occasional perpetuation of the ancient Greek physical type and the
general survival of the ancient Greek character plainly forbid so
extreme a supposition as that of Fallmerayer: no traveller familiar
with the modern Greek peasantry could entertain for a moment the idea
that at any period the whole of Greece became Slavonicized, but,
whatever might be the historical arguments for such a theory, would
reject it, on the evidence of his own eyes, as ludicrously exaggerated.
Fusion of race, no doubt, there has been; but in that fusion the
Hellenic element must have been the most vital and persistent; for if
the present population of Greece is of mixed descent, in its traditions
at least it is almost purely Hellenic.
§ 4. THE SURVIVAL OF PAGAN TRADITION.
It appears then that notwithstanding the immigration of Slavonic
hordes, and notwithstanding also, it may be added, the influences
exercised in later periods by ‘Franks,’ Genoese, Venetians, and Turks,
the traditions of the inhabitants of Greece still remain singularly
pure; and their claim to Hellenic nationality is justified by their
language, by their character, and by many secular aspects of their
civilisation. But in the domain of religion it might reasonably be
expected that a large change would have taken place. There is the
obstinate fact, it may be thought, that the Greeks are now and have
long been Christian. Did not the new religion dispossess and oust the
ancient polytheism? Are we to look for pagan customs in the hallowed
usages of the Greek Church? What can the simple Christian peasant of
to-day, subject from his youth up to ecclesiastical influence, know of
the religion of his distant ancestors,--of those fundamental beliefs
which guided their conduct towards gods and men in this life, and
inspired their care for the dead?
On the conduct of man towards his fellow-men in this life the influence
of Christianity appears to have been as great as that of paganism was
small. Duty towards one’s neighbour hardly came within the purview
of Hellenic religion. If we look at the supreme acts of worship in
ancient times, we cannot fail to be struck by the disunion of the
religious and the ethical. A certain purity was no doubt required of
those who attended the mysteries of Eleusis; but by that purity was
meant physical cleanliness and, strangely enough, a pure use of the
Greek language, just as much as any moral temperance or rectitude; and
the required condition was largely attained by the use or avoidance
of certain foods and by bathing in the sea. Their cleanliness in fact
was of the same confused kind, half physical and half moral, as that
which the inhabitants of Tenos were formerly wont, and perhaps still
continue, to seek on S. John the Baptist’s day (June 24) by leaping
thrice through a bonfire and crying ‘Here I leave my sins and my
fleas[55]’: and it was acquired by means equally material. There is
nothing conspicuously ethical in such a purity as this.
If moreover, as has been well argued[56], a state of ecstasy was
the highest manifestation of religious feeling, and this spiritual
exaltation was the deliberate aim and end of Bacchic and other orgies,
it must be frankly avowed that religion in its highest manifestations
was not conducive to what we call morality. The means of inducing
the ecstatic condition comprised drunkenness, inhalation of vapours,
wild and licentious dancing. With physical surexcitation came, or
was intended to come, a spiritual elevation such that the mind could
visualise the object of its desire[57] and worship, and enjoy a sense
of unity therewith. On the savagery and debauchery which accompanied
these religious celebrations there is no need to enlarge. The _Bacchae_
of Euripides, with all its passion for the beauty of holiness, is a
standing monument to the excesses of frenzy: and that these were no
mere figment of the poet’s imagination nor a transfiguration of rites
long obsolete, is proved by a single sentence of a sober enough writer
of later times, ‘The things that take place at nocturnal celebrations,
however licentious they may be, although known to the company at large,
are to some extent condoned by them owing to the drunkenness[58].’
There were of course certain sects, such as the Orphic, who, in
strong contrast with the ordinary religion, upheld definite ethical
standards, preaching the necessity of purification from sin, and
advocating moral and even ascetic rules of life. Yet, in spite of
this, we find a certain amalgamation of Orphic and Bacchic mysteries.
And why? Simply because both sects alike had a single end in view, a
spiritual exaltation in which the soul might transcend the things of
ordinary life, and see and commune with its gods. What did it matter
if the means to that end differed? The one sect might reduce the
passions of the body by rigid abstinence; the other might deaden them
with a surfeit of their desire; but, whether by prostration or by
surexcitation, the same religious end was sought and gained, and that
end justified means which we count immoral.
In effect the morality of a man’s life counted for nothing as compared
with his religion. Participation in the mysteries ensured blessings
here and hereafter which an evil life would not forfeit nor a good
life, without initiation, earn. ‘Thrice blessed they of men, who look
upon these rites ere they go to Hades’ home: for them alone is there
true life there, and for the others nought but evil[59].’ It was this
that made Diogenes scoffingly ask, ‘What, shall the thief Pataecion
have a better lot than Epaminondas after death, because he has been
initiated[60]?’ Seemingly religion and morality were to the Greek mind
divorced, or rather had never been wedded. Religion was concerned only
with the intercourse of man and god: the moral character of the man
himself and his relations with his fellows were outside the religious
sphere.
Indeed it would have been hard for the ancients to regard morality as
a religious obligation, when immorality was freely imputed to their
gods. This was a real obstacle to the ethical improvement of the people
at large, and was recognised as such by many thinkers. Pindar strove to
expurgate mythological stories which brought discredit on the morals
of Olympus. Plato would have banished the evil records of Homeric
theology from his ideal state, and ridicules Musaeus for forming no
more lofty conception of future bliss than ‘eternal drunkenness.’
Epicurus defended his own attitude towards the gods on the plea that
there was ‘no impiety in doing away with the popular gods, but rather
in attaching to the gods the popular ideas of them[61].’ In effect, in
order to reconcile religion with the teaching of ethics, the would-be
preacher of morality had either openly to discard a large amount of the
popular theology or else to have recourse to adaptation and mystical
interpretation of so artificial and arbitrary a kind that it could gain
no hold upon the simple and spontaneous beliefs of the common-folk.
Yet even among the ordinary men of those days there must have been
some who, though they did not aspire to instruct their fellow-men,
yet in hours of sober reason and cool judgement cannot have viewed
unabashed the inconsistencies of a religion whose gods were stained
with human vices. But such thoughts, we may suppose, were swept away,
as men approached their sanctuaries and their mysteries, by a flood of
religious fervour. Passion in such moments defeated reason. Emotion,
susceptibility, imagination, impetuosity, powers of visualisation
regarded among western nations as the perquisite of the inebriate,
powers of ecstasy not easily distinguished from hysteria,--such were
the mental conditions essential to the highest acts of worship; by
these, and not by sober meditation, the soul attained to the closest
communing and fullest union with that god whose glory for the nonce
outshone all pale remembrance of mere moral rectitude and alone was
able to evoke every supreme emotion of his worshipper.
If then morality was ever to be imposed and sanctioned by religion,
a wholly new religion had to be found. This was the opportunity of
Christianity. Paganism, in some of its most sacred rites, had availed
itself even of immoral means to secure a religious end: Christianity
gave to ethics a new and higher status, and was rather in danger of
making religion wholly subservient to morality. That it was difficult
to bring the first converts to the new point of view, is evident from
the rebukes administered by S. Paul to the Corinthians, who seem not
only to have indulged in many gross forms of vice in everyday life, but
even to have made the most sacred of Christian services an occasion for
gluttony and drunkenness[62].
In all then that concerns the ethical standards of the people, our
study of modern Greece will contribute little to the understanding of
ancient thought or conduct. Christianity has fenced men about with a
rigid moral code, and has exerted itself to punish those who break
bounds. Duty towards man is now recognised as the complement of duty
towards God; and any one who by a notoriously evil life has outraged
the moral laws of conduct, is liable to be deprived by excommunication
of the established means of worship. The frailties of the Greek
character remain indeed such as they always were: but now religion at
least enjoins, if it cannot always enforce, the observance of a moral
code which includes the eighth commandment, and Pataecion, though he go
regularly to church, yet lacks something.
But while the Church had an open field in matters of morality and had
no system of ethics based on Hellenic religion to combat in introducing
her higher views of man’s duty towards his fellow-men, in the province
of pure religion and of all that concerns the relations of man with his
God or gods she necessarily encountered competition and opposition.
Primarily the contest between paganism and Christianity might have
been expected to resolve itself into a struggle between polytheism
and monotheism: but as a matter of fact that simple issue became
considerably complicated.
