When however we turn from the external world to the life of man, we find the functions of the supreme God even more closely circumscribed or—to put it in another way—more generally delegated to others. The daily course of human life with all its pursuits and passions is under the joint control of the saints and some of the old Hellenic deities. Of the latter, as I have said, another chapter must treat: but it should be remembered that the peasant does not draw a hard and fast line of distinction between the two classes with whom for clearness’ sake I am bound to deal separately. Thus Charon in many of the folk-songs which celebrate his doings is made to represent himself as a messenger of God, charged with the duty of carrying off some man’s soul and unable to grant a respite[91]. He is occasionally addressed even as Saint Charon[92]; and his name constantly occurs in the epitaphs of country churchyards. A story too in Bernhard Schmidt’s collection[93] illustrates well the way in which pagan and Christian elements are thus interwoven:—
‘There was once an old man who had been good his whole life through. In his old age therefore he had the fortune to see his good angel (ὁ καλὸς ἄγγελός του); who said to him—for he loved him well—“I will tell thee how thou mayest be fortunate. In such and such a hill is a cave; go thou in there and ever onward till thou comest to a great castle. Knock at the gate, and when it is opened to thee thou wilt see a tall woman before thee, who will straightway welcome thee and ask thee of thine age and business and estate. Answer only that thou art sent by me: then will she know the rest.” Even so did the old man: and the woman within the earth gave unto him a tablecloth and bade him but spread it out and say “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,” and lo! everything that he wished would be found thereon. And thus it came to pass.
‘Now when the old man had oft made use of it, it came into his heart to bid the king unto his house: who, when he saw the wonder-working cloth, took it from the old man. But because he was no virtuous man, the cloth did not its task in his hands; wherefore he threw it out of the window and straightway it turned to dust. So the old man went again to the woman in the hill, and she gave him this time a hen that laid a golden egg every day. When the king heard thereof, he had the hen too taken away from the old man. Howbeit in his keeping she laid not, and so he threw the hen also out of window, and she likewise turned to dust. So in his anger he bade seize the old man forthwith and cut off his head.
‘But scarce was this done when there appeared before the king the Mistress of the Earth and of the Sea—for she was the woman in the hill—and when she had told him in brief words what awaited him after this life in requital for his wickedness, she stamped with her foot upon the ground, which swallowed up the castle with the king and all that was therein. But the old man that was slain had entered into Paradise.’
In this story the Mistress of the Earth and of the Sea (ἡ κυρὰ τσῆ γῆς καὶ τσῆ θαλάσσης) is, as we shall see later[94], none other than Demeter: but pagan as she is, she works in accord with the good angel (who is evidently her inferior), and orders the old man to invoke the Trinity.
Thus the peasant does not conceive of any antagonism between his pagan and his Christian objects of worship; and both classes are equally deserving of study by those interested in ancient Greek religion. For while every minutest trait or detail of the modern peasant’s conception of those ancient deities, who, though despoiled of temples and organised worship, still survive, may throw some new ray of light on the divine personalities and the myths of old time, yet a more broad and comprehensive view of the outlines of ancient religion may be obtained by contemplating the worship of Christian saints who, though deficient often in personal significance, nevertheless by their possession of dedicated shrines and of all the apparatus of a formal cult occupy more exactly the position of the old gods and heroes.
The saints then, as I have remarked above, have a large share in the control of man’s daily life. The whole religious sense of the people seems to demand a delegation of the powers of one supreme God to many lesser deities, who, for the very reason perhaps that they are lower in the scale of godhead, are more accessible to man. Under the name of saints lies, hardly concealed, the notion of gods. In mere nomenclature Christianity has had its way; but none of the old tendencies of paganism have been checked. The current of worship has been turned towards many new personalities; but the essence of that worship is the same. The Church would have its saints be merely mediators with the one God; but popular feeling has made of them many gods; their locality and scope of action are defined in exactly the old way; vows are made to the patron-saint of such and such a place; invocations are addressed to him in virtue of a designated power or function.
Local titles are often derived merely from the town or district in which the church stands, as Our Lady of Tenos, or S. Gerasimos of Cephalonia. In other cases they have reference to the surroundings of the sanctuary. The chapel of the Virgin in the monastery of Megaspelaeon consists of a large cave at the foot of some towering cliffs, and the dedication is to our Lady of the Golden Cave (Παναγία χρυσοσπηλαιώτισσα). In this case the word ‘golden’ is an imaginative addition, for the interior is peculiarly dark: but the dedication has been borrowed, owing to the repute of the original shrine, by churches which have not even a cave to show. In Amorgos S. George has the title of Balsamites, derived from the balsam which covers the hill-side on which stands his church. In Paros several curious dedications are mentioned by Bent, which he renders as Our Lady of the Lake, Our Lady of the Unwholesome Place, and S. George of the Gooseberry[95]. In Athens there is a church of which the present dedication is said to be due to a fire which blackened the icon of the Virgin, who is known on this account as Our smoke-blackened Lady (Παναγία καπνικαρέα), or, it may be, Our Lady of the smoky head, according as the second half of the compound is connected with the Turkish word for ‘black’ or the now obsolete Greek word κάρα, ‘head[96].’
Titles denoting functions are equally numerous and quaint. In Rhodes the Archangel Michael is invoked as πατητηριώτης, patron of the wine-press[97]. S. Nicolas, who has supplanted Poseidon, often assumes the simple title of ‘sailor’ (ναύτης). S. John the Hunter (κυνηγός) owns a monastery on Mt Hymettus. In Cimolus there is a church of Our Guiding Lady (Παναγία ὁδηγήτρια)[98]. SS. Costas and Damien, the physicians, are known as the Moneyless (ἀνάργυροι), because their services are given gratis. S. George at Argostóli has been dubbed the Drunkard (μεθυστής)[99]—thus furnishing a notable parallel to the hero celebrated in old time at Munychia as ἀκρατοπότης[100]—because on his day, Nov. 3rd, the new wine is commonly tapped and there is much drinking in his honour.
In other cases the actual name of the saint has determined his powers or character without further epithet. S. Therapon is invoked for all kinds of healing (θεραπεύειν): S. Eleutherios (with an echo possibly of Eilythuia) to give deliverance (ἐλευθερία) to women in childbirth: S. James, in Melos, owing to a phonetic corruption of Ἰάκωβος into Ἄκουφος, to cure deafness[101]. S. Elias, the successor of the sun-god (ἥλιος), has power over drought and rain. S. Andrew (Ἀνδρέας) is implored to make weakly children ‘strong’ (ἀνδρειωμένος). S. Maura, in Athens, requires that no sewing be done on her day under pain of warts (locally known as μαύραις), which if incurred can only be cured by an application of oil from her lamp[102]. S. Tryphon resents any twisting (στρήφω) of thread, as in spinning, on his day; and on the festival of S. Symeon expectant mothers must touch no utensil of daily toil, above all nothing black; for S. Symeon ‘makes marks’ (ὁ Ἄϊ Συμεὼν σημειόνει), and a birth-mark would inevitably appear on the child. If however a woman offend unwittingly, she must lay her hands at once on that part of the body where the birth-mark will be least disfiguring to the child.