but, as Mr. Gladstone says, their want of logical coherence indicates that they "can not be referred to any one generative idea or system, but may be distorted copies or misunderstood portions of primitive truth."* There are, however, clearly presented, three departments of the invisible world—Elysium, Hades, and Tartarus. While there is considerable confusion in regard to the respective character and functions of these receptacles of the departed, still it is evident that the moral government of the world is conceived of as projected into these unseen realms, and accordingly vice is there punished and virtue rewarded. At all events, the Homeric representation of the other world, is greatly in advance of the utterly unsubstantial and morally ineffective conceptions of later times, as shown in the Ethics of Aristotlet or the Electra of Sophocles,+ or in fact in almost all the poetry and philosophy of antiquity. An examination of the religious system of Homer will satisfy us that so far from its being homogeneous, there are in it. irreconcileable elements, which can not be blended harmoniously together. These different elements Mr. Gladstone supposes to be referable to different origins-that on the one hand they are due to the formative mythological process which was already going on, and on the other, had been handed down from the great primeval revelation. Those who receive the declaration of the Scriptures, that there was such a revelation, will not think it strange that fragments of it were still floating on the sea of time, in the age of Homer; and those who do not believe in such a primitive revelation, will find it exceedingly difficult to account for some very remarkable peculiarities, which we are about to consider, in the religion of the early Greeks. We claim that there is no explanation of these anomalies except on the supposition of a primitive revelation. That this religious system is a composite and not a simple one, is evident upon a very slight examination. The various parts of it do not fit harmoniously together and refuse to come into any logical order, even under the operation of the Greek mind, which was the most logical that the world has ever Soph. Electr., 348. * II. 167. Nich. Eth. iv. 10. known. There is on the one hand great dignity and purityon the other, much that is gross and corrupt. The various deities have not their respective spheres of operation clearly defined, as would have been the case if the system had been one of pure invention. It is evident that the process of invention is at work upon preëxisting materials. Now the question is, what are these materials? How can we distinguish them from what is merely inventive? Is there any way by which we can link them with the truths of the primitive revelation, and thus furnish new evidence of such a revelation and of the great facts with which it is connected? Mr. Gladstone calls these two elements in the religious system of Homer, the traditive and the inventive. In attempting to separate the one from the other, we shall build our argument upon facts which he principally has furnished. The first step in the argument starts from the fact of the mixed character of the population of Greece in the heroic age. This population was composed in the first place of Pelasgic tribes, who were probably the first settlers in the land, and then of Hellenic tribes, who had subsequently taken possession, and in the time of Homer were rapidly absorbing the Pelasgian element. These Pelasgi were very widely scattered. They were the primitive inhabitants, in all probability, of Italy and Greece, and were settled for centuries before the Trojan war throughout the western and southern parts of Asia Minor. Now whatever portion of the religion of the Homeric age is found to be both Pelasgian and Hellenic may safely be regard ed as springing from a more ancient origin than that which is Hellenic alone. The Hellenic mind, we know, was peculiarly inventive and imaginative, and the Pelasgian comparatively unpoetical and dull. The mythology of Greece, therefore, which is not Pelasgic, may well be regarded as an Hellenic invention, while that which is both Pelasgic and Hellenic, must have been handed down among the tribes of each, we may well suppose, from some remote period when they were united * Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, i. 52. together. The deities which are peculiarly Hellenic are Juno, Persephone, and Pluto. Those which are peculiarly Pelasgian are Demeter and Venus. Then we have Mercury, Vulcan, Bacchus, Paieon, and 'Helios, the sun, naturalized among the Greeks during the age of Homer. But besides these, there is a cluster of deities worshipped both by the Hellenes and the Pelasgi, including Jupiter, Minerva, Apollo, Latona, Diana, and perhaps Neptune. We have abundant evidence that the first three of these were deities whose worship was universal and of immemorial antiquity. It is an exceedingly interesting inquiry, and one very fruitful in valuable results, in what respect these ancient deities, whose origin is hidden in the oblivion of the past, differed from those of modern invention and of merely local respect and worship. The Pelasgian deities were received by the Hellenic tribes and easily accommodated to the Hellenic system. Other deities of various origins were also admitted within the Olympian court. But Jupiter, Apollo, and Minerva are in the system by universal consent, with