mind, from which temptation diverted the self-duped simpleton: ἤγαγεν,
expressive of the medium, namely, through volition, and not by force.
The elements combined in the idea of the Homeric Ἄτη, and the
conditions of her action, may be presented together as follows:
1. She takes the reins of the understanding and conduct of a man.
2. She effects this not by force from without, but through the medium
of his own will and inward consent, whether unconscious or express.
3. Under her dominion he commits offences against the moral law, or the
law of prudence.
4. These offences are followed by his retributive sufferings.
The function of the Tempter is here represented with great precision;
but two essential variations have come to be perceptible in the idea
taken as a whole.
The first, that this Ἄτη is herself sometimes prompted or sent by
others, as by Ἐρίνυς, (Od. xv. 234,) or by her with Ζεὺς and Μοῖρα, as
in Il. xix. 87. And accordingly she too is a daughter, nay, the eldest
daughter, of Jupiter himself[283].
[283] Il. xix. 91.
The second variation is this: that offences against the mere law of
prudence find their way into precisely the same category with sins; or,
in other words, the true idea of sin had been lost. Ἄτη the person, and
ἄτη the effect, are, moreover, frequently blended by the Poet.
Among the principal Ἄται of Homer are those,
1. Of Jupiter, Il. xix. 91-129.
2. Of Dolon, Il. x. 391; leading him to accept the proposal of Hector.
3. Of Melampus, Od. xv. 233, 4, causing him to undertake an enterprise
beyond his means on account of the daughter of Neleus.
All of which are against the law of prudence and forethought.
4. Of Agamemnon, Il. xix. 88, 134-8.
5. Of Paris, Il. vi. 356, xxiv. 28.
6. Of Helen, Od. iv. 261. xxiii. 223.
7. Of manslaughter, Il. xxiv. 480.
8. Of the drunken centaur Eurytion, who had his ears and nose cut off
for his excesses, Od. xxi. 296-302.
In one place only of Homer, ἄτη seems to mean calamity not imputable
to the sufferer’s fault, further than by some slight want of vigilance.
This is the ἄτη charged upon Ulysses, when his companions destroy the
oxen of the Sun, Od. xii. 372. At least he had no further share in that
matter than that, by going to sleep, he left his comrades to act for
themselves.
The long continued misconduct of the Suitors is never described as
their ἄτη: probably because the word properly signifies a particular
temptation followed by a particular act, rather than a continued course
of action.
This, again, serves the more closely to associate Ἄτη with the
primitive tradition of the Fall of Man.
The higher form of human wickedness, which is attended with deliberate
and obstinate persistence in wrong, is not ἄτη but ἀτασθαλίη. Such is
the wickedness of Ægisthus and of the Suitors; such also that of the
Giants. The same phrase is applied to the crew of Ulysses, who devoured
the oxen of the Sun[284]: and this appears to conform to the view taken
of their offence in the poems, however anomalous that view itself may
be.
[284] Od. i. 7.
~_Other traditions of the Evil One._~
I will now gather into one view the dispersed fragments of tradition
concerning the Evil One which seem to be discernible in Homer.
1. Ἄτη is the first, and the one which comes nearest to presenting a
general outline.
2. A second is found in Κρόνος[285], who aims at the destruction of
Godhead in its supreme representatives, and is thrust down to Tartarus
by Jupiter. And we may here observe an important distinction.
[285] Il. xiv. 203. viii. 478. where Iapetus is joined with Κρόνος. Of
him we have no other mention in Homer.
Some persons, like Tityus, offend against a particular person who had
taken a place in the Olympian Court; or else, apparently like Orion,
offend the gods in general by their presumption. They are punished in
the Shades. But those who have aimed at the dethronement or destruction
of Godhead itself are in the far deeper darkness of Tartarus[286].
I suggest this as a possible explanation of the double place of
punishment; which is otherwise apparently a gross solecism in the
Homeric system.
[286] Il. viii. 13-18.
3. To the latter class of offenders belong the Titans, who most
pointedly represent the element of Force in the ancient traditions,
while Ἄτη embodies that of Guile.
These are the θεοὶ ὑποταρτάρεοι, or the ἐνέρτεροι, or ἔνερθε θεοὶ,
who form the infernal court of Κρόνος; Κρόνον ἄμφις ἐόντες (Il.
xiv. 274, 9. xv. 225). They are evidently themselves in a state of
penal suffering; but they must also have the power of inflicting the
severest punishment on some other offenders; for they, and not Aides or
Persephone, seem to be the persons called to be witnesses of the solemn
oath for the avoidance of perjury, taken by Juno in the Fourteenth
Book[287].