The minds of the educated classes had become confused by the
subtleties of the Gnostics, who sought to find, in some philosophical
basis common to all religions, an intellectual justification for
accepting Christianity without wholly discarding earlier religious
convictions. This however was a matter of theology rather than of
religion, appealing not to the heart but to the head: and so far as the
common-folk were concerned we may safely say that such speculations
were above their heads.
Yet for them too the issue was confused in two ways. The first
disturbing factor was the attitude adopted by each of the two parties,
pagan and Christian, towards the object of the other’s worship. The
pagans--so catholic are the sympathies of polytheism--were ready enough
to welcome Christ into the number of their gods. Tertullian tells
us that the emperor Tiberius proposed the apotheosis of Christ[63].
Hadrian is said to have built temples in his honour[64]. Alexander
Severus had in his private chapel statues of Christ, Abraham, and
Orpheus[65]; and a similar association of Homer, Pythagoras, Christ,
and S. Paul is noted by S. Augustine[66]. Since then there is no
reason for supposing that the common-folk were more exclusive in
their religious sympathies than the upper classes, it may safely be
inferred that the average Pagan was willing to admit Christ to a place
among the gods of Greece. The Christians on the other hand did not
attack paganism by an utter denial of the existence of the old gods.
They sought rather to ridicule and discredit them by pointing out
the inconsistencies of pagan theology, and by ransacking mythology
for every tale of the vices and misdoings of its deities. They even
appealed to the testimony of Homer himself to show that the so-called
gods (θεοί) of the Greek folk were mere demons (δαίμονες)[67],--for
since Homer’s day the latter word had lost caste. Such methods, had
they been wholly successful, might have produced similar results to
those which followed the conflict of two religions in the early ages of
Greece. As the Titanic dynasty of gods had fallen before the Olympian
Zeus, and in their defeat had come to be accounted cruel and malicious
powers rightly ousted from heaven by a more just and gracious deity,
so too in turn might the whole number of the pagan gods have been
reduced to the status of devils to act as a foil to the goodness of
the Christian God. But this did not happen. One reason perhaps was
that Christianity came provided with its own devil or devils, and the
pagans were naturally averse from placing the gods whom they had been
wont to venerate in the same category with spirits so uncompromisingly
evil. The main reason however must be found in the fact that the Church
had nothing to offer to the pagans in exchange for the countless
gods of the old religion whom she was endeavouring to displace and
to degrade. Indeed the real difficulty of the Christian Church was
the tolerant spirit of the Greek people. They would not acknowledge
that any feud existed. They were ready to worship the Christian God:
but they must have felt that it was unreasonable of the Christian
missionaries to ask them to give up all their old gods merely because
a new god had been introduced. Even if their gods were all that the
Christians represented them to be--cruel, licentious, unjust--that was
no reason for neglecting them; rather it furnished a stronger motive
for propitiating them and averting their wrath by prayer and sacrifice.
Tolerant themselves, they must have resented a little the intolerance
of the new religion.
Such being the attitude of the two parties, it may be doubted whether
the Church would have made much headway in Greece, had it not been for
a fresh development in her own conditions. And this development was the
second disturbing factor in what should have been the simple struggle
between monotheism and polytheism. Christianity, as understood by the
masses, became polytheistic on its own account.
It is true that the authorities of the Greek Church have always taught
that the angels and saints are not to be worshipped in the same sense
as God. Ecclesiastical doctrine concedes to them no power to grant the
petitions of men at their own will: they can act as intermediaries
only between man and the Almighty; yet while they cannot in their
own might fulfil the requests which they hear, their intervention as
messengers to the throne of God is deemed to enhance the value of man’s
prayers and wellnigh to ensure their acceptance. But such a doctrine
is naturally too subtle for the uninstructed common-folk: and just as
Christ had been admitted to the ranks of the Greek gods, so were the
saints, it would seem, accepted as lesser deities or perhaps heroes.
Whatever their precise status may have been, they at any rate became
objects of worship; and a religion which admits many objects of worship
becomes necessarily a form of polytheism.
Now while the Church did not sanction this state of things by her
doctrine, there can be no doubt that she condoned it by the use to
which she put it. The attempt to crush paganism had so far failed, and
there was no longer any thought of a combat _à outrance_ between the
two religions. Violence was to give way to diplomacy; and the chief
instrument of the Church’s diplomacy was the worship of the saints. It
became her hope to supplant paganism by substituting for the old gods
Christian saints of similar names and functions; and the effects of
this policy are everywhere in evidence in modern Greece.
Thus Dionysus was displaced by S. Dionysius, as a story still current
in Greece testifies. ‘Once upon a time S. Dionysius was on his way to
Naxos: and as he went he espied a small plant which excited his wonder.
He dug it up, and because the sun was hot sought wherewith to shelter
it. As he looked about, he saw the bone of a bird’s leg, and in this
he put the plant to keep it safe. To his surprise the plant began to
grow, and he sought again a larger covering for it. This time he found
the leg-bone of a lion, and as he could not detach the plant from the
bird’s leg, he put both together in that of the lion. Yet again it
grew and this time he found the leg-bone of an ass and put plant and
all into that. And so he came to Naxos. And when he came to plant the
vine--for the plant was in fact the first vine--he could not sever it
from the bones that sheltered it, but planted them all together. Then
the vine grew and bore grapes and men made wine and drank thereof. And
first when they drank they sang like birds, and when they drank more
they grew strong as lions, and afterwards foolish as asses[68].’
The disguise of the ancient god is thin indeed. His name is changed by
an iota, but his character not a jot. S. Dionysius is god of the vine,
and even retains his predecessor’s connexion with Naxos. It is perhaps
noteworthy too that in Athens the road which skirts the south side of
the Acropolis and the theatre of Dionysus is now called the street of
S. Dionysius the Areopagite. I was once corrected by a Greek of average
education for speaking of the theatre of Dionysus instead of ascribing
it to his saintly namesake.
Demeter again, although as we shall see later she still survives as
a distinct personality, has been for the most part dispossessed by S.
Demetrius. His festival, which falls in October and is therefore remote
from harvest-time, is none the less celebrated with special enthusiasm
among the agricultural classes; marriages too are especially frequent
on that day[69].
Similarly Artemis, though she too is still known to the common-folk in
some districts, has in the main handed over her functions to a saint of
the other sex, Artemidos. Theodore Bent has recorded a good instance of
this from the island of Keos (modern Zea). There is a belief throughout
Greece that weakly children who show signs of wasting have been ‘struck
by the Nereids,’--by nymphs, that is, of any kind, whether terrestrial
or marine. ‘In Keos,’ says Bent, ‘S. Artemidos is the patron of these
weaklings, and the church dedicated to him is some little way from the
town on the hill-slopes; thither a mother will take a child afflicted
by any mysterious wasting, “struck by the Nereids,” as they say. She
then strips off its clothes and puts on new ones, blessed by the
priest, leaving the old ones as a perquisite to the Church; and then
if perchance the child grows strong, she will thank S. Artemidos for
the blessing he has vouchsafed, unconscious that by so doing she is
perpetuating the archaic worship of Artemis, to whom in classical times
were attached the epithets παιδοτρόφος, κουροτρόφος, φιλομείραξ; and
now the Ionian idea of the fructifying and nourishing properties of the
Ephesian Artemis has been transferred to her Christian namesake[70].’
It might have been added that in this custom are reflected not only
those general attributes of the tendance of children which Artemis
shared with many other deities, but possibly also her power to undo any
mischief wrought by her handmaidens, the nymphs[71].
Again there is every reason to suppose that S. Elias[72] whose chapels
crown countless hilltops is merely the Christian successor to Helios,
the Sun. The two names, which have only a moderate resemblance in the
nominative, coincide for modern pronunciation in the genitive; and the
frequency with which that case was needed in speaking of the church or
the mountain-peak dedicated to one or the other may have facilitated
the transition. Besides inheriting the mountain sanctuaries at which
the worship of the Sun may have persisted from a very early age, S.
Elias has also taken over the chariot of his predecessor, and thunder
is sometimes attributed to the rolling of its wheels.
