THE PERIOD AFTER ALEXANDER
{137}
The establishment of the Macedonian Empire wrought momentous changes
in the civic-political religion of Hellas; and some of these were in
the direction of loss and decay, while others worked for the birth of
new religious life. The political significance of Apollo of Delphi, of
Zeus and Athena, the divine leaders of the Polis in its counsels and
ambitions, was doomed to pass away. Athena, as the warder and
counsellor, was of less avail for Athens than were the Samothracian
sea-deities for the victorious Demetrios.
Certainly in the first centuries of the Hellenistic age there were few
external signs of decay; we do not yet hear of ruined shrines or the
decline of great festivals such as the Delia; Athena, though no longer
the goddess of a civic Empire, was still and for ages yet remained the
benign Madonna for the Athenian, to whose care the boy-athlete and the
marriageable girl were dedicated; we have record from the island of
Tenos[137.1] of the abiding hold that even such a deity as Poseidon
still exercised on the affections of his people, as late as the second
and first centuries B.C.; and if we had continuous chronicles of each
cult-centre we should probably find similar evidence showing that the
dominant {138} figures of the old polytheism were still able to fulfil
in some degree the religious wants of the individual worshipper. And
scholars who have been tempted to ante-date the decay of Hellenic
polytheism have ignored, among other evidence, this important historic
fact that in the fourth century it was still vital enough to make
foreign conquests, to penetrate and take possession of Carthage, for
instance, and that in the third century it began to secure for itself
a new lease of life within the city and the growing Empire of Rome; in
fact, the last chapter of Greek religion falls within the Roman
imperial period.
_Growing force of personal religion_.--Yet the Hellene in the fourth
century and in the early days of Macedonian ascendancy began to crave
other outlets for his religious emotion than the traditional cults of
his phratry or tribe or city. Personal religion was beginning to be a
more powerful impulse and to stimulate a craving in the individual for
a more intimate union with the divinity, such, for instance, as was
offered freely by the Great Mysteries of Eleusis. And we have fairly
sufficient evidence that the fourth century witnessed a great
extension of their influence.[138.1] The mysteries of Megalopolis
were instituted and those of Andania were reorganised by their aid;
and the first Ptolemy is said to have invited an apostle from Eleusis
to assist in some religious institutions of his new city of
Alexandria.[138.2]
_The religious brotherhoods_.--The same aspiration was also satisfied
by the private θίασοι, the guilds of brethren devoted to the special
cult of one {139} divinity. These unions belong to the type of the
secret religious society which is found in all parts of the world at
varying levels of culture. In Greece we have evidence of them as early
as the time of Solon; it was probably not till the fifth century that
any of them were instituted for the service of foreign divinities; we
hear then of the thiasos of the Thracian Goddess, and in the earlier
half of the fourth century of the orgiastic fraternity devoted to
Sabazios, with which Æschines in his youth was associated. But it is
not till the Macedonian period that the epigraphic record of them
begins; henceforth the inscriptions are numerous and enlightening
concerning their organisation and their wide prevalence throughout the
Hellenic world.[139.1] Their importance for the history of religion
is great on various grounds.
They show the development of the idea of a humanitarian religion in
that they transcend, in most cases, the limits of the old tribal and
civic religion and invite the stranger; so that the members, both men
and women, associate voluntarily, no longer on the ground of birth or
status, but drawn together by their personal devotion to a particular
deity, to whom they stand in a far more intimate and individual
relation than the ordinary citizen could stand to the divinities of
his tribe and city. This sense of divine fellowship might sometimes
have been enhanced by a sacrament which the members partook of
together; we know that this was the bond of fellowship in the
Samothracian mysteries, which were beginning to appeal widely to the
early Hellenistic world. A common meal at {140} least, a love-feast or
‘Agape,’ formed the chief bond of the ‘thiasotai,’ and this was
sometimes a funeral-feast commemorative of the departed brother or
sister. There was nothing to prevent the thiasos choosing as its
patron-deity some one of the leading divinities of traditional
polytheism, to which they must not be supposed, as Foucart supposed
them, to stand in any natural antagonism; therefore, for instance,
there were local reasons why Greek merchants whose central
meeting-point was Rhodes should form θίασοι under the protection and
in the name of Zeus Xenios, the God who protects the stranger, or of
Athena Lindia, the ancient and powerful divinity of Lindos, or of
Helios, the prehistoric Sun-God whose personality pervaded the whole
island. So far, then, the religious importance of these societies
consists in their quickening influence on personal religion, in the
gratification that they afforded to the individuals craving for
personal union with the Godhead, also in their organisation which
aroused a keener sense of religious fellowship between the members,
and which later served as a model to the nascent Christian community.
But in the history of the Hellenic religion their significance is even
greater on another ground, namely, that they bear a most striking
testimony to that fusion of East and West which it was the object of
Alexander, and the mission of his successors, to effect; for many of
these religious brotherhoods, whose members and organisation were
Hellenic, were consecrated to foreign deities, Sabazios, Adonis,
Xousares, the Syrian Goddess; so that they played undesignedly the
part of missionaries in the momentous movement sometimes called the
{141} Θεοκρασία, the blending of Eastern and Western religions and
divine personalities, of which the significance will be considered a
little later.
