Chapter XI: Spirit of the Grecian Religion

Whether the Greeks received their earliest system of philosophy from the East, as is commonly believed, or themselves invented it, as to me seems most probable, there can I think be little doubt that once engaged in philosophical speculations they exhibited in the pursuit a degree of boldness and originality, a patience of research, a power of combination rarely if ever equalled in succeeding times. For some ages, it is true, from the days of Thales down to those of Socrates (B. C. 600 to B. C. 450) physical investigations and researches chiefly occupied the philosophers of Greece. They conceived it to be within the power of man to discover the nature of the principal elements which compose the world, and the law’s that regulated its formation.[993] The origin likewise of the human race, of which nothing is yet known but that which has been revealed, naturally awakened their curiosity and led to many theories wild and fantastic in the extreme.

Footnote 993:

Cf. Diog. Laert. Pr. iii. 4. Ἀρχαῖος μὲν οὖν τις λόγος καὶ πάτριος
ἐστὶ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις, ὡς ἐκ θεοῦ τὰ πάντα, καὶ διὰ θεοῦ ἡμῖν
συνέστηκεν.—Aristot. de Mund. c. 6. In c. 7. we have a curious list
of the various epithets of Zeus, whose name the Pseudo-Aristotle
conceives to signify the root of all existence: ὡς κᾄν εἰ λέγοιμεν,
δἰ ὅν ζῶμεν. This thought St. Paul expresses by the well-known
words—"in whom we live and move and have our being." The author of
the Treatise De Mundo then quotes from the Orphic fragments a
passage, the doctrine of which strongly resembles the Pantheism of
Pope:

Ζεὺς πρῶτος γένετα, Ζεὺς ὕστατος ἀρχικέραυνος·
Ζεὺς κεφαλὴ, Ζεὺς μέσσα· Διὸς δ᾽ ἐκ πάντα τέτυκται·
Ζεὺς πυθμὴν γαίης τε καὶ οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος·
Ζεὺς ἄρσην γένετο, Ζεὺς ἄμβροτος ἔπλετο, νύμφη·
Ζεὺς πνοιὴ πάντων, Ζεὺς ἀκαμάτου πυρὸς ὁρμή·
Ζεὺς πόντου ῥίζα· Ζεὺς ἥλιος, ἠδὲ σελήνη·
Ζεὺς βασιλεὺς· Ζεὺς ἀρχὸς ἁπάντων ἀρχικέραυνος·
Πάντας γὰρ κρύψας αὖτις φάος ἐς πολυγηθὲς
Ἐξ ἱερῆς κραδίης ἀνενέγκατο μέρμερα ῥέζων.

Cf. Orphic. fragm. 6. p. 138.

Into any consideration of these it is not my design to enter; but the Greeks had another philosophy, which, resting on the basis of theology, comprehended religion, morals, and politics, and may be regarded as the instrument, the soul, and the measure of their civilisation. It seems to be a truth frequently overlooked, that man is civilised exactly in proportion as he is religious; at least this was the case in Greece, where the highest developement of the national mind concurred in Socrates and Plato with the utmost developement of the religious instinct, and began immediately to decline in Aristotle and his successors, arriving at the lowest degradation among the grovelling sophists of the lower empire. This division of philosophy occupied among the Greeks the place, which in modern times is assigned to religion,[994] that is, it was their guide through this life, and their preparation for a better. It may, indeed, be regarded as the spiritual part of paganism, teaching man his duties, and explaining the grounds and motives which should lead to their performance.

Footnote 994:

“Do good to all,” an evangelical precept (Plat. Rep. i. § 9. p. 33.
Stallb.), forming part of that philosophy which taught the Greeks
what was honourable and what base, what just and what unjust, what
was above all things to be desired and what avoided, how they were
to demean themselves towards the gods, towards their parents, their
elders, the laws, strangers, magistrates, friends, wives, children,
slaves: to wit, that they were to reverence the gods, honour their
parents, respect their elders, obey the laws, love their friends, be
affectionate to their wives, solicitous for their children,
compassionate towards their slaves.—Plut. de Educ. Puer. § 10.

There is one article of faith without which no religion can of course exist—the belief in God. Devoid of this, it may be doubted whether an individual or a nation ought not rather to be classed among the inferior animals than among men. It is superfluous, therefore, to say that the Greeks, preëminently endowed with the highest attributes of humanity, were a religious people, and held firmly all the doctrines which entitle a people to such an appellation. From their ancestors, the Pelasgi,[995] they inherited a pure and lofty theism, which seems to have always continued to be the religion of the more enlightened; while among the mass of the people, this central truth of religion was gradually surrounded by a constantly expanding atmosphere of fable, which obscured its brightness, and in a great measure concealed its form. Mr. Mitford, whose acute and philosophical mind clearly discerned this verity, also seems to have understood the cause. “A firm belief both in the existence of the Deity, and in the duty of communication with him, appears to have prevailed universally in the early ages. But religion was then the common care of all men, a sacerdotal order was unknown.”[996]

Footnote 995:

Herod. ii. 52.