In other cases, without any resemblance of names, identity of
attributes or functions suggested the substitution of saint for pagan
deity. Hermes who in old times was the chief ‘angel’ or messenger
of the immortals (ἄγγελος ἀθανάτων) was naturally succeeded by the
archangel Michael, upon whom therefore devolves the duty of escorting
men’s souls to Hades; and to this day the men of Maina tell how the
archangel, with drawn sword in his hand instead of the wand of his
prototype, may be seen passing to and fro at the mouth of the caves of
Taenarus through which Heracles made his ascent with Cerberus from the
lower world, and which is still the best-known descent thereto. The
supplanting of Hermes by Michael is well illustrated in the sphere of
art also by a curious gem. The design is an ordinary type of Hermes
with his traditional cap, and at his side a cock, the symbol of
vigilance and of gymnastic sport; by a later hand has been engraved
the name ‘Michael’; the cock remained to be interpreted doubtless as
the Christian symbol of the awakening at the last day of them that
sleep[73].
The conversion of pagan temples or of their sites to the purposes of
Christianity tells the same tale. The virgin goddess of Athens ceded
the Parthenon to the Blessed Virgin of the Christians. The so-called
Theseum, whether Theseus or Heracles was its original occupant, was
fitly made over to the warrior S. George: but none the less what seems
to have been an old pagan festival, known as the ρουσάλια (Latin
_rosalia_)[74], continues to this day to be celebrated with dancing and
feasting in its precincts. The Church of the Annunciation at Tenos, so
famous throughout the Greek world for its miracles of healing, stands
on the foundations of Poseidon’s ancient sanctuary, and includes in
its precincts a holy spring (ἅγι̯ασμα) whose healing virtues, we can
hardly doubt, were first discovered by the pagans: for Poseidon was
worshipped in Tenos under the title of the ‘healer’ (ἰατρός)[75].
Indeed throughout the length and breadth of the land the traveller
will find churches built with the material of the old temples or
superimposed upon their foundation, and cannot fail to detect therein
evidence of a deliberate policy on the part of the Church.
But in her attempts to be conciliatory she became in fact compromised.
It was politic no doubt to encourage the weaker brethren by building
churches on sites where they had long been wont to worship: it was
politic to smooth the path of the common-folk by substituting for the
god whom they had worshipped a patron-saint of like name or attributes.
But in so doing the Church practically condoned polytheism. She drove
out the old gods from their temples made with hands, but did not ensure
the obliteration of them from men’s hearts. The saints whom she set
up in the place of the old deities were certain to acquire the rank
of gods in the estimation of the people and, despite the niceties of
ecclesiastical doctrine, to become in fact objects of frank and open
worship. The adoption of the old places of worship made it inevitable
that the old associations of the pagan cults should survive and blend
themselves with the new ideas, and that the churches should more often
acquire prestige from their heathen sites than themselves shed a new
lustre of sanctity upon them. In effect, paganism was not uprooted to
make room for the planting of Christianity, but served rather as an
old stock on which a new and vigorous branch, capable indeed of fairer
fruit but owing its very vitality to alien sap, might be engrafted.
Bitterly and despondently did the early Fathers of the Church, and
above all S. John Chrysostom, complain of the inveteracy of pagan
customs within the pale of the Church, while a kind of official
recognition was given to many superstitions which were clearly outside
that pale, if only by the many forms of exorcism directed against
the evil eye or prescribed for the cure of those possessed by pagan
powers of evil[76]. For illustration we need not fall back upon the
past history of the Greek Church; even to-day she has not succeeded in
living down the consequences of her whilom policy of conciliation.
The common-folk indeed profess and call themselves Christian; their
priesthood is a Christian priesthood; their places of worship are
Christian churches; they make the sign of the cross at every turn;
and the names of God and Christ and the Virgin are their commonest
ejaculations. But with all this external Christianity they are as pagan
and as polytheistic in their hearts as were ever their ancestors.
By their acceptance of Christianity they have increased rather than
diminished their number of gods: in their conception of them and
attitude towards them they have made little advance since the Homeric
Age: and practically all the religious customs most characteristic of
ancient paganism, such as sacrifice, the taking of auspices, and the
consultation of oracles, continue with or without the sanction of the
Church down to the present day.
These are strong statements to make concerning even the humblest and
most ignorant members of the Holy Orthodox Church: but I shall show, I
think, that they do not exceed the warranty of facts.
First of all then the peasant believes himself to be ever compassed
about by a host of supernatural beings, who have no relation with his
Christian faith, and some of whom he unconsciously acknowledges, by the
very names that he applies to them, as ‘pagan’ beings and ‘outside’ the
Christian fold[77]. To all of these--and they are a motley crew, gods
and demons, fairies and dragons--he assigns severally and distinctly
their looks, their dispositions, their habitations, and their works. To
some of them he prays and makes offerings; against others he arms and
fortifies himself in the season of their maleficence; but all of them,
whether for good or ill, are to him real existent beings; no phantoms
conjured up by trepidation of mind, but persons whose substance is
proved by sight and hearing and touch.
Nothing is more amazing in the peasantry of modern Greece than their
familiarity with these various beings. More than once I have overheard
two peasants comparing notes on the ghostly fauna of their respective
districts; and the intimate and detailed character of their knowledge
was a revelation in regard to their powers of visualisation. It is the
mountaineers and the mariners who excel in this; but even the duller
folk of the lowlands see much that is hidden from foreign eyes. Once
however I did see a nymph--or what my guide took for one--moving
about in an olive-grove near Sparta; and I must confess that had I
possessed an initial faith in the existence of nymphs and in the
danger of looking upon them, so lifelike was the apparition that I
might have sworn as firmly as did my guide that it was a nymph that we
had seen, and might have required as strong a dose as he at the next
inn to restore my nerves. The initial faith in such things, which the
child acquires from its mother, is no doubt an important factor in the
visualisation; but it is certainly strange that often in Greece not
one man only but several together will see an apparition at the same
moment, and even agree afterwards as to what they saw.
These beings then are not the mere fanciful figures of old wives’
fables, but have a real hold upon the peasant’s belief and a firm place
in his religion. To the objects of Christian worship or veneration--God
and Christ and the Virgin together with the archangels and all the host
of saints--have been accorded the highest places and chiefest honours:
but beside them, or rather below them, yet feared and honoured too,
stand many of the divine personalities of the old faith, recognised and
distinguished still. Artemis, Demeter, and Charon, as well as Nymphs
and Gorgons, Lamiae and Centaurs, have to be reckoned with in the
conduct of life; while in folk-stories the memory at least of other
deities still survives. To these remnants of ancient mythology the
next chapter will be devoted; the purely pagan element in the modern
polytheism may be sufficiently illustrated here by a few curious cases
of the use even of the word ‘god’ (θεός) in reference to other than the
God of Christendom.
In Athens, down to recent times, there was a fine old formula of
blessing in vogue--and who shall say but that among the simpler people
it may still be heard?--which combined impartially the one God and the
many:--νὰ ς’ ἀξιῶσῃ ὁ Θεὸς νὰ εὐχαριστήσῃς θεοὺς καὶ ἀνθρώπους[78],
‘God fit thee to find favour with gods and men!’ In the island of
Syra, according to Bent[79], it was ‘a common belief amongst the
peasants that the ghosts of the ancient Greeks come once a year from
all parts of Greece to worship at Delos, ... and even to-day they
will reverently speak of the “god in Delos.”’ Another writer mentions
a similar expression as used in several parts of the mainland, though
only it would seem as an ejaculation, θεὲ τῆς Κρήτης or γιὰ τὸ θεὸ
τῆς Κρήτης ‘by the god of Crete[80]!’ In the island of Santorini (the
ancient Thera) I personally encountered a still more striking case
of out-spoken polytheism. I chanced one day upon a very old woman
squatting on the extreme edge of the cliff above the great flooded
crater which, though too deep for anchorage, serves the main town of
the island as harbour--a place more fascinating in its hideousness than
any I have seen. Wondering at her dangerous position, I asked her what
she was doing; and she replied simply enough that she was making rain.
It was two years since any had fallen, and as she had the reputation
of being a witch of unusual powers and had procured rain in previous
droughts, she had been approached by several of the islanders who were
anxious for their vineyards. Moreover she had been prepaid for her
work--a fact which spoke most eloquently for the general belief in
her; for the Greek is slow enough (as doubtless she knew) to pay for
what he has got, and never prepays what he is not sure of getting.