[287] Il. xiv. 273, 278.
4. Of these Titans two are apparently named in the persons of Otus and
Ephialtes, children of Neptune.
5. To the same class, in all probability, belong the Giants, led by
Eurymedon, and born of the same mythological father. Od. vii. 58.
6. It is likely that Typhoeus may have been of the same company;
for although he is not stated to be in Tartarus, yet his position
corresponds with it in the essential feature of being under the earth.
(Il. ii. 782. viii. 14). Homer does not indeed expressly say, that Otus
and Ephialtes were Titans, nor that Eurymedon was of the same band; nor
yet that the Titans were rebels against heaven. But his images are so
combined round certain points as to make this matter of safe and clear
inference.
For the Titans are in Tartarus, and are with and attached to Κρόνος,
whom Jupiter thrust down thither. And the giants under Eurymedon, for
their mad audacity, are driven to perdition[288]. Lastly, Otus and
Ephialtes, who made war upon heaven, and whom Apollo quelled, not
appearing, like their mother Iphimedea, in the Shades of the Eleventh
Odyssey, can only be in Tartarus[289].
[288] Od. vii. 60.
[289] Od. xi. 305-20.
From the scattered traditions we may collect and combine the essential
points. In Otus and Ephialtes the rebellion is clearly stated, and in
Eurymedon it is manifestly implied. In the Titans, who are called θεοὶ,
and in their association with Κρόνος, as also in the high parentage of
the others, we have the celestial origin of the rebels. In the hurling
down of Κρόνος to Tartarus, we have the punishment which they all are
enduring, immediately associated with an act of supreme retribution.
7. Elsewhere will be found a notice of the singular relation, which
may be traced between Neptune and the tradition of the Evil One. This
relation is mythological in its basis: but it seems to proceed upon the
tradition, that the Evil One was next to the Highest.
8. A more recent form of the tradition concerning the great war in
heaven seems to be found in the revolt of the Immortals of Olympus,
headed by Juno, Neptune, and Minerva, against Jupiter, which was put
down by Briareus or Ægæon of the hundred hands.
Who this Ægæon was, we can only conjecture: he is nowhere else named
in Homer. From his having a double name, one in use among gods, and
the other among mortals, it might be conjectured that the immediate
source of this tradition was either Egypt, or some other country having
like Egypt an hieratic and also a demotic tongue. In its substance, it
can hardly be other than a separate and dislocated form of the same
idea, according to which we see Apollo handed down as the deliverer of
Olympus from rebellion. The expression that _all_ men (Il. i. 403.)
call him Ægæon, tends to universalize him, and thus to connect him with
Apollo. He is also (v. 403.) a son of Jupiter, avowedly superior to him
in strength:
ὁ γὰρ αὖτε βίῃ οὗ πατρὸς ἀμείνων.
~_Citations from Holy Scripture._~
It is perhaps worth while to notice the coincidence between the
language of Homer as to the Giants, and that of the Books of the
Ancient Scriptures. Homer says of Eurymedon[290],
[290] Od. vii. 59.
ὅς ποθ’ ὑπερθύμοισι Γιγάντεσσιν βασίλευεν·
ἀλλ’ ὁ μὲν ὤλεσε λαὸν ἀτάσθαλον, ὤλετο δ’ αὐτός.
Either the rebellion, or the punishment in hell, of a wicked gang under
the name of Giants is referred to in the following passages of the
Old Testament and the Apocrypha. The allusion is not made evident, as
to the former set of passages, in the Authorized Version; I therefore
quote from the Septuagint or the Vulgate.
1. Job xxvi. 5. _Ecce gigantes gemunt sub aquis, et qui habitant cum
eis._ Vulgate. μὴ γίγαντες μαιωθήσονται ὑποκάτωθεν ὕδατος καὶ τῶν
γειτόνων αὐτοῦ; LXX.
2. Prov. ii. 18. ἔθετο γὰρ παρὰ τῷ θανάτῳ τὸν οἶκον αὐτῆς, καὶ παρὰ τῷ
ἅδῃ μετὰ τῶν γηγένων τοὺς ἄξονας αὐτῆς. LXX.
