Introduction to the History of Religions Part 20

+774+. His name, however, taken to mean 'all,' gave occasion to fanciful interpretations. He was so called, it was said, because he gave delight to all the Immortals;[1331] or his person and his musical and other instruments were supposed to represent universal nature--his horns the rays of the sun and the horns of the moon, his spotted fawnskin the stars, his pipe of seven reeds the harmony of the heavens, his crook the year, which returns on itself, and so on.[1332] The Stoics and the Orphic writers made him Universal G.o.d, the creator of the world.[1333]

In the popular cult, however, he remained the merry patron of herds. The most satisfactory explanation of his name is that which derives it from the stem _pa_, 'feed'--he is then "the goatherd."[1334] The story told by Plutarch, of a voice heard crying on the coast of Epirus, "Great Pan is dead," arose from some misapprehension, but no precise explanation of its origin has been given.[1335] Poets like Pindar and Vergil, disposed to preserve and dignify the old traditions, treat Pan respectfully and sympathetically, but such constructions are nonpopular.[1336]

+775+. Ares seems to be the creation of a war-loving tribe; in the Iliad he is a fierce warrior, armed cap-a-pie, delighting in battle and slaughter. Through the machinations of Hera and Athene he is overcome by human heroes, the poet's feeling being, possibly, contempt for the mere savage fighter; in fact, Ares in the Iliad is, from our point of view, hardly a respectable character--he violates his promise, and when wounded cries out like a hurt child. But as war-G.o.d he was widely revered in Greece; in Thebes especially he was honored as one of the great G.o.ds. Hesiod makes him the son of Zeus and Hera,[1337] but he never attains moral or other dignity; in the popular cult he remained, probably, merely the patron of war. In the later artistic representations he is the ideal of warlike vigor and grace. In the Homeric hymn (which may be of Orphic origin) he is transformed into a lover of peace and a source of all pure and lofty aspirations--a violent procedure, induced by the poet's unwillingness that an Olympian should represent anything but what was morally good.

+776+. The process of development of a G.o.d's character is ill.u.s.trated with special clearness by the history of Dionysus. It is generally agreed that he was of foreign origin, an importation from Thrace. The features of his earliest cult known to us are marked by bald savagery.

His wors.h.i.+pers indulged in wild orgies, probably excited by intoxicating drinks, tore to pieces a goat (as in Thrace) or a bull (as in Crete) and ate the flesh raw;[1338] and the evidence goes to show that they practiced human sacrifice. All these procedures have parallels in known savage cults. Omophagic orgies are described by Nilus (among the Saracens), and such customs are reported as existing or having existed in the Fiji Islands and elsewhere.[1339] Among many tribes intoxication is a common preparation for the work of the shaman; and human sacrifice has been practiced in all parts of the world. There is nothing peculiar in the office of soothsayer that accompanied the Dionysiac cult; mantic persons and procedures have formed a prominent part of the const.i.tution of the lower peoples everywhere.

+777+. Dionysus, in a word, was originally the local G.o.d of a savage community; the data are not sufficient to fix precisely his original place and the original conception of him. His mantic function does not necessarily show that he was a ghost. It is true that the dead were often consulted (and necromancy long survived among civilized peoples), but any spirit or G.o.d might take possession of a wors.h.i.+per and make him the vehicle of revelation. Nor is the phallus-cult peculiar to Dionysus; this cult is widely diffused, and its origin is to be referred not specifically to the recognition of the general generative power of nature, but to the mystery of human life.[1340] In his original home Dionysus seems to have represented everything that touched the life of his people. When, at a certain time, he pa.s.sed into h.e.l.las (carried, doubtless, by immigrants), he took on the character necessitated by his new surroundings--a process of transformation began. Exact chronological data are lacking, but as in the Iliad[1341] he is the son of Zeus, he must have been adopted by the Greeks very early. In his new home he became the patron of the vine.[1342] In a vine-growing region any prominent deity may become a wine-G.o.d;[1343] but the special connection of Dionysus with wine in Greece suggests that in his earlier home he was somehow identified with intoxicating drinks. With vegetation in general also he may have been connected in Thrace--such a relation would be natural for a clan G.o.d--and in that case his h.e.l.lenic role as G.o.d of vegetation would follow as a matter of course; or, if he advanced from the vine to the whole of vegetable nature, the development is intelligible.