True, her profession had its risks, she said; for on one occasion, the
only time that her spells had failed, some of her disappointed clients
whose money she had not returned tried to burn her house over her one
night while she slept. But business was business. Did I want some rain
too? To ensure her good will and further conversation, I invested a
trifle, and tried to catch the mumbled incantations which followed
on my behalf. Of these however beyond a frequent invocation of the
Virgin (Παναγία μου) and a few words about water and rain I could catch
nothing; but I must acknowledge that her charms were effectual, for
before we parted the thunder was already rolling in the distance, and
the rain which I had bought spoilt largely the rest of my stay in the
island. The incantations being finished, she became more confidential.
She would not of course let a stranger know the exact formula which she
employed; that would mar its efficacy: she vouchsafed to me however
with all humility the information that it was not by her own virtue
that she caused the rain, but through knowing ‘the god above and
the god below’ (τὸν ἄνω θεὸ καὶ τὸν κάτω θεό). The latter indeed had
long since given up watering the land; he had caused shakings of the
earth and turned even the sea-water red. The god above also had once
rained ashes when she asked for water, but generally he gave her rain,
sometimes even in summer-time. One thing she could not make out--who
was the god that caused the thunder; did I know? I evaded the question,
and our theological discussion went no further, for the god of thunder
was making his voice heard more threateningly, and the old witch would
not stay to make his acquaintance at closer quarters.
The physical interpretation of these references to the god above and
the god below is not difficult. At the present day there are said to
be three springs, and three only, in the whole island; nor are they of
much use to the inhabitants; indeed the only one which I saw was dry
save for a scanty moisture barely sufficient to keep the rock about
it green and mossy: and in fact the population depends entirely upon
rain-water stored up in large underground cisterns or reservoirs.
Clearly the god below no longer gives water; but that there may have
been more spring-water prior to the great eruptions of 1866 is very
probable; for the people still call certain dry old torrent-beds by
which the island is intersected ‘rivers’ (ποταμοί), and real rivers
with water in them figure also in several of the local folk-stories.
The perversity of the god above in sending ashes on one occasion
instead of rain may also be understood in reference to the same
eruptions, of which the old woman gave me a vivid description.
But the theology itself is more interesting than its material basis.
This witch--a good Christian, they told me, but a little mad, with a
madness however of which sane vine-growers were eager enough to avail
themselves--acknowledged certainly three gods: the unknown thunder-god
was clearly distinct from the god of the rain who was known to her: and
there was also the god of the waters under the earth, in whose service
she had perhaps followed the calling of a water-finder, and to whom she
ascribed, as did the ancients to Poseidon, the shaking of the earth.
Polytheism then even in its purely pagan form is not yet extinct in
Greece. In the disguise of Christianity, we shall see, it is everywhere
triumphant.
Among the Christian objects of worship--for I have already explained
that by the common-folk the saints are worshipped as deities--the
Trinity and the Virgin occupy the highest places, rivalled perhaps
here and there by some local saint of great repute for miracles, but
nowhere surpassed. It is the Virgin indeed who, in Pashley’s opinion,
‘is throughout Greece the chief object of the Christian peasant’s
worship[81]’; and certainly, I think, more numerous and more various
petitions are addressed to her than to any person of the Trinity or
to any saint. But the Trinity, or at any rate God (ὁ Θεός) and Christ
(ὁ Χριστός), as the peasants say,--for the Holy Ghost is hardly a
personality to them and is rarely named except in doxologies and formal
invocations--are of almost equal importance, and are so closely allied
with the Virgin that it is difficult to draw distinctions.
But while the Church has thus secured the first place for her most
venerated figures, the influence of pagan feeling is clearly seen in
the popular conception of this ‘God.’ His position is just such as
that of Zeus in the old _régime_. He is little more than the unnamed
ruler among many other divinities. His sway is indeed supreme and he
exercises a general control; but his functions are in a certain sense
limited none the less, and his special province is the weather only.
Ζεὺς ὕει, said the ancients, and the moderns re-echo their thought in
words of the same import, βρέχει ὁ Θεός, ‘God is raining,’ or ὁ Θεὸς
ῥίχνει νερό, ‘God is throwing water[82].’ So too the coming and going
of the daylight is described as an act of God; ἔφεξε, or ἐβράδει̯ασε,
ὁ Θεός, say the peasants, ‘God has dawned’ or ‘has darkened.’ When it
hails, it is God who ‘is plying his sieve,’ ῥεμμονίζει[83] ὁ Θεός.
When it thunders, ‘God is shoeing his horse,’ καλιγώνει τ’ ἄλογό του,
or, according to another version[84], ‘the hoofs of God’s horse are
ringing,’ βροντοῦν τὰ πέταλα ἀπὸ τ’ ἄλογο τοῦ Θεοῦ. Or again the roll
of the thunder sometimes suggests quite another idea; ‘God is rolling
his wine-casks,’ ὁ Θεὸς κυλάει τ’ ἀσκιά του[85], or τὰ πιθάρι̯α του.
And once again, because a Greek wedding cannot be celebrated without a
large expenditure of gunpowder, the booming of the thunder suggests to
some that ‘God is marrying his son’ or ‘God is marrying his daughters,’
ὁ Θεὸς παντρεύει τὸν ὑγιό του[86], or ταὶς θυγατέραις του[87].
Such expressions as these[88] are in daily use among the Greek
peasantry: and nothing could reveal more frankly the purely pagan
and anthropomorphic conception of God which everywhere prevails. The
God of Christendom is indistinguishable from the Zeus of Homer. A
line from a Cretan distich, in which God is described as ἐκεῖνος ἀποῦ
συννεφιᾷ κι’ ἀποβροντᾷ καὶ βρέχει[89], ‘He that gathereth the clouds
and thundereth and raineth,’ exhibits a popular conception of the chief
deity unchanged since Zeus first received the epithets νεφεληγερέτης
and ὑψιβρεμέτης, ‘cloud-gatherer,’ ‘thunderer on high.’
But even in the province of the weather God has not undivided control.
The winds are often regarded as persons acting at their own will; and
of the north wind in particular men speak with respect as Sir Boreas
(ὁ κὺρ Βορε̯άς), for as in Pindar’s time he is still ‘king of the
winds[90].’ So too the whirlwind is the passing of the Nereids, and the
water-spout marks the path of the Lamia of the sea. Even the thunder
is not always the work of God, but some say that the prophet Elias is
‘driving his chariot,’ or ‘pursuing the dragon.’ The more striking and
irregular phenomena in short are governed by the caprice of lesser
deities--Christian saints or pagan powers--while God directs the more
orderly march of nature.
When however we turn from the external world to the life of man, we
find the functions of the supreme God even more closely circumscribed
or--to put it in another way--more generally delegated to others. The
daily course of human life with all its pursuits and passions is under
the joint control of the saints and some of the old Hellenic deities.
Of the latter, as I have said, another chapter must treat: but it
should be remembered that the peasant does not draw a hard and fast
line of distinction between the two classes with whom for clearness’
sake I am bound to deal separately. Thus Charon in many of the
folk-songs which celebrate his doings is made to represent himself as a
messenger of God, charged with the duty of carrying off some man’s soul
and unable to grant a respite[91]. He is occasionally addressed even
as Saint Charon[92]; and his name constantly occurs in the epitaphs of
country churchyards. A story too in Bernhard Schmidt’s collection[93]
illustrates well the way in which pagan and Christian elements are thus
interwoven:--
‘There was once an old man who had been good his whole life through. In
his old age therefore he had the fortune to see his good angel (ὁ καλὸς
ἄγγελός του); who said to him--for he loved him well--“I will tell thee
how thou mayest be fortunate. In such and such a hill is a cave; go
thou in there and ever onward till thou comest to a great castle. Knock
at the gate, and when it is opened to thee thou wilt see a tall woman
before thee, who will straightway welcome thee and ask thee of thine
age and business and estate. Answer only that thou art sent by me: then
will she know the rest.” Even so did the old man: and the woman within
the earth gave unto him a tablecloth and bade him but spread it out and
say “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,”
and lo! everything that he wished would be found thereon. And thus it
came to pass.
