Chapter XIII: Part 13

Very great diversity in individual cases, but at the same time a general and pervading law of restraint, are evident in the descriptions of the deities with respect to their powers of locomotion. Facility of movement accrues to them variously according to 1. their peculiar work and office; 2. their general dignity and freedom from merely mythological traits; 3. the exigencies of the particular situation. As to the first, I have noticed that Mercury and Iris have a rapidity as messenger-gods, which in their simple capacity as gods they could scarcely possess. Yet even Mercury follows a route: from Olympus he strikes across Pieria, and next descending skims the surface of the sea; then at length passes to the beach of the island, and so onwards to the cave of the Nymph[672]. Minerva, on the other hand, in virtue not of any special function, but of her general power and grandeur, is conceived as swifter still. The journeys of Apollo, in like manner, are conceived of as instantaneous: the rule in both cases being subject to poetical exceptions only. The chariots of Juno and of Neptune[673], again, proceed with measured pace. Each step of Juno’s horses covers the distance over which a man can see[674]. Neptune himself passes in four steps from Samothrace to Ægæ[675]. The driving of Jupiter from Olympus to Ida is described in terms before used for Juno’s journey[676]. Juno travels at another time from Olympus to Lemnos by Pieria, Emathia, and the tops of the Thracian mountains. Here Homer seems to supply her with a sort of made road on which to tread: for the route is a little circuitous[677]. Mars, when wounded, takes wing to Olympus: but Venus, though only hurt in the wrist, cannot get thither until she obtains the aid of his chariot, which happily for her was then waiting on the field[678].

[672] Od. v. 50-57.

[673] Il. xiii. 29.

[674] Il. v. 770.

[675] Il. xiii. 20.

[676] Il. viii. 41-6.

[677] Il. xiv. 226.

[678] Il. v. 864, 355-67.

But poetical utility, so to speak, enters very largely into the whole subject of Olympian locomotion, and makes it difficult to draw with rigour the proper mythological conclusions. This may be sufficiently illustrated by the following cases. We have seen the majestic march of Juno from one hill top to another, and the measured though speedy course of her chariot. Yet, under the pressure of urgent considerations, she flies from Ida to Olympus, as the bearer of Jupiter’s message, with a rapidity that Homer illustrates by the remarkable simile of the travelling of Thought[679]. Again, where an imposing magnificence is the object, measure is introduced into the movement of Apollo himself by the clang of the darts upon his shoulder as he goes[680]. And, even more, Venus, whom we have seen so impotent on the field of Troy, after her exposure in the Eighth Odyssey, flies at once all the way to Paphos; as does Mars to Thrace[681]. This in both cases is probably because the occasion did not admit of ornamental enlargements, such as befitted the journey of a god. And when Vulcan is represented as actually engaged in falling during the whole day from Olympus down into Lemnus[682], a poetical allusion to his lameness may probably be intended.

[679] Il. xv. 79-84.

[680] Il. i. 44-8.

[681] Od. viii. 361-3.

[682] Il. i. 590-3.

~_Chief heads of superiority to mankind._~

Thus we see not the mental only, but also the corporeal existence of the mythological god hemmed in on every side. A great force of appetite, and a disposition to give it unbridled indulgence, can hardly be reckoned among elevating gifts. But if it be asked, wherein does Homer enlarge and improve for his mythical gods the human conditions of being, besides,

(1.) The one grand point of immortality, I should answer, in

(2.) An unlimited abundance of the means of corporal enjoyment, and a general freedom from the interruptions of care.

(3.) A liberal dispensation of the somewhat vulgar commodities of physical strength and stature; and of the higher gift of absolute beauty, into which the idea of stature, however, materially enters.

The former of these two we learn from the fact, that the banquet is the habitual and normal occupation of the Olympian Court. In the First Book, the fray between Jupiter and Juno passes off naturally, and as a matter of course, into a feast that lasts all day[683]. And when Juno, in the Fifteenth Book, reaches Olympus with a message from Jupiter, Thetis, whom she meets first, salutes her by offering the cup[684].

[683] Il. i. 596-604.

[684] Il. xv. 87.

There is also among the gods a kind of ‘high life below stairs.’ When Iris repairs on behalf of Achilles to the Winds, she finds them too banqueting in the palace of Zephyr, probably their chief[685]; but she hastes away, when her message is delivered, to feast in preference among divinities of her own rank upon an Ethiopian sacrifice.

[685] Il. xxiii. 300.

~_Their stature and beauty._~

As regards size and stature, these gifts are so freely bestowed as to be almost without measure: nor does the Poet even care in such cases to be at strict unity with himself. Mars, who in the Fifth Book, draws no very peculiar notice on the battle field from his size, in the Theomachy, when laid prostrate, covers seven acres. Eris, treading on the earth, strikes heaven with her head. The helmet of Minerva would suffice for the soldiery of a hundred cities; the golden tassels of her ægis, a hundred in number, and each worth a hundred oxen, after every allowance for mere laxity in the use of numbers, would imply vast weight and bulk. Accordingly, the axle of Juno’s chariot may well groan beneath the weight of Pallas[686]. Apollo, without the smallest seeming effort, stops Diomed and Patroclus in mid-career; and overthrows the Greek wall as easily as a child overthrows his plaything heap of sand[687]. Other signs might be quoted, such as the tread that shakes the earth, and the voices of Mars and Neptune, equal to those of nine or ten thousand[688] mortals.

[686] Il. xxi. 407. iv. 443. v. 744. ii. 448. v. 837.

[687] Il. v. 437. xvi. 774. xv. 361.

[688] Il. v. 860. xiv. 148.