_Menander_.--The student who is tracking the course of the religious
life and experience of Hellas through the Hellenistic period should
endeavour to gather beforehand a vivid impression of the spirit of the
Menandrian comedy. For Menander, the friend of Epicurus and the
devoted admirer of Euripides, was the favoured heir of the
humanitarian spirit that had gleamed fitfully even in the Homeric
period and had gathered strength and articulate expression in the
century before Alexander opened the gates of the East. Patronised and
courted by Demetrios Phalereus and Ptolemy, admired by the scholars
and reading public of Alexandria and the Hellenistic world even more
than he had been by his own contemporaries, Menander was eminently in
a position to give a tone to the religious sentiment of this period;
and the Anthologies of his works prove that he was actually reverenced
as an ethical-religious teacher.[141.1] Therefore, for the general
exoteric history of Greek religion he counts for more than any of the
philosophers, for he addressed a far larger public. Yet the message
that he has to deliver has come to him from the philosophers and from
the inspiration of the humanised Attic spirit, of which he appears
{142} the most delicate and final expression. While writing and
thinking pre-eminently as the cultured Athenian of the close of the
fourth century, he is the mouthpiece of cosmopolitanism in ethics and
religion--“no good man is alien to me; the nature of all is one and
the same (οὐδείς ἐστί μοι ἀλλότριος ἂν ᾖ χρηστός· ἡ φύσις μία
πάντων)”[142.1]; the Terentian formula--‘homo sum, humanum nil a me
alienum puto’--is only an extension of this, losing something of its
ethical colouring. Many of the fragments, showing striking
approximations to New Testament teaching, are of vital importance for
the history of Greek ethics. As regards religion, they may contain
protests against superstition and the extravagance of sacrifice
proffered as a bribe[142.2]; but they exhibit no real or veiled
attack on the popular polytheism as a whole. On the other hand, they
have preserved many memorable sentences that bear witness to the
development of a religion more personal, more inward and spiritual
than had hitherto been current, save perhaps in Platonic circles. God
is presented as a spirit and as spiritually discerned by the mind of
man; and a high ideal of Platonic speculation is delivered to the
public in the beautiful line, φῶς ἐστὶ τῷ νῷ πρὸς θεὸν βλέπειν ἀέι,
“the light of the mind is to gaze ever upon God.”[142.3] The sense of
close and mystic communion between man and the divine omnipresent
spirit is strikingly attested in the passage of one of his unknown
comedies: “a guardian spirit [δαίμων] stands by every man, straightway
from his birth, {143} to guide him into the mysteries of life, a good
spirit, for one must not imagine that there is an evil spirit injuring
good life, but that God is utterly good.”[143.1]
In attempting to grasp what is most elusive, the inner religious
sentiment of any period, it is important to remember that the author
of such expression was dear to at least the cultivated public of the
Hellenistic age.
_The_ Θεοκρασία.--The tolerant humanitarianism of Menander, of which
we catch the echo in certain formulæ inscribed on the Delphic and
other temples, is reflected in that which is perhaps the most striking
religious phenomenon of this period, namely, the ‘theocrasia,’ the
fusion of divinities of East and West. As regards religious theory
this is not to be regarded as a new departure. Herodotus shows how
natural it was to the Hellenic mind to interpret the deities of
foreign nations in terms of its native pantheon; and it was easy for
Euripides to commend Kybele as Demeter.[143.2] But it was by no means
easy, in fact it was exceedingly dangerous, before the time of
Alexander, to introduce any unauthorised foreign cult into the
City-State. We hear vaguely of the death-sentence inflicted or
threatened on those who did so. Nevertheless, as we have seen, such
foreigners as Sabazios and Attis were intruding themselves into Athens
at the time of the Peloponnesian war, trailing with them the orgiastic
atmosphere of Phrygia; and at some indefinite time before this the
impure ritual of certain Oriental Goddess-cults had invaded the
Corinthian worship of Aphrodite. But after the establishment of the
kingdoms of the Diadochi, the gentile barrier in {144} religion loses
gradually its force and significance. It was, in fact, a far-sighted
measure of policy on the part of some of the kings to establish some
common cult that might win the devotion of the Hellenic and Oriental
peoples alike. Such was the intention of Ptolemy when he founded at
Alexandria the cult of the Babylonian god, Sarapis, whom the Egyptians
were able owing to a similarity of name to identify with their
Osiris-Apis, and the Hellenes with their Plouton, owing to the
accidental fact that an image of this underworld-god happened to be
consecrated to the cult at its first institution. Similarly, when the
Syrian city of Bambyke was resettled as Hierapolis by Seleukos
Nikator, the personality of the great goddess, Atargatis, was blent
with that of Artemis, Hera, Aphrodite and other Hellenic goddesses;
and the treatise of Lucian, _de Dea Syria_, gives us the most
interesting picture presented by antiquity of the working of the
θεοκρασία in the domain of religion and religious art.
The spirit of syncretism grows stronger and more pervading through the
later Greek and Græco-Roman periods, and dominates the later Orphic
and Gnostic thought; and the inscriptions, usually the best record of
the popular religious practice, attest its wide diffusion. We find the
deities of diverse lands--Egypt, Syria and Greece--linked together in
the same formula of thanksgiving and the same offering dedicated to
them all. And the name Zeus is applied to so many gods of the East
that in the cult-formulæ it seems often to have lost all its personal
and concrete value and acquired the vaguer meaning of ‘God.’ The
Jewish Jahivé himself--under the name Ἰάω--was occasionally {145}
identified with him and at times, it seems, even with
Dionysos.[145.1]
The importance of this movement for religious thought was of the
highest. Varro’s view, recorded by Augustine.[145.2] that the name of
the deity made no difference, so long as ‘the same thing is
understood,’ and that therefore the God of the Jews was the same as
Jupiter, is a great idea that has been bequeathed to the world by
Greek tolerance and Greek sanity. Only a nation could attain to this
freedom of religious imagination that was not held captive by the
magic spell of names[145.3] which made it so difficult for the Jew to
shake off the tribal spirit of the religious blood-feud. This Hellenic
expression of religious enlightenment prepared the way for monotheism
and thus indirectly for Christianity. It also could induce the
pantheistic idea of a diffused omnipresent spirit of divinity, such as
is expressed in the lines of Aratos, the scientific poet of the third
century B.C., “all the ways are full of (the spirit of) God, and all
the gathering-places of men, the sea and harbours; and at every turn
we are all in need of God,[145.4] for we are of kin to him.”
_Stoicism, Epicureanism, Cynicism_.--This pantheistic speculation
inspires some of the dogmas of Stoicism; and for most of the Stoic
writers and thinkers the concept of divinity was less that of a
personal concrete Being than of a spiritual force or soul-power
immanent in things; therefore while some of them tried to find a place
in their {146} metaphysical system for the creations of the polytheism
and even a justification for augury and divination, the impression
left on our minds by the fragments that have come down to us of the
religious speculation of the Stoa is as of a system alien and
antipathetic to the popular theistic point of view and especially to
the social religion of kin-group and city; and Zeno the founder is
said to have protested against shrines and idols.[146.1] His protest
was in vain; nor is there any clear indication that Stoicism had any
influence on the religious thought and practice of the average man of
the people; unless, indeed, the emergence of the cult of Αρετή,
Virtue, in the second century B.C. at Pergamon and Smyrna was
suggested by the strong theologic colouring that the Stoics gave to
morality.[146.2]
As for Epicureanism, it cannot be regarded normally as a religious
force; if it touched the popular mind at all its influence must have
been generally in the direction of atheism or indifferentism; the only
signs that it did are occasional grave-inscriptions that breathe the
Epicurean spirit of unperturbed quiescence in regard to the posthumous
fate of the soul.