‘Now when the old man had oft made use of it, it came into his heart to
bid the king unto his house: who, when he saw the wonder-working cloth,
took it from the old man. But because he was no virtuous man, the cloth
did not its task in his hands; wherefore he threw it out of the window
and straightway it turned to dust. So the old man went again to the
woman in the hill, and she gave him this time a hen that laid a golden
egg every day. When the king heard thereof, he had the hen too taken
away from the old man. Howbeit in his keeping she laid not, and so he
threw the hen also out of window, and she likewise turned to dust. So
in his anger he bade seize the old man forthwith and cut off his head.
‘But scarce was this done when there appeared before the king the
Mistress of the Earth and of the Sea--for she was the woman in the
hill--and when she had told him in brief words what awaited him after
this life in requital for his wickedness, she stamped with her foot
upon the ground, which swallowed up the castle with the king and all
that was therein. But the old man that was slain had entered into
Paradise.’
In this story the Mistress of the Earth and of the Sea (ἡ κυρὰ τσῆ
γῆς καὶ τσῆ θαλάσσης) is, as we shall see later[94], none other than
Demeter: but pagan as she is, she works in accord with the good angel
(who is evidently her inferior), and orders the old man to invoke the
Trinity.
Thus the peasant does not conceive of any antagonism between his pagan
and his Christian objects of worship; and both classes are equally
deserving of study by those interested in ancient Greek religion.
For while every minutest trait or detail of the modern peasant’s
conception of those ancient deities, who, though despoiled of temples
and organised worship, still survive, may throw some new ray of light
on the divine personalities and the myths of old time, yet a more
broad and comprehensive view of the outlines of ancient religion may
be obtained by contemplating the worship of Christian saints who,
though deficient often in personal significance, nevertheless by their
possession of dedicated shrines and of all the apparatus of a formal
cult occupy more exactly the position of the old gods and heroes.
The saints then, as I have remarked above, have a large share in the
control of man’s daily life. The whole religious sense of the people
seems to demand a delegation of the powers of one supreme God to many
lesser deities, who, for the very reason perhaps that they are lower
in the scale of godhead, are more accessible to man. Under the name of
saints lies, hardly concealed, the notion of gods. In mere nomenclature
Christianity has had its way; but none of the old tendencies of
paganism have been checked. The current of worship has been turned
towards many new personalities; but the essence of that worship is the
same. The Church would have its saints be merely mediators with the one
God; but popular feeling has made of them many gods; their locality and
scope of action are defined in exactly the old way; vows are made to
the patron-saint of such and such a place; invocations are addressed
to him in virtue of a designated power or function.
Local titles are often derived merely from the town or district in
which the church stands, as Our Lady of Tenos, or S. Gerasimos of
Cephalonia. In other cases they have reference to the surroundings
of the sanctuary. The chapel of the Virgin in the monastery of
Megaspelaeon consists of a large cave at the foot of some towering
cliffs, and the dedication is to our Lady of the Golden Cave (Παναγία
χρυσοσπηλαιώτισσα). In this case the word ‘golden’ is an imaginative
addition, for the interior is peculiarly dark: but the dedication has
been borrowed, owing to the repute of the original shrine, by churches
which have not even a cave to show. In Amorgos S. George has the title
of Balsamites, derived from the balsam which covers the hill-side on
which stands his church. In Paros several curious dedications are
mentioned by Bent, which he renders as Our Lady of the Lake, Our Lady
of the Unwholesome Place, and S. George of the Gooseberry[95]. In
Athens there is a church of which the present dedication is said to be
due to a fire which blackened the _icon_ of the Virgin, who is known
on this account as Our smoke-blackened Lady (Παναγία καπνικαρέα), or,
it may be, Our Lady of the smoky head, according as the second half of
the compound is connected with the Turkish word for ‘black’ or the now
obsolete Greek word κάρα, ‘head[96].’
Titles denoting functions are equally numerous and quaint. In Rhodes
the Archangel Michael is invoked as πατητηριώτης, patron of the
wine-press[97]. S. Nicolas, who has supplanted Poseidon, often assumes
the simple title of ‘sailor’ (ναύτης). S. John the Hunter (κυνηγός)
owns a monastery on Mt Hymettus. In Cimolus there is a church of Our
Guiding Lady (Παναγία ὁδηγήτρια)[98]. SS. Costas and Damien, the
physicians, are known as the Moneyless (ἀνάργυροι), because their
services are given gratis. S. George at Argostóli has been dubbed the
Drunkard (μεθυστής)[99]--thus furnishing a notable parallel to the
hero celebrated in old time at Munychia as ἀκρατοπότης[100]--because
on his day, Nov. 3rd, the new wine is commonly tapped and there is much
drinking in his honour.
In other cases the actual name of the saint has determined his powers
or character without further epithet. S. Therapon is invoked for all
kinds of healing (θεραπεύειν): S. Eleutherios (with an echo possibly
of Eilythuia) to give deliverance (ἐλευθερία) to women in childbirth:
S. James, in Melos, owing to a phonetic corruption of Ἰάκωβος into
Ἄκουφος, to cure deafness[101]. S. Elias, the successor of the sun-god
(ἥλιος), has power over drought and rain. S. Andrew (Ἀνδρέας) is
implored to make weakly children ‘strong’ (ἀνδρειωμένος). S. Maura, in
Athens, requires that no sewing be done on her day under pain of warts
(locally known as μαύραις), which if incurred can only be cured by an
application of oil from her lamp[102]. S. Tryphon resents any twisting
(στρήφω) of thread, as in spinning, on his day; and on the festival of
S. Symeon expectant mothers must touch no utensil of daily toil, above
all nothing black; for S. Symeon ‘makes marks’ (ὁ Ἄϊ Συμεὼν σημειόνει),
and a birth-mark would inevitably appear on the child. If however a
woman offend unwittingly, she must lay her hands at once on that part
of the body where the birth-mark will be least disfiguring to the child.
These are only a small selection of the saints whom the peasant seeks
to propitiate, and it may be noted in passing that among them there
are some characters, as among the ancient deities, either immoral as
S. George the Drunkard, or unamiable as S. Maura, S. Tryphon, and S.
Symeon. But a better idea of the multitude of the popular deities may
perhaps be conveyed by giving a list of those worshipped in a single
island with the functions there ascribed to them. Here is the catalogue
given by a native of Cythnos[103]. The Virgin (Παναγία) is invoked on
any and every occasion, and the SS. Anargyri (Costas and Damien) in
all cases of illness. S. Panteleëmon is a specialist in eye-diseases,
S. Eleutherios in obstetrics, S. Modestes in veterinary work, S.
Vlasios in ulcers etc. S. Charalampes and S. Varvara (Βαρβάρα) deliver
from pestilences, and S. Elias from drought. The power of protecting
children from ailments is ascribed to S. Stylianos, and that of saving
sailors from the perils of the sea to S. Nicolas, S. Sostes, and the
SS. Akindyni (ἀκίνδυνοι). S. Tryphon deals with noxious insects, S.
John the Baptist with ague, S. Menas with loss of goods, S. Paraskeve
(Friday) with headache: while S. Aekaterine (Catherine) and S.
Athanasios assist anxious mothers to marry off their daughters.
As in the multiplicity of the objects of worship, so too in the mental
attitude of the worshipper, there is little change since first were
written the words δῶρα θεοὺς πείθει, ‘Gifts win the gods.’ There are
certain great occasions, it is true, now as in old days, on which
religious feeling attains a higher level, and the mercenary expectation
of blessings is forgotten in whole-hearted adoration of the blesser.
But in general a spirit of bargaining tempers the peasant’s prayer, and
a return is required for services rendered. A sketch of the religious
sentiments of the Sphakiotes given by the head of a Cretan monastery
is worth reproducing, for it is typical of the whole Greek folk. ‘The
faith,’ he writes, ‘of these highlanders in Jesus Christ is sincere
in every way, reverent, deep-seated, and unshaken, but unfortunately
it is not free from superstitious fancies which mar this otherwise
great merit. Many of them are fully persuaded that God, Our Lady, and
the Saints go to and fro unseen above their heads, watch each man’s
actions, and take part in his quarrels, like the gods of Homer. They
are under an obligation to work constant miracles, to vindicate and
avenge, to listen readily to each man’s requests and petitions, whether
they be just or no. Many of the people go off cattle-lifting or on
other wrongful enterprises, and at the same time call upon Our Lady,
or any other saints of repute as wonder-workers, to assist them, and
as payment for success promise them gifts! To some of the Saints they
attribute greater power and grace than to the God who glorified them.