With the one marked exception of Vulcan, beauty is generally indicated as the characteristic of the Olympian deities. Among the gods, it extends even to Mars[689]. It is sufficiently indicated for the goddesses by their habitual epithets. Even Minerva, in whom personal charms are as it were eclipsed by the sublime gifts of the mind, is sometimes called ἠΰκομος and ἐϋπλόκαμος (Il. vi. 92. Od. vii. 40): and Calypso declares the superiority of goddesses to women in beauty, as a general proposition[690],

[689] Od. viii. 310.

[690] Od. v. 212.

ἐπεὶ οὔπως οὐδὲ ἔοικεν
θνητὰς ἀθανάτῃσι δέμας καὶ εἶδος ἐρίζειν.

The mythological or invented deities generally, but none of the strictly traditive deities, appear to be tainted with libertinism. Among the former we may, however, observe degrees. Jupiter and Venus stand at the head. Neptune, Mars, Mercury, Ceres, Aurora, follow. Juno evidently treats the passion simply as an instrument for political ends. Of this Homer has given us a very remarkable indication. For when she sees Jupiter on Ida, though she is just then conceiving her design, she views him with disgust: στυγερὸς δέ οἱ ἔπλετο θυμῷ[691]. So careful is the Poet that we shall not imagine her to have been under the gross influence of a merely sensual passion. Thetis suggests a remedy of that nature to her son for his grief[692]. In mere impersonations, not yet endowed with the strong human individuality of the Greek Olympus, such as Themis and Helios, we do not expect to find this trait. But of all the fully personified deities of invention, Vulcan alone, privileged by Labour and Ugliness, appears in Homer to be exempt. The Hellenic goddesses generally do not, however, like the more Pelasgian Venus, Ceres, and probably Aurora, debase themselves by intrigues with mortal men.

[691] Il. xiv. 158.

[692] Il. xxiv. 130.

The chastity of the traditive deities, Minerva, Diana, Latona, and probably Apollo, I take for one of the noblest and most significant proofs of the high origin of the materials which they respectively embody.

There is also in the deities of Homer not merely a dependance upon physical nourishment, but even a passion of gluttony connected with it. The basis of this idea is laid in the conception which made feasting the normal occupation of Olympus. It followed that they were not only bound by something in the nature of necessity to food, but also enslaved to it by greediness as a rooted habit.

~_Nature of their regard for sacrifice._~

Of this we find traces all through the poems, in the course which divine favour usually takes. When Homer speaks of the gods in the sense of Providential governors, it is the just man that they regard, and the unjust that they visit with wrath. But when he carries us into Olympus, and we behold them in the living energy of their individualities, it is sacrifice which they want, and which forms their share in the fruits of earth and of human labour, as we learn from the emphatic words of Jupiter himself;

τὸ γὰρ λάχομεν γέρας ἡμεῖς[693].

[693] Il. iv. 49. xxiv. 70. xxii. 170.

It was the bounty of Autolycus in lambs and kids which induced Mercury to bestow on him in return the gifts of thievery and perjury[694].

[694] Od. xix. 395-8.

Moral retribution in Homer lags and limps at a great distance behind the offence, but the omission to sacrifice is visited condignly and at once. Again, in the case of Troy, liberality in this particular even seems to create a party in Olympus on behalf of an offending race. On the erection of the rampart by the Greeks, Neptune immediately urges the omission of the regular hecatombs against them. It is punished by Diana in Ætolia, by the gods generally on the departure from Troas; and Menelaus in like manner is for this offence wind-bound in Pharos[695].

[695] Il. ix. Od. i. iv.

The reason of this preeminence of sacrifices, both as to punishment and as to reward, may lie partly in the tendency of man (though, as we shall presently see, the practice had its moral side also) to substitute positive observances for moral obedience; but partly, likewise, in the importance of sacrifices to the anthropophuism of the Olympian deities themselves.

Putting out of view what each deity can do in his particular domain, we shall find that but little of power over nature--whether human, animal, or inanimate--attaches to the Homeric gods as such. Juno conveys a suggestion to the mind of Agamemnon[696], and gives, with Minerva, courage to a warrior; but this is the whole of her immediate action, I mean action without a mean, in this department, exhibited by any passage in the Poems. Indeed, no other mythological deity ascends to agency of this kind at all.

[696] Il. viii. 218. ix. 254.

Upon animal and inanimate nature Juno exercises the highest powers. When she thunders with Minerva, sends cloud to impede the flying Trojans, retards the sunset, and assists the voyage of Jason, we may consider her as in the reflex use of the atmospheric powers of her husband: but the gift of a voice to the horse Xanthus, apparently can lie within her reach only by derivation from the higher or traditive element in his character, as representing the idea of supreme deity.

Among the deities of invention, the general rule is, with respect to the exercise of power over nature or the human mind, that it is confined to matters in immediate connection with their several specialties. Two extraordinary acts of power over nature appear, however, to be within the competency of them all. One is the production of a patch of cloud or vapour at will; the other is that of assuming the human form for themselves, either generally or in the likeness of some particular person. I do not, however, recollect any instance in which this power is exercised by a deity of invention in the manner in which Minerva employs it in the First Iliad[697], that is, under the condition of being visible only to one person out of many who are present. In that image we seem to find a figure, perhaps a traditionary remnant, of that inward and personal communication between the Almighty and the individual soul, which constitutes a high distinguishing note of the true religion.

[697] Il. v. 198.

There would appear to have been certain visible marks which went to distinguish a god, up to a certain point, from men. Hector in the Fifteenth Iliad knows Apollo to be a god[698], but does not know what god. Minerva clears the vision of Diomed, that he may be able to discriminate between gods and men[699]. Pandarus, eyeing Diomed, is uncertain whether he is a mortal or a god[700]. The recognition of Venus by Helen may, indeed, have been due to the imperfectness of her power of self-transformation[701]; but it may also have been owing to these general traces of resemblance to the divine order, which subsisted even under the human disguise.

