either the double character of Apollo as Saviour and as Destroyer,
or the apparently miscellaneous character of the attributes which
successively attached to him[240]. How strange in itself, that the
God, who alone has a peculiar office in bringing death, should also
be the God of deliverance from it! The contradiction is harmonized by
the supposition of a traditionary origin, but otherwise it obstinately
remains a contradiction. Again, look at the nature of this peculiar
relation. Death by slow disease was not thought worthy to be referred
to the agency of a god, (Od. xi. 200.): the calm death of old age, the
sharp and agonizing death of a plague, both these were so, and both
are referred to Apollo. How can this be, and what has become of the
fine imaginative discrimination of the Greeks, and of their love for
logical consistency even in that domain, if we suppose that in all
this they were working by pure fancy? Now the difficulty vanishes, if
we suppose them to be the mere utterers of the disjointed fragments of
pristine tradition, when they had lost the key to their common meaning.
For then, He that was to grind his enemies to powder, was likewise
to take the sting from death itself, and to make the king of terrors
gentle and humane. Again, why was Apollo, thus associated with death,
likewise the god of foreknowledge? Why did he, and he only, partake
of this privilege with Jupiter? Nay, he enjoyed knowledge apparently
in a greater degree; for we are not furnished with any case in which
Apollo is grossly deluded like Jupiter by Juno. Why, again, should
the god of foreknowledge be the god of medicine? And why should the
god of medicine also absorb into himself the divinity of the sun,
separate from him in Homer, but afterwards identified with him? Why
does his character, as compared with that of the other gods, approach
to purity? As the dignity of Minerva is explained by our supposing
her to impersonate the ancient traditions of the Wisdom; so in the
case of Apollo, we obtain a thread upon which each and all of these
otherwise incongruous notions may be hung, if we suppose that he, after
a certain severance of those shades of character, which could only find
expression for a Greek in the female order, represented the legendary
anticipations of a person to come, in whom should be combined all the
great offices, in which God the Son is now made known to man as the
Light of our paths, the Physician of our diseases, the Judge of our
misdeeds, and the Conqueror and disarmer, but not yet abolisher, of
death?
[240] The character of Apollo the Destroyer is well represented in a
fragment of Archilochus:
ὤναξ Ἄπολλον, καί συ μὲν τοὺς αἰτίους
πήμαινε, καὶ σφᾶς ὄλλυ’, ὥσπερ ὀλλύεις.
Archil. apud Macrob. Fragm. 79. Ed. Gaisford.
~_They do not harmonize with Olympus._~
Again, as these great deities are anomalies in themselves, so are they
likewise in the Olympian order.
If we were to remove Minerva and Apollo from Olympus, we should
indeed take away the breadth and boldness of its sublimity, but we
should add greatly to its mere symmetry: especially as some other
minor figures would for the same reasons follow. There would then
remain there the polygamous monarch of the skies, with his chief
and secondary wives, the ranks of earth supplying him from time to
time with further satisfaction for his passions; and in his various
children or companions would be represented the various essential
functions, as they were then estimated, of an organized community.
Themis would represent policy, Mercury gain, the Muses song, and with
it all knowledge; Vulcan, manual skill; Mars, the soldier; Paieon, the
surgeon; Venus, that relaxed relation of the sexes to which mankind
has ever leaned. For corn there would be Demeter or Ceres, and for
wine, Dionysus or Bacchus. I grant that there is here inserted one
single ingredient not known to the Homeric Olympus. His Muses are not
stated to have any foreknowledge. But, after allowing for this trifling
exception, I think it remains clear that though the ethics and the
poetry of that region would be fatally damaged by the removal of Apollo
and Minerva, its mere statistics might be visibly improved.
The discussions which have arisen upon the etymology of the name
Apollo, are in themselves significant of the difficulty of accounting
for his origin mythologically. Müller mentions the derivation from the
sun (Ἠϝέλιος, ΑΠέλιος) in order to reject it; as he repudiates (and
very justly) the whole theory, which treats this deity as an elemental
power. Passing over others as unworthy of serious notice, he rejects
ἀπόλλυμι[241], as ‘founded on a partial and occasional attribute of
the god,’ and adopts ἀπέλλων the _averter_ (_sc._ of evil) or defender,
as most expressive of his general function: in other words, though he
does not go on to say so, he is the darkened shadow of the Saviour. But
the really characteristic name of Apollo he conceives to be Φοῖβος,
the bright and clear[242]. Clemens Alexandrinus, in the _Stromata_,
fancifully derives the name from ἀ _privative_, and πόλλων, and
interprets the name as signifying the negation of plurality, and thus
the unity of the Godhead[243].