In the same way they show greater reverence for this or that church or
_icon_, and bring presents from great distances, in the belief that it
has miraculous powers, without understanding that Faith works miracles
equally in all places[104].’
Such is the verdict of an educated priest of the Greek Church who
deplores the polytheism and idolatry of the common-folk among whom
he lives, and who in so doing speaks with the authority of intimate
knowledge. Nor can the justice of the verdict be questioned by any one
who has entered one of the more highly reputed churches of Greece and
observed the votive offerings which adorn or disfigure it. For these
offerings are of two qualities just as the motives which inspire them
are twofold. There are the genuine thank-offerings, selected for their
beauty or worth, which commemorate gratefully some blessing received;
of such the treasury of the Church of the Annunciation in Tenos is
full--gold and silver plate, bibles and service-books in rich bindings
studded with jewels, embroideries of Oriental silk unmatched in skill
and splendour. But there is another class, the propitiatory offerings
designed to place the offerer in a special way under the protection of
the saint. Most characteristic among these are the shreds of infected
clothing sent by some sick person to the church of the particular saint
whose healing power he invokes. Just as in the province of magic the
possession of a strip of a man’s clothing gives to the witch a control
over his whole person, so in the religious sphere the dedication of
some disease-laden rag from the body of the sufferer places him under
the special care of the saint. In the church of ‘S. John of the Column’
at Athens the ancient pillar round which the edifice has been built is
always garnished with dirty rags affixed by a daub of candle-grease;
and if the saint cures those who send these samples of their fevers, he
must certainly kill some of those who visit his sanctuary in person.
To this class of offerings belong also the bulk of the silver-foil
trinkets which are so cheap that the poorest peasant can afford one
for his tribute, and so abundant that at Tenos out of this supply of
metal alone have been fashioned the massive silver candelabra which
light the whole church. These trinkets are models of any object which
the worshipper wishes to commend to the special attention of the saint.
At Tenos they most frequently represent parts of the human body,
for there the Virgin is above all a goddess of healing; but a vast
assortment of models of other objects committed to her care may also
be seen--horses and mules, agricultural implements, boats, sheaves
of corn to represent the harvest, bunches of grapes in emblem of the
vintage; there is no limit to the variety; anything for which a man
craves the saint’s blessing is thus symbolically confided to her
keeping. Doubtless among them there are a number of thank-offerings for
mercies already received; I remember in particular a realistic model
of a Greek coasting steamer with a list attached giving the names of
the captain and crew who dedicated it in gratitude for deliverance from
shipwreck. It may even be that some few of the models of eyes and limbs
are thank-offerings for cures effected, and in beauty or worth are all
that the peasant’s artistic sense desires or his purse affords. But the
majority of them, as I have said, are the gifts of those whose prayers
are not yet answered and who thus keep before the eyes of the saint the
maladies which crave her healing care.
Other offerings again may be dedicated with either motive. Candles
and incense are equally suited to win a favour or to repay one. But
whether the motive be propitiation or gratitude, the whole system is a
legacy of the pagan world and permeated with the spirit of paganism.
Everywhere the Christian disguise of the old religion is easily
penetrable; the Church for instance has forbidden the use of graven
images, and only in one or two places do statues or even reliefs
survive: but the painted _icons_ which are provided in their stead
satisfy equally well the common-folk’s instinct for idolatry.
Vows conditional upon the answering of some prayer usually conform
outwardly at least to Christian requirements. Scores of the small
chapels with which the whole country is dotted have been built in
payment of such a vow; and often a boy may be seen dressed in a
miniature priest’s costume, because in some illness his mother devoted
him to the service of God or of some saint for a number of years if
only he should recover. But the idea of bargaining by vows is more
pagan than Christian, and sometimes indeed an even clearer echo of
ancient thought is heard, as when a girl vows to the Virgin a silver
girdle if she will lay her in her lover’s arms[105].
Miracles again are expected of the higher powers in return for man’s
services to them; for as the proverb runs, ἅγιος ποῦ δὲν θαυματουργεῖ,
δὲν δοξάζεται, ‘it is a sorry saint who works no wonders.’ And wonders
are worked as the people expect--some in appearance, some in fact.
A sham miracle is annually worked by the priests of a church near Volo
in Thessaly. Within the walls, still easily traced, of the old town
of Demetrias on a spur of Mount Pelion stands an unfinished church
dedicated to the Virgin. Here on the Friday after Easter there is a
concourse from all Thessaly to see the miracle. At the east end of the
church, on the outside, a square tank has been sunk ten or twelve feet
below the level of the church floor, exposing, on the side formed by
the church wall, ancient foundations--perhaps of some temple where the
same miracle was worked two thousand years ago. The miracle consists in
the filling of this tank with water; but seeing that under the floor
of the church itself there are cisterns to which a shaft in each aisle
descends, and that the tank outside, sunk, as has been said, to a lower
level, undisguisedly derives its water from a hole in the foundations
of the church, there is less of the marvellous in the fact that the
priests by opening some sluice fill the tank than in the simple faith
with which the throng from all parts presses to obtain a cupful of the
miraculously fertilizing but withal muddy liquid. The women drink it,
the men carry it home to sprinkle a few drops on cornfield or vineyard.
Genuine miracles, at any rate of healing, seem to be well established.
After personal investigation and enquiry at the great festival of
Tenos I concluded that some faith-cures had actually occurred. Some
travellers[106] indeed have been inclined to scoff at these miracles
and to write them down mere fabrications of interested priests. But in
an official ‘Description of some of the miracles of the wonder-working
_icon_ of the Annunciation in Tenos’ the total number claimed down to
the year 1898 is only forty-four, that is to say not an average even
of one a year; and a large majority of the cases detailed--including
twelve cases of mental derangement, eleven of blindness, and ten of
paralysis, none of them congenital,--might I suppose come under the
category of nervous diseases for which a faith-cure is possible; while
several of the remainder, such as the case of a man who at first sight
of the _icon_ coughed up a fish bone which had stuck in his throat
for two years, do not pass the bounds of belief; and even if the
priests do sometimes set false or exaggerated rumours afloat, it must
be conceded that the peasant, who has faith enough to believe their
stories, has also faith enough, if faith-cures ever occur, to render
such a cure possible in his case. Indeed no one who has been to the
great centres of miraculous healing can fail to be impressed by the
unquailing faith of the pilgrims. Year by year they come in their
thousands, bringing the maimed and the halt and the blind, and, more
pitiful still, the hopelessly deformed, for whose healing a miracle
indeed were needed. Year by year these are laid to sleep in the church
or in its precincts on the eve of the festival. Year by year they are
carried where the shadow of the _icon_ as it passes in procession may
perchance fall on them. Year by year they are sprinkled with water from
the holy spring. And year by year most of them depart as they came,
maimed and halt and blind and horribly misshapen. Yet faith abides
undimmed; hope still blossoms; and they go again and again until they
earn another release than that which they crave. The very dead, it is
said, have ere now been brought from neighbouring islands, but the
_icon_ has not raised them up. There are but few indeed whose faith
has made them whole; but for my part I do not doubt that a boy’s sight
was restored at Tenos in the year that I was there (1899), or that
similar occurrences are well established at such shrines as that of the
Virgin at Megaspelaeon, of S. George in Scyros, or of S. Gerasimos in
Cephalonia.
