combat. The section goes on to show that the practice of having a ruler that is considered both human and divine is common across many cultures, as is the practice of these priest-kings gaining their position through human sacrifice or murder. Book 1 also lays out the text’s foundational ideas about the roles of magic, religion, tree worship, and taboos—as well as the sexual union of male mortals and goddesses—in ancient societies.

Book 2 is the longest section of the work and traces anthropological and textual evidence of divine kings being ritually sacrificed either through murder or symbolically through a human or animal sacrifice. These rituals are followed by a celebration of the god’s rebirth. In particular, Book 2 focuses on the cults of Adonis, Attis, and Osiris, all of whom are associated with vegetation and fertility, and all of whom die violently before being resurrected. The section also discusses the practice of “religious prostitution,” in which women serve at the temple of gods and goddesses by having sexual intercourse with the local kings or worshippers to symbolize fertility.

Book 3 focuses on the figure of the scapegoat, a sacrificial victim often celebrated as a temporary king before being sacrificed or banished in order to expunge the sins and suffering of the community. The text theorizes that originally, separate customs of annually sacrificing the divine king and the scapegoat came to be combined, with the divine king assuming the role of scapegoat and carrying away the sins and afflictions of the community. This sacrifice was often accompanied by a period of license or misrule, as with the Roman festival of Saturnalia. The section concludes with a description of the Jewish festival of Purim, based on the story of Mordecai and Haman from the Book of Esther, and speculates that, rather than being executed as a common criminal, Christ may have been sacrificed as a scapegoat in the persona of Haman.

Book 4 considers the significance of the mythological golden bough, which Frazer identifies as mistletoe from an oak tree, a tree traditionally associated with the Greek god Zeus or the Roman god Jupiter, both of whom are the king of the gods. The discussion circles back to the priests of Nemi and that their association with the oak tree makes them an embodiment of Zeus or Jupiter himself. Book 4 also discusses the movement from magic to science as the way that people seek to influence the world and ensure fruitful harvests. The section provides an overview of fire and sun worship and speculates about why ancient humans considered these elements divine. Finally, it theorizes that the change from animism to Christianity came from a change in the belief that the soul was internal to plants, animals, and things, to a belief that it was external, and thus protected its bearer.