3. Prov. xxi. 16. _Vir, qui erraverit a viâ doctrinæ, in cœtu gigantum
commorabitur._ Vulg. ἀνὴρ πλανώμενος ἐξ ὅδου δικαιοσύνης ἐν συναγωγῇ
γιγάντων ἀναπαύσεται. LXX.
See Gen. vi. 4, 5: in which we perhaps see the original link between
the Giants, and the rebellion of the fallen angels described by St.
Jude, ver. 6: ‘And the angels which kept not their first estate, but
left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under
darkness unto the judgment of the great day.’
We have also the corresponding declaration of St. Peter: ‘God spared
not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered
them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and spared
not the old world[291].’
[291] St. Pet. ii. 2. 4. 5.
Again, in the Apocryphal Books.
1. Wisdom xiv. 6. ‘In the old time also, when the proud giants
perished, the hope of the world, governed by thy hand, escaped in a
weak vessel.’ Auth. Version.
2. Ecclus. xvi. 7. ‘He was not pacified toward the old giants, who fell
away in the strength of their foolishness.’ Auth. Version.
3. Baruch iii. 26, 8. ‘There were giants famous from the beginning....
But they were destroyed, because they had no wisdom, and perished
through their own foolishness.’ Auth. Version.
We thus appear to find in Homer many displaced fragments of the old
traditions of the Bible with respect to the Evil One. In the later
Greek and the Roman literature, the traditions on the same subject had
almost entirely lost their likeness to their original. The figure of
Ἄτη, and the idea of spiritual danger to man through guile tempting
him extrinsically but inwardly, entirely disappears. There remains
only the recollection of a contest waged by brute force, and a solitary
remnant of forgotten truth in the fame still adhering to Apollo, that
he had been the deliverer and conqueror, who in the critical hour
vindicated the supremacy of heaven. In the time of Horace even this
recollection had become darkened and confused.
From the Homeric traditions of the Evil One and the fallen angels, we
may properly pass to those of a future state, which involves, partially
at least, the idea of retribution.
~_The Future State in Homer._~
The representations of the future state in Homer are perhaps the more
interesting, because it may be doubted whether they are, logically,
quite consistent with one another. For this want of consistency becomes
of itself a negative argument in support of the belief that, as they
are not capable of being referred to any one generative idea or system,
they may be distorted copies or misunderstood portions of primitive
truth.
Another reason for referring them to this origin appears to be found in
their gradual deterioration after the time of Homer. In his theology,
future retribution appears as a real sanction of the moral law. In the
later history, and generally in the philosophy of Paganism, it has
lost this place: practically, a phantasmagoria was substituted for
what had been at least a subjective reality: and the most sincere and
penetrating minds thought it absurd to associate anything of substance
with the condition of the dead[292]. The moral ideas connected with it
appear before us in descending series; and thus they point backwards
to the remotest period for their origin and their integrity.
[292] Arist. Eth. I. 10, 11.
Lastly, it would appear that the traditions themselves present to us
features of the unseen world, such, in a certain degree, as Divine
Revelation describes.
That world appears to us, in Homer, in three divisions.
First there is the Elysian plain, apparently under the government of
Rhadamanthus, at which Menelaus, as the favoured son-in-law of Jupiter,
is to arrive. It is, physically at least, furnished with all the
conditions of repose and happiness.
Next there is the region of Aides or Aidoneus, the ordinary receptacle
even of the illustrious dead, such as Achilles, Agamemnon, and the
older Greek heroes of divine extraction. Hither, if we may trust the
Twenty-fourth Odyssey, are carried the Suitors; and here is found the
insignificant Elpenor (Od. xi. 51).
Thirdly, there is the region of Tartarus, where Κρόνος and Ἰάπετος
reign. This is as far below Aides, as the heaven is upwards from the
earth[293].
[293] Il. viii. 16, 479.
There appears to be some want of clearness in the division between the
second region and the third as to their respective offices, and between
the second and the first as to their respective tenants.
The realm of Aides is, in general, not a place of punishment, but of
desolation and of gloom[294]. The shade of Agamemnon weeps aloud with
emotion and desire to clasp Ulysses: and Ulysses in vain attempts
to console Achilles, for having quitted ‘the warm precincts of the
cheerful day.’ But though their state is one of sadness, neither they
nor the dead who are named there are in general under any judicial
infliction. It is stated, indeed, that Minos[295] administers justice
among them; but we are not told whether, as seems most probable, this
is in determining decisively the fate of each, or whether he merely
disposes, as he might have done on earth, of such cases as chanced to
arise between any of them for adjudication.