Closely bound up with these miraculous cures is the old pagan practice
of ἐγκοίμησις, sleeping in the sanctuary of the god whose healing
touch is sought. At Tenos the majority of the pilgrims who come for
the festival of Lady-day can only afford to stop for the one night
which precedes it. The sight then is strange indeed. The whole floor
of the church and a great part of the courtyard outside is covered
with recumbent worshippers. With them they have brought mattresses and
blankets for those of the sick for whom a stone floor is too hard; by
their side is piled baggage of all descriptions, cooking utensils,
loaves of bread, jars of wine or water, everything in fact necessary
for a long night’s watch or slumber. And on this mass of close-packed
suffering worshippers the doors of the church are locked from nine in
the evening till early next morning. Shortly before the closing-hour I
picked my way with difficulty in the dim light over prostrate forms
from the south to the north door. The atmosphere was suffocating and
reeked with the smoke of wax tapers which all day long the pilgrims had
been burning before the _icon_. Every malady and affliction seemed to
be represented; the moaning and coughing never stopped: and I wondered,
not whether there would be any miraculous cures, but how many deaths
there would be in the six or seven hours of confinement before even the
doors were again opened.
But this is the practice at its worst. Where there is more time
available, there is nothing insanitary in it. In the list of cures
at Tenos, to which I have alluded, there are many cases in which the
patient spent not one night only but several months in the church. As a
typical case I may take that of a sailor who while keeping look-out on
a steamer in the harbour of Patras had some kind of paralytic seizure.
He was taken to Tenos and for four months suffered terribly. Then about
midday at Easter he had fallen asleep and heard a voice bidding him
rise. He woke up and asked those about him who had called him; they
said no one; so he slept again. This happened twice. The third time
on hearing the voice he opened his eyes and saw entering the church a
woman of unspeakable beauty and brilliance, and at the shock he rose to
his feet and began to walk; and the same day accompanied the festival
procession round the town to the astonishment of all the people.
When I was in Scyros I heard of an equally curious case of a
long-deferred cure which had recently taken place and was the talk of
the town. For seven consecutive years a man from Euboea had brought
his wife, who was mad, to the church of S. George to ‘sleep in’ for
forty days. Shortly before I arrived the last of these periods was
just drawing to a close, when one night both the man and his wife saw
a vision of S. George who came and laid his hand on her head; and in
the morning she woke sane. Of her sanity when I saw her--for they
were still in the island, paying, I think, some vow which the man had
made--I had no doubt; and the evidence of the people of the place who
for seven years previously had seen her mad seemed irrefragable.
The instances which I have cited are from the records of churches which
have succeeded to the reputation possessed by Epidaurus in antiquity.
These owing to the enthusiasm which their fame inspires are probably
the scenes of more faith-cures than humbler and less known sanctuaries.
But in every church throughout the land the observance of the custom
may occasionally be seen; for in the less civilised districts at any
rate it is among the commonest remedies for childish ailments for a
mother to pass the night with her child in the village church.
We shall notice in later chapters the remnants of other pagan
institutions which the Greek Church has harboured--an oracle
established in a Christian chapel and served by a priest--a
church-festival at which sacrifice is done and omens are read--the
survival of ancient ‘mysteries’ in the dramatic celebration of Good
Friday and Easter. For the present enough has been said to show that,
even within the domain of what is nominally Christian worship, the
peasant of to-day in his conception of the higher powers and in his
whole attitude towards them remains a polytheist and a pagan. And as in
this aspect of religion, so in that other which concerns men’s care for
the dead and their conception of the future life, the persistence of
pagan beliefs and customs is constantly manifest. The ancient funeral
usages are undisturbed; and in the dirges which form part of them the
heaven and the hell of Christianity seem almost unknown: ‘the lower
world’ (ὁ κάτω κόσμος), over which rules neither God nor the Devil but
Charon, is the land to which all men alike are sped.
But there is no need to dilate upon these matters yet. It is clear
enough already, I hope, that the fact of Greece being nominally a
Christian country should not preclude the hope of finding there
instructive survivals of paganism. The Church did not oust her
predecessor. By a policy of conciliation and compromise she succeeded
indeed in imposing upon Hellenic religion the name of Christianity
and the Christian code of morality and all the external appanages
of Christian worship: but in the essentials of religion proper she
deferred largely to the traditional sentiments of the race. She
utilised the sanctuaries which other associations had rendered holy;
she permitted or adopted as her own the methods by which men had
approached and entreated other gods than hers; she condoned polytheism
by appropriating the shrines of gods whom men had been wont to worship
to the service of saints whom they inevitably would worship as gods
instead; and even so she failed to suppress altogether the ejected
deities. The result is that for the peasant Christianity is only a
part of a larger scheme of religion. To the outside observer it may
appear that there are two distinct departments of popular religion,
the one nominally Christian, devoted to the service of God and the
Saints, provided with sanctuaries and all the apparatus of worship,
served by a regular priesthood, limited by dogma and system; the other
concerned with those surviving deities of pre-Christian Greece to
whom we must next turn, free in respect of its worship alike from the
intervention of persons and the limitations of place, obedient only to
a traditional lore which each may interpret by his own feelings and
augment by his own experience. But the peasant seems hardly sensible of
any such contrast. His Christian and his pagan deities consort amicably
together; prayer and vow and offering are made to both, now to avert
their wrath, now to cajole them into kindness; the professed prophets
of either sort, the priests and the witches, are endowed with kindred
powers; everywhere there is overlapping and intertwining. And when the
very authorities of the Greek Church have adopted or connived at so
much of pagan belief and custom, how should the common-folk distinguish
any longer the twin elements in their blended faith? Their Christianity
has become homogeneous with their paganism, and it is the religious
spirit inherited from their pagan ancestors by which both alike are
animated.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] VIII. 38. 7.
[2] _Oneirocr._ II. 34 and 37.
[3] i.e. (ὀμ)μάτι(ον), diminutive of ὄμμα.
[4] Also locally βιστυρι̯ά, a word whose origin I cannot trace.
[5] Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχελάου, ἡ Σινασός, p. 90.
[6] Theocr. _Id._ VI. 39.
[7] Sonnini de Magnoncourt, _Voyage en Grèce et en Turquie_, vol. II.
p. 99.
[8] Κωνστ. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, p. 360, cf. Καμπούρογλου,
Ἱστορία τῶν Ἀθηναίων, vol. III. p. 146.
[9] In Athens, among other places, cf. Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστορία τῶν
Ἀθηναίων, vol. III. p. 69.
[10] Verg. _Ecl._ III. 103.
[11] In Sinasos the rule is strict in regard to both, cf. Ἰ. Σ.
Ἀρχελάου, ἡ Σινασός, pp. 83, 93.
[12] Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθηναίων, vol. III. p. 146.
[13] _Ibid._ p. 64.
[14] Cf. Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθηναίων, vol. III. p. 41.
[15] The Church of the Annunciation, for example, in Tenos, possesses
an ἅγι̯ασμα as well as its miraculous _icon_. This spring was in high
repute before the _icon_ was discovered, cf. Μαυρομαρᾶ, Ἱστ. τῆς Τήνου,
p. 102 (a translation of Salonis, _Voyage à Tine_ (Paris 1809)). The
_icon_ was discovered only just before the Greek War of Independence.
[16] Καμπούρογλου, Μνημεῖα τῆς Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθηναίων, vol. III. p. 5.
[17] The banishment of suffering etc. to the mountains is an idea to be
met with in ancient Greek literature, cf. Orphic Hymn, no. 19, ἀλλὰ,
μάκαρ, θυμὸν βαρὺν ἔμβαλε κύμασι πόντου ἠδ’ ὀρέων κορυφῇσι.
[18] Cf. Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχελάου, ἡ Σινασός, p. 87.
[19] _Ibid._ p. 88.
[20] Theocr. _Id._ II. 28.
[21] _Ibid._ 53.
[22] Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθ. vol. III. p. 21.
[23] This is probably the modern form of ἐμπόδευμα, ‘entanglement.’ The
change of initial ε to α is not rare in dialect, cf. ἄρμος for ἔρμος
(= ἔρημος) ‘miserable’; and υ, with sound of English _v_, is regularly
lost before μ.
[24] See below, pp. 60 ff.
[25] _Voyage en Grèce et en Turquie_, II. 140.
[26] Below, pp. 61 ff.
[27] Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Αθηναίων, vol. III. p. 60.
[28] Plato, _Charm._ § 8 (p. 155).