Footnote 996:

History of Greece, i. 97. Dioscorides in Athenæus observes that no
sacrifice is so acceptable to the gods as that which is offered up
by members of a family living in unison.—i. 15. In the earliest ages
of the world the first-born of every family was esteemed a
prophet.—Godwin, Moses et Aaron, i. 6. 2.

The institution of an order of priests, however effected, almost necessarily corrupted the simple truths of religion, but it is unphilosophical in the highest degree to consider those ancient priests as impostors on this account, or to speak of their propagation of error as craft. Meditating, in seclusion and solitude, on the few truths which had come down to them by tradition or been discovered by reason, they soon bewildered their own wits, and wandered into superstition.[997] As was too natural, they conceived that the Divinity must be desirous of giving them signs, marking what was to be done and what avoided. The mistake of concomitance for causation, often made in more learned and refined ages, would confirm them in this view. They would, for example, find that in the order of time the flight of certain birds over their heads, the appearance of a serpent in their path, the apparition of certain objects in a dream, was followed by certain misfortunes; while other apparitions were succeeded by contrary events. Out of these observations the science of augury, divination, &c. arose. Yet the inventors were not therefore impostors, but rather, in their intentions, benefactors of mankind; and to be respected accordingly.

Footnote 997:

Plato, Crit. t. vii. 146.

The generation of polytheism is to be in like manner explained. It was an abuse of the inductive method of philosophy. Men perceived, as soon as they began to observe nature and draw inferences from what they beheld, that the sun and moon[998] exert extraordinary influence, beneficial or hurtful, upon mankind and the world they inhabit; and the supposition was neither unnatural nor absurd that those glorious bodies, by whose rising and setting, by whose approximation or retreat, they were in turn affected with gladness or melancholy, with comfort or discomfort, with good or evil, must be themselves possessed of intelligence as well as power, or at least be inhabited and directed by beings on whom they bestowed the name of gods. The air, too, “which bloweth where it listeth while thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth,” sweeping around them invisibly, and appearing only in its effects, soon obtained the rank of a deity,[999] as did the ocean which appears to be alive in all its extent, and the earth on whose inexhaustible bounty we subsist.

Footnote 998:

Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 182.

Footnote 999:

The air was Zeus.—Lycoph. Cassand. 80. Meurs. Comm. p. 1179. To some
particular state of which the ancients alluded when they spoke of
Kronos seeking to devour his children and swallowing stones instead
of them. For the teeth of time which produce no effect on the air
appear to devour whatever is composed of the element of earth.
Mythologists, however, have generally omitted to remark that the
stones which Kronos mistook for his children were not ordinary
blocks of basalt or granite but rather so many statues of children
endued, _pro tempore_, with life.—Ἔτι δέ, φησὶν, ἐπενόησε θεὸς
Οὐρανὸς βαιτύλια, λίθοις ἐμψύχοις μηχανησάμενος.—Sanchon. ap. Euseb.
Præp. Evang. l. i. c. 10. p. 37.

Out of these elements the sacerdotal families of Greece framed its religion, which, however, is by no means to be considered a system of materialism. They conceived every portion of nature to be animated by its particular soul, just as they believed the whole, as a whole, to have one universal soul, the source of all the others. Their mythology was based on unity. At every step backwards we find the number of gods diminish, till at length we arrive at the Great One, surrounded by the unfathomable splendours of eternity. This is the θεὸς ὁ θεῶν Ζεὺς, of whom Plato[1000] and Aristotle constantly speak when they employ the expression τὸ δαιμόνιον.[1001] Philosophy, indeed, considered it to be its chiefest task to deliver men from their multitudinous errors respecting the nature of God, and of our duties towards Him; so that, in their speculative notions, very little difference from our own can be detected. Above all men, Plato sought to elevate the sphere of philosophy. In his works, in truth, it moves frequently within the confines of theology, and seldom quits them except for the purpose of infusing spirituality into politics and morals.

Footnote 1000:

Crit. t. vii. p. 173.

Footnote 1001:

Poll. i. 5.

This great man, whose profound veneration for the Deity equalled, perhaps, that of Newton himself, conceived that human happiness consists wholly in the knowledge of God, concerning whose character and attributes he was anxious that no unworthy ideas should be entertained. His doctrine was, “that we should ever describe God such as he is.” But, as Muretus has well observed, this was requiring too much of human nature, for, most assuredly, we should never speak of God if we waited to discover language befitting His majesty. “For the mind of man is incapable of comprehending the essence of God; the nature of God is known to God alone; he alone perfectly understands himself, and in himself all things. The mind of man waxes dim, beholding that stupendous light whose brightness excels all other lights; and, in proportion as it endeavours more daringly to soar, is it conscious of falling below its great aim.”[1002] The Egyptians expressed the same conviction in the celebrated epigraph on the base of the veiled statue of Neith at Saïs: “I am whatever has been, is, or shall be, and no mortal has drawn aside my veil.” To the same purpose was the saying of Simonides to Hiero, “that the more he contemplated the Divine Nature the less he appeared to comprehend it.” And Socrates, in the Philebos of Plato, observes that he shuddered as often as the Great Name was to be pronounced lest he should bestow upon it some unworthy epithet.