+778+. When and on what grounds he was accepted as one of the Olympians is not clear;[1344] perhaps it was on account of the importance of vine culture, perhaps from the mysterious character of his cult, the enthusiasm of divine inspiration reflected in the frenzy of the wors.h.i.+pers, or from these causes combined; his later name, Bacchus, which seems to refer to cultic orgiastic shouting, would appear to indicate this element of the cult as a main source of his popularity.

Once established as a great G.o.d he was credited with various functions.

The Greek drama arose in connection with his wors.h.i.+p, and at Eleusis the old element of seizure by the G.o.d was transformed by the higher thought of the time into the conception of ethical union with the deity. Thus the old savage G.o.d came to stand for man's highest aspirations.

+779+. As among other peoples, so among the Greeks the government of the Underworld was gradually organized, and a head thereof appointed.[1345]

Already in the Iliad and in Hesiod[1346] the universe is divided into three parts under the rule of the Kronids Zeus, Poseidon, and Ades respectively; the earth, however, and Olympos, says Poseidon, are the common property of them all--there was no complete governmental separation between the Underworld and the Upperworld. The Greeks, with their joy in the present, gave comparatively little prominence to the future (being herein sharply contrasted with the Egyptians).

+780+. The t.i.tle generally given to the underground chief, Hades (apparently 'the invisible one'), indicates the vagueness that attached to this deity.[1347] In the Iliad he is a dark and dread divinity. The precise significance of his t.i.tle Plouton[1348] is uncertain; but under this name he is connected in the myths with processes of vegetation--it is Plouton who carries off Persephone, leaving the world in the deadness of winter. The figure of the underground deity appears to have taken shape from the combination of two mythological conceptions--the underground fructifying forces of nature, and the a.s.semblage of the dead in a nether world or kingdom.[1349] His only moral significance lay in his relation to oaths, wherein, perhaps, is an approach to the idea of a divine judge below the earth.[1350]

+781+. The _female deities_ of the Greeks are no less elaborately worked out than the male G.o.ds, and, like these, are types of human character and representatives of human pursuits.[1351]

+782+. The great G.o.ddess Hera is in Homer attached especially to Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae, but at a very early time was Pan-h.e.l.lenic. The meaning of her name and her origin are uncertain. There is no good ground for regarding her as having been originally a moon-G.o.ddess (Selene was the real moon-G.o.ddess). What is certain is that she had a special relation to women and particularly to childbirth; but such a function is so generally attributed to some G.o.ddess that we can only suppose that she rose to eminence through local conditions unknown to us. The most interesting point about her is that she came to be the representative of the respectable Greek matron, jealous of her wifely rights, holding herself aloof from love affairs, a home person, ent.i.tled to respect for the decency of her life, but without great womanly charm.

+783+. By a natural mythological law she was regarded as the consort of Zeus, and gradually acquired dignity without, however, ever coming to be a distinct embodiment of any form of intellectual or moral life. As Zeus embodied the conception of civil and political heads.h.i.+p, so Hera appears to have embodied the idea of the wife as controller of the purely domestic affairs of the family, her business being the bringing up of children and the oversight of servants--duties that may have seemed at an early period not to require great moral and intellectual power.

+784+. A distincter form is that of Demeter, who, whatever the meaning of her name,[1352] certainly represents the fertile earth--a figure similar to hundreds of others in the world, and doubtless existing at various points in Greece under local names; she probably represents a unification of the different conceptions of the fertile earth, a process that went on in the natural way in Greek thought, and was formulated by the poets. Her historical connection with the great Asian earth-G.o.ddess, the Mother-G.o.ddess, is uncertain. Demeter, however, never became the great earth-mother; she remained attached to the soil, except that in the Eleusinian mysteries she (probably as patron of fertility) was allegorized into a representation of those moral conceptions of the future that gradually arose in Greece.

+785+. The group of deities that may be called maiden G.o.ddesses is of peculiar interest. A maiden G.o.ddess is originally an independent deity who, for whatever reason, has not been brought by the myth-makers into marriage relations with a male deity. Generally such independence is a result of the fact that the G.o.ddess is the representative of fertility.