The philosophic school that was most aggressively protestant against
the popular creeds and cults appears to have been the Cynic, mordant
and outspoken criticism being characteristic of this sect. We have
record of Diogenes’ contempt for the Eleusinian mysteries, of
Antisthenes’ disdain for the Great Mother of Phrygia and her mendicant
priests; and the fragments in a newly discovered papyrus of {147} a
treatise by Kerkidas,[147.1] the Cynic philosopher and statesman of
Megalopolis in the third century B.C., contain a theory which reduces
personal deities to impotent instruments of Fate and would substitute
for Zeus and his colleagues certain divinised abstractions, such as
Nemesis and Μετάδως; the latter term, if the reading is sound, seems
to denote the Spirit of Unselfishness or Sacrifice, an interesting and
potentially valuable idea, but at this time still-born.
_Asclepios-Cult and later mysteries_.--The philosophic sectarians of
this later age do not appear to have made a serious attempt to capture
the mind of the public; and the popular religious movements for the
most part ignored them and their teaching. The Hellenistic religions
are as convincedly theistic and idolatrous as the older were. The
chief change lay in this, that a man now might to some extent choose
his own divinity or--what was even of more import--be chosen by him or
her; he was no longer limited to the cults into which he was born.
This freedom had already for some time been offered by the ‘thiasoi’;
and now in the Hellenistic world, especially through the powerful and
wide influence of the cult of Asklepios, the idea was developed of a
deity who as Healer and Saviour called all mankind to himself; and it
was this significant cult-phenomenon that induced Kerkidas in the
above-mentioned passage to include Παιάν, the ‘Healer,’ among the true
divinities whose worship ought to supplant that of the older gods. In
the treatise called ‘Asclepios’ of the pseudo-Apuleius a long address
and prayer to this deity are preserved of which the tone is strikingly
{148} Christian.[148.1] “We rejoice in thy divine salvation, because
thou hast shown thyself wholly to us; we rejoice that thou hast
deigned to consecrate us to eternity, while we are still in these
mortal bodies.… We have known thee, oh, true life of the life of man.…
Adoring thy goodness we make this our only prayer… that thou wouldst
be willing to keep us all our lives in the love of thy knowledge.”
_Non-Hellenic mysteries_.--The phenomenon here indicated attests the
stronger vitality at this period of personal or individual, as
distinct from tribal or political religion; and this was quickened
also by the growth of certain non-Hellenic mysteries in the
Mediterranean area in the latter centuries of Paganism, notably by the
Samothracian, those of Attis and the Great Mother, the Egyptian Isis,
and finally in the last period of all of Mithras. In most of these the
records allow us to discover many interesting ideas that reappear in
early Christianity, such, for instance, as communion with the divinity
through sacrament, the mystic death and rebirth of the Catechumen, the
saving efficacy of baptism and purification. These rites could satisfy
the craving of the mortal to attain to the conviction of immortality
and to the ecstatic consciousness of complete or temporary
self-absorption in God. But in the mysteries of Sabazios and Cybele
and possibly in others this sense of divinity was conveyed to the
‘mystes’ by the simulation of a holy marriage or sex-communion with
the God or Goddess; and for this reason the Pagan mysteries were
generally attacked by the Christian Fathers as obscene; the {149}
charge was unjust on the whole, though the psychic effect of the
special act of ritual just alluded to was probably detrimental to the
moral imagination.
_Hermetic literature_.--The strangest and most interesting
manifestation that the ancient records have preserved for us of this
fusion of Hellenic culture and Oriental religious sentiment is
presented by the Hermetic literature. The origins of this fantastic
product of the human mind are traced by Professor Petrie[149.1] back
to the sixth or fifth centuries B.C. But, though much of it is
pre-Christian, its philosophic diction proves that it cannot be
earlier than 300 B.C., and the bulk of it is probably later.[149.2]
A frequent Hermetic formula, addressed to the deity--ἐγώ εἰμι σὺ καὶ
σὺ ἐγώ, “I am Thou and Thou art I”--may be taken as the master-word of
these hieratic writings. This unnatural alliance between Greek
philosophy and Oriental mystic theosophy is a momentous phenomenon of
later Paganism; and the study of the origins of Christian metaphysic
is much concerned with it.
Such theosophy had a natural affinity with magic; and magic, always a
power in an age of intellectual decay, begins to be most powerful in
this latest age of Hellenism. It is a just reproach that Augustine
brings against Porphyry, the most notable of the Neoplatonists that he
‘wavered between philosophy and a sacrilegious curiosity,’ that is, a
vicious interest in the black art.[149.3]
In these strange forms of faith and speculation the clearness and
sanity of the pure Hellenic intellect appear clouded and troubled, the
lineaments of the {150} old types of the Hellenic thought and
imagination almost effaced. And the learning and science of the
Hellenistic age stood mainly aloof from the religious forces that
moved the masses of the people.
_Daimonism_.--The mystic and theosophic literature of the Hellenistic
and Græco-Roman period was markedly ‘daimonistic,’ being infected
with the polydaimonism of the East and positing the existence of good
and evil ‘daimones’ as a metaphysic dogma. We can trace a
corresponding change in the popular Hellenic imagination. In the
earlier period, as has been shown, the native Hellene was, as compared
with other races, fairly strong-minded in respect of the terrors of
the demon-world; but the later people of the Greek area were certainly
tainted in some degree with this unfortunate superstition of the East,
and various forms of exorcism, conjuration and evocation became more
prevalent. The modern Greek temperament appears to be morbidly
possessed with this disease[150.1]; and we may suppose that the germs
have been inherited and developed from this last period of the old
civilisation.
_Eschatology_.--But another feature that we mark in these mystic
worships and mystic societies of the Hellenistic world indicates a
higher aspect of religion and marks an epoch in religious aspiration.
Most of them, if not all, proclaimed the immortality of the soul, a
happy resurrection, a divine life after death. The Hellene who had
been initiated into the Osiris faith hoped to attain immortal
happiness in and through Osiris, availing himself of Egyptian ideas
and Egyptian spell-formulæ. The priest of certain {151} mysteries,
probably of Attis, comforts the congregation of the faithful,
sorrowing over the death of their God, with words that aver the
certainty of his resurrection and by implication the hope of their
own--
θαρρεῖτε μύσται τοῦ θεοῦ σεσωσμένου
ἔσται γὰρ ἡμῖν ἐκ πόνων σωτηρία.[151.1]
“Be of good cheer, ye of the mystery of the saved God, for after our
troubles there shall be to us salvation.”
