Frank Byron Jevons

Frank Byron Jevons examined religion, classical culture, and philosophy during a long academic career at Durham University. Jevons, born in 1858, became professor of philosophy and also held senior administrative roles at the university. His books addressed Greek literature, comparative religion, magic, mythology, and the development of religious ideas. The Idea of God in Early Religions belongs to the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature, and Cambridge University Press first issued it in 1910. Jevons organized the study around mythology, worship, prayer, and the relation between the idea and being of God. Rather than presenting an inventory of traditions, he examined how religious language and practice reveal changing concepts of divine personality. The work’s compact structure reflects the manual series while connecting it to Jevons’s larger program of comparative religious study. Later reprints preserve its position as an early twentieth-century academic treatment of religion, myth, ritual, and belief.