rights, and powers, and functions to which no origin can be assigned, plainly and unmistakably distinguished from the rest, in so many and such decided respects, that we are compelled to regard them as anterior to the system, and admitted into it because they were so linked in with the religious ideas of men, that it was impossible for them to be excluded. It must be remembered that in subsequent times, this heterogeneous character of Grecian Mythology scarcely appears. The inventive process has finally overmastered the traditional, and these universal deities have lost their divine attributes, and have become almost entirely human in their character and relations. But in Homer's time, the inventive, humanizing process had scarcely begun to work upon them, except in the case of Jupiter. The traditional features in the character of Jupiter had already in a great measure given place to the character ascribed to him by the inventive mythology. But Apollo and Minerva stand forth alone, scarcely touched as yet with the taint of the humanizing process; and so conspicuous and grand in their supernatural attributes, so immeasurably superior to the other divinities with whom they are associated, that we are compelled to ascribe them not only to a different but a higher origin than the invention of man. It can hardly be necessary to refer to the arguments, by which it is shown that Jupiter is one of the names by which the Supreme Being was known in the East, before the migration of the Pelasgic and Hellenic tribes. The Egyptian, the Hindo, the Persian, the Grecian mythology all furnish evidence of what may be called monotheism with polytheistic tendencies. We no where get back to pure monotheism; but monotheistic ideas are universally present, and the farther back we go the more numerous and distinct do these ideas become. In the Grecian mythology, Jupiter was the embodiment of those ideas of omnipotence and of a providental government,t which had survived the polytheism and corruption which were fast destroying all the vestiges of primeval truth. But we wish to consider more particularly the view which Mr. Gladstone takes of the traditional deities, Apollo and Minerva. These he regards as unquestionably referable to the great primitive revelation of the Messiah. In order to establish this conclusion, he examines most minutely the character and functions of each of these divinities. There is certainly something very remarkable in the representation of these two divinities, in the poems of Homer. They seem to resist the attempts which the genius of the Hellenic race had made to reduce them to harmony with the Olympian court. They are vastly superior to the other deities; in many respects, superior to Jupiter himself, for Jupiter had been already humanized by mythological invention. Apollo and Minerva were the only divinities to whom temples had been reared in the time of Homer. Prayers were offered to no other divinities with the exception of Jupiter. These three deities alone received universal worship. The finest passages in the Iliad * Döllinger, Heidenthum und Judenthum. Rawlinson's Herodotus, i. 608. Diana, to whom prayers are offered, we shall presently see, does not really form an exception to this statement. and Odyssey are those in which the poet, with all the wealth of his genius, describes the splendor of their persons, and the majesty with which they moved from place to place. Unlike the other gods, they are independent of wings or chariots. In their journeys, there are no progressive steps. They are at once. begun and ended. Müller in his Dorians, has given us a comprehensive statement of the ancient conception of Apollo. He says: "The Supreme Deity, when connected with Apollo, was neither born nor visible on earth, and perhaps never considered as having any immediate influence upon men. But Apollo, who is often emphatically called the Son of Jupiter, acts as his intercessor, ambassador, and prophet, with mankind. And whilst the Father of the gods appears indistinct and at a distance, dwelling in ether, and enthroned in the highest heavens, Apollo is described as a divine hero, whose office is to ward off evils and dangers, establish rites of expiation, and announce the ordinances of fate." The originally pure and spotless character of Apollo had already been slightly touched with the taint of sensuality. But yet it is a striking fact, that there was a latent consciousness that this was totally inconsistent with his other attributes; for while he was subjected to the humanizing process, and conceived of as actuated by the evil passions of our nature, a relief was found from the evident incongruity, by the conception of Diana, who was represented as his sister, and whose principal attribute was chastity. These two deities actually represent one single idea, originally embodied in Apollo alone; but divided so as to be more readily comprehended. There are certain offices in respect to which they may be considered as representing one divinity. Nothing is more remarkable in the Iliad and Odyssey than the relation of Apollo and Diana to death, and nothing in these deities more strikingly harmonizes with the traditionary idea of the Messiah. They alone are able to occasion death without the instrumentality of second causes, and they alone have the power of producing painless death. When Hector had been killed and dragged around the walls of the city, and VOL. VI.-13 |