The mysteries of Mithras embodied much the same eschatologic ideas and
hopes; but these came to the Græco-Roman world only in the latest
period before the establishment of Christianity, and had little hold
on Hellenic society proper. Doubtless the most attractive mystery for
the Hellenes was the Orphic, and we have many proofs of its activity
and life in the two centuries before and after the beginning of our
era; and we can well understand the causes of its popularity. Its
deity had become Hellenised long ago; the Orphic formulæ were free
from barbarous jargon and admitted the familiar divine names; the
insistence on purification was congenial to many Hellenic
temperaments; there was probably nothing surviving in the ritual that
was objectionable to the cultivated Hellene; and finally its picture
of Paradise seems to have accorded with the trend of the Hellenic
imagination. The numerous grave-inscriptions of these centuries rarely
express any definite Orphic sentiment or allude to any specially
mystic faith; but we know that the {152} sacred hymn of the votaries
was buried with them from the fourth century down to the Roman
Imperial period; and we have the evidence of Plutarch attesting the
prevalence of these societies and their power of appeal, for, when he
is consoling his wife for the death of their child, he reminds her of
the promises of future happiness held out by the Dionysiac mysteries,
into which they have both been initiated.[152.1]
_Hero-worship and apotheosis_.--The idea that was common to many of
these mystic brotherhoods, that the mortal might achieve divinity, is
illustrated by another religious phenomenon which stands out in this
latest period, namely, the worship of individual men and women either
in their lifetime or immediately after death. To appreciate the full
significance of this, one must be familiar with the usages of the
earlier Hellenes as also of the Oriental peoples who became subjects
of the Diadochi. We have observed that the Greek of the sixth and
fifth centuries was willing to concede heroic honours to certain
distinguished individuals after death; in this there was nothing
inconsistent with the principles of higher polytheism; and in the
earlier cases the grounds of canonisation were usually good and
reasonable. It becomes a more serious question about the religious and
moral character of a people when divine worship is proffered to a
living person. Of this the first example is the cult of Lysander as a
God, which, as Plutarch seems to imply, arose even in his
lifetime.[152.2] The same writer records the story of the apotheosis
offered by the people of Thasos {153} to Agesilaos and his sarcastic
refusal.[153.1] The same kind of adulation was lavished by the
degenerate Athenians on Alexander and Demetrios Poliorketes. The most
salient examples are derived from the records of the Seleukidai and
the Ptolemies, the kings of these dynasties usually enjoying divine
honours after death, and sometimes bearing divine titles, such as
Σωτηρ, Saviour, Θεός, or God, in their lifetime. Is this merely the
gross servility of a decadent age that had lost all real sense of
religion? This is no doubt the true account of it in some degree; Dio
Chrysostom exclaims against the quackery and vanity of it;[153.2] and
the sharp-witted Athenians and the educated Greek generally would be
under no illusion when they prostrated themselves before these
human-Gods. It is natural to suppose that the effect upon the life of
the old religion was corrosive when a queen or a courtesan could be
publicly recognised as Aphrodite, and that the general belief in
Apollo and Dionysos would tend to collapse when the one was identified
with the Seleukidai, the other with Attalos. Yet the faith in Dionysos
at least was able to survive the strain. And what seems to us mere
hypocrisy and blasphemy would appear to many of the Hellenistic
communities in another light. It seems that the uncultured Greek in
the time of Herodotus was capable of believing in all seriousness that
Xerxes might be a real incarnation of Zeus upon earth;[153.3] and
such an idea would be familiar, as an old tradition in the popular
estimate of kingship, to the {154} natives of Syria and still more to
the Egyptians. When the Rosetta stone proclaims the Ptolemy as ‘the
living image of God,’ the average Greek might smile in secret, but the
native Egyptian would instinctively assent to this assumption of
divinity by the heir of the ancient Pharaohs.
This apotheosis of the mortal, so rife in this later period, may be
regarded as a moral and religious evil. Yet it must not be taken too
hastily as a proof of the unreality of the prevailing polytheism. And,
for better or worse, it was a momentous fact belonging to the higher
history of European religion; for it familiarised the Græco-Roman
world with the idea of the incarnation of the Man-God.
_Signs of decay and of new life in later Paganism_.--The Hellenistic
period cannot be severed by any sharp dividing line from the
Græco-Roman; but it belongs rather to the student of Roman religion
and the Roman Empire to pursue the history of Hellenic polytheism
through the first centuries of our era down to the establishment of
Christianity. The religious phenomena of the period that has just been
sketched present, on the one hand, the signs of decay, the decay of
the old civic and political religion which fostered the growth of the
Greek Polis, the intrusion from the East of demonology and magic, and
on the other hand the working of new religious forces which prepare
the way for Christianity. The cults of Apollo, Zeus and Athene were
among the first to wither; yet a living and personal religious sense
was in all probability more diffused through the Greek world under the
Epigoni and the Roman Empire than it had been in the earlier
centuries. Contact with the Oriental spirit brought to many a stronger
{155} intensity of religious life; religion is no longer preoccupied
with the physical and political world, but its horizon lies beyond the
grave and its force is ‘other-worldliness.’ Men flock to the
mysteries, seeking communion with the divinity by sacrament, and
sustaining their faith by mystic dogmas. The religious virtue most
emphasised is purity, of which the influence is often anti-social;
this was no longer always understood in a pharisaic sense, but its
spiritual significance was proclaimed to the people and penetrated the
sphere of temple-ritual. An inscription from a temple in Rhodes of the
time of Hadrian contains a list of rules concerning righteous entrance
into the shrine, “the first and greatest rule is to be pure and
unblemished in hand and heart and to be free from an evil
conscience.”[155.1] Something similar was inscribed on the temple of
Asklepios at Epidauros.[155.2] The _objective_ of the earlier
Hellenic polytheism was the city, the tribe, the family; that of the
later was the individual soul; the earlier religious morality looked
rather to works and practice, the later rather to purity and personal
intimacy with God, which gave the cue to the later ‘gnosis’ and
theosophy. The gradual divorce of religion from political life was a
loss which was not repaired for many centuries; but it was compensated
by the rise of a humanitarian spirit which was to be infused into a
new cosmopolitan religion.[155.3]
The above is only a panoramic sketch indicating the various elements
of a singularly manifold religious system. It has been impossible to
touch {156} on all the special points of interest, such as divination
and the minutiæ of ritual and of the festivals; for these the student
must consult special treatises. The object of this monograph has been
to present the main essential features in a chronologic survey and to
assign to each its significance and relative importance. The history
has been adumbrated of a religion that maintained itself for nearly
two thousand years on the higher plane of polytheism; a religion
which, while lacking the sublimity and moral fervour of some of the
Oriental creeds, made certain unique contributions to the evolution of
society and the higher intellectual life of man.
