་ ancient religion, as independent of ancient mythology. Homer who, together with Hesiod, made the theogony or the history of the gods for the Greeks, — a saying of Herodotus, which contains more truth than is commonly supposed,- Homer, whose every page teems with mythology, nevertheless allows us many an insight into the inner religious life of his age. What did the swineherd Eumaios know of the intricate Olympian theogony? Had he ever heard the name of the Charites or of the Harpyias? Could he have told who was the father of Aphrodite, who were her husbands and her children? I doubt it; and when Homer introduces him to us, speaking of this life and the higher powers that rule it, Eumaios knows only of just gods, "who hate cruel deeds, but honor justice and the righteous works of man." 1 His whole view of life is built up on a complete trust in the Divine government of the world, without any such artificial supports as the Erinys, the Nemesis, or Moira. "Eat," says the swineherd to Ulysses," and enjoy what is here, for God will grant one thing, but another he will refuse, whatever he will in his mind, for he can do all things." (Od. xiv. 444; x. 306.) This surely is religion, and it is religion untainted by mythology. Again, the prayer of the female slave, grinding corn in the house of Ulysses, is religion in the truest sense, "Father Zeus," she says, "thou who rulest over gods and men, surely thou hast just 1 Od. xiv. 83. 2 There is nothing to make us translate dɛós by a god rather than by God; but even if we translated it a god, this could here only be meant for Zeus. (Cf Od. iv. 236.) Cf. Welcker, p. 180. thundered from the starry heaven, and there is no cloud anywhere. Thou showest this as a sign to some one. Fulfil now, even to me, miserable wretch! the prayer which I may utter." When Telemachos is afraid to approach Nestor, and declares to Mentor that he does not know what to say,' does not Mentor or Athene encourage him in words that might easily be translated into the language of our own religion? "Telemachos," she says, "some things thou wilt thyself perceive in thy mind, and others a divine spirit will prompt; for I do not believe that thou wast born and brought up without the will of the gods." The omnipresence and omniscience of the Divine Being is expressed by Hesiod in language slightly, yet not altogether, mythological : πάντα ἰδὼν Διὸς ὀφθαλμὸς καὶ πάντα νοήσας, The eye of Zeus, which sees all and knows all; and the conception of Homer that "the gods themselves come to our cities in the garb of strangers, to watch the wanton and the orderly conduct of men,"8 though expressed in the language peculiar to the childhood of man, might easily be turned into our own sacred phraseology. Anyhow, we may call this Τηλέμαχ', ἄλλα μὲν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ φρεσὶ σῇσι νοήσεις, Homer uses θεός and δαίμων for God. 2 Erga, 267. Od. xvii. 483: ̓Αντίνο', οὐ μὲν κάλ' ἔβαλες δύστηνον ἀλήτην, religion - ancient, primitive, natural religion: imperfect, no doubt, yet deeply interesting, and not without a divine afflatus. How different is the undoubting trust of the ancient poets in the ever-present watchfulness of the gods, from the language of later Greek philosophy, as expressed, for instance, by Protagoras. "Of the gods," he says, "I am not able to know either that they are or that they are not; for many things prevent us from knowing it, the darkness and the shortness of human life."1 The gods of Homer, though, in their mythological aspect, represented as weak, easily deceived, and led astray by the lowest passions, are nevertheless, in the more reverend language of religion, endowed with nearly all the qualities which we claim for a divine and perfect Being. The phrase which forms the key-note in many of the speeches of Odysseus, though thrown in only as it were parenthetically, θεοὶ δέ τε πάντα ἴσασιν, “ the Gods know all things,” "2 gives us more of the real feeling of the untold millions among whom the idioms of a language grow up, than all the tales of the tricks played by Juno to Jupiter, or by Mars to Vulcan. At critical moments, when the deepest feelings of the human heart are stirred, the old Greeks of Homer seem suddenly to drop all learned and mythological metaphor, and to fall back on the universal language of true religion. Everything they feel is ordered by the immortal gods; and though they do not rise to the conception of a Divine Providence which ordereth all things by 1 Welcker, Griechische Götterlehre, p. 245. 2 Od. iv. 379, 468. eternal laws, no event, however small, seems to happen in the Iliad in which the poet does not recognize the active interference of a divine power. This interference, if clothed in mythological language, assumes, it is true, the actual or bodily presence of one of the gods, whether Apollo, or Athene, or Aphrodite; yet let us observe that Zeus himself, the god of gods, never descends to the battle-field of Troy. He was the true god of the Greeks before he became enveloped in the clouds of Olympian mythology; and in many a passage where theós is used, we may without irreverence translate it by God. Thus, when Diomedes exhorts the Greeks to fight till Troy is taken, he finishes his speech with these words: "Let all flee home; but we two, I and Sthenelos, will fight till we see the end of Troy: for we came with God."1 Even if we translated "for we came with a god," the sentiment would still be religious, not mythological; though of course it might easily be translated into mythological phraseology, if we said that Athene, in the form of a bird, had fluttered round the ships of the Greeks. Again, what can be more natural and more truly pious than the tone of resignation with which Nausikaa addresses the shipwrecked Ulysses? "Zeus," she says, for she knows no better name, "Zeus himself, the Olympian, distributes happiness to the good and the bad, to every one, as he pleases. And to thee also he probably has sent this, and you ought by all means to bear it." Lastly, let me read the famous line, placed by Homer in the mouth of Peisistratos, the son of Nestor, when calling on Athene, as the 1 Il. ix. 49. companion of Telemachos, and on Telemachos himself, to pray to the gods before taking their meal: "After thou hast offered thy libation and prayed, as it is meet, give to him also afterwards the goblet of honey-sweet wine to pour out his libation, because I believe that he also prays to the immortals, for all men yearn after the gods."1 It might be objected that no truly religious sentiment was possible as long as the human mind was entangled in the web of polytheism; that god, in fact, in its true sense, is a word which admits of no plural, and changes its meaning as soon as it assumes the terminations of that number. The Latin ædes means, in the singular, a sanctuary, but in the plural it assumes the meaning of a common dwelling-house; and thus the6s, too, in the plural, is supposed to be divested of that sacred and essentially divine character which it claims in the singular. When, moreover, such names as Zeus, Apollo, and Athene are applied to the Divine Being, religion is considered to be out of the question, and hard words, such as idolatry and devil-worship; are applied to the prayers and praises of the early believers. There is a great amount of incontestable truth in all this, but I cannot help thinking that full justice has never been done to the ancient religions of the world, not even to those of the Greeks and Romans, who, in so many other respects, are acknowledged by us as our teachers and models. The first contact between Christianity and the heathen religions was necessarily one of uncompromising hostility. It was the duty of the Apostles and the early Christians in gen1 πάντες δὲ θεῶν χατέουσ' ἄνθρωποι. Od. iii. 48. |