[241] Which however has the sanction of Euripides as well as
Archilochus, (sup. p. 131 n.);
ὦ χρυσοφεγγὲς ἥλι’, ὥς μ’ ἀπώλεσας
ὅθεν σ’ Ἀπόλλων’ ἐμφανῶς κλήσει βροτός.
Eurip. Phaeth. ap. Macrob. Sat. i. 17.
[242] Dorians, II. vi. 6, 7.
[243] Strom. L. i. p. 349 B.
The name of Athene would appear to be formed by transposition from the
Egyptian Neith[244], to whom, according to ancient inscriptions, very
high and comprehensive dignities were assigned. It does not follow that
we are to regard the Athene of Homer as an Egyptian divinity; though
an Egyptian name may have been the centre, around which gathered the
remarkable and even august fragments of the Messianic traditions that
we have found represented in her.
[244] See Bunsen’s ‘Egypt’s Place,’ I. vi. A. 7.
~_Summary of distinctive traits._~
In quitting a subject of so much importance, I will now endeavour
to sum up, in the most concise form of which it is susceptible, the
evidence to be drawn from Homer of the different position held by
Apollo and Minerva from that of the other Olympian deities.
I. Points of distinction in their relations to the Olympian Court and
its members.
1. The dignity accorded to them is quite out of keeping with their
rank, as belonging to the junior generation of the mythological family,
which was, as such, inferior in rank and power to the senior one[245].
[245] See the observation of Neptune, Il. xv. 195-8.
2. They bear visible marks, even in the mythological order, of an
antiquity greater than that of the other deities in general.
3. The external administration, or subordinate parts of the functions
assigned to them in the mythological system, are commonly devolved upon
another set of deities, here called Secondaries.
4. A peculiar dignity, in the nature of precedence, is accorded
especially to Minerva.
5. We have next noted the singular union of Apollo with Jupiter in
will and affection, and the relation of both to him, as the proper and
regular ministers of the supreme dispensations of heaven, apart from
the partial and individual action of particular gods.
6. The defence of heaven against rebellion is dimly recorded to have
been the act of Apollo; and indispensable assistance was also rendered
on another occasion to Jupiter by Minerva.
7. These great divinities are never baffled, disgraced, or worsted
in any transaction between themselves and any other deity; nor ever
exhibited by the Poet in a disadvantageous or disparaging position.
II. Points of distinction in their terrestrial relations and their
conditions of physical existence.
1. They were known by men to be entitled, either alone, or in common
with Jupiter only, to a peculiar reverence or honour.
2. They were the objects of worship in all parts of the Homeric world.
3. Neither of them are bound to any local residence in particular; and
for Apollo there is no trace of any such residence at all.
4. They are both the objects, Minerva more particularly, of general
invocation and prayer, irrespective of place and circumstances.
5. They are exempted from the chief physical limitations, as of time,
place, and perceptive organs, which are generally imposed upon the
deities of invention.
6. They have a separate and independent power to punish those who
offend them, without any need of an appeal to Jupiter, or to the
Olympian Court.
7. They are admitted, exclusively, or in common with Juno only, to a
share in certain peculiar mythological functions of Jupiter himself.
8. They have a power of making revelations to men, through signs or
portents significant of the future.
9. They have a general power of extraordinary or miraculous action upon
nature, to which scarcely any other deity approaches.
10. The peculiar and mysterious relation of Apollo, with his
sister Diana, to death, cannot be understood or accounted for from
mythological _data_.
11. In the exercise of their power over nature, Minerva and Apollo are,
more than other deities, exempt from the need of resort to symbolic
actions by way of cooperative means.
III. Points of distinction with regard to their personal characters.
1. Their moral tone is far superior to that of the Olympian Court in
general.
2. They are both peculiarly associated with Jupiter in the original
administration of Providential functions, and are particularly
concerned with the highest, most ethical, and most inward parts of
them.
3. Their relation to their mythological attributes is different in kind
from that of the ordinary Olympian divinities.
4. They have a number and range of attributes quite without parallel in
the Olympian system: and yet with this a capacity of receiving new ones.
5. Both in themselves, and in reference to that system, the whole
conception of Apollo and Minerva, if it be viewed mythologically, is
full of inexplicable anomaly: and the only solution to be found is
in the recognition of the traditional basis, on which the Homeric
representations of them must be founded.