She may, in accordance with early customs of human society, choose temporary consorts at will (as is the case with Ishtar); she may be in her sole person (like the Dea Mater) the productive power of the world; or she may remain a virgin, occupied only with the care of some department of life (so Athene and Artemis). Which of these characters she takes depends on early social conditions and on the nature of the local theistic organization. In Greece these G.o.ddesses a.s.sume various shapes.

+786+. There is first the primitive divine Power of vegetation, called simply the Kore, the Maiden, a figure ultimately identical with Demeter and in the later constructions represented as her daughter. She is not necessarily to be regarded as a development out of an original corn-spirit. Her t.i.tle "maiden" may be compared with the Semitic t.i.tle "mistress," mentioned above, and with the names expressing family relations, "sister," "mother"--only this particular designation defines her simply as an unmarried female divinity. The "corn-maiden" of modern European folk-lore may be the cultic degradation of an old deity.[1353]

The t.i.tle Kore became almost a proper name, though the designation was not so definite as in the cases of Bel and Ishtar.[1354]

+787+. As the Kore is the representative of vegetable life, so Hestia stands in general for the indoor life, the family. She long retained this local character, but gradually a.s.sumed the position of the great G.o.ddess of the home center, the hearth,[1355] and was connected with the household fires and festivals. She represents the more intimate social life of the family in contrast with Hera, who stands for the government of the household.

+788+. The development of the functions of Artemis is comparatively clear. The origin of the name is doubtful, but in the earliest records she is connected with the fertile earth, with vegetable and also with animal life.[1356] This character indicates that she was at one time a local, all-sufficient deity, though it is hardly possible to determine her original seat. As a local G.o.ddess in the hunting area she was naturally connected with the chase, and as a female divinity she was the patroness of marriage and the protector of human birth. Her original nature as the maiden appears in the representation of her as a virgin which occurs in Homer.[1357] There is no contradiction between this character and her function of presiding over marriage and birth if we consider her as a local G.o.ddess who from one point of view was regarded as a simple maiden, from another point of view as the protector of women.[1358] Thus invested with the control of these important features of life she naturally became a general patroness, a guardian. Later she was connected with Apollo as his sister, exactly by what steps we do not know; and in the mythical constructions she was represented as the daughter of Zeus and Leto.[1359]

+789+. The h.e.l.lenic G.o.ddess Artemis is to be distinguished from the Ephesian deity to whom the Greeks gave the same name, though when the Greeks came into close contact with Asia Minor the two were identified.

And in fact, though in historical origin the two deities are to be kept apart, they doubtless go back to the same conception. The Ephesian G.o.ddess was the Great Mother--she stood specifically for the idea of maternity which lies at the basis of the world; the Greek divinity, beginning as a local protectress, took on larger functions which gave her general resemblance to the universal mother.

+790+. The relation between Artemis and Hekate is an ill.u.s.tration of the process of coordination and harmonization that went on continually among the Greeks. Hekate does not appear in Homer, but in Hesiod she has the full form of a great deity--she exercises control over heaven, earth, and sea;[1360] and at a later period she becomes similarly connected with the Underworld. This variety of functions can be explained only by the supposition that she also was a local deity, who, like all local deities, was regarded as universal.[1361] As the meaning of her name is uncertain and her original region unknown, it can be only surmised that her cult spread gradually in Greece through the growing unification of the h.e.l.lenic states. Like Artemis she presided over human birth. The functions of the two G.o.ddesses being so nearly the same (they appear to represent similar conceptions arising at different centers), it was natural that in the later times they should be identified or closely a.s.sociated.

+791+. Athene is said in a late myth (not in the Iliad) to have been born from the head of Zeus, a representation that has led many recent scholars to regard her as the G.o.ddess of the thunderstorm, the lightning that cleaves the clouds, the divine warrior that slays the dragon. But ingenious and attractive as this interpretation is, to determine the origin of the G.o.ddess it is safer to go to the earlier forms of her cult. At a very early period she is connected with ordinary social occupations.[1362] She is the patroness of the cultivation of the land; in Athens, where the olive was important, it was she who bestowed this tree on the city; here she is the maiden, the genius, the divine patron of vegetation. She presided over the domestic employments of women, spinning and weaving--that is, she is the G.o.ddess of household work.[1363] As is the case with so many divine patrons of men's early simple employments, she grew with the community and became gradually a great G.o.ddess, and necessarily a patroness of cities. In her character of general patroness she became a G.o.ddess of war--a necessity for all ancient states. On the other hand, in a community (like Athens, for example) where intellectual insight was highly esteemed she would naturally become the representative of cleverness and wisdom.

