(Concerning the Gods of the Heathen.)
Touching the Gods of the Heathen, most reverend Father, thou art not
ignorant that even now, as in the time of thy probation on earth, there
is great dissension. That these feigned Deities and idols, the work of
men's hands, are no longer worshipped thou knowest; neither do men eat
meat offered to idols. Even as spoke that last Oracle which murmured
forth, the latest and the only true voice from Delphi, even so 'the
fair-wrought court divine hath fallen; no more hath Phoebus his home,
no more his laurel-bough, nor the singing well of water; nay, the
sweet-voiced water is silent.' The fane is ruinous, and the images of
men's idolatry are dust.
Nevertheless, most worshipful, men do still dispute about the beginnings
of those sinful Gods: such as Zeus, Athene, and Dionysus: and marvel
how first they won their dominion over the souls of the foolish peoples.
Now, concerning these things there is not one belief, but many;
howbeit, there are two main kinds of opinion. One sect of philosophers
believes--as thyself, with heavenly learning, didst not vainly
persuade--that the Gods were the inventions of wild and bestial folk,
who, long before cities were builded or life was honourably ordained,
fashioned forth evil spirits in their own savage likeness; ay, or in the
likeness of the very beasts that perish. To this judgment, as it is set
forth in thy Book of the Preparation for the Gospel, I, humble as I
am, do give my consent. But on the other side are many and learned men,
chiefly of the tribes of the Alemanni, who have almost conquered the
whole inhabited world. These, being unwilling to suppose that the
Hellenes were in bondage to superstitions handed down from times of
utter darkness and a bestial life, do chiefly hold with the heathen
philosophers, even with the writers whom thou, most venerable, didst
confound with thy wisdom and chasten with the scourge of small cords of
thy wit.
Thus, like the heathen, our doctors and teachers maintain that the Gods
of the nations were, in the beginning, such pure natural creatures as
the blue sky, the sun, the air, the bright dawn, and the fire; but, as
time went on, men, forgetting the meaning of their own speech and no
longer understanding the tongue of their own fathers, were misled and
beguiled into fashioning all those lamentable tales: as that Zeus, for
love of mortal women, took the shape of a bull, a ram, a serpent, an
ant, an eagle, and sinned in such wise as it is a shame even to speak
of.
Behold, then, most worshipful, how these doctors and learned men argue,
even like the philosophers of the heathen whom thou didst confound. For
they declare the Gods to have been natural elements, sun and sky and
storm, even as did thy opponents; and, like them, as thou saidst, 'they
are nowise at one with each other in their explanations.' For of old
some boasted that Hera was the Air; and some that she signified the love
of woman and man; and some that she was the waters above the Earth; and
others that she was the Earth beneath the waters; and yet others
that she was the Night, for that Night is the shadow of Earth: as if,
forsooth, the men who first worshipped Hera had understanding of these
things! And when Hera and Zeus quarrel unseemly (as Homer declareth),
this meant (said the learned in thy days) no more than the strife
and confusion of the elements, and was not in the beginning an idle
slanderous tale.
To all which, most worshipful, thou didst answer wisely: saying that
Hera could not be both night, and earth, and water, and air, and the
love of sexes, and the confusion of the elements; but that all these
opinions were vain dreams, and the guesses of the learned. And why--thou
saidst--even if the Gods were pure natural creatures, are such foul
things told of them in the Mysteries as it is not fitting for me to
declare. 'These wanderings, and drinkings, and loves, and corruptions,
that would be shameful in men, why,' thou saidst, 'were they attributed
to the natural elements; and wherefore did the Gods constantly show
themselves, like the sorcerers called were-wolves, in the shape of
the perishable beasts?' But, mainly, thou didst argue that, till the
philosophers of the heathen were agreed among themselves, not all
contradicting each the other, they had no semblance of a sure foundation
for their doctrine.
To all this and more, most worshipful Father, I know not what the
heathen answered thee. But, in our time, the learned men who stand to it
that the heathen Gods were in the beginning the pure elements, and that
the nations, forgetting their first love and the significance of their
own speech, became confused and were betrayed into foul stories about
the pure Gods--these learned men, I say, agree no whit among themselves.
Nay, they differ one from another, not less than did Plutarch and
Porphyry and Theagenes, and the rest whom thou didst laugh to scorn.
Bear with me, Father, while I tell thee how the new Plutarchs and
Porphyrys do contend among themselves; and yet these differences of
theirs they call 'Science'!
