These are only a small selection of the saints whom the peasant seeks to propitiate, and it may be noted in passing that among them there are some characters, as among the ancient deities, either immoral as S. George the Drunkard, or unamiable as S. Maura, S. Tryphon, and S. Symeon. But a better idea of the multitude of the popular deities may perhaps be conveyed by giving a list of those worshipped in a single island with the functions there ascribed to them. Here is the catalogue given by a native of Cythnos[103]. The Virgin (Παναγία) is invoked on any and every occasion, and the SS. Anargyri (Costas and Damien) in all cases of illness. S. Panteleëmon is a specialist in eye-diseases, S. Eleutherios in obstetrics, S. Modestes in veterinary work, S. Vlasios in ulcers etc. S. Charalampes and S. Varvara (Βαρβάρα) deliver from pestilences, and S. Elias from drought. The power of protecting children from ailments is ascribed to S. Stylianos, and that of saving sailors from the perils of the sea to S. Nicolas, S. Sostes, and the SS. Akindyni (ἀκίνδυνοι). S. Tryphon deals with noxious insects, S. John the Baptist with ague, S. Menas with loss of goods, S. Paraskeve (Friday) with headache: while S. Aekaterine (Catherine) and S. Athanasios assist anxious mothers to marry off their daughters.
As in the multiplicity of the objects of worship, so too in the mental attitude of the worshipper, there is little change since first were written the words δῶρα θεοὺς πείθει, ‘Gifts win the gods.’ There are certain great occasions, it is true, now as in old days, on which religious feeling attains a higher level, and the mercenary expectation of blessings is forgotten in whole-hearted adoration of the blesser. But in general a spirit of bargaining tempers the peasant’s prayer, and a return is required for services rendered. A sketch of the religious sentiments of the Sphakiotes given by the head of a Cretan monastery is worth reproducing, for it is typical of the whole Greek folk. ‘The faith,’ he writes, ‘of these highlanders in Jesus Christ is sincere in every way, reverent, deep-seated, and unshaken, but unfortunately it is not free from superstitious fancies which mar this otherwise great merit. Many of them are fully persuaded that God, Our Lady, and the Saints go to and fro unseen above their heads, watch each man’s actions, and take part in his quarrels, like the gods of Homer. They are under an obligation to work constant miracles, to vindicate and avenge, to listen readily to each man’s requests and petitions, whether they be just or no. Many of the people go off cattle-lifting or on other wrongful enterprises, and at the same time call upon Our Lady, or any other saints of repute as wonder-workers, to assist them, and as payment for success promise them gifts! To some of the Saints they attribute greater power and grace than to the God who glorified them. In the same way they show greater reverence for this or that church or icon, and bring presents from great distances, in the belief that it has miraculous powers, without understanding that Faith works miracles equally in all places[104].’
Such is the verdict of an educated priest of the Greek Church who deplores the polytheism and idolatry of the common-folk among whom he lives, and who in so doing speaks with the authority of intimate knowledge. Nor can the justice of the verdict be questioned by any one who has entered one of the more highly reputed churches of Greece and observed the votive offerings which adorn or disfigure it. For these offerings are of two qualities just as the motives which inspire them are twofold. There are the genuine thank-offerings, selected for their beauty or worth, which commemorate gratefully some blessing received; of such the treasury of the Church of the Annunciation in Tenos is full—gold and silver plate, bibles and service-books in rich bindings studded with jewels, embroideries of Oriental silk unmatched in skill and splendour. But there is another class, the propitiatory offerings designed to place the offerer in a special way under the protection of the saint. Most characteristic among these are the shreds of infected clothing sent by some sick person to the church of the particular saint whose healing power he invokes. Just as in the province of magic the possession of a strip of a man’s clothing gives to the witch a control over his whole person, so in the religious sphere the dedication of some disease-laden rag from the body of the sufferer places him under the special care of the saint. In the church of ‘S. John of the Column’ at Athens the ancient pillar round which the edifice has been built is always garnished with dirty rags affixed by a daub of candle-grease; and if the saint cures those who send these samples of their fevers, he must certainly kill some of those who visit his sanctuary in person. To this class of offerings belong also the bulk of the silver-foil trinkets which are so cheap that the poorest peasant can afford one for his tribute, and so abundant that at Tenos out of this supply of metal alone have been fashioned the massive silver candelabra which light the whole church. These trinkets are models of any object which the worshipper wishes to commend to the special attention of the saint. At Tenos they most frequently represent parts of the human body, for there the Virgin is above all a goddess of healing; but a vast assortment of models of other objects committed to her care may also be seen—horses and mules, agricultural implements, boats, sheaves of corn to represent the harvest, bunches of grapes in emblem of the vintage; there is no limit to the variety; anything for which a man craves the saint’s blessing is thus symbolically confided to her keeping. Doubtless among them there are a number of thank-offerings for mercies already received; I remember in particular a realistic model of a Greek coasting steamer with a list attached giving the names of the captain and crew who dedicated it in gratitude for deliverance from shipwreck. It may even be that some few of the models of eyes and limbs are thank-offerings for cures effected, and in beauty or worth are all that the peasant’s artistic sense desires or his purse affords. But the majority of them, as I have said, are the gifts of those whose prayers are not yet answered and who thus keep before the eyes of the saint the maladies which crave her healing care.