+792+. The peculiar nature of the wisdom that is prized by men depends on time and place. In the earliest periods what Athene bestows is a high degree of common sense and skill in devising ways and means, such as Odysseus shows. In later times of larger cultivation she bestows wisdom in the higher sense, intellectual breadth. Exactly how it came to pa.s.s that the two figures Artemis and Athene developed on such different lines we are unable to say--the beginning of the divergence goes back to times of which we have no records; but, as G.o.ds represent the elements of human life, it was natural that a gradual differentiation should take place; the same general conception would be particularized in different ways in different places, just as divergent forms of the same original word acquire different significations in speech.[1364] As for the later combination of these deities with heavenly bodies and many other things, these are to be regarded as the product of later poetical imagination and the tendency to universalize all great deities.

+793+. Aphrodite exhibits more clearly than any other deity the process or the direction of the h.e.l.lenization of a foreign G.o.d. Her t.i.tles Cypris, Paphia, Cytherea, as well as her connection with Adonis, point, as is generally held, to a Semitic origin[1365]; she seems to have been identical with the great Babylonian, a.s.syrian, and Syrian G.o.ddess Ishtar (Astarte)[1366]. Received into the Greek pantheon at a very early time (already in the Iliad she is one of the Olympians), she yet shows the main characteristics of the Semitic deity[1367]--she is especially the representative of fertility and s.e.xual pa.s.sion, and also has relation to war. The lines of development, however, were different in different communities. In Babylonia and a.s.syria Ishtar became a great universal national deity, charged particularly with the care of all the interests of the state, while in Syria and Canaan the corresponding figures (Attar, Ashtart) remained to a great extent local, and were especially prominent in festivals.

+794+. In Greece the conception of Aphrodite was worked out in a non-Semitic way in two directions. By poets and philosophers she was made the beneficent producer of all things, shedding her charm over animate and inanimate nature;[1368] and the sentiment of love, for which she stood, was exalted into a pure affection, the basis of married life.

The baser side of her cult, with its s.e.xual license (Asiatic of origin), remained along with the higher conception of her,[1369] but the latter was the special contribution that the Greeks made to her development.

+795+. The theistic scheme of the old Greek polytheistic period is the broadest and finest that the ancient polytheism produced. It recognized a divine element in all sides of human life, from the lowest to the highest; it marked out the various directions of human feeling and effort, and in its final outcome it reached the conception of a unity in the divine government of the world, and gave expression to man's best aspirations for the present and for the future. True, it gave way at last to philosophy; but it had recognized those elements of thought on which philosophy was based. The Persian and Hebrew systems expressed more definitely the idea of a divine monocracy, and lent themselves easily to the formation of a religious society, a church, but they did not escape the limitations of mere national feeling. The Greeks founded no church--they formulated universal ethical and religious conceptions, and left the development to the individual. All the great ancient religions reached a high ethical plane and a practical monotheism, but the Greek was the richest of all in the recognition of the needs of humanity.

+796+. _Rome._ The Roman pantheon (if the Italian divine community can properly be called a pantheon) had not the fullness and fineness of the Greek--in accordance with the Roman genius it included only deities having special relations with the family and its work and with the state.[1370] The rich Roman development of specific G.o.ds of the home is referred to above.[1371] The old nature G.o.ds long retained their place, doubtless, in popular wors.h.i.+p, but were gradually subordinated to and absorbed in the larger divine figures. And the great G.o.ds themselves began at an early time to be a.s.similated to Greek deities and to a.s.sume their functions and even their names.[1372]

+797+. The most important of the nature G.o.ds are Sol, Luna, and Tellus (primitive figures that soon gave way to deities divorced from the physical sun, moon, and earth), and the patrons of agricultural work, Consus and Ops, Liber and Libera, Silva.n.u.s and Faunus. The natural features represented by these deities did not disappear entirely from the greater deities, but were purified and elevated. Anna Perenna, for example, as representative of the round of years, remained by the side of Ja.n.u.s, but he embodied this conception in a larger civic way.