[698] Il. xv. 246.

[699] Il. v. 128.

[700] Il. v. 183.

[701] Il. iii. 396.

Homer represents Minerva as weighing down the chariot of Diomed, and making the axle creak[702];

[702] Ibid. 838.

μέγα δ’ ἔβραχε φήγινος ἄξων
βριθοσύνῃ· δεινὴν γὰρ ἄγεν θεὸν, ἄνδρα τ’ ἄριστον.

This passage may be taken as a proof, since it applies to the most spiritual of the Homeric divinities, how far the Poet was from considering that they were endowed with the properties of pure spirit.

~_Parts of the body, how ascribed._~

Of this he has given us farther proof by his free and constant reference, wherever occasion serves, to the parts and organs of the body as appertaining to the gods.

I think that references of this kind in Holy Scripture usually bear a mark, which yields decisive witness to the fact that their use is wholly relative and analogical: as, for example, the eye of God, namely, the instrument by which He watches us, the mouth of God, by which He instructs us, the hand and the arm of God, by which He sustains, or delivers, or corrects, or crushes us. It does not therefore appear that we could justly and fully draw our conclusions as to the corporeal constitution of an Olympic deity from the mere circumstance that we are told of the knees or lap of the gods, by which it might be figuratively expressed, that the disposal of human affairs rests with them[703]; or because of that gorgeous description, which the Poet has given us, of the head and nod, meaning the decree of Jupiter. For all these allusions are capable of explanation on the same principle with those of Holy Scripture, namely, as being relative and explanatory to man.

[703] Mure, however, in his History of Greek Literature, refers the origin of the metaphor to the practice of representation by statues.

But he has a multitude of other references to parts of the body, which do not at all belong to the use of them as organs for communication with the imperfect apprehensions of mankind. Thus:

1. Thetis takes hold of the chin of Jupiter, Il. i. 501.

2. Diomed wounds Venus on the wrist, Il. v. 336.

3. And Mars in the abdomen, Il. v. 857; whom Minerva likewise overthrows by a blow on the neck, Il. xxi. 406.

4. Hercules wounds Juno in the right breast, Il. v. 393; and we have her hair, flesh, chest, and feet, in the toilette of Il. xiv. 170-86.

5. Helen discovers the neck and breast as well as eyes of Venus, Il. iii. 396. See Il. xxi. 424.

6. The legs of Vulcan are weak, his neck strong, and his chest shaggy, Il. xviii. 411-15.

7. Mercury attaches wings to his feet, Od. v.

8. Juno seizes the wrists of Diana, takes the bow and arrows from her back, and beats her about the ears, Il. xxi. 489-91.

9. The arrows rattle on the shoulder of Apollo, Il. i. 46.

10. The arming of Minerva introduces her shoulders, head, and feet, Il. v. 738-45.

We need not, however, be surprised at failing to find in Homer any conception approaching to that of pure spirit, or any thing resembling that refined discernment, which has led Christian Art to represent the figure of our Lord alone as self-poised and self-supported in the air, while all other human forms, even when transfigured, have a ground beneath their feet, though it be but made of cloud. Even in some of the very highest among Christian writers, such as Dante and St. Bernard, the human being, after the soul has gone through dismissal from the flesh, still appears to be invested with a lighter form and species of body, apparently on the assumption that the two elements of matter and spirit are not only essentially, but inseparably wedded in our nature.

~_Examples of miracle in Homer._~

Full as they are of preternatural signs and operations, the poems of Homer do not, nevertheless, deal much with miracle, with the specific purpose of which he had no concern.

By miracle I understand, speaking generally, not the mere use of the common natural powers, accumulated or enlarged, but an operation involving what, I suppose, would be called medically an organic departure from her customary laws: an operation too, which must absolutely be performed, upon man himself or some other object, after some manner which shall be appreciable in its results by his faculties, and calculated to satisfy them, when in their greatest vigilance, that it is a real experience, and not a mere delusion of the senses.

Thus understood, the miracles of Homer are, I think, scarcely more numerous than the following: for, under this definition, the ambrosia of Simois and the flowers of Ida are not miracles[704].

[704] Il. v. 777. xiv. 347.

1. The crawling and lowing of the oxen of the Sun after their death, Od. xii. 395, 6.

2. The acceleration of the Sunset, Il. xviii. 239.

3. The retardation of the dawn, Od. xxiii. 241.

4. The speaking horse, Il. xix. 407.

3. The εἴδωλον of Æneas, Il. v. 449.

6. The portents of the banquet night in Od. xx. 347-62. I feel some doubt, however, whether this is objective, or whether it is only an impression on the senses.

7. The transformation and re-transformation of Ulysses[705], Od. xiii. 398, 429, and xxiii. 156-63.

[705] Nägelsbach, i. 10. p. 25.

8. Perhaps, also, the εἴδωλον of Iphthime, Od. ix. 797.

9. The gouts of blood, shed down from the air by Jupiter, Il. xi. 53.

10. The transformation of the serpent into a stone in the sight of all the Greeks; ἡμεῖς δ’ ἑσταότες θαυμάζομεν οἷον ἐτύχθη, Il. ii. 320.

The first seems due to the divine power as a whole; the second and fourth to Juno; the third and seventh and eighth to Minerva; the fifth and sixth are the works of Apollo; the ninth and tenth of Jupiter. I do not add as an eleventh the conversion of the Phæacian ship into a rock, by Neptune, in the sight of the people; because this is rather of the class of marvels which appertained to other, even secondary gods, such as Vulcan, in their own particular domains, Od. xiii. 159-87.