[294] Od. xi. 391, 488.
[295] V. 569.
The only cases of decided penal infliction in the realm of Aides are
those of Tityus, Sisyphus, and Tantalus. Castor and Pollux, who appear
here, are evident objects of the favour of the gods[296]. Hercules,
like Helen of the later tradition, is curiously disintegrated.
[296] Od. xi. 302-4.
His εἴδωλον meets Ulysses, and speaks as if possessed of his identity:
but he himself (αὐτὸς) is enjoying reward among the Immortals. The
latter of these images represents the laborious and philanthropic side
of the character attributed to him, the former the reckless and brutal
one. Again it might be thought that the reason for the advancement of
Menelaus to Elysium, while Castor and Pollux belong to the under-world,
was the very virtuous character of that prince. He is, however, not
promoted thither for his virtues, but for being the son-in-law of
Jupiter by his marriage with Helen. And thus again, the son-in-law of
Jupiter is, as such, placed higher than his sons.
The proper and main business of Tartarus is to serve as a place of
punishment for deposed and condemned Immortals. There were Iapetos
and Κρόνος, there the Titans[297]: there probably Otus and Ephialtes,
who not only wounded Mars but assaulted Olympus[298]: there too, were
Eurymedon and the Giants, who perished by their ἀτασθάλιαι. Thither
it is that Jupiter threatens to hurl down offensive and refractory
divinities[299]. Direct rebellion against heaven seems to be the
specific offence which draws down the sentence of relegation to
Tartarus. Still in the Third Iliad Agamemnon invokes certain deities,
as the avengers of perjury upon man[300];
[297] Il. xiv. 274, 9.
[298] Il. v. Od. xi. 313.
[299] Il. v. 897, 8. viii. 10-17. 401-6.
[300] Il. iii. 278. cf. xiv. 274, 9.
καὶ οἱ ὑπένερθε καμόντας
ἀνθρώπους τίνυσθον, ὅτις κ’ ἐπίορκον ὀμόσσῃ.
It is not clear whether this passage implies that all perjurors are
punished in Tartarus; or whether Aidoneus, Persephone, and the Erinues
are the subterraneous deities here intended: but as the Titans are
elsewhere only mentioned in express connection with Tartarus, and from
the description of the Erinues in Il. xix. 259, I incline to the latter
opinion.
On the whole, then, there is some confusion between these compartments,
so to speak, of the invisible world. The realm of Aidoneus seems to
partake, in part, of the character both of Tartarus and of the Elysian
plain. In common with the former, it includes persons who were objects
of especial divine favour. In common with Tartarus, it is for some few,
at least, a scene of positive punishment.
Still, if we take the three according to their leading idea, they are
in substantial correspondence with divine revelation. There is the
place of bliss, the final destination of the good. There is the place
of torment, occupied by the Evil One and his rebellious companions:
and there is an intermediate state, the receptacle of the dead.
Here, as might be expected, the resemblance terminates; for as there
is no selection for entrance into the kingdom of Aides, so there
is no passage onwards from it. We need the less wonder at the too
comprehensive place it occupies, relatively to the places of reward
and punishment proper, in the Homeric scheme, when we remember what
a tendency to develop itself beyond all bounds, the simple primitive
doctrine of the intermediate state has been made to exhibit, in a
portion of the Christian Church.
A further element of indistinctness attaches to the invisible world
of Homer, if we take into view the admission of favoured mortals to
Olympus; a process of which he gives us instances, as in Ganymedes
and Hercules. In a work of pure invention it is unlikely that Heaven,
Elysium, and the under-world would all have been represented as
receptacles of souls in favour with the Deity. But some primitive
tradition of the translation of Enoch may account for what would
otherwise stand as an additional anomaly.
Upon the whole, the Homeric pictures of the prolongation of our
individual existence beyond the grave; the continuance in the nether
world of the habits and propensities acquired or confirmed in this;
and the administration in the infernal regions of penalties for sin;
all these things, though vaguely conceived, stand in marked contrast
with the far more shadowy, impersonal, and, above all, morally neutral
pictures of the invisible and future world, which alone were admitted
into the practical belief of the best among the Greek philosophers. We
are left to presume that the superior picture owed its superiority to
the fact that it was not of man’s devising, as it thus so far exceeded
what his best efforts could produce.