Although what I have built upon this evidence may be termed an
hypothesis, the whole of the evidence itself is circumstantial: and
I feel that the effect of it is not only to draw a broad line, but
almost to place an impassable gulf, between such divinities as the
Homeric Minerva and Apollo, on the one hand, and the Homeric Mars,
Venus, Vulcan, and Mercury on the other. The differences between
them are, however, graduated and shaded off by the interposition,
first, of the minor traditive deities, such as Latona and Diana; and,
secondly, of the greatest among the Olympian personages chiefly or
wholly mythological, such as Neptune and Juno: and it is probably this
graduation, running through the Olympian body, which has prevented our
duly appreciating the immense interval that lies between its extremes.
It is to the indefatigable students of Germany that we, the less
laborious English, are, along with the rest of the world, indebted
for what may be called the systematic treatment of the Homeric poems
with respect to the facts they contain. To amass evidence is one
thing; to penetrate into its heart and spirit, is another. The former
without the latter is insufficient; but the former is to the latter an
indispensable preliminary. The works of Homer should be viewed, and
their testimony registered, like the phenomena of a geological period:
so unencumbered is he with speculation or the bias of opinion; so true,
clear, direct, and unmixed is his exhibition of historical and moral
fact. This method of investigation, honestly pursued, carries with it
an adequate and a self-acting provision for the correction of its own
errors.
~_Explanation by Friedreich._~
Since I commenced the examination of the question now before us, there
has appeared the second edition of a work, which I believe to be the
latest compendium of what may be called the facts of the Homeric poems,
by J. B. Friedreich. I find that this writer has been struck by the
overpowering evidence of the vestiges of an early revelation in the
characters of the Homeric Minerva and Apollo[246]. He observes the
separate character of their relations both to Jupiter and to mankind;
assigns to them an unbounded power over all events and the whole of
human life; and says, ‘This Triad of Zeus, Athene, and Apollo, bears
an unmistakeable analogy to the Christian Trinity, of Father, Holy
Ghost, and Son: Jupiter answering to God the Father, Athene to the
Holy Ghost, and Apollo to the Son of God, the Declarer of the will of
His Heavenly Father: like as, furthermore, the early Christians have
largely compared Christ with Apollo.’
[246] Die Realien in der Iliade und Odyssee von J. B. Friedreich.
Erlangen, 1856. In three parts. See P. iii. §. 194. p. 635, and §. 198.
p. 689. Mure observes on the sublimity of the Apollo of Homer: but his
account of the deities of the poems is brief and rather slight. B. II.
ch. xii. sect. 4.
In this representation I find a fundamental agreement with the
views expressed in the present work. But I venture to think that
the particular mode of the relation between the Homeric and the
primitive tradition, which has been set forth in this work, is more
natural and probable than that asserted by Friedreich. As it has
been here represented, we are to consider the primitive tradition as
disintegrated and subdivided. First, that of the Redeemer is severed
from that of the Holy Trinity. Next, its two aspects of the Wisdom and
the Messiah, become two impersonations. And then the impersonation
which represents the tradition properly Messianic, is itself again
subjected to duplication. As the result of this threefold operation, we
have--
1. The trine Kronid brotherhood.
2. Minerva and Apollo.
3. Apollo and Diana.
The principle of the severance always being, to get rid of some
difficulty, encountered by the human apprehension in embracing the
integral tradition.
The difficulty at the first step was to reconcile equality, or what
the Christian dogma more profoundly terms consubstantiality, with a
ministerial manifestation.
The difficulty at the second step probably was to combine in one
impersonation two groups of images, the one (the Wisdom), relating to
function that dwells purely in the Godhead; the other, to function
containing the element of humanity; it was, in short, to grasp the
doctrine, ‘One altogether; not by confusion of Substance, but by unity
of Person.’
The difficulty at the third step apparently was, as has been stated,
to associate the ideal of a strict and severe chastity with any but a
female nature.
There is no question now before us as to Apollo: the point at issue is,
whether we are to regard the Athene, or Minerva, of Homer as derived
from traditions of the Logos, or from traditions of the Holy Spirit.
I urge the former, for the following reasons:
1. Setting aside what was involved in the doctrine of a Trinity
(which is otherwise represented), we have no evidence that there
was any such substantive body of primitive tradition respecting the
Holy Spirit, as would be likely to form the nucleus of a separate
mythological impersonation, and especially of one endowed with such
comprehensiveness, solidity, and activity of function as Minerva.