Consider the goddess Athene, who sprang armed from the head of Zeus,
even as--among the fables of the poor heathen folk of seas thou never
knewest--goddesses are fabled to leap out from the armpits or feet of
their fathers. Thou must know that what Plato, in the 'Cratylus,' made
Socrates say in jest, the learned among us practise in sad earnest. For,
when they wish to explain the nature of any God, they first examine
his name, and torment the letters thereof, arranging and altering them
according to their will, and flying off to the speech of the Indians and
Medes and Chaldeans, and other Barbarians, if Greek will not serve their
turn. How saith Socrates? 'I bethink me of a very new and ingenious idea
that occurs to me; and, if I do not mind, I shall be wiser than I should
be by to-morrow's dawn. My notion is that we may put in and pull out
letters at pleasure and alter the accents.' Even so do our learned--not
at pleasure, maybe, but according to certain fixed laws (so they
declare); yet none the more do they agree among themselves. And I deny
not that they discover many things true and good to be known; but,
as touching the names of the Gods, their learning, as it standeth, is
confusion. Look, then, at the goddess Athene: taking one example out of
hundreds. We have dwelling in our coasts Muellerus, the most erudite
of the doctors of the Alemanni, and the most golden-mouthed. Concerning
Athene, he saith that her name is none other than, in the ancient tongue
of the Brachmanae, _Ahana'_, which, being interpreted, means the Dawn.
'And that the morning light,' saith he, 'offers the best starting-point;
for the later growth of Athene has been proved, I believe, beyond the
reach of doubt or even cavil.' (1)
(1) 'The Lesson of Jupiter.'--_Nineteenth Century_, October, 1885.
Yet this same doctor candidly lets us know that another of his nation,
the witty Benfeius, hath devised another sense and origin of Athene,
taken from the speech of the old Medes. But Muellerus declares to us
that whosoever shall examine the contention of Benfeius 'will be bound,
in common honesty, to confess that it is untenable.' This, Father, is
one for Benfeius, as the saying goes. And as Muellerus holds that these
matters 'admit of almost mathematical precision,' it would seem
that Benfeius is but a _Dummkopf_, as the Alemanni say, in their own
language, when they would be pleasant among themselves.
Now, wouldst thou credit it? despite the mathematical plainness of
the facts, other Alemanni agree neither with Muellerus, nor yet with
Benfeius, and will neither hear that Athene was the Dawn, nor yet that
she is 'the feminine of the Zend _Thra'eta'na athwya'na_.' Lo, you! how
Prellerus goes about to show that her name is drawn not from _Ahana'_
and the old Brachmanae, nor _athwya'na_ and the old Medes, but from 'the
root _aith_*, whence _aither_*, the air, or _ath_*, whence _anthos_*, a
flower.' Yea, and Prellerus will have it that no man knows the verity of
this matter. None the less he is very bold, and will none of the Dawn;
but holds to it that Athene was, from the first, 'the clear pure height
of the Air, which is exceeding pure in Attica.'
Now, Father, as if all this were not enough, comes one Roscherus in,
with a mighty great volume on the Gods, and Furtwaenglerus, among
others, for his ally. And these doctors will neither with Rueckertus and
Hermannus, take Athene for 'wisdom in person;' nor with Welckerus
and Prellerus, for 'the goddess of air;' nor even, with Muellerus and
mathematical certainty, for 'the Morning-Red:' but they say that Athene
is the 'black thunder-cloud, and the lightning that leapeth therefrom'!
I make no doubt that other Alemanni are of other minds: _quot Alemanni
tot sententiae_.
Yea, as thou saidst of the learned heathen, _Oude gar allelois symphona_
_physiologousis_. Yet these disputes of theirs they call 'Science'!
But if any man says to the learned: 'Best of men, you are erudite,
and laborious and witty; but, till you are more of the same mind, your
opinions cannot be styled knowledge. Nay, they are at present of no
avail whereon to found any doctrine concerning the Gods'--that man is
railed at for his 'mean' and 'weak' arguments.
* Transliterated from Greek.
Was it thus, Father, that the heathen railed against thee? But I
must still believe, with thee, that these evil tales of the Gods were
invented 'when man's life was yet brutish and wandering' (as is the life
of many tribes that even now tell like tales), and were maintained in
honour of the later Greeks 'because none dared alter the ancient beliefs
of his ancestors.' Farewell, Father; and all good be with thee, wishes
thy well-wisher and thy disciple.