The buoyant arms of Achilles (Il. xix. 386), and other works of Vulcan, might at first sight seem to belong to the list, but it is doubtful whether they are not poetical rather than mythological representations, and in any case they would appear as gifts strictly professional, exercised in the ordinary administration of his peculiar function.

Telemachus appears to recognise the existence of miraculous powers in the passage[706],

[706] Od. xvi. 196.

οὐ γάρ πως ἂν θνητὸς ἀνὴρ τάδε μηχανόῳτο
ᾧ αὐτοῦ γε νόῳ, ὅτε μὴ θεὸς αὐτὸς ἐπελθὼν
ῥηϊδίως ἐθέλων θήσει νεὸν ἠὲ γέροντα.

But this is spoken of the Godhead rather than of any particular deity, and cannot by Homeric analogy be applied except to those of the highest natures.

~_Their operation on the human mind._~

It will however be observed, that several of these prodigies are not stated to have challenged human observation when performed: and unless they submit themselves to the test of the senses they are not properly miracles at all. Others of them entirely comply with the condition, as especially that of Il. ii. 320.

The retardation of sunset and sunrise, and the rain of blood, appear to pass wholly unobserved. Prodigies not setting out from a basis in nature, such as the tears of blood shed by Jupiter[707], are wholly beyond the scope of these observations.

[707] Il. xvi. 459.

On the whole, we find stringent limitation prevailing in this province, as regards the majority of the gods.

Indeed the forces of nature, which the mythological divinities in part represent, were sometimes too strong for them: for Homer tells us that Notus and Zephyr[708] sometimes shatter vessels at sea without or against the will of the gods:

[708] Od. xii. 290.

θεῶν ἀέκητι ἀνάκτων.

Even man, and that without impiety, can occasionally think of resistance. When Menelaus, alone in the field, decides on retiring before Hector (who fights ἐκ θεόφιν), rather than contend πρὸς δαίμονα, he looks around for Ajax, and observes that, could he but see him, they two would fight καὶ πρὸς δαίμονά περ, even with the deity opposed to them, in order to recover the body of Patroclus[709].

[709] Il. xvii. 98-101.

There is, however, I think, another reason, besides feebleness in his conception of the gods, which prevents the Greek Poet from representing them as omnipotent in regard to the operations of the human mind; and that is, his profound sense of the free agency of man. This principle with him, as it were, confronts the deity on every side; who respects its dignity, and never really invades its sphere, but pursues his work by means compatible with its essential character. The idea of the deity pervading the poems is mainly that of a cooperative power, who helps us when and as we help ourselves. It is expressed with an unrivalled simplicity when Telemachus, coming as a young man into the presence of Nestor, feels oppressed with a nervous shyness; and Minerva encourages him by telling him that he can of himself find something to say, and that the divinity will prompt more to him[710],

[710] Od. iii. 26.

ἄλλα μὲν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ φρεσὶ σῇσι νοήσεις,
ἄλλα δὲ καὶ δαίμων ὑποθήσεται.

Heavenly influence never overpowers or suppresses the will, but sometimes suggests thoughts to the mind, and sometimes diverts it, not perhaps from the thought of an object already perceived, but from the chance of perceiving it. Thus, when Euryclea, through surprise on beholding the scar, and so recognising Ulysses, oversets the foot-bath, Penelope, who is present, might naturally have observed the miscarriage; but Minerva interposes to abstract her attention from what was passing, lest she should recognise her husband prematurely:

ἡ δ’ οὔτ’ ἀθρῆσαι δύνατ’ ἀντίη, οὔτε νοῆσαι,
τῇ γὰρ Ἀθηναίη νόον ἔτραπεν[711].

[711] Od. xix. 478.

With the exception of Juno, who in some sense reflects the majesty of Jupiter, and becomes entitled as a wife to handle his prerogatives, it may be stated generally respecting the deities of invention properly so called, that, except within the limits of their particular domain or office, they scarcely at all modify the laws of nature, never set in motion or direct her greater forces, nor act in an extraordinary manner on the mind or body of man. Each in his own province can stimulate a particular animal propensity, or improve a particular gift of mind or body: and that is all.

While therefore the strength of the Olympian deities lies in knowledge and in power, we find upon the whole that even in these particularly they are subject to manifold limitation. They could translate mortals out of this world in which the rule of Death prevails, as we see in the cases of Ganymede, and of Tithonus; but it does not appear that, if we except the traditive ideas represented in Minerva and Apollo, they could either raise men from the grave, prevent their dying in the course of nature, heal their wounds or diseases, or set their broken limbs. When even Latona and Diana heal Æneas[712], they do it apparently with greater speed indeed, but in other respects much as it would have been done by Podaleirius or Machaon.

[712] Il. v. 488.

~_They do not discern the thoughts._~

Nor, again, does it appear that even the most exalted of their number had the knowledge of inward thoughts, otherwise than as they may be discovered by persons of particular sagacity. When Minerva detects the false accounts given of himself by Ulysses[713], no more is declared than the simple fact that she has a sufficient knowledge of his personal identity. Hence, with respect to the fraud of Laomedon upon Neptune and Apollo, Saint Augustine sarcastically wonders that even Apollo the diviner should not have known that Laomedon meant to cheat him[714]; and that one of such dignity as Neptune should have been in a like state of ignorance. With this we may compare the taunts of Elijah[715] against the priests of Baal.

[713] Od. xiii. 291.

[714] De Civ. Dei, iii. 2.

[715] 1 Kings xviii. 27.

While, then, the gift of anything like general foreknowledge appears to be withheld from all the deities of invention, that of the ‘discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,’ is nowhere found; nor was it believed of any member of the Olympian community, as it was said of One greater than they[716]: ‘He knew all men; and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man.’