Footnote 1002:

Muret. ad Plat. Rep. p. 726.

It would appear, indeed, that the idea which the theologians of Greece had formed of the Almighty was very nearly the same as our own; though, in compliance with popular prejudices, they often made use of the plural for the singular. Goodness, power, and knowledge were his characteristics, which in substance are the same as the types of the theologians of modern times—goodness, immutability, truth,—goodness leading the van in both cases, and the remaining conditions answering perfectly to each other. For in supreme power and supreme wisdom must be immutability and truth, since the Almighty can do all he wills and must ever will what is right.[1003] In accordance with these views, the spiritual philosophy of Greece maintained that the Deity is the source of no evil, though traces of a far different theory are here and there discoverable among the poets. Thus, speaking of the calamities arising from the anger of Achilles, Homer says

Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή.

And, again—

Ζεὺς δ᾽ ἀρετὴν ἄνδρασιν ὀφέλλει τε, μινύθει τε
Ὅππως κεν ἐθέλησιν.[1004]

Footnote 1003:

Muret. ad Plat. Rep. p. 727.

Footnote 1004:

Iliad, υ. 242. seq.

So, again, the two vases in the palace of Zeus, out of which he distributed good and evil to mankind.[1005] Hesiod also introduces Zeus, boasting that instead of fire he will give men a curse:—

Τοῖς δ᾽ ἐγὼ ἀντὶ πυρὸς δώσω κακόν

But in all ages men lay their misfortunes at the door of Providence. However, though the notions men entertain of God be ever so just, their conduct will not be thereby influenced, or a religion, properly speaking, created, unless several other truths be equally believed. It must be established not only that the maker of the universe still regards his workmanship, and will punish all those who seek to disorder the machine, by entailing remorse upon transgression, but that man is not a fugitive being, who can escape out of the hands of God by shrinking into annihilation, but a creature who, in accordance with his will, must run the vast circle of eternity, co-lasting with God himself.[1006] This is the great keystone of religion: without this, men will believe that even the Almighty can have no hold upon them; that they die, and their accountability ceases. The doctrine of immortality, however, has everywhere opened the skies to man, and set him upon the discovery of the steps leading thither, and, at the same time, has checked his daring, and poisoned his guilty pleasures.

Footnote 1005:

Iliad, ω. 527. seq. Cf. Muret. p. 737.

Footnote 1006:

Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 95.

From the remotest ages the immortality of the soul constituted a leading dogma in the religion of Greece, and was necessarily accompanied by the persuasion, that to the good that immortality would bring happiness, and to the evil the contrary.[1007] Homer is full of this, and the fables, wherein the enemies of God, parricides, murderers, the perpetrators of impiety and wrong, are, after death, banished to the depths of Tartarus, while various degrees of glory and happiness, not altogether unlike what is sublimely shadowed forth by St. Paul, are attributed to the good. That part, for example, of Heracles, which is divine, ascends to Heaven: Achilles enjoys the everlasting serenity of the Islands of the Blessed; and, generally, every virtuous man who rightly performed his duty ascended to the mansion prepared for him in the stars, there to live for ever in happiness.[1008] They taught, moreover, that the spirit of man is of heavenly birth: without this we had lived as so many animals. But God bestowed upon us an immortal soul, to watch as a guardian angel over the body, and placed it in the loftiest part of our frame, to teach us to look upward, and remember our birth,—that men are not creatures of clay but children of God and heirs of immortality.[1009]

Footnote 1007:

Among the people of the East we even discover traces of the doctrine
of the resurrection:—Καὶ ἀναβιώσεσθαι, κατὰ τοὺς Μάγους, φησὶ
(Θεόπομποσ) τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, καὶ ἔσεσθαι ἀθανάτους.—Diog. Laert. Pr.
vi. 9.

Footnote 1008:

Plato, Tim. Opp. vii. 45. Cf. p. 97.—Is there not some allusion in
the following passage to the scriptural account of the creation of
man before woman? Ὡς γάρ ποτε ἐξ ἀνδρῶν γυναῖκες καὶ τἄλλα θηρία
γενήσοίντο ἠπίσταντο οἱ ξυνιστάντες ἡμᾶς.—Tim. Opp. t. vii. p. 111.