Other offerings again may be dedicated with either motive. Candles and incense are equally suited to win a favour or to repay one. But whether the motive be propitiation or gratitude, the whole system is a legacy of the pagan world and permeated with the spirit of paganism. Everywhere the Christian disguise of the old religion is easily penetrable; the Church for instance has forbidden the use of graven images, and only in one or two places do statues or even reliefs survive: but the painted icons which are provided in their stead satisfy equally well the common-folk’s instinct for idolatry.
Vows conditional upon the answering of some prayer usually conform outwardly at least to Christian requirements. Scores of the small chapels with which the whole country is dotted have been built in payment of such a vow; and often a boy may be seen dressed in a miniature priest’s costume, because in some illness his mother devoted him to the service of God or of some saint for a number of years if only he should recover. But the idea of bargaining by vows is more pagan than Christian, and sometimes indeed an even clearer echo of ancient thought is heard, as when a girl vows to the Virgin a silver girdle if she will lay her in her lover’s arms[105].
Miracles again are expected of the higher powers in return for man’s services to them; for as the proverb runs, ἅγιος ποῦ δὲν θαυματουργεῖ, δὲν δοξάζεται, ‘it is a sorry saint who works no wonders.’ And wonders are worked as the people expect—some in appearance, some in fact.
A sham miracle is annually worked by the priests of a church near Volo in Thessaly. Within the walls, still easily traced, of the old town of Demetrias on a spur of Mount Pelion stands an unfinished church dedicated to the Virgin. Here on the Friday after Easter there is a concourse from all Thessaly to see the miracle. At the east end of the church, on the outside, a square tank has been sunk ten or twelve feet below the level of the church floor, exposing, on the side formed by the church wall, ancient foundations—perhaps of some temple where the same miracle was worked two thousand years ago. The miracle consists in the filling of this tank with water; but seeing that under the floor of the church itself there are cisterns to which a shaft in each aisle descends, and that the tank outside, sunk, as has been said, to a lower level, undisguisedly derives its water from a hole in the foundations of the church, there is less of the marvellous in the fact that the priests by opening some sluice fill the tank than in the simple faith with which the throng from all parts presses to obtain a cupful of the miraculously fertilizing but withal muddy liquid. The women drink it, the men carry it home to sprinkle a few drops on cornfield or vineyard.
Genuine miracles, at any rate of healing, seem to be well established. After personal investigation and enquiry at the great festival of Tenos I concluded that some faith-cures had actually occurred. Some travellers[106] indeed have been inclined to scoff at these miracles and to write them down mere fabrications of interested priests. But in an official ‘Description of some of the miracles of the wonder-working icon of the Annunciation in Tenos’ the total number claimed down to the year 1898 is only forty-four, that is to say not an average even of one a year; and a large majority of the cases detailed—including twelve cases of mental derangement, eleven of blindness, and ten of paralysis, none of them congenital,—might I suppose come under the category of nervous diseases for which a faith-cure is possible; while several of the remainder, such as the case of a man who at first sight of the icon coughed up a fish bone which had stuck in his throat for two years, do not pass the bounds of belief; and even if the priests do sometimes set false or exaggerated rumours afloat, it must be conceded that the peasant, who has faith enough to believe their stories, has also faith enough, if faith-cures ever occur, to render such a cure possible in his case. Indeed no one who has been to the great centres of miraculous healing can fail to be impressed by the unquailing faith of the pilgrims. Year by year they come in their thousands, bringing the maimed and the halt and the blind, and, more pitiful still, the hopelessly deformed, for whose healing a miracle indeed were needed. Year by year these are laid to sleep in the church or in its precincts on the eve of the festival. Year by year they are carried where the shadow of the icon as it passes in procession may perchance fall on them. Year by year they are sprinkled with water from the holy spring. And year by year most of them depart as they came, maimed and halt and blind and horribly misshapen. Yet faith abides undimmed; hope still blossoms; and they go again and again until they earn another release than that which they crave. The very dead, it is said, have ere now been brought from neighbouring islands, but the icon has not raised them up. There are but few indeed whose faith has made them whole; but for my part I do not doubt that a boy’s sight was restored at Tenos in the year that I was there (1899), or that similar occurrences are well established at such shrines as that of the Virgin at Megaspelaeon, of S. George in Scyros, or of S. Gerasimos in Cephalonia.
Closely bound up with these miraculous cures is the old pagan practice of ἐγκοίμησις, sleeping in the sanctuary of the god whose healing touch is sought. At Tenos the majority of the pilgrims who come for the festival of Lady-day can only afford to stop for the one night which precedes it. The sight then is strange indeed. The whole floor of the church and a great part of the courtyard outside is covered with recumbent worshippers. With them they have brought mattresses and blankets for those of the sick for whom a stone floor is too hard; by their side is piled baggage of all descriptions, cooking utensils, loaves of bread, jars of wine or water, everything in fact necessary for a long night’s watch or slumber. And on this mass of close-packed suffering worshippers the doors of the church are locked from nine in the evening till early next morning. Shortly before the closing-hour I picked my way with difficulty in the dim light over prostrate forms from the south to the north door. The atmosphere was suffocating and reeked with the smoke of wax tapers which all day long the pilgrims had been burning before the icon. Every malady and affliction seemed to be represented; the moaning and coughing never stopped: and I wondered