By the side of the higher growths many of the products of lower and
savage culture were maintained which were mainly obliterated by
Christianity. It is necessary to note and appreciate these lower
facts; but there is a risk of overestimating their importance and
vitality. Many of these are found in all higher religions, usually in
a moribund state. It is its higher achievement that makes any
particular religion of importance in the history of civilisation; and
we are now aware that Greek religion can claim this importance. Nor
can the lower elements as a whole be shown to be the germs of the
higher within the Hellenic period proper. We cannot show the evolution
of the personal anthropomorphic deities of Greece from magic ritual or
totemism or theriomorphism without transcending the chronologic limits
of the period within which it is allowable to speak of a Hellenic
people at all. The emergence of personal Gods, from whatever region or
by whatever influence they emerged, is an event of very primitive
history. At least we know that of {157} the two populations whose
blending made Hellenism, the indigenous Mediterranean and the Northern
or Central European invader, the former possessed a personal theism of
dateless antiquity; while all the evidence points to the conviction
that the Aryan tribes entered Greece with certain personal deities
already evolved or acquired.
We find that anthropomorphism was the strongest bias of the Hellenic
religious imagination; and with this we associate his passion for
idolatry and hero-worship. It is interesting for the student of
Hellenic Christianity to note the influence of these tendencies on the
later history of the Greek Church; and generally it has been the
result of much modern research to reveal the truth that the
indebtedness of Christian dogma and ritual to the later Hellenic
paganism was far greater than used to be supposed.
LITERATURE
{158}
Older works, such as _Welcker’s Griechische Götterlehre_ (3 vols.,
1857-1863), and _Preller’s Griechische Mythologie_ (2 vols., 4th ed.,
by C. Robert, 1887), are only useful now for their collection of
facts.
Recent literature: O. Gruppe, _Griechische Culte und Mythen in ihren
Beziehungen zu den orientalischen Religionen_, 1887; _Griechische
Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte_, 1906; L. R. Farnell, _Cults of
the Greek States_, 5 vols. (1896-1910); Chantepie de la Saussaye,
_Lehrbuch der Religiongeschichte_ (Greek section, 1906); Jane
Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_ (1903),
_Themis, a Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion_ (1912) (both
works dealing mainly with special questions and the more primitive
aspects of the religion).
Treatises on special cults and special questions: Roscher,
_Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie_
(1884, in progress); Paulz-Wissowa, _Real Encyclopædie_ (1894, in
progress); and Daremberg et Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités_
(1873-1917); Showerman, _The Great Mother of the Gods_ (Wisconsin,
1901); Frazer, _Attis, Adonis, Osiris_ (2nd ed., 1910); A. Dieterich,
_Mutter Erde_ (1905); Eitrem, _Hermes und die Toten_ (Christiania,
1909); Immerwahr, _Kulte und Mythe Arkadiens_ (1891); S. Wide,
_Lakonische Kulte_ (1893); Usener, _Götternamen_ (1896); cf. paper on
his theory in _Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor_, “The
Place of the Sondergötter in Greek Polytheism,” by L. R. Farnell
(1907); De Visser, _De Graecorum Diis non referentibus speciem
humanam_ (Leyden, 1900); E. Fehrle, _Die Kultische Keuscheit im
Alterthum_ (Giessen, 1910); cf. L. R. Farnell, _Evolution of Religion_
(1905), Lect. iii, “The Ritual of Purification”; {159} Th. Wáchter,
_Reinheitsvorschriften im grieschischen Kult_ (Giessen, 1910); C.
Ausfeld, _De Graecorum precationibus quaestiones_, in Fleckeisen’s
Supplement (1903); cf. L. R. Farnell, _op cit._, Lect. iv, “The
Evolution of Prayer”; S. Reinach, various articles on Greek cults and
myths in _Cultes, Mythes et Religions_, 3 vols. (1904-1908).
For Eschatology, Mysteries, Thiasoi, Hero-worship: A. Lobeck,
_Aglaophamus_, 2 vols. (1829); E. Rohde, _Psyche_ (2nd ed., 1898); A.
Dieterich, _Nekyia_ (1893); also _Eine Mithras-Liturgie_ (1903); Jong,
_Das Antike Mysterien-Wesen_ (Leiden, 1909); Goblet d’Alviella,
_Eleusinia_ (Paris, 1903); Foucart, “Les Grands Mystères d’Eleusis”
(1900), in the _Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles-lettres_, xxxvii; Pringsheim, _Archäologische Beiträge zur
Geschichte des Eleusinischen Kults_ (Munich, 1905); Foucart,
_Associations religieuses chez les Grecs_ (1873); L. Weniger, _Ueber
das Collegium der Thyiaden_ (1876); Article on “Héros,” by Deneken,
in Roscher’s _Lexikon_; Pfister, _Der Reliquien-kult im Alterthum_
(1910).
Greek ritual and festivals: A. Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt Athen_
(1898); P. Stengel, “Die griechischen Sacral-alterthümer,” in Iwan
von Müller’s _Handbuch_ (vol. v, 1898); _id. Opferbraüche der
Griechen_ (1910); Fritze, _Die Rauchopfer bei den Griechen_ (1894); L.
R. Farnell, “Sacramental Communion in Greek Religion,” _Hibbert
Journal_ (1903); M. P. Nillson, _Griechische Feste_ (1906), also
_Studia de Dionysiis Atticis_ (1900); Foucart, _Le culte de Dionysos
en Attique_ (1904); A. Thomsen, “Der Trug des Prometheus,” in _Archiv
für Religions-Wissenschaft_ (1909); Rouse, _Greek Votive Offerings_
(1902); Bouché-Leclerq, _Histoire de la divination_ (4 vols.
1879-1881); Deubner, _De Incubatione_ (1900); E. Samter, _Geburt
Hochzeit und Tod_ (1911).
Greek religious thought and speculation: L. Campbell, _Religion in
Greek Literature_ (1898); Caird, _Evolution of Theology in the Greek
Philosophers_ (2 vols., 1900-1902); J. Adam, _The Religious Teachers
of Greece_ (1908); Decharme, _La critique des traditions religieuses
chez les Grecs des origines au temps de Plutarque_ (1904).
{160}
Epigraphic material: _Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum_ (passim);
special collections of inscriptions bearing on Greek religion:
Dittenberger, _Sylloge_ (vol. 2), “Res Sacrae”; J. von Prott and L.