Footnote 1009:

Plato, Tim. Opp. t. vii. p. 137.

It will not, however, surprise those who comprehend the constitution of human nature, to find that the Greeks, deprived as they were of revelation, were not content with the simple dogma of immortality, rendered happy or otherwise by rewards and punishments, but imagined a return of the soul to earth, and its passage through a long succession of bodies, until the stains,[1010] contracted during its first sojourn, had been obliterated: properly, therefore, their Hell was a kind of Purgatory, and, no doubt, suggested the original idea of that intermediate place to the Church of Rome. The religious part of the pagan world, those especially who went through the ceremonies of expiation and initiatory rites, firmly believed that bad men met in the realms of Hades with a just retribution for their crimes, and were again launched into the career of life, that they might receive from others that which they had done unto them.[1011] Though even in those days there were not wanting persons who affected to possess the power of absolution, nay, of granting for a moderate sum of money indulgences and licences to sin. These ragged impostors, of course, patronised only rich sinners, over whose heads vengeance might be hanging for crimes committed either by themselves or their ancestors, (since the Greeks also believed that the sins of the parents are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generations,[1012]) professing to be masters of arts and incantations by which the gods were compelled to grant their prayers.

Footnote 1010:

Even among the ancient Christians this doctrine was not wholly
exploded. Origen believed it:—Λέγει δὲ καὶ ἄλλα παραλογώτατα· καὶ
δυσσεβείας πλήρη μετεμψυχώσείς τε γὰρ ληρωδεὶ καὶ ἐμψύχους τοὺς
ἀστέρας καὶ ἑτέρα τούτοις παραπλησία.—Phot. Bib. p. 3. seq.

Footnote 1011:

Plato de Legg. ix. Opp. viii. 152. seq. Cf. 172. seq. 191. seq. De
Rep. i. Opp. vi. 9. sqq.

Footnote 1012:

De Rep. ii. 7. t. i. p. 112. sqq. Stallb.—The belief that children
suffered for the crimes of their parents, which widely pervaded the
pagan world, is nowhere more clearly stated than by Plato:—Γὰρ ἐν
Αἵδου δίκην δώσομεν ὧν ἂν ἐνθαδε ἀδικήσωμεν, ἢ αὐτσὶ ἢ παῖδες
παῖδων.—Id. c. 8. p. 119.

But while the vulgar and the superstitious were thus deluded, they who possessed superior education and superior minds, united, with a belief in the future, a more cheerful faith in the justice and beneficence of the Deity. They discovered, even by the light of reason, that human nature has been perverted from its original perfection,—that an evil principle has been introduced into our inmost essence,—that in our sinful state we are at enmity with God and all goodness,—and must by prayers and sacrifices be purified and reconciled to him ere we can taste of happiness. On the subject of prayer the wiser Greeks entertained notions not wholly unbecoming a Christian.[1013] They well enough understood, that it is not to be considered as an importuning of God for wealth or fame or wisdom, or, as ignorant persons suppose, an impious desire that He would for our sakes depart from his eternal purposes; but merely the nourishing in our minds of a profound veneration for the Almighty, a trust in his Providence and wisdom, an habitual disclosure voluntarily made of our inmost thoughts and desires, which must be known to him whether we will or not. Hence the great philosopher of antiquity[1014] simply prayed for those things which it might please God to send, and that if he asked for anything wrong it might be denied him.

Footnote 1013:

Cf. Mitford, Hist. of Greece, i. 115. 8vo.

Footnote 1014:

Xen. Mem. i. 3. 2. Cf. Plut. Inst. Lac. § 26.

It is no doubt true, as Mr. Mitford[1015] has observed, that the Gods in Homer are sometimes introduced favouring the perpetrators of injustice. But this is in contradiction to the general tone of the Greek religion; according to the tenets of which, every injured person had his Erinnyes who avenged whatever wrongs or violence he might suffer. Nay, even animals were comprised within the protecting circle of this beneficent superstition; and the God Pan was intrusted with the punishment of excesses perpetrated against them,[1016]

“When vultures that, with grief exceeding measure,
Lament their heart’s lost treasure,
And o’er their empty nest, in torturing woe,
Pass to and fro,
Borne on their oarlike wings,
Missing the task that brings
Joy with it, send their piercing wail on high,
Apollo, Pan, or Zeus hearing the cry,
Charges th’ Erinnyes, though late,
The penalty decreed by Fate
To visit on the spoilers far or nigh.”

Footnote 1015:

Hist. of Greece, i. 108.

Footnote 1016:

Æsch. Agam. 55. sqq. with the commentary of Klausen. p. 104.—There
occurs in the Scriptures a like sentiment, “He who stilleth the
young ravens, when they cry.” So also the Mahomedan tradition, that
in the midst of a battle-field, where two mighty hosts were engaged,
God preserved from the hoofs of the chargers, and from the feet of
men, the lapwing’s nest.