[29] The name is probably derived from the ancient βράγχος, with
metathesis of the nasal sound. If βράγχος means congestion of the
throat, the modern formation in -ᾶς would mean ‘one who causes
congestion,’--apparently of other parts besides the throat. The
by-forms Βαραχνᾶς and Βαρυχνᾶς seem to have been influenced by a
desire to connect the name with βαρύς, ‘heavy.’ Under the ancient name
of this demon, ‘Ephialtes,’ Suidas gives also a popular name of his
day, Βαβουτσικάριος, a word borrowed from late Latin and apparently
connected with _babulus_ (_baburrus_, _baburcus_, _babuztus_)
‘foolish,’ ‘mad.’ _Babutsicarius_ should then be the sender of foolish
or mad dreams. Suidas however may be in error; see below p. 217.
[30] I learnt the details of this cure in Aetolia; a different version
of it is recorded from Cimolos by Theodore Bent, _The Cyclades_, pp. 51
ff.
[31] Abbott, _Macedonian Folklore_, p. 363.
[32] Λαμπρίδης, Ζαγοριακά, pp. 172 ff.
[33] Passow (_Popularia Carmina_, Index, s.v. περπερία) speaks of a
girl only. He was perhaps influenced by the feminine form of the word.
[34] Many versions of the song have been collected, but with little
variation in substance. Passow gives three versions, _Pop. Carm._ nos.
311-313.
[35] Λαμπρίδης, Ζαγοριακá, pp. 172 ff.
[36] πορεία belongs to the dialect of the Tsakonians as spoken at
Leonidi, but is otherwise obsolete.
[37] For authorities etc. see Finlay, _Hist. of Greece_, vol. IV. pp.
11 ff. (cap. 1, § 3).
[38] _De Themat._ II. 25. Finlay, _op. cit._ IV. 17.
[39] Arist. _Frogs_, 114.
[40] Hom. _Od._ XIV. 29-31.
[41] _Ib._ 21.
[42] I am indebted to Mr L. Whibley for pointing out to me two
records of this fact by English travellers of last century, W. Mure
(_Journal of a Tour in Greece_, 1842, vol. I. p. 99), and W. G. Clark
(_Peloponnesus_, 1858, p. 237).
[43] Perhaps this is the ἀεικέλιον πάθος (_Od._ 14. 32) which Odysseus
would have endured for some time but for the intervention of Eumaeus.
Otherwise the line must have been inserted by someone who did not
appreciate the guile of Odysseus.
[44] ll. 35-6.
[45] l. 38.
[46] ll. 45-7.
[47] ll. 72-7.
[48] l. 78.
[49] ll. 79-80.
[50] In some islands the old word φόρμιγγα also is still used.
[51] C.I.G. vol. I. p. 790 (No. 1625, l. 47) τὰς δὲ πατρίους πομπὰς
μεγάλας καὶ τὴν τῶν συρτῶν ὄρχησιν θεοσεβῶς ἐπετέλεσεν (from Carditsa,
anc. Acraephia, in Boeotia).
[52] For examples see Passow, _Popul. Carm._ nos. 305-309.
[53] Athen. VIII. 360 C.
[54] Cf. Hom. _Od._ 4. 782.
[55] ἐδῶ ἀφίνω τὰ ἁμαρτήματά μου καὶ τοὺς ψύλλους μου, Δ. Μ.
Μαυρομαρᾶς, Ἱστορία τῆς Τήνου, p. 87 (transl. of Dr M. Salonis, _Voyage
à Tine_ (Paris, 1809)).
[56] Rohde, _Psyche_, vol. II. pp. 9 ff.
[57] οἱ βακχευόμενοι καὶ κορυβαντιῶντες ἐνθουσιάζουσι μέχρις ἄν τὸ
ποθούμενον ἴδωσιν, Philo, _de vita contempl._ 2. p. 473 M., cited by
Rohde _l.c._
[58] Artemidorus, _Oneirocr._ III. 61.
[59] Soph. _Fr._ 753.
[60] Diog. Laert. _Vita Diog._ 6. 39.
[61] _apud_ Diog. Laert. X. 123.
[62] 1 _Cor._ XI. 21.
[63] _Apolog._ cap. 5.
[64] Lampridius (Hist. Aug.) _Alex._ cap. 29 f.
[65] _Ibid._
[66] _de Haeres._ cap. 8. For the references I am indebted to
Pouqueville, _Voyage de la Grèce_, vol. VI. p. 136.
[67] Clem. Alex. _Protrept._ cap. iv. § 55 (p. 17 Sylb.).
[68] I have given the story in the form in which I heard it told by a
peasant on board a boat in the Euripus. He was a native, I think, of
Euboea, and being uneducated probably knew the story by oral tradition.
A slightly longer form has, however, been published by Hahn (_Griech.
Märchen_, vol. II. no. 76) and by Πολίτης (Μελέτη ἐπὶ τοῦ βίου τῶν
νεωτέρων Ἑλλήνων, p. 43).
[69] Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθ. _III_. p. 164.
[70] Bent, _The Cyclades_, p. 457.
[71] See below, pp. 169 f.
[72] I am unable to determine whether this saint is the prophet Elijah
of the Old Testament, or a Christian hermit of the fourth century. The
Greeks themselves differ in their accounts.
[73] Maury, in _Revue Archéologique_, I. p. 502.
[74] According to Pouqueville (_Voyage de la Grèce_, II. p. 170) the
_rosalia_ was formerly celebrated both at Parga in Epirus and Palermo
in Sicily. The festival at Athens falls on Easter Tuesday, and a large
number of peasants come in from the country to attend it.
[75] Clem. Alex. _Protrept._ § 30.
[76] See J. M. Neale, _History of the Holy Eastern Church_, p. 1042.
[77] See below, pp. 66 ff.
[78] Καμπόυρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθ. III. p. 160.
[79] _The Cyclades_, p. 319.
[80] B. Schmidt, _Das Volksleben der Neugriechen_, p. 28.
[81] _Travels in Crete_, vol. I. p. 250.
[82] Schmidt (_Volksleben der Neugr._ p. 31) records also the phrase
κατουράει ὁ θεός, parallel with Strepsiades’ joke (Ar. _Nub._ 373)
πρότερον τὸν Δί’ ἀληθῶς ᾤμην διὰ κοσκίνου οὐρεῖν.
[83] The word is extremely rare, but ῥεμμόνι, I was told, is a coarse
kind of sieve. The expression is from Boeotia.
[84] From Arachova on Parnassus, Schmidt, _Das Volksleben der Neugr._
p. 33.
[85] From Cyprus.
[86] From Zacynthos, Schmidt, _op. cit._ p. 32.
[87] From the island of Syme, near Rhodes.
[88] There is a good discussion of them by Πολίτης in Παρνασσός for
1880, pp. 585-608, 665-678, 762-773, from which some of my examples are
taken. I have noted the _provenance_ of the rarer expressions.
[89] Passow, _Pop. Carm., Distich. Amat. 242_, quoted by Schmidt (_op.
cit._ p. 30), who notes the Homeric parallel.
[90] _Pyth._ IV. 181 (322), Βασιλεὺς ἀνέμων.
[91] See _e.g._ Passow, _Pop. Carm._ nos. 426-432, and below, pp.
101-104.
[92] Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχελάου, ἡ Σινασός, p. 159.
[93] _Märchen, etc._, no. 19.
[94] pp. 91 ff.
[95] _The Cyclades_, p. 373.
[96] There is some likelihood that the title καπνικαρέα is a mere
corruption of an older title which had a quite different meaning; but I
am concerned only with the existing title as popularly interpreted.
[97] Ross, _Reisen auf den Griech. Inseln_, IV. p. 74.
[98] Bent, _Cyclades_, p. 46.
[99] So also in Paros, Bent, _Cyclades_, p. 373.
[100] Athenaeus, II. 39 C.
[101] Bent, _Cyclades_, p. 72.
[102] Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθ. III. p. 153.
[103] Ἀντ. Βάλληνδας, Κυθνιακά, p. 131.
[104] Γρηγ. Παπαδοπετράκης, Ἱστορια τῶν Σφακιῶν, p. 69.
[105] Cf. a couplet quoted by Pashley, _Travels in Crete_, p. 253.
Τάζω σου, Παναγία μου, μίαν ἀσημένεαν ζώστρα,
νὰ μὰς συσμίξῃς καὶ τζὴ δυό ς’ ἕνα κρεββατοστρώσι.
[106] _e.g._ Bent, _The Cyclades_, p. 249.