+798+. The greatest of the Roman G.o.ds, Juppiter[1373] or Jupiter, is identical in name with Zeus, but differs from him in mythological development and in the final form of his character. As sky-G.o.d he was connected with atmospheric phenomena (rain and lightning) and so naturally with wine and other crops. But as chief G.o.d of the state he speedily rose above these connections, and as Optimus Maximus became the representative of all Roman virtues. Along with this native development he was in later times more or less identified with Zeus. By his side stood the national deity Quirinus, who remained a local patron and never rose to large proportions. Related to him are Sancus and Dius Fidius, who represented some primitive conceptions similar to those belonging to his early form, but they did not develop into great G.o.ds. These three were practically absorbed by him, but the history of this process is obscure.

+799+. Ja.n.u.s, the guardian of the entrance to the house (_janua_)--a function of prime importance in early times, had a prominent place in the cult. He was invoked at the beginning of the day, the month, and the year; in the Salian hymn he is called "G.o.d of G.o.ds" and "good creator"; he was served by the rex sacrorum, who was the first in priestly dignity. He may thus have been a chief G.o.d in the oldest Latin scheme.[1374] Yet he seems never to have come to stand for anything intellectually or morally high except in late philosophical thought.

Though the guardian of public as well as private houses, he was not the patron of the city. He remained in the cult a sort of family and clan G.o.d, and represented only the ideas of a primitive mode of life, the great role being a.s.signed to the sky-G.o.d.[1375]

+800+. To judge from the old rituals Mars was in the earliest time of which there is any record a G.o.d of vegetation. The Arval Brothers, who were charged with the care of crops, addressed their pet.i.tions to him, and it was to him that the Roman husbandman prayed for a blessing on his labors.[1376] What may have been his still earlier character we have no means of determining with certainty. The view that he was originally a G.o.d of the fructifying sunlight[1377] seems to rest mainly on a precarious etymology, the derivation of his name from a stem _mar_ meaning 'to s.h.i.+ne'; but it does not appear that ancient peoples attributed the growth of crops to the sun.[1378] a.n.a.logy would rather lead us to regard him as an old local deity, naturally connected with vegetation. However this may be, the importance of agriculture for the life of the community raised him to a position of eminence, his priestly college, the Salian (traditionally referred to Numa), was one of the greatest, he was connected with various departments of life, and for the warlike Romans he naturally became the patron of war. The cult of the old war-G.o.ddess Bellona maintained itself, but she never attained the highest rank; she is not the equal of Mars, with whom in the later constructions she was brought into connection. In the h.e.l.lenizing period he was identified with Ares.[1379]

+801+. The name Saturn is generally connected with the stem _sa_ (_sero_, _satum_, _sata_), to sow, and he is accordingly regarded as an agricultural deity, the special patron of agricultural work. Whether or how he differed originally from Mars is not clear--perhaps in original differentiation of functions, he being attached to the work of sowing, Mars to vegetation in general; or perhaps they were two similar deities belonging originally to different regions, and differentiated when brought together in the same system. Information on this point is lacking. That Saturn was an ancient Latin G.o.d is probable from the fact that he was traditionally said to be an old king of Latium. Of his earliest cult in Rome little is known. The feast that bears his name, the Saturnalia (held on December 17 and some following days), was a time of popular festivity, when social distinctions were laid aside (slaves were on an equality with masters). Similar festivals are found elsewhere.[1380] Midwinter, when the work of gathering in the harvest was over, was a natural time for festivities.[1381] Saturn, or the figure from which he arose, may have presided over this season originally, or he may have been gradually connected with an old ceremony. The process of h.e.l.lenizing him began early. He was identified with Kronos, made the father of Jupiter and the head of a pre-Jovian divine dynasty, and, in accordance with the tendency to regard the former days as better than the present, the _Saturnia regna_ became the golden age of the past.[1382] Apart from this he seems to have had no ethical significance.

+802+. In the case of certain deities, as Volca.n.u.s, Neptunus, Mercurius, Sancus, a p.r.o.nounced Roman development cannot be traced, partly because of the lack of full data, partly, in the case of Volcan, Neptune, and Mercury, because of an early and complete identification with the Greek G.o.ds Hephaistos, Poseidon, and Hermes.

+803+. The Roman _female deities_[1383] are far less developed than the Greek--their functions are simple, their mythological interest small.