[716] John ii. 24, 25.

Such, as far as I am able to present it, is the internal view of the Olympus of Homer: a scheme eminently national, and eminently poetical. Egypt, Persia, Phœnicia, the old Pelasgians, doubtless contributed materials towards its formation: but I have a lively conviction that Homer was (so to speak) the theo-mythologer who moulded these materials into system, the substitute for unity, invested them with the forms and colours of brilliant beauty, and gave them their hold in their historic shape upon the mind of his countrymen; with the sublime Olympus, so near the old Dodona, of which he probably contrived it as the rival, for their centre of life and power.

SECT. VI.

_The Olympian Community and its Members, considered in their influence on human society and conduct._

We have thus far considered the deities of Homer as they are, or are represented by him to be, in themselves individually, and in their mutual relations. We have now to consider the relation which subsisted between them and the race of man, especially on its human side; the state of religious sentiment and obligation, and of the moral law, both as towards heaven and likewise as between man and man, so far as it is immediately associated with the system of which they are the representatives. Another large part of morals, which was already in great part detached from visible relation to religion, will remain for separate consideration.

And here we may remark, that the Homeric Greeks apparently knew nothing of any periodical religious observance of commanding authority, such as to form a centre either for national union, or for the life of the individual. Had there been such an observance, we must, without doubt, have found a trace of it on the Shield of Achilles. The only festival, of which we have clear information, is that of Apollo in the Odyssey, on the first day of the month. More obscurely, one of Minerva appears to be indicated in Il. ii. 551. No religious worship, properly to be so called, accompanied the funeral of Patroclus, or the games which followed it. The Winds[717] were called in aid for a special purpose. The invocation of Spercheus[718] is an apology for devoting to Patroclus the hair which Peleus had, on his son’s behalf, vowed to that River-god. Neither is there any notice whatever of religion in the brief summary of the proceedings in Troy after the ransom of the corpse of Hector[719].

[717] Il. xxiii. 194.

[718] Ibid. 144.

[719] Il. xxiv. 788-800.

But although not sustained or organized by the self-acting machinery of periodical celebrations, nor by the appropriation of the services of a particular class of society, the life, thoughts, and actions of the better Greeks were in a close and pervading proximity, so to speak, to their religion. I say of the better Greeks; for there is an almost total absence of reference to the gods in the language, as well as in the actions, of the profligate Suitors of the Odyssey. When it first appears, it is ironical[720]: and only in the last distress does it assume any other character.

[720] Od. xviii. 37.

In general terms, every thing was ascribed to the gods. They know all things, θεοὶ δέ τε πάντα ἴσασιν[721]: They can do every thing, θεοὶ δέ τε πάντα δύνανται[722]; and δύναται γὰρ ἅπαντα[723] is said of Jupiter, in the character of Providence. They are the givers of all blessings, mental as well as corporal[724]; the disposers of events; the ordainers, or even authors of calamities. They are said also to do for us what we ourselves have done for ourselves; as where Ulysses tells Eumæus, that the gods broke his bonds, and the gods hid him[725]; acts which he himself had performed. Also what they effect, they commonly effect with ease, as in both the last-mentioned cases.

[721] Od. x. 306.

[722] Od. iv. 379, 468.

[723] Ibid. 237.

[724] Od. xxiii. 11. This is fully set forth in Nägelsbach, i. 33, p. 54 _et seqq._

[725] Od. xiv. 348, 57.

~_The Religion was still a real power._~

However faulty, and however feeble, the religion of the Greeks had not yet ceased to be a religion; for it was believed in. Men might resent or fear the communications made to them on the part of the deity; but they did not venture to repudiate their authority.

In Homer, except with the dissolute Suitors, (Od. ii. 180, 201.) the Seer stands as the faithful exponent of the will of Heaven; and Agamemnon, even when smarting under the declarations of Calchas, and reviling him accordingly in his individual capacity (i. 106), does not presume to intimate any suspicion that what he has said is of his own invention. But time passed on: corruption accumulated, and festered more and more. Accordingly in Euripides, Agamemnon and Menelaus seem to speak of the whole class of prophets as if they deserved no belief. See the Iphigenia in Aulis, v. 10, 11. So in the same play, vv. 783-9, the Chorus speaks of the birth of Helen from Leda and Jupiter, with the proviso, ‘whether it were true or whether fabulous.’

Again, we have in the same play, vv. 945-7:

τίς δὲ μάντις ἔστ’; ἀνὴρ
ὃς ὀλίγ’ ἀληθῆ, πολλὰ δὲ ψευδῆ, λέγει,
τυχών· ὅταν δὲ μὴ τύχῃ, διοίχεται.

The mind of man had travelled far onward in its career, and great changes had passed upon his moral tone, before the place of the Prophet, in the estimation of the public, could be so strikingly reversed as we find from these quotations.

In the Homeric age, religion was a real power; and the veneration paid to deity extended so far, at least, to the persons of its ministers, that scarce any human thought could conceive the possibility of their falsifying the awful communications of which they were the vehicles.

But it will be replied, if religion was a power, if whatever it covered with its mantle was accepted and held in honour, then what a deluge of corruption must have spread over Greece from a religion of which Jupiter was the head, and which had Venus for one of its recognised divinities!

Now the age of Homer shows us the religion of Olympus in a state, in which it had not yet become sufficiently the object of scrutiny to suggest, on a large scale, either the depraved imitation which was to be its too speedy result, or the unbelief which formed, in the moral chain of cause and effect, its necessary consummation.