Ziehen, _Leges Graecorum sacrae e titulis collectae_ (1896-1906, in
progress).
Religious monuments: Overbeck, _Griechische Kunst Mythologie_
(1871-1887, unfinished); L. R. Farnell, _Cults_; J. Harrison, op.
cit.; Baumeister, _Denkmäler des klassischen Alterthums_ (1885-1888);
Roscher, op. cit.; Daremberg-Saglio, op. cit.; C. Bötticher, _Über
den Baumkultus der Hellenen und Römer_ (1856).
_The Mayflower Press, Plymouth, England_. William Brendon & Son
ENDNOTES
[21.1]
As Karsten assumes in his _Outlines of Greek Religion_, p. 6.
[22.1]
Vide E. Meyer, “Der erste auftreten der Aryer in der Geschichte,”
_Sitzungsb. d. König. preuss. Akad. Wissensch._, 1908, p. 14.
[23.1]
Vide my _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 93.
[24.1]
Vide my _Greece and Babylon_, pp. 95-99.
[24.2]
The name Hera is probably Aryan-Hellenic, but applied in Argolis to
the pre-Hellenic Goddess.
[29.1]
_Od._, 13, 174.
[31.1]
At Gournia. Vide Hawes’ _Crete the Forerunner of Greece_, pp.
101-102.
[32.1]
_Il._, 16, 234.
[32.2]
_Il._, 16, 605.
[32.3]
_Il._, 5, 77.
[33.1]
He is aware, however, that a θεοῦ ὀμφή, an oracular mandate, might be
delivered against the royal house. _Od._, 3, 215.
[33.2]
Vide my _Cults_, 4, p. 190.
[33.3]
_Religion of the Semites_, pp. 236-245.
[34.1]
Vide _Cults_, 1, pp. 88-92.
[34.2]
Vide my _Greece and Babylon_, p. 236; also my article on “Sacrificial
Communion in Greek Religion” in _Hibbert Journal_, 1904: on
“Sacrifice” (Greek), in Hastings’ _Encyclopædia of Religion and
Ethics_.
[35.1]
_Od._, 10, 517-520, 528.
[35.2]
Vide Evans’ “Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult,” _Hell. Journ._, 901, p.
191.
[35.3]
_Arch. Anzeig._, 1909, p. 98.
[35.4]
e.g. _Il._, 9, 500.
[36.1]
10, 38, 8.
[36.2]
_Cults_, 4, pp. 180, 193.
[36.3]
_Il._, 3, 243: but the poet of the Nekyia is well aware of the heroic
or divine honours paid them, _Od._, 11, 300-304.
[36.4]
_Od._, 11, 602.
[36.5]
_Il._, 2, 548.
[37.1]
Vide _Greece and Babylon_, pp. 206-207.
[37.2]
Vide v. Prott, _Leges Græcorum Sacræ_, n. 4. Cf. _Arch. für
Religionsw._, 1909, pp. 467, 482-485.
[37.3]
_Od._, 17, 500.
[37.4]
Paus., 1, 43, 7.
[38.1]
_Cults_, 3, pp. 50-62.
[39.1]
_Op._, 735.
[40.1]
Vide my _Greece and Babylon_, pp. 192-194.
[42.1]
_Cults_, 4, pp. 113-116.
[42.2]
Vide Nillson, in _Athen. Mitth._, 1908, p. 279.
[43.1]
_Cults_, 2, pp. 434-449.
[43.2]
_De Græcorum deis non referentibus speciem humanam_, 1900.
[43.3]
_Bull. Corresp. Hellên._, 1899, p. 635.
[43.4]
_Greece and Babylon_, pp. 66-80. Vide Schrader’s article, “Aryan
Religion,” Hastings’ _Encyclopædia_, vol. 2, p. 38.
[44.1]
_Götternamen_, 1896.
[44.2]
Paus., 2, 11, 2.
[45.1]
Paus., 1, 1, 5.
[45.2]
Paus., 9, 33, 3.
[45.3]
Paus., 10, 37, 3.
[45.4]
I have criticised this theory of evolution in _Anthropological Essays
presented to E. B. Tylor_, 1907, “The place of the Sondergötter in
Greek Polytheism,” where I have taken the view that some of them are
products of the same religious instinct that produces theism or
polytheism and that some appear to be late offshoots of the
polytheistic system.
[46.1]
_Bull. Corr. Hell._, 1878, p. 515.
[46.2]
Paus., 3, 22, 1.
[46.3]
_Id._, 1, 22, 3; for other references vide _Cults_, 3, p. 312, R.9.
[47.1]
Paus., 8, 29, 1.
[47.2]
Paus., 8, 38, 3. ὁ ἱερεὺς τοῦ Λυκαίου Διὸς προσευξάμενος ὲς τὸ ὕδωρ.
Cf. Hesiod., _Op._, 737; for the general facts vide _Cults_, 5, pp.
420-424.
[47.3]
Vide _Cults_, 5, pp. 417-420.
[48.1]
Vide _Cults_, 5, pp. 345-365.
[48.2]
Agamede of Ephyra seems to have practised harmless magic, _Il._, 14,
740; and the poet may have regarded the Elean Ephyra as the special
home of magic. Vide _Od._, 2, 328.
[48.3]
_Cults_, 3, p. 85-93; Miss Harrison, _Prolegomena_, pp. 120-136.
[49.1]
_Cults_, 4, p. 268, etc.
[49.2]
Arrian, _Anab._, 3, 16, 8.
[49.3]
Hesych., _s.v._
[49.4]
_Strom._, p. 755.
[49.5]
2, 12, 1.
[49.6]
In the earliest versions of her legend, the magic of Medea is not
black but benevolent.
[50.1]
9, 33, 4.
[50.2]
Andrew Lang, _The World of Homer_, pp. 210, 216.
[50.3]
_Il._, 23, 174.
[51.1]
Vide Tsountas in _Ephem. Archaiol._, 1888, pp. 130-131, and
Vollgraff, in _Bull. Corr. Hell._, 1904, p. 370.
[51.2]
Vide _Hibbert Lectures_, “Higher Aspects of Greek Religion,” pp. 19,
20.
[52.1]
Vide _Cults_, 1, p. 40-42.
[52.2]
_Ib._, p. 42.
[52.3]
_Ib._, 4, p. 272; Schol. Pind., _Ol._, 10, 19.
[52.4]
7, 19, 1-9.
[53.1]
e.g. vide _Cults_, 3, 93.
