Introduction to the History of Religions Part 60

Bade, in _Transactions of the American Philological a.s.sociation_, 1908.

[1317] For the Old Testament statements see C. G.

Montefiore, _Origin and Growth of Religion as ill.u.s.trated by the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews_ (Hibbert Lectures, 1892), Index, s.v. _Yahweh_.

[1318] He was thus supreme for the particular tribe, though not universal; cf. article "Arabs (Ancient)" in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_.

[1319] Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_; Gruppe, _Griechische Mythologie_; articles on the various deities in Roscher's _Lexikon_.

[1320] Formally the names Dyaus, Zeus, and Ju (in Jupiter) are identical; and to these may probably be added the Teutonic Tiu (Tyr).

[1321] In early thought the sky (like the earth) is in itself a powerful thing, a personality, and the G.o.d who is later supposed to inhabit and control it is a definite figure, like, for example, a tree-G.o.d.

[1322] From the ancient notices of Kronos it is hardly possible to fix definitely the relation between him and Zeus. It is probable that he represents an older cult that was largely displaced by that of Zeus. The custom of human sacrifice in his cult led to the identification of him with the Phoenician (Carthaginian) Melek (Moloch), and his name has been interpreted (from ??a???) as meaning 'king'

(= melek); but this resemblance does not prove a Semitic origin for him. Whether his role as king of the Age of Gold was anything more than a late construction is not clear.

[1323] The etymology of his name is doubtful.

[1324] On his t.i.tles "earth-shaker" and "earth-upholder" cf.

Gruppe, _Griechische Mythologie_ p. 1139, note 2.

[1325] Possibly he was originally the ocean itself conceived of as a living and powerful thing, as Zeus (and so Varuna and Ahura Mazda) was originally the physical sky; Okeanos is a great G.o.d (_Iliad_, xiv, 201; Hesiod, _Theogony_, 133).

[1326] By many writers he is considered to have been originally a wind-G.o.d; but wind, though it might suggest swiftness (and, with some forcing, thievishness), cannot account for his other endowments.

[1327] Gen. x.x.x, 37 ff.; x.x.xi, 9; Wellhausen, _Reste arabischen Heidentumes_, p. 196; Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, ii, 17-19.

[1328] _Odyssey_, xv, 319 f. Lang lays too much stress on this fact (_Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, 1st ed., ii, 257).

[1329] Gruppe (_Griechische Mythologie_, p. 1384) thinks (on grounds not clear) that he was originally of Crete.

[1330] So Gruppe, op. cit.

[1331] _Homeric Hymn to Pan._

[1332] Servius on Vergil, _Eclogue_ ii, 31.

[1333] Roscher, in _Lexikon_, article "Pan," col. 1405, and in _Festschrift fur Joh. Overbeck_, p. 56 ff. On the influence of the Egyptian cult of the goat-G.o.d of Mendes on the conception of Pan see Roscher, _Lexikon_, article "Pan,"

cols. 1373, 1382.

[1334] Mannhardt, _Antike Wald und Feldkulte_, p. 135 f.; Roscher, op. cit., col. 1406; Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, v, 431, and many others. To this etymology Gruppe (op. cit., p. 1385) objects that such a name for a deity is not probable for primitive savage times; he offers nothing in its place.

[1335] Plutarch, _De Defectu Oraculorum_, 17; Reinach, _Orpheus_ (Eng. tr.), p. 41.

[1336] Pindar, ed. W. Christ, _Fragments_, 95 ff.

[1337] _Theogony_, 922 f.

[1338] Euripides, _Bacchae_, 131 f. (cf. aeschylus, _The Seven against Thebes_, 541; Porphyry, _De Abstinentia_, -- 13).

[1339] _Nili Opera_, p. 27; Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, 2d ed., p., 338 f.; Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, i, 288.

[1340] See above, -- 384 ff.

[1341] _Iliad_, xiv, 325.

[1342] Perhaps the description of him in the _Iliad_ (loc.

cit.) as "a joy to mortals" refers to wine; cf. Hesiod, _Theogony_, 941, where he is called the "bright joyous one."

[1343] As, for example, the Arabian clan G.o.d Dusares (Dhu ash-Shara), carried by the Nabateans northward, was brought into relation with the viticulture of that region. Cf.

above, -- 764.

[1344] On this point cf. Miss J. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, p. 366.

[1345] See above, -- 680 f.

[1346] _Iliad_, xv, 184 ff.; Hesiod, _Theogony_, 453 ff.

[1347] He is not always in mythological constructions distinct from Zeus--in _Iliad_, ix, 457, it is Zeus Katachthonios who is lord below.

[1348] aeschylus, _Prometheus Bound_, 806.

[1349] Cf. the development of Osiris (above, -- 728).

[1350] Cf. Greek Horkos, and the oath by the Styx.

[1351] Cf. Miss Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, chap. vi.

[1352] Cf. Roscher, _Lexikon_, s.v.; Miss Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, p. 271 ff.

[1353] Compare Mannhardt, _Mythologische Forschungen_, p.

320 ff.; Frazer, _Golden Bough_, 2d ed., ii, 176 ff.

[1354] Compare Miss Harrison, op. cit., p. 271 ff.

[1355] By her name she is identified with the hearth, as similarly Zeus is identified with the sky. The hearth was the center of the home, and had wide cultic significance.

The name Hestia embodies not the divinization of a concrete object, but the recognition of the divine person presiding over the object in question.

[1356] Roscher, _Lexikon_; Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_.

[1357] _Odyssey_, xx, 71.

[1358] The representation of her as the slayer of women with her "kindly arrows" (_Odyssey_, xx, 67), that is, by an easy death, is in keeping with the early idea that death was caused by some supernatural Power; so Apollo slays (_Iliad_, xxiv, 759).

[1359] Leto is a t.i.taness (Hesiod, _Theogony_, 404 ff.), an old local G.o.ddess, naturally a patron of children, and so of similar nature with Artemis, with whom she was often joined in worship. Her connection with Apollo arose possibly from a collocation of her cult with his in some place; in such collocations the G.o.ddess would become, in mythological constructions, the mother, sister, or wife of the G.o.d. This relation once established, stories explaining it would spring up as a matter of course. The fact that she was later identified with the Asian Great Mother indicates that she also had a universal character.

[1360] Hesiod, _Theogony_, 411 ff.

[1361] She was, perhaps, an underground deity, or the product of the fusion of two deities, one of whom was chthonic.