Another doctrine, which we might scarcely expect to discover in paganism, constituted, nevertheless, a part of the Greek religion,—I mean the power of penitence. In all cases, indeed, this would not avail. The laws of nature (πεπρωμένη, fate) would have their course whatever might be the conduct or disposition of man; but in all other cases, tears[1017] shed in secret, solemn acts of religion, and deep contrition were supposed to appease the anger of Heaven. Besides, when afflictions fell upon men, they were not necessarily regarded as evils; for by suffering, the soul, they thought, is purified, chastened, endued with wisdom,—

“Sweet are the uses of adversity;”

and, hence, of those trials which ignorance regards as evils, most, if not all, are but so many dispensations of mercy, designed to work off the dross of sin, and restore the spirit to its original brightness.[1018] By these means, likewise, transgressors were believed to make some atonement for their crimes. Remembrance haunted them even in sleep. Their miseries rose up before them, compassed them round, and urged them by invisible stripes into her track, “whose ways are ways of pleasantness, and all whose paths are peace.”

Footnote 1017:

Πηγὴ δακρύων—Soph. Trach. 852. Antig. 802. A Scriptural expression,
“O that mine eyes were a _fountain of tears_.” Æsch. Agam. 68. sqq.
Eumen. 900. Suppl. 1040.

Footnote 1018:

Æsch. Agam. 160. sqq.—Klaus. Com. p. 120. Hence the proverb,
παθήματα μαθήματα.—Blomfield.

But over the impenitent wicked vengeance for ever impended; nor could wealth or rank purchase impunity, as the bare-footed friars and ass-mounters of the time were fain to persuade the credulous and weak-minded. Long withheld, the anger of the Gods descended at length in showers, utterly extirpating the evil-doers.[1019] Thus perished Paris, the violator of marriage and of hospitable rites; thus Clytemnæstra and Ægisthos, adulterers and murderers; thus the whole house of [OE]dipos, involved in an unutterable cycle of misery and crime. The interval, moreover, between the commission of guilt and its final punishment, was given up to the Erinnyes,[1020] those dire and mysterious powers of vengeance, whose breathless chace after crime is pourtrayed with so much sublimity by Sophocles. These divinities, starting into instant birth, whenever blood was unlawfully shed, walked perpetually beside the murderer to his grave,—to him alone visible, to him alone audible.

Footnote 1019:

Pind. Pyth. iii. 11. Æsch. Agam. 342. sqq. Klausen. Com. p. 140.

Footnote 1020:

Cf. Æsch. Eum. 859. seq.—Schol. ad Æsch. Tim. Orat. Att. t. 12. p.
384.

The gross and carnal-minded contrived, indeed, in the case of lesser transgressions, to remain blind to this deformity, while youth and health and prosperity cast their illusions over their path. But age in this matter sharpened their sight. On drawing near the brink of the grave, the vices, hitherto so blythe and comely, appeared to grow more shrivelled and hideous and unlovely than their own impure countenances, and they would then fain have parted company with them. But, no! Having been comrades of their own choosing, Zeus chained them to their side to the last, unless repentance severed the link; and their fearful howlings, night and day, broke their repose, harrowed up their feelings, augmented tenfold their terrors, while sweat and tears, and agonising shrieks burst from them even in their dreams. The wicked, therefore, in the deepest darkness of paganism, were not left wholly to the error of their ways. But God reserved himself a witness in their hearts, and set up a light by which they might rightly, if they chose, direct their footsteps. It is true that the cardinal verities of religion were then but very imperfectly perceived, that, to get at them at all, men had to break through the shells of many fables, and that, when found, they must be for the most part enjoyed in secret, far from the din of ambition. Not, indeed, that the people refused their sympathy to virtue,—public opinion is never so far corrupted,—but that in the world there has always existed a strong current bearing men far from the track of duty and holiness.

There was, no doubt, some degree of fanaticism mixed up with all this. The priesthood, an order of men much calumniated, but without whom society would be worse by far than it is, found it necessary to allure men into the bosom of their church by imposing ceremonies, by sacrifices, and by the mysterious disclosure of certain truths in the performance of certain rites. It will be seen that I allude to the mysteries. On the occasion of initiation, as if to intimate that men cannot be virtuous or religious by proxy, each individual became his own priest and sacrificed[1021] for himself. But in what initiation itself consisted, no man knows. Antiquity has revealed nothing, and nothing can we discover. The hypotheses of scholars are, therefore, so many dreams, and a mere waste of ingenuity; for, if they should by chance hit the mark, there exist no means of proving that they have done so. But of this we are sure, that a persuasion was widely spread that a blissful immortality awaited the initiated. A greater degree of holiness was supposed to attach to them,—there was a spell shed around their persons,—in situations of danger they experienced less of the fear of death. In storms, for example, at sea, when the ship seemed about to sink—"Have you been initiated?" was the question men asked each other. Still, among philosophers, the wisest and best sometimes neglected this popular consummation of a pious life. Socrates belonged not to this communion, a circumstance which rendered it more easy to fasten upon him the charge of impiety, in those days more atrocious than now, since, to be esteemed inimical to the gods, was the surest way to make enemies of men. Further than this, it is not necessary that I enter into the gentile faith, which only incidentally, as it affected morals, belongs to my subject.