[53.2]
_Cults_, 3, p. 22.
[56.1]
Vide _Cults_, vol. 5, pp. 85-118. Cf. generally chs. iv and v.
[58.1]
2, 53.
[60.1]
Vide _Cults_, 2, pp. 442-449.
[60.2]
Bergk, _Pœtæ Lyrici Græci_, vol. III, Fr. 1.
[60.3]
Philochoros Frag., 21, Müller, F. H. G., vol. i.
[61.1]
Athenæ., p. 626 B.
[61.2]
Vide _Arch. Anzeig_, 1908, p. 122.
[62.1]
_Cults_, 3, pp. 17-18.
[62.2]
_Ib._, 3, pp. 33-34.
[62.3]
_Cults_, 5, p. 443-447.
[63.1]
Vide Furtwängler, in _Münchener Sitzungsber._, 1897, 1, p. 401;
Nillson, in _Athen. Mittheil._, 1908, p. 284.
[63.2]
The striking exception to this rule is the great cult of Helios at
Rhodes. _Vide supra_, p. 29.
[64.1]
Ael., _Var. Hist._, 12, 61.
[64.2]
“They worship Sun and Moon, we worship real Gods such as Apollo and
Hermes,” _Pax_, 410.
[64.3]
Schol. Soph., _Elec._, 6.
[64.4]
Vide my _Greece and Babylon_, pp. 77-80.
[65.1]
Vide _Cults_, 4, pp. 163-166.
[65.2]
Prott-Ziehen, _Leg. Saer._, n., 18.
[67.1]
Plat., _Euthyd._, p. 302 C; Demosth., 18, § 141, 57, § 54, 67;
Arist., _Ath. Polit._, 55.
[67.2]
Diog. Laert., 8, 1, 13; Macrob., 3, 6, 2.
[67.3]
_Bull. Corr. Hell._, 1893, p. 24.
[68.1]
Paus., 8, 47, 4.
[69.1]
The other view, still held by some, that Zeus-Agamemnon is the
earlier fact, and Agamemnon the hero the later, does not bear
criticism.
[70.1]
_Cults_, v, pp. 219-221; J. Harrison, _Prolegomena_, ch. ii.
[71.1]
Vide “Higher Aspects of Greek Religion,” _Hibbert Lectures_,
pp. 73-91.
[73.1]
Vide _Cults_, 1, pp. 64-69; for the religious evolution of the Greek
laws concerning homicide, vide my _Evolution of Religion_, pp.
139-152. _Cults_, IV, pp. 295-306.
[73.2]
_Epic. Græc. Frag._, Kinkel, p. 33.
[74.1]
Vide _Cults_, 4, p. 299.
[76.1]
Vide _Cults_, IV, pp. 200-202.
[77.1]
Vide _Cults_, IV, pp. 161-162, 200-202.
[77.2]
A fuller account will be found in _Cults_, IV, pp. 179-218.
[80.1]
Vide _supra_, pp. 34-35.
[84.1]
_Republ._, pp. 364-365.
[87.1]
For more detailed discussion, vide _Cults_, 3, pp. 126-198.
[89.1]
Plut., _Mor._, p. 881 E; Porphyr., _Vit. Pyth._, 19, 20.
[89.2]
_Strom._, V, p. 714.
[90.1]
Vide Gilbert, “Speculation und Volksglaube in der Ionischen
Philosophie,” in _Arch. Relig. Wiss._, 1910, p. 306.
[90.2]
_Frag._, CXXVI, CXXVII, CXXX (Bywater).
[91.1]
Vide Ridgeway’s _Origin of Tragedy_; his theory is criticised in
_Hermathena_, 1912.
[93.1]
Pan, the daimon-god of flocks, came in from Arcadia at the beginning
of this century (vide _Cults_, V, p. 431); Asklepios, with his circle
from Epidauros, at the close.
[94.1]
Herod., 8, 77.
[94.2]
Heydemann, _Die Vasensammlungen des Museum Nazionale zu Neapel_,
3253.
[94.3]
Vide specially l. 805-808, 822-824.
[94.4]
9, 7, 4.
[95.1]
Bergk, _Frag._, 140.
[95.2]
_Hibbert Lectures_, 83-84.
[96.1]
Plut., _Vit. Arist._, 20; Paus., 9, 2, 5.
[98.1]
Vide _Cults_, III, pp. 156-157.
[98.2]
Vide _supra_, pp. 36-37.
[100.1]
Quintil., _Inst. Orat._, 12, 10, 9.
[101.1]
_Or._, 53, p. 401.
[101.2]
Vide _Cults_, 1, p. 231.
[101.3]
_Cults_, Vol. III, Coin Pl. No. 2; Gardner’s _Types of Greek Coins_,
Pl. 10, 25.
[102.1]
Vide _Cults_, III, pp. 271-272, Coin Pl. No. 18.
[102.2]
_Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion_.
[103.1]
Livy, 45, 28.
[103.2]
_Thesmoph._, 1136.
[103.3]
Xenophanes’ protest in the sixth century is the most noticeable,
Clem., _Strom._, 5, pp. 714-715 P. The Stoic theory of Zeno condemned
the erection of temples as well as idols, _ib._, p. 691 P.
[105.1]
_Antig._, 521.
[107.1]
Paus., 1, 40, 4.
[108.1]
_Ol._, 8, 28.
[108.2]
_Sept. c. Theb._, 662.
[108.3]
_Agam._, 776.
[108.4]
_Oed. Col._, 1268.
[108.5]
_Trag. Græc. Frag._ (Nanck), 855.
[109.1]
§ 35.
[109.2]
_Pyth._, 4, 517.
[109.3]
_Ol._, 9, 60.
[112.1]
_Strom._, p. 688.
[113.1]
_Herc. Fur._, l. 847-858.
[113.2]
_Ib._, 339-347.
[115.1]
Vide my _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 114.
[115.2]
l. 391.
[116.1]
_Iphig Taur._, l. 391.
[116.2]
Clem., _Strom._, p. 691 P.
[116.3]
Vide Stobæ, _Flor._, Vol. IV (Meineke), p. 264.
[116.4]
Vide _Cults_, Vol. IV, p. 210.
[118.1]
6, 86.
[118.2]
Vide Ziegler, in _Archiv. f. Religionswiss_, 1911, p. 393-405.
[119.1]
Plut., _Vit. Pelop._, C. 21, 22. Cf. Eur., _Iph. Taur._, l. 391.
[119.2]
p. 315 B-C.