~_Corruptions of the gods not yet fully felt._~

In fact, we do not find that the corrupting influence of the Greek mythology on manners had been fully felt in the time of Homer. Though vices are in particular cases represented as the gifts of particular deities to particular individuals, it does not appear that these were yet regarded as examples for general imitation[726]. But the beginnings of mischief, so vigorous and abundant, did not fail in time to produce their fruit: and in the historic ages of Greece, the models supplied by the conduct of deities were freely pleaded in defence of debauchery and crime[727].

[726] Nägelsbach, Hom. Theol. on the case of Autolycus.

[727] Döllinger, Heid. u. Jud. v. i. p. 255. Plato Legg. i. p. 636.

This is in conformity with ordinary experience. The vices of the great are first passed by, as if it were profane to suffer the eye to rest upon them; then they are regarded for a time with depraved admiration; and when the last stage is reached, they are too faithfully copied by the small.

It was hardly possible that men could be effectually swayed for a length of time by the moral government of deities, themselves privileged by human invention for unbounded immorality: but it was naturally the first stage of the destructive process to vitiate the character of the gods, and the next and later one to break down the credit of their administration of human affairs, which only became incredible even to the enlightened part of the community after their moral worthlessness had been fully and long developed.

The Homeric poems expose to our view two standards not mutually accordant, the objective and the subjective. If we pay attention to the impressions current among men respecting the gods, they are the guardians of some moral and social principles of the highest order. But if we take their own word for it, the mere Olympian deities seem ordinarily to appreciate no quality or conduct, except the practice of offering up numerous and well fed animals in sacrifice, each with the accompanying tribute of the appointed portion; that so they may draw, not a moral but a physical, though a comparatively refined, gratification from the savour and the taste[728].

[728] Vid. Il. iv. 48. xxii. 170. xxiv. 69. and 33.

The protection, too, which the deities usually accord to man, is not only given on selfish principles, but is liable to be withdrawn for causes wholly independent of his deserts. Quarrels about men are settled, not by each foregoing his animosities, but by each surrendering and abandoning his clients. ‘I will give up Troy to you,’ says Jupiter; ‘but mind that I shall be at liberty to destroy the cities which you love, when I may be so minded[729].’ ‘You are quite welcome,’ answers Juno, ‘and indeed I could not prevent you: but let me have Troy destroyed.’ Why, says even Apollo to Neptune, should we quarrel about miserable mortals? It is not worth our while: let us leave them to themselves[730]. No Homeric deity ever will be found to make a personal sacrifice on behalf of a human client.

[729] Il. iv. 39. and seqq.

[730] Il. xxi. 461-7.

In the next Section, I shall endeavour to show that the practice of sacrifice was not so entirely disconnected from morality, as we are perhaps too apt to suppose. I think we may, on the contrary, find in it at least a witness to the essential harmony between morality and divine worship, and to the difficulty of tearing them asunder.

We are here met, indeed, by the case of Autolycus, which proves to us that the better elements of this practice were already on their way to corruption, inasmuch as in that instance they had reached it. It was a case, let it be remembered, of sacrifices, not to the gods in general, nor to the higher or the better deities, but to Mercury, a purely mythical divinity; and therefore what we see in it is, a false religion in a state of ripeness at one particular point. Now the worship of Mercury, the god of gain, was perhaps the first point at which the morality of the system might be expected to give way: and it is therefore quite in the natural course that a case like that of Autolycus should be presented to us without any corresponding case for any other deity[731]. As it stands in Homer, it represents what was then the exception, though it was gradually to become the rule.

[731] Od. xxiv. 514.

~_A moral tone occasionally perceptible._~

There are, however, in particular connection with one of the great traditive deities, glimpses of better things, even in Olympus. When urged by Minerva on behalf of Ulysses in the Odyssey, Jupiter half rebukes her for having insinuated a doubt, by replying, ‘How could I forget Ulysses, who excels others both in his intellect, and in the sacrifices which he offers to the gods?’[732]

[732] Od. i. 65.

It may indeed be said that in this passage, if it be construed strictly, it is mental power or intelligence, and not any moral quality, which, as second to liberality in sacrifice, is recognised as fit to be taken into account by the gods.

Still it is, I think, manifest that Homer, like the Holy Scripture, includes a moral element in the idea of wisdom, which is represented by the word νόος, commonly or always used of men in a good sense.

And in the second divine Council of the Odyssey, the moral tone rises higher. Minerva, grown more daring, pleads plainly the discouraging effect which the indifference of the gods, if continued, will have upon the moral conduct of sovereigns. ‘Let them,’ she says, ‘cast away all moral restraint: for the virtuous Ulysses is forgotten by his people, and is detained in great affliction by Calypso[733].’

[733] Od. v. 7. and seqq.

For us, in the present inquiry, the main question evidently is, not what are the sentiments which the Poet has represented as proceeding from his divinities on Olympus, but what are those which the people at large believed them to entertain. There is a considerable difference between these two standards: and it is the latter one by which we have now to abide.

~_Prevalent belief concerning them._~

The deities of Homer, thus measured, are susceptible of various forms of sentiment in contemplating the fortunes and deeds of men.

1. In general, they regard virtue and obedience with approbation.

2. They regard crime with dissatisfaction and a disposition to punish it.

3. But they also observe any excess, or marked continuity, of good fortune in the virtuous man with a kind of envy: as if they could not permit the human race, on any conditions, to attain to a prosperity or abundance which should have any semblance of rivalling their own.

As respects the first, it is indeed a pale and feeble sentiment; but still it exists. They listen readily to those who obey them[734]. Prayer appeases them, as well as sacrifice[735]. They love not perverse deeds like those of the Suitors, but they honour justice and righteousness[736]. Upon the whole it may be observed, that much more just and elevated sentiments are predicated of the gods as a body, than when they appear as individuals. For it is as a body that they still retain a certain relation to true Godhead.