Footnote 1021:

Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 712.

But there exists in all countries a minor cycle of superstitions, which, more strongly perhaps than anything paints the peculiarities of the national character. In the north, as we know, this indigenous belief has survived all changes in the public creed, and will subsist to the last, lingering among our woods, our ruins, our moonlit meadows, our churchyards, by our firesides. Fairies, witches, ghosts, goblins can by no advances in civilisation be put to flight. They sail in our steamers on the ocean, ride at quickest speed along the railroads, go to bed with the first lady in the land, and even nestle beneath the statesman’s vest.[1022] With us these aërial beings, or spectres of crime, too commonly assume an aspect grotesque or devilish, but they nevertheless keep alive in the popular mind the spirit of romance and poetry, one of the never-failing handmaids of religion. Mythology rarely penetrates down to these primitive superstitions, which, however, constitute the basis of the whole science, and in Greece assumed, in many cases, forms of beauty analogous to its loftier and more poetic fables.

Footnote 1022:

See, for example, Lord Castlereagh’s vision of the fire-devil in Mr.
Lockhart’s Life of Sir Walter Scott.

The place occupied in our own popular mythology by the “light-sandalled fays,” was in Greece filled by the Hamadryads and Nymphs.[1023] No wood or grove or solitary tree, no fountain or rill in moss-grown cell or rustic cavern, existed without its co-existent divinity, female generally, and instinct with beauty and beneficence. These creatures, the Jinn and Jinneh of the Arabs, extended their dominion over all minor streams, and sported, in the softness and stillness of night, athwart the billows silvered by the moon; but the deities of great rivers, as the Acheloös, the Peneios, and others, were male. Being only a few degrees raised above humanity, they were often enamoured of mortals, to whom they appeared arrayed in loveliness, amid the glimmering forests, at dawn or twilight, or when

“overhead the moon
Wheels her pale course.”

Footnote 1023:

The same superstitions, a little modified, are still found in many
parts of Greece. “The religious feelings of the Cretan, in the
nineteenth century, differ very little, if at all, from those
entertained for the Naïads by his heathen ancestors.”—Pashley, Trav.
in Crete, i. 89.

It was not always, however, that the love of a nymph proved a blessing. There were occasions when, having for a moment revealed their superhuman charms to some shepherd in his romantic solitude, or to some poet worshiping the muses alone, beside the inspiring mount or spring, they again capriciously withdrew, and left him vision-smitten to pine or, perchance, to die.

Nor were the Greeks wholly devoid of belief in evil spirits, for the demon Alastor,[1024] which was a deification of the principle that incites to crime and afterwards brings vengeance, can in no way be regarded as good. Typhon, too, with the Giants and Titans, had at least a predominance of evil in their character, but these are treated of at length by the mythologists. Several superstitions, commonly supposed to be wholly Oriental, were current in Greece, such as that men had the power by using certain spells to quit their mortal forms and roam disembodied through the earth. By magic rings, too, and helmets they might be rendered invisible, and, thus protected, enter into the secret chambers of kings, pollute their wives, and rifle their treasures.[1025] Means, moreover, they had, confounded in those ages with supernatural power, of charming poisonous serpents, as to this day is done by the subjects of our Eastern empire, and the snake-catchers of Egypt; and though it be now known that opium constitutes no small portion of this charm, the people generally, both in the East and West, conceive other influences to be employed than those of legitimate art.

Footnote 1024:

Cf. Poppo, Proleg. in Thucyd. i. 14. Xenarchos observes that the
home perishes when conflicting fortunes attach to the master, and
into which the Alastor creeps:

φθίνει δόμος
ἀσυντάτοισι δεσποτῶν κεχρημένος
τύχαις, ἀλάστωρ τ᾽ εἰσπέπαικε.

Ap. Athen. ii. 64. seq. See also Æsch. Choeph. 119. Eumen. 560. 802.
with Klausen. Æsch. Theolog. i. 9. 56. seq. et ad Agam. p. 119. The
Egyptians had their Babys or Typhon, a god of evil.—Athen. xv. 25.

Footnote 1025:

Plat. Rep. ii. § 3. Stallb.