The members of the group representing the productive power of the earth--Bona Dea, Dea Dia, Libera, Fauna, Ceres, Proserpina,[1384] and others--were not worked up by the Romans into great personalities.

+804+. Juno, an independent deity, originally not the wife of Jupiter, is, in the developed cult, the special patron of the maternal side of the life of women, and, as such, is a great domestic power, the embodiment of a large part of family life. It was probably as great sky-G.o.ddess that she attained this position--the chief female deity is naturally the protector of women. The name came to designate the woman's personality as childbearer, and more generally her inner essence or self, as "genius" came to designate the male essence.[1385] Whether this usage was simply an extension of the idea of 'protectress' to that of 'self,' an identification of woman with her specific function in the family, or rested on some older conception, is not clear. However this may be, she became a great G.o.ddess, in the later construction the wife of Jupiter, and was identified with Hera, to whom in fact she is nearly related in function and character. Though her name appears to contain the same stem (_iu_) as 'Jupiter,' and her epithet 'Lucina' the stem _luc_, 'to s.h.i.+ne,' there is no proof that she was, in early times, regarded as a light-deity, or particularly as moon-G.o.ddess. She was sky-G.o.ddess, but not, for that reason, necessarily light-G.o.ddess.

+805+. The importance attached by the Romans to the family life is expressed in the cult of Vesta, the guardian of the hearth as the center of that life.[1386] The Penates, however, the divine protectors of the household, were no less important in the family cult than she. The state also had its Vesta and its Penates. To this character of sacredness stamped on the life of the private family and the larger family, the state, ethical significance and influence must doubtless be ascribed.

+806+. Diana appears to have originated in the time when life was spent largely in forests, and trees were a special object of wors.h.i.+p; she was in historical times connected with groves.[1387] Her cult was widely diffused in Italy, and she became (perhaps because she embodied the common feature of the old life) the representative of Italian unity. As great female deity she was the helper of women in childbirth. Her name is based on the stem _di_, 'to s.h.i.+ne,'[1388] which appears in 'Jupiter'

and 'Juno'; but she is not a sky-G.o.ddess--the "s.h.i.+ning" in her case is that of trees and plants, the green color that gleams in the light, so that the grove is called _lucus_, the 's.h.i.+ning ma.s.s.'[1389] Diana was soon identified with Artemis, and was endowed with her attributes.

+807+. Another Italian G.o.ddess, Minerva, stood, probably, in the earlier time for the simpler arts of a simple community--she was the patroness of manual work and of the healing art. The expression _omnis Minervae h.o.m.o_, descriptive of a man capable in his line of work, almost reduces her to an abstract idea. The name (as the older form, Menerva, more clearly indicates) is based on the stem _man_ (found in Latin _mens_), and appears to mean 'endowed with mind' (or, 'spirit'), though exactly what was the range of this conception in the earliest times is not clear.[1390] Later her function was extended to embrace intellectual capacity, but it was not until her identification with Athene (not later than the third century B.C.) that she attained her full cultic significance.[1391]

+808+. Venus, though an old Italian deity (as her name and her ancient temples show), was so early h.e.l.lenized that her proper native development was cut short. The fact that she was in early times the patroness of gardens[1392] suggests that she was originally a deity of the productive field; probably she belonged in the group of G.o.ddesses (Libera, Bona Dea, and others)[1393] who presided over fertility. It would seem that every region in Italy had such a _numen loci_ (naturally mainly agricultural). It is not clear to what particular spot Venus was originally attached,[1394] or how she came to be revered over a wide region. Under ordinary Italian conditions she might have become a deity like Ceres. But in Sicily, at Mount Eryx, according to tradition, her cult came into contact with that of Aphrodite, whose qualities she soon a.s.sumed.[1395]

+809+. In the third century B.C. the cult of the Sicilian Venus (Venus Erycina) was brought to Rome by direction of the Sibylline Books, and from this time onward her advance to prominence was continuous. As a great G.o.ddess she became (like Ishtar and Aphrodite) in a warlike community the patron of war (Venus Victrix). When the aeneas myth was adopted in Rome she took the place of Aphrodite as mother of that hero (who became the founder of the Roman state), and was honored by Julius Caesar and others as Venus Genetrix. The old Roman moral feeling appears in the dedication of a temple (114 B.C.) to Venus Verticordia as atonement for the unchast.i.ty of three Vestals.[1396] In general the later functions and cult of Venus were reproductions or imitations of those of Aphrodite. Such a divine figure, it seems, the Romans would never have developed out of their own resources.