[734] Il. i. 218.

[735] Il. ix. 497.

[736] Od. xiv. 83.

As respects the second proposition, they wander in disguise to examine the conduct of men[737]. A man who is hardly used may become to his oppressor a θεῶν μήνιμα, an occasion of divine vengeance. They view iniquity with a sentiment sometimes called by Homer ὄπις, an after-regard that remembers and avenges it. For this ὄπις the wicked do not care[738], and such indifference is a chief sign of their depravity. Especially they watch, backed by the Ἐρινύες, over wrongs done to the poor[739]; and Jupiter interferes by storm and flood to testify his displeasure at unrighteous governors, who administer crooked judgments[740]. Ægisthus is warned and punished by them. It is Minerva who plans the vengeance upon the Suitors[741]. At the same time, revenge for affronts is a much more powerful and common motive with them, than zeal for the administration of justice. The latter is lazy and doubtful; but their sentiments in regard to the former are of keen edge, and have an irrepressible promptitude and activity.

[737] Od. xvi. 485.

[738] Il. xvi. 388. Od. xiv. 82. xx. 215. xxii. 39. ii. 66, 134. iii. 132.

[739] Od. xvii. 475.

[740] Il. xvi. 384-9.

[741] Od. xxiv. 479.

As respects the third point, the gods grudged to Ulysses and Penelope an unbroken continuance of the blessings of their domestic life[742]. It is in like manner, as it would seem, that, after a long course of prosperity, the gallant and good Bellerophon became odious, on account of his good fortune only, to the gods[743]. And this same idea is perhaps the groundwork of the alternative destinies of Achilles, either a long life without great glory, or transcendent glory and a short career[744].

[742] Od. xxiii. 211.

[743] Il. vi. 200.

[744] Il. ix. 410-16.

While in the later stages of heathen religion the former and nobler ideas gradually lost ground, this less worthy one became more and more pronounced; and Solon, in Herodotus, describes himself as knowing τὸ θεῖον πᾶν ἐὸν φθονερόν τε καὶ ταραχῶδες[745].

[745] Herod. i. 32.

In vague and general terms, the gods of Homer are represented as givers of blessings, particularly of external goods. Sometimes they are rashly and wildly charged as the authors of calamities[746], which the folly of man himself has caused. But according to the more grave and serious teaching of the day, they were conceived to enforce, as against mortals, laws from which they were certainly themselves exempt; and allow to mankind no alternative, except that of mixed good or else unmixed evil. Two caskets stand upon the floor by Jupiter: one of them is filled with wretchedness and shame; the other is vicissitude, which oscillates incessantly between prosperity and sorrow. And there rankles in the mind of mankind a sentiment, which tells them that the gods, while they thus dispense afflictions upon earth which are neither sweetened by love, nor elevated by a distinct disciplinary purpose, take care to keep themselves beyond all touch of grief or care[747]:

[746] Od. i. 32.

[747] Il. xxiv. 525.

ὣς γὰρ ἐπεκλώσαντο θεοὶ δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσι,
ζώειν ἀχνυμένοις· αὐτοὶ δέ τ’ ἀκηδέες εἰσίν.

~_It lent considerable support to virtue._~

The best thing that can be said for their fainthearted encouragement to virtue is, that the good man is certainly understood in most cases, though not always, to prosper in the end: let us take, for example, Nestor, Menelaus, or Ulysses. Ajax and Agamemnon meet unhappy ends; but Ajax was stern and sullen, while Agamemnon cannot be acquitted of cupidity and selfishness. On the other hand, as punishers of wrong, the gods of Olympus do not visit all wrongs and all vices alike. Especially they take little notice, in their moral government as in their lives, of the law of purity: there is no express notice of their displeasure against the crime of Paris; and Jupiter, the guardian of the judgment seat, the friend of the suppliant, the stranger, and the poor, makes no pretension to defend the marriage bed from the contamination he had himself so often wrought. However, in a very aggravated instance, namely, that of Ægisthus, his adulterous marriage with Clytemnestra[748] is noticed explicitly in the Olympian Council, as contributing to the enormity of his offence. But in such a case many other elements, besides that of purity, are involved: the whole social and political order of the world is at stake.

[748] Od. i. 37-40.

Thus upon the whole there was but little more in the sentiments than in the conduct of the Immortals, to maintain among men a sense of piety towards Heaven. Yet a good deal of authority and support were lent to important principles of relative duty, by the belief that the deities would or might avenge its infraction. We must in short fully embrace the fact that man, as represented in Homer, was inconsistent with respect to his religion, in the sense opposite to that in which inconsistency commonly affects that relation. He had more still remaining in him of ancient and natural morality, than his belief could either adequately account for in theory, or permanently sustain in action.

It should at the same time be borne in mind, that, while the vices of Olympus appertain to the individual deities, its obscure and qualified virtues, in the championship of duty, and the avenging of crime upon earth, are not the properties of this or that mythological impersonation, but either of the deities considered as a whole with one united will, or else of those among them in whose characters Homer still enables us to read the vestiges of primitive tradition.

~_Their course with respect to Troy._~

Saint Augustine observes[749], that some defenders of the Pagan mythology in later times quoted the fall of Troy as an instance of Divine retribution coming upon the descendants of Laomedon for his perjury, and some, to the same effect, as a punishment of the adultery committed by Paris. To which he replies truly, that the heathen deities had no right to punish in Paris an act which had the sanction of Venus, as she bore Æneas to Anchises, and of Mars as the father of Romulus: Æneas and Romulus being the two great reputed fountain-heads of the highest Roman lineage.

[749] De Civ. Dei, iii. 3.