[119.3]
Cf. Herod., 7, 197, who shows that the human sacrifice in this cult
was rare and conditional.
[119.4]
_Iph. Taur._, l. 1458.
[119.5]
Vide _Cults_, 4, pp. 276-279.
[119.6]
Porphyry, _De Abstin._, 2, 54.
[120.1]
_Ib._, 2, 56.
[120.2]
De ser. num. vind., 12, p. 557 C-D.
[120.3]
Plut., _Parallela_, 35. Vide _Cults_, 1, 95.
[120.4]
Vide my _Greece and Babylon_, p. 267.
[121.1]
The exceptions are the cults of Aphrodite at Corinth and among the
Lokri Epizephyrii. Vide _Cults_, 2, pp. 635-636.
[121.2]
_Cults_, 2, p. 667.
[121.3]
e.g., in the cult of Artemis κορδάκα in Elis, said to be of Lydian
origin (_Cults_, Vol. II, p. 445).
[122.1]
p. 527 D.
[122.2]
Bywater, _Frag._, CXXVII.
[122.3]
7, 17, p. 1336 _b._
[123.1]
_Cults_, I, pp. 56, 88-92.
[123.2]
23, § 76.
[123.3]
Serv. ad Verg., _Æn._, 3, 57.
[123.4]
Vide my _Greece and Babylon_, pp. 76-81.
[124.1]
Vide fifth-century inscription of Teos containing a law threatening
with penalties those who used magic against the State or against
individuals (Rœhl, _Inscr. Græc. Antiq._, 497).
[124.2]
p. 932 E-933 E.
[124.3]
_Or._, 30, § 18.
[126.1]
_Cults_, 5, p. 264.
[127.1]
_Rep._, 378 C., where he seems to glance at Epicharmos.
[129.1]
Vide _Cults_, 4, pp. 211-214.
[130.1]
_Frags._, 1032.
[130.2]
κ. Ἀριστογειτ, § 11.
[131.1]
_Or._, 1, p. 31.
[132.1]
_De Myster._, § 125; cf. § 31.
[132.2]
_De Cor._, § 324.
[133.1]
_Laws_, 956 A-B.
[133.2]
_Ib._, 985 D.
[133.3]
e.g. _ib._, 984 D.
[133.4]
p. 34-41.
[134.1]
For particulars vide _Hibbert Lectures_, pp. 37, 46-48, 103, 117.
[135.1]
_Laws_, p. 909 E.
[135.2]
738 C.
[137.1]
_Bull. Corr. Hell._, XXVI, pp. 399-489.
[138.1]
Vide _Cults_, 3, pp. 199-202.
[138.2]
_Ib._, p. 199.
[139.1]
Vide Foucart, _Des Associations religieuses_.
[141.1]
A paper by Pierre Waltz in the _Revue des Études Grecques_,
1911--‘sur les sentences de Ménandre’--aims at discovering or
imagining the dramatic setting of each fragment and at disproving
the view that Menander was posing as an original ethical teacher.
Accepting his theory, we can still assign high value to the
‘sentences’ for the purpose of Greek ethical history, whether we
regard them as original and earnest utterances of Menander or
commonplaces which he uses lightly for dramatic purposes; for if the
latter view of them is the truer, they show at least what was in the
air.
[142.1]
Kock, _Com. Att. Frag._, 602.
[142.2]
e.g., quotation by Clemens, _Strom_, p. 720 P. Cf. fragment of the
Ἱέρεια, Kock, 245.
[142.3]
Γνῶμαι Μονοστιχοι 589, Meineke, 4, p. 356.
[143.1]
_Fab. Incert._, Kock, _Frag._, 550.
[143.2]
Helene, 1300-1365.
[145.1]
Vide A. B. Cooke, _Zeus_, pp. 232-234.
[145.2]
_De Consensu Evangelistarum_, 1, 30 (xxii); cf. _De Civ. Dei._, IV,
9.
[145.3]
Vide my _Hibbert Lectures_, pp. 104-106.
[145.4]
Phainomen, 1, 2-5.
[146.1]
Clem., _Strom._, p. 691.
[146.2]
Vide _Cults_, 5, pp. 446, 745 R, 221.
[147.1]
_Oxyrhynch. Papyri._, viii, p. 31.
[148.1]
Vide _Archiv, für Relig. Wiss._, 1904, p. 395; my _Evolution of
Religion_, p. 207.
[149.1]
_Personal Religion in Egypt_, p. 40.
[149.2]
Vide Reitzenstein, _Poimandres_.
[149.3]
_De Civ. Dei._, 10, 9.
[150.1]
Vide J. C. Lawson, _Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek
Religion_, 1910.
[151.1]
Firm. Mat., _De Err._, 22; cf. Dieterich, _Eine Mithras-Liturgie_, p.
174.
[152.1]
_Consol. ad uxor._, 10, p. 611 D.
[152.2]
Vit. Lysandr., 18. Cf. Athenag, p. 51 (Lechair).
[153.1]
p. 210 D, _Apoth. Lacon_; he advised them to begin with making
themselves Gods if they felt equal to making him one.
[153.2]
_Or._, 64 R, 338 (Dind, 2. p. 213).
[153.3]
7, 56.
[155.1]
_C.I.G. Ins. Mar. Æg._, 1, 789.
[155.2]
Vide my _Evolution of Religion_, p. 138.
[155.3]
Vide my _Hibbert Lectures_, Lect. VI, “Personal Religion in
Greece.”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
This book is first in the _Duckworth’s Student Series_.
Page numbers are given in {curly} brackets.
Plain text version only: endnote markers are given in [square]
brackets.
Add the book title and author’s name to the cover image.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ ethical-religious/ethical
religious, Maenads/Mænads, etc.) along with the use of both Arabic
and Roman numerals to indicate volume numbers in the endnotes have
been preserved.
(p. 142, note 3) The last character(s) of the word beginning with
“Μονοστιχ” are illegible in the source text. Μονοστιχοι is used until
the proper word can be determined.
Alterations to the text:
Convert footnotes to endnotes, relabel note markers (append the
original note number to the page number), and add a corresponding
entry to the TOC.
[Chapter IV]
Change “or _φαλλοφορἱα_ were specially associated with Dionysos…” to
_φαλλοφορία_.
[Chapter V]
“abstractions, such as Nemesis and ‘Μετάδως; the latter term…” delete
left single quotation mark.
[Endnotes]
A couple of trivial punctuation corrections.
(p. 49, note 6) “the magic of _Media_ is not black but benevolent” to
_Medea_.
[End of text]