+810+. The general characteristics of the great ancient national religions are indicated in the preceding descriptions. In the sacrificial cult and the general apparatus of wors.h.i.+p there is no important difference between them, but they differ notably among themselves in the construction of the divine world. The simplest theistic system is the Chinese, which regards the world as order controlled by Heaven. The western cults fall into two divisions, the Egypto-Semitic and the Indo-European. The Egyptian and the Semitic, though they differ in collateral points (divinization of kings, idea of the future life), agree in lacking a true pantheon. On the other hand, notwithstanding resemblances between the Hebrew and the Persian, the difference between the Semitic group and the Indo-European is well-defined. This difference may be indicated by pointing out certain peculiarities of the Semitic theistic system.

+811+. _Features of Semitic theism._ 1. Paucity of departmental G.o.ds and absence of highly specialized G.o.ds. Of this latter cla.s.s, so prominent in Greece and Rome, there is no clear trace in Semitic cults.[1397]

Departmental deities are not found in Arabia, Canaan (including Israel and Phoenicia), and Syria. The Hebrew Yahweh obviously controls all departments of nature and life. The Phoenician Eshmun (a name of uncertain meaning) was identified by the Greeks with their Asklepios as G.o.d of healing, but no special function of this sort is attributed to him in Semitic records. As he was somehow connected with the Kabiri, the "great G.o.ds," it is probable that he was a local divinity credited with general powers.[1398] There is more ground for recognizing real departmental G.o.ds in Babylonia and a.s.syria, though even there the evidence is not quite satisfactory. The great G.o.ds, Ea, Bel, Sin, Shamash, Marduk, Ishtar, Ashur, preside over all human interests. Nabu stands for agriculture as well as for wisdom, and Ea for wisdom as well as for the great deep. Nergal is not the only G.o.d of war. Perhaps the distinctest case of specialization is Ramman (Ninib, Adad), the storm-G.o.d[1399]: the "thunderbolts of Im [Ramman]" are mentioned in "The War of the Seven Evil Spirits"; yet Shamash stands with him against the storm-spirits. In general it appears that the recognition of special departments for G.o.ds is inchoate and feeble in Babylonia and a.s.syria.

There is a separate deity for the Underworld, sometimes a G.o.ddess, sometimes a G.o.d, but they are vague figures.[1400] The connection of certain G.o.ds with certain stars was a late construction, and seems to have had no significance for wors.h.i.+p except a general deanthropomorphizing tendency.

+812+. 2. There is no trace of a cult of heroes in the Semitic area.

The Babylonian Etana, Gilgamesh, and Nimrod (an enigmatical figure), and the Old Testament Nephilim do not receive wors.h.i.+p.[1401] The dead were consulted, but there was no cult of the great ancestors.[1402] The divinization of Babylonian kings, referred to above,[1403] seems not to have carried wors.h.i.+p with it.

+813+. 3. The Semitic material of malefic spirits, while in general the same as that found elsewhere in the world, has a couple of special features. In Babylonia there was a sort of pandemonium, a certain organization of demons,[1404] with proper names for some cla.s.ses; demons usually have not proper names, but may receive such names when they come into specially definite relations with men. The demon Lilit mentioned in the Old Testament,[1405] is probably Babylonian. The two great Hebrew hostile beings, Satan and Azazel, are rather G.o.ds than demons.[1406]

They were both most highly developed under Persian influence, and in the Book of Enoch take on the character and role of Angro Mainyu. Their history exhibits, however, the disposition of the later Jews to organize the realm of supernatural evil; about the first century B.C. the serpent-G.o.d of Genesis iii was identified with Satan.[1407]

The Greek malefic beings, Ker, Harpy, Fury, Gorgon, Sphinx, and the like, appear to have been developed out of ghosts[1408]--whether or not this is true of the Babylonian demons the known material does not enable us to say. Organization of such beings was carried out fully by the Persians, but not by any other Indo-European people and not by the Chinese.

+814+. 4. On abstract G.o.ds and phallic cults see the discussions of these points above.[1409]