Now, though Homer has practically represented the gods as avenging the pollution of the nuptial bed, it may be observed that he nowhere seems to put prominently forward the adultery of Paris as the main gist of his offence. In fact, the idea of adultery is very much absorbed, as we shall see, according to the poems, in the act of violent abduction. The Greeks on their side, with the single exception of Menelaus himself, treat Paris as a robber, or else a coward; not as one who had, like Ægisthus with Clytemnestra, corrupted the wife of one of their princes. And so Hector is, I think, not quite accurately criticized by Mure[750] for failing to find fault with Paris on the ground of adultery. Hector does reproach his brother for having abused the friendly intercourse of life to carry off another man’s wife, and then not having the courage to meet the husband in the field. This seems to me in perfect keeping with the ideas of the time, especially if I am right in the view, which I shall endeavour to sustain by argument, that Hector himself is not the elder, but the younger brother of the two. What did the Greeks aim at avenging? Not, we shall find, the wrong done to Menelaus in his conjugal character, but the sorrows and sufferings of Helen were evidently the prominent and conspicuous idea in the mind of the Poet, and in the mind, as he represents it, of the Greeks. So that, while Menelaus himself is the only person who in the Iliad shows a resentment of his own conjugal wrongs, the Greeks appear to think partly of Helen, partly of their nation’s honour, partly of their allegiance to the Pelopids; and partly, perhaps chiefly, of the booty which, in requital of their arduous labours, they are to gain upon the sack of Troy[751].

[750] Mure’s Lit. Greece, vol. i. on the character of Hector, Il. iii. 46-57.

[751] Il. ii. 355.

The defence, therefore, of the heathen deities which St. Augustine notices as having been put forward, was a late afterthought. The Poet appears indeed to treat the lustful effeminacy of Paris in general with a grave and marked contempt; but this is rather his own personal sentiment, than a result directly connected with his religious belief or system. And, more at large, I do not find it clear that in any place of the Poems any deity appears, either as the guardian of purity, or as the avenger of its infraction. Under these circumstances we shall have the more cause to wonder, that that virtue could still have been held, as it was held, by Homer and the Greeks, in partial but evidently real admiration.

Although retribution was limited to public and social sins, and did not touch the inner and finer parts of human conduct, it is not difficult to trace the advantages which flowed from that sensible remainder of religion which still subsisted in the Heroic age; not from those parts of the system which were due to human invention, but from the elements which it still contained of the ancient theism, and which invention had not yet wholly smothered.

Thus, for example, it was thought that the anger of the gods might be brought down upon a country by the misconduct of its governors[752];

οἳ βίῃ εἰν ἀγορῇ σκολιὰς κρίνωσι θέμιστας·

and the fear of the temporal calamities thus to be incurred would, naturally, tend to the maintenance of integrity in the administration of justice.

[752] Il. xvi. 387.

As between governors and governed, so between rich and poor. We cannot doubt that the worthy Eumæus expresses the general sentiment of his age, when, having been reproached by the haughty Suitor Antinous with having invited a beggar into the palace of Ulysses, he answers, not by denial, but by showing that the idea is self-condemned by its absurdity. Those indeed, he replies, may be solicited to come to a house who exercise the agreeable or the useful professions; the Seer, the Doctor, the Artificer, the Bard, these are the people who get invited all over the world;

πτωχὸν δ’ οὐκ ἄν τις καλέοι, τρύξοντα ἓ αὐτόν;

Who would be such a fool as to invite a beggar?[753]

[753] Od. xvii. 382-7.

With this standard of sentiment, not peculiar to that age, except in the simple frankness with which it is avowed, it was surely of the utmost importance for the needy and afflicted, that they should be placed by the popular belief in the special charge of the deity;

πρὸς γὰρ Διός εἰσιν ἅπαντες
ξεῖνοί τε πτωχοί τε.

So that, though none would invite them, yet few would take the responsibility of rejecting their supplications for what was needful to supply their wants.

And the standing distinction in the Odyssey between a virtuous and a vicious people is, that the former is insolent, fierce, and unrighteous, while the latter is kind to strangers and of god-fearing mind[754];

[754] Od. vi. 120. viii. 576. ix. 176. xiii. 202.

ἦ ῥ’ οἵγ’ ὑβρισταί τε καὶ ἄγριοι, οὐδὲ δίκαιοι,
ἠὲ φιλόξεινοι, καί σφιν νόος ἐστὶ θεουδής;

~_Bearing of the religion on social ties._~

It was thus a clear fact in the heroic age, that religious belief was a foundation and support to the exercise of charitable offices between man and man. I think we may further assert, that it is a fact of all time; that in all ages and countries the strength and liveliness of belief in God is a measure which determines the aggregate amount and activity of mutual love. Hence, as the Olympian religion became more and more hollow, public oppression increased, and private charity and hospitality declined. Yet, even in its most corrupt and decrepit period, it was on the steps of temples that the congregations of mendicants assembled; spontaneous and unconscious witnesses to the fact that, next to God their Friend in heaven, the reflection of God, however faint, in the mind of man, is their best friend on earth. And of the many great social results of Christianity, one standing in the very foremost rank has been, that it has for the first time made the rights of the poor a social axiom, which, though it may in practice be evaded, none are hardy enough to deny. Perhaps the very strongest of all the proofs of the connection between religious belief, and duties to the needy, is to be found in the instinctive horror which is created in the minds of men, when a prominent profession of the first is accidentally and occasionally exhibited by persons, who show a palpable disregard of the second.

Side by side with the powerful obligation, of the indeterminate species, which binds man to man in the name of charity or brotherly kindness, stands the corresponding determinate principle of truth and justice, which aims at preserving entire to each individual the definite rights to which he is entitled.