There was not in later times, perhaps, that boundless faith in spells and transformations still subsisting in the East. But in the earlier ages, and in the gloomy mountain recesses of Arcadia, events equally strange were supposed to have happened. Thus Lycaon having sacrificed an infant to Zeus Lycæos, and sprinkled the blood upon the altar, immediately became a wolf;[1026] and it was reported that any one who performed this dreadful sacrifice, and afterwards by accident tasted of the human entrails, when mingled with those of other victims, forthwith underwent the same transformation.[1027] Thus we find the gloomy legend of the Breton forests existing in the heart of the Peloponnesos, where there can, I fear, be little doubt, that human victims were habitually offered up. Another ancient superstition, which found its way into Italy, was, that a person first seen by a wolf lost his voice, whereas if the man obtained the prior glimpse of the animal no evil ensued.[1028]

Footnote 1026:

Paus. viii. 2, 3. Cf. Plat. Rep. viii. 16. Stallb.

Footnote 1027:

Plat. Rep. viii. 16. t. ii. p. 223. Stallb. Cf. Bœckh in Platon.
Minoem. p. 55. seq.

Footnote 1028:

Muret. ad Plat. Rep. i. p. 670. where, with much ingenuity, he
detects an allusion to this superstition in a hasty glance of the
philosopher.—Plin. Hist. Nat. viii. 34. Schol. ad Theocr. xiv. 21.
Virg. Ecl. ix. 53. Donat. in Ter. Adelph. iv. 1. 21. et Stallb. ad
Plat. Rep. i. 37.

The belief in ghosts, coeval no doubt with man, flourished especially among the Greeks. Hesiod entertained peculiar notions on this subject, which some suppose to have been borrowed from the East, that is, he believed that the good men of former times became, at their decease, guardian spirits, and were entrusted[1029] with the care of future races. Plato adopts these ghosts, and gives them admission into his Republic, where they perform an important part and receive peculiar honours.[1030] When they appeared, as sometimes they would, by day, their visages were pale and their forms unsubstantial like the creations of a dream.[1031] But, as among us, they chiefly affected the night for their gambols, and in Arcadia particularly, would appear to honest people returning home late in cross-roads, and such places whence they were not to be dislodged but by being pelted apparently by pellets made from bread crumb, on which men had wiped their fingers, carefully preserved for this purpose by the good folks about Phigaleia.[1032]

Footnote 1029:

Hes. Opp. et Dies, 121. seq. where see Goettling.

Footnote 1030:

De Rep. v. 15. t. i. 377. seq. The Magi, among whom supernatural
sights and powers were most familiar, maintained that the Gods
occasionally appeared to them, and that the atmosphere is filled
with spectral shadows, which, floating about like mists or
exhalations, are visible to the sharpsighted.—Diog. Laert. Pr. vi.
9. A similar belief prevailed among the early anchorites. “It was
their firm persuasion, that the air which they breathed was peopled
with invisible enemies; with innumerable dæmons who watched every
occasion and assumed every form, to terrify, and, above all, to
tempt, their unguarded virtue.”—Gibbon, vi. 263.

Footnote 1031:

Æsch. Agam. 68.—Klaus. Com. p. 108.

Footnote 1032:

Athen. iv. 31.

The most remarkable prank played by any ancient ghosts, however, with whose history I am acquainted, did not take place in Greece, but in the Campagna di Roma, where, after a bloody battle between the Romans and the Huns, in which all but the generals and their staff bit the dust, two spectral armies, the ghosts of the fallen warriors, appeared upon the field to enact the contest over again. During three whole days did these valiant souls of heroes, as the Homeric phrase is, carry on the struggle; and the historian who relates the fact, is careful to observe that they did not fall short of living soldiers, either in fire or courage. People saw them distinctly charge each other, and heard the clash of their arms. Similar exhibitions were to be seen in different parts of the ancient world. In the great plain of Sogda,[1033] for example, spectral armies of mighty courage but voiceless, were in the constant habit of engaging in mortal combat at the break of day. Caria likewise possessed a favourite haunt of these warlike phantoms. But here the apparition was only occasional, and all its evolutions were performed in the air, which was the case in England, as we have been assured by very old people, before the breaking-out of the American war. Another fray of ghosts took place every summer in Sicily on the plain of the Four Towers, but in this case the whole business was carried on at noon, to the no small annoyance of Pan who usually takes his siesta at that hour,—that is, if they were as noisy in their battles as the Campanian spectres.[1034]

Footnote 1033:

Which had once been a lake.—Vit. Isidor. ap. Phot. Bib. p. 839.

Footnote 1034:

Phot. Bib. p. 339.