~_Sacrificial tradition in Homer._~
The nature, prevalence, and uniformity of sacrifice, should be regarded
as another portion of the primeval inheritance, which, from various
causes, was perhaps the best preserved of all its parts among nations
that had broken the link of connection with the source.
Of the sabbatical institution, which the Holy Scripture appears to fix
at the creation of man, we find no trace in Homer. But it is easy to
perceive that this highly spiritual ordinance was one little likely to
survive the rude shocks and necessities of earthly life, while it could
not, like sacrifice, derive a sustaining force from appearing to confer
upon the gods an absolute gift, profitable to them, and likely to draw
down their favour in return.
Those who feel inclined to wonder at this disappearance of the sabbath
from the record may do well to remember, that on the shield of
Achilles, which represents the standing occasions of life in all its
departments, there is no one scene which represents any observances
simply religious. The religious element, though corrupted, was far from
being expelled out of common life; on the contrary, the whole tissue
of it was pervaded by that element; but it was in a combined, not in a
separate, and therefore not in a sabbatical form.
And again, in order to appreciate the unlikelihood that such a
tradition as that of the sabbath would long survive the severance from
Divine Revelation in this wintry world, we have only to consider how
rapidly it is forgotten, in our own time, by Christians in heathen
lands, or by those Christian settlers who are severed for the time at
least from civilization, and whose energies are absorbed in a ceaseless
conflict with the yet untamed powers of nature.
SECT. III.
_The inventive Element of the Homeric Theo-mythology._
I come now to that mass of Homeric deities, who are either wholly
mythological, or so loaded with mythological features, that their
traditive character is depressed, and of secondary importance.
_Jupiter._
The character of Jupiter, which commonly occupies the first place in
discussions of the Greek mythology, has been in some degree forestalled
by our prior examination of the position of other figures in the
system, which are both more interesting and more important, from their
bearing more significant resemblances to and traces of the truth of
Divine Revelation.
Nevertheless, this character will well repay attention. To be
understood and appreciated, it must be viewed in a great variety of
aspects. When so viewed, it will be found to range from the sublime
down to the brutal, and almost even down to the ridiculous. Upon the
whole, when we consider that the image which we thus bring before us
was during so many ages, for such multitudes of the most remarkable
portion of mankind, the chief representative of Godhead, it must leave
a deep impression of pain and melancholy on the mind.
‘If thou beest He; but Oh! how fall’n, how changed!’
The Jupiter of Homer is to be regarded in these four distinct
capacities:
1. As the depository of the principal remnants of monotheistic and
providential ideas.
2. As the sovereign lord of meteorological phenomena.
3. As the head of the Olympian community.
4. As the receptacle and butt of the principal part of such earthly,
sensual, and appetitive elements, as, at the time of Homer,
anthropophuism had obtruded into the sphere of deity.
~_Jupiter, as Providence._~
There are three modes in which Homer connects Jupiter with the
functions of Providence.
1. He procures or presides over the settlement, by deliberation in the
Olympian Court, of great questions connected with the course of human
affairs. In the Court of the Fourth Iliad, and in the Assembly of the
Eighth, he himself takes the initiative; in the Seventh and Twentieth
Books he listens to the proposals of Neptune; in the Twenty-fourth,
Apollo introduces the subject; in the First and Fifth Odyssey, Minerva
does the like.
2. He is a kind of synonym for Providence with reference to its common
operations, to the duties and rights of man, and to the whole order
of the world. Perhaps there are an hundred, or more, passages of the
poems, where he appears in this manner. But they are all open to this
observation, that his name seems, in most of them, to be used as a mere
formula, and to be a sort of a _caput mortuum_ without the enlivening
force of the idea that he is really acting in the manner or upon the
principle described.
3. On certain occasions, however, he appears as a supreme God, though
single-handed, and not acting either for or with the Olympian assembly.
The grandest of these occasions is at the close of the Twenty-fourth
Odyssey, where Minerva, stimulated by her own sympathizing keenness,
seems to have winked at the passionate inclination of Ulysses to make
havock among his ungrateful and rebellious subjects. Jupiter, who
had previously counselled moderation, launches his thunderbolt, and
significantly causes it to fall at the feet of Minerva, who thereupon
gives at once the required caution to the exasperated sovereign. Peace
immediately follows[301].
[301] Od. xxiv. 481. 525-41. 546.