Whereas it appears that there was that kind of substantive tradition
with respect to the Λόγος, the Word or Wisdom of God.
2. In the order of primitive tradition, the Son of God would precede
the Holy Spirit, as is the case in the order of the Christian dogma;
and the fragments of such tradition, when carried into mythology, would
preserve and probably exaggerate, at any rate would not invert, the
relation. But in the Homeric mythology, Minerva has a decided practical
precedence over Apollo, and above all, when they come into collision,
it is Apollo that yields, as in the incidents of the Seventh and Tenth
Iliads, and in the general issue of the Trojan war.
3. But this difference is just what might be expected to follow, upon
the natural divergence of the two traditions of the Word and the
Incarnate Messiah respectively. The latter, as more human, would take
rank after the former as more Divine.
4. We have also found a greater tendency on the part of Minerva to
act independently of Jupiter. This is no unnatural diversion from the
tradition of the Λόγος, but it would be hard to connect ideally with
the Holy Spirit, who has not, in the ancient tradition, the same amount
or kind of separate development as the Messiah.
~_Müller’s treatment of Apollo._~
The functions of Apollo, and the nature, extent, and history of his
worship have been investigated at great length by Müller, in the Second
Book of his learned and able History and Antiquities of the Doric race.
He has shown the immense importance of this deity in Greek history
and religion, reaching every where, and embracing every object and
purpose. He recognises the apparent antagonism subsisting among his
infinitely varied functions; which he makes elaborate and ingenious,
but I think necessarily insufficient, efforts to trace ideally to an
union of origin within the mythological system. His hypothesis, that
the worship of Apollo was wholly due to Dorian influence, requires the
support of the most violently strained assumptions; as for example,
that its prevalence, apparently at all points, in Troas is to be
accounted for by Cretan influences there, which, at the most, tradition
would only warrant us in believing to have existed in a very contracted
form, and with influence altogether secondary. Altogether, this sheer
Dorianism of Apollo is at variance with the whole spirit and effect
of the Homeric testimony; for in Homer the Dorians are insignificant
and undeveloped, while the power and worship of Apollo had attained,
as we have seen, to an extraordinary height, and to the very broadest
range. Again, Müller[247] acknowledges the great difficulty of the
dualism presented to us by the figures, concurring as they do in such
remarkable functions, of Apollo and Diana: a difficulty, which he seems
to think incapable of full explanation. While attaching great value
to his treatise, I have the less hesitation in adopting conclusions
that he does not authorize, because his work is based in some degree
upon that (as I presume to think) defective mode of appreciation of the
Homeric as compared with the later traditions, against which I have
ventured to protest, and from the consequences of which it is one of my
main objects to effect at least a partial escape.
[247] B. II. ch. ix. 2. and 9.
It will have appeared from this general account of the traditive
characters of Apollo and Minerva, that the former represented the
tradition of a person, and the latter of an idea. Accordingly, the
original character of Apollo, which he bore during the infancy of the
mythical system, is in many points the more significantly marked;
as for example, by his share in the War with the Giants, and by his
mysterious relation to Death.
But it was natural that, in the course of time, as tradition in general
grew weaker with the increasing distance from its source, and as the
inventive system enlarged its development, those particular traditions,
which were self-explained by having their root in an intelligible idea,
should hold their ground much better than such as had become mythical
and arbitrary by having lost their key. The traditional Minerva had an
anchorage in the great function of Wisdom; the traditional Apollo had
no support equal to this in breadth and depth; and his attributes, the
band of revelation being removed, lost their harmony and could ill be
held together.
Accordingly we find that in the later ages of the mythology Apollo had
lost much of what was transcendant in his importance, but that Minerva
retained her full rank. One and the same Ode of Horace supplies the
proof of both. He places Apollo on a level not only with Diana, but
with Bacchus[248]:
[248] Hor. Od. I. xii. 21.
Prœliis audax, neque te silebo,
Liber: et sævis inimica virgo
Belluis; nec te mutuende certâ,
Phœbe, sagittâ.
But, after having described the supreme and transcendant dignity of
Jupiter, he at once proceeds to place Pallas before every other deity
without exception[249]:
[249] Ibid. 17. Compare the passages cited by Nägelsbach, Hom. Theol.
I. ii. 21. Hesiod Theog. 896. Callim. Lav. Pall. 132. Plutarch. Sympos.
ii. p. 617. C. Pind. Fragm. xi. 9. and the Orphic Poet in Düntzer, p.
9.
Unde nîl majus generatur ipso:
Nec viget quicquam simile aut secundum;
Proximos illi tamen occupavit
Pallas honores.
I will now pass on to consider the remaining vestiges of original
tradition perceivable in Homer.
~_The Diana of Homer._~
Like the Moon to the Sun, an analogy maintained by their respective
assumption of the two characters in the later mythology, Diana is a
reflection, and in most respects a faint reflection, of Apollo.
She was worshipped, says Müller[250], in the character of ‘as it were a
part of the same deity.’ He collects and reviews, from the whole circle
of Greek history and mythology, the points of coincidence between them:
and notices particularly, that like him she is both λυκεία and οὐλία,
both the destroyer and the preserver; that she administers her office
as angel of Death, sometimes in wrath and sometimes without it; and
that her name Artemis, meaning, as he conceives, healthy and uninjured,
is in close correspondence with those of Phœbus Apollo.
[250] Dorians, ii. ch. 9.
All this is in conformity with what we gather from the poems of Homer:
but those poems have spared us many of the confused and perplexing
phenomena, which are presented by the later mythology.
One side of the divided Messianic tradition, its purity, is best
represented in Diana, through her severe and spotless chastity. Its
force and scope are much more largely developed in Apollo. But this
high purity, and the double aspect of the ministry of Death, appear
to be of themselves sufficient to stamp her beyond mistake with a
traditionary origin. Small resemblances, too, as well as great ones,
are traceable in Homer between her and Apollo, such as her golden
throne and golden distaff, which may be compared to his golden sword,
the sword of primeval light: and even these minor correspondences may
in their own degree bear witness to the original and integral shape of
the tradition.
If she is thus clothed in a sort of lunar light, and is in the main
a reflection of Apollo upon earth, such we may probably consider
Persephone in the Shades[251].
[251] See ‘Persephone’ in section iii.
Let us, however, consider what can be gathered from Homer as to the
attributes of Diana.
This deity would appear to have been, according to him, a deity
of universal worship. We may perhaps safely infer thus much from
the single fact of her ministry of Death. She is also represented
as extending her agency to Troy, where she taught Scamandrius to
hunt[252]; probably to Crete, in the case of the daughters of
Pandareos; she is invoked in Ithaca by Penelope, puts Ariadne to death
in Dia, exercises a similar function for the women in Συρίη, sends the
Calydonian boar for a defect of homage in Ætolia, and is familiarly
mentioned in connection with the Greeks generally, while her place in
the Theomachy may suffice to mark her as also a Pelasgian goddess.
In most points, however, she partakes largely, as might be expected,
of the characteristics of the ordinary deities of invention. Had she
repeated all the chief notes of Apollo, and with any thing like an
equal force, the question of traditional origin would perhaps have been
more doubtful than it now is.
[252] Il. v. 49-52.
When she is invoked by Penelope, it is in connection with her share of
the special ministry of death[253]. She is nowhere else made the object
of prayer.
[253] Od. xx. 61.
It is her deep resentment at the omission of sacrifice which provokes
her to send the Calydonian boar[254]. In the Fifth Iliad, she and
her mother Latona appear as deities purely subsidiary to Apollo. He
deposits Æneas in his temple: there, not in a temple of their own,
Latona and Diana attend upon and heal him[255].
[254] Il. ix. 533-7.
[255] Il. v. 444-7.
In the Theomachy, she is treated with the same ignominy as Mars and
Venus, but by Juno instead of Minerva. Her railing address to Apollo is
conceived in the lower and not in the higher spirit (Il. xxi. 472-7).
She never assumes a general power, either over man in mind or body, or
over outward nature.
She has no share in the general movement of either poem, and is
introduced in the great majority of instances by way of allusion only.
Her near relation to Apollo gives a certain grandeur to her position:
but the inventive elements of the representation greatly obscure and
even partially overbear the traditional.
Her side in the Trojan war is to be explained by her relation to
Apollo. In all other points she seems to be a goddess of associations
more properly Greek, perhaps in consequence of their greater addiction
to hunting.
In treating the Homeric Diana as a personage principally ancillary
to Apollo, and equipped with reflections, or stray fragments, of
prerogatives chiefly belonging to him, I do not attempt to foreclose
the question what may have been the origin of her name, or whether she
may be connected with any mythological original in the religions of the
East or of Egypt.