Like the Roman Catholics, the Greeks had great faith in miraculous images, holy wells, &c. and their descendants still maintain the same creed. Near the Church of Haghia Parthenoë in Crete, is a most copious fountain deriving its name from the same holy and miracle-working virgins to whom the church is dedicated, and who also preside over the waters. “The worship of the headless body of Molos has also its parallel in modern times.”[1035] As the Cretan Christians for many years reverenced the head of Titus, though deprived of its body, so their heathen ancestors used annually to honour by a religious festival the body of Molos, the well-known father of Meriones, though deprived of its head. The legend, told to explain the ancient ceremony in which the headless statue of a man thus exhibited, was that “after Molos got possession of a nymph’s person without having first obtained her consent, his body was found, but his head had disappeared.”[1036] An image of the Virgin travelled by water from Constantinople to Greece, where it was shortly after seen standing up in the waves near Mount Athos. Similar legends obtained of old. Near Biennos in Crete,[1037] “has been dug up the bones and skulls of giants, many of whom were eight or ten times the size of common men.”[1038]

Footnote 1035:

Pashley, Travels in Crete, i. 88.

Footnote 1036:

Pashley, Travels in Crete, i. 177.—Plut. de Orac. Def.

Footnote 1037:

Herod. iv. 33.—Pashley, Travels in Crete, i. 192.

Footnote 1038:

Pashley, i. 278.

Of the various modes of penetrating into the future,[1039] prevalent among the people, I may mention some few. Prophetesses are frequently spoken of in Scripture, and in the Acts of the Apostles[1040] is given an account of a young female slave who brought her master large sums of money by this trade, which was that of a gipsy. Others there were who, like many among the Orientals, professed to understand the language of birds. A slave, said to possess this knowledge, is celebrated, by Porphyry, and was probably from the East.[1041] One sort of divination was practised by pouring drops of oil into a vessel and looking on it, when they pretended to behold a representation of what was to take place. This in Egypt is still practised, merely substituting ink for oil, and a great many travellers appear to believe in it. Soldiers going to war were especially liable to fall into this kind of foolery.[1042]

Footnote 1039:

See Max. Tyr. Diss. iii. p. 31–38.

Footnote 1040:

C. xvi. v. 16. sqq.

Footnote 1041:

De Abstinentiâ, iii. Cf. Cedren. Michael, Compotat. εἰσὶ γὰρ τίνες
οἱ ἐν ἐλαίῳ ὁρίοντες μαντεύονται.—Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 1093.

Footnote 1042:

Οἱ γὰρ ἐπὶ πόλεμον ἐξιόντες ἐπητήρουν τὰς διοσημείας.—Schol.
Aristoph. Acharn. 1106.

The use of holy water on entering temples is of great antiquity. This custom was called περίῤῥανσις, and the act was performed with the branch of the fortunate olive.[1043] There stood at the door of the temple a capacious lustral font, whose contents had been rendered holy by extinguishing[1044] therein a lighted brand from the altar; thence water was sprinkled on themselves, by worshipers or by the officiating priest. A similar apparatus stood at the entrance to the Agora, to purify the orators, &c. going to the public assembly. It was likewise placed at the door of private houses, wherein there was a corpse, that every one might purify himself on going out.[1045] Superstitious persons usually walked about with a laurel leaf in their mouth, or occasionally bearing a staff of laurel, there being a preserving power in that sacred shrub: hence arose the proverb δαφνίκην φορῶ βακτήριαν,—"I carry a laurel staff," when a man would say, I have no fear. Persons not thus protected it is to be presumed were terrified if a weasel or dog crossed their path; and the omen could only be averted by casting three stones at it, the number three being exceedingly agreeable to the gods. Certain fruits would not burst on the tree if three stones were cast into the same hole with the seed when the tree was planted. Two brothers walking on the way conceived it ominous of evil if they happened to be parted by a stone. On every trifling occasion altars and chapels were erected to the gods, particularly by women; no house or street was free from them. For example, if a snake crept into the house through the eaves, forthwith an altar was erected. At places where three roads met, stones were set up, to be worshiped by travellers, who anointed them with oil. If a mouse nibbled a hole in a corn-sack, they would fly to the portent interpreter, and inquire what they should do,—"Get it mended," was sometimes the honest reply. Horrid dreams[1046] might be expiated, and their evil effects be averted, by telling them to the rising sun. When the candles spit, it was a sign of rain.[1047] During thunder and lightning they made the noise called _Poppysma_,[1048] which it was hoped might avert the danger. On board ship sailors entertained the idea, that to carry a corpse would be the cause of shipwreck, as happened to the vessel which was bearing to Eubœa the bones of Pelops.[1049] The sailors of the Mediterranean, for this reason, will refuse to receive mummies on board.

Footnote 1043:

Ramo felicis olivæ.—Virgil. Æn. vi. 230.

Footnote 1044:

Athen. ix. 76.

Footnote 1045:

Casaub. ad Theophr. Char. p. 287. Eurip. Alcest. 99.

Footnote 1046:

Cf. Plut. Alcib. § 39.

Footnote 1047:

Casaub. ad Theophr. Char. p. 300.

Footnote 1048:

Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 260. 262. 626.

Footnote 1049:

Pausan. v. 13. 4. Palm. Exerc. in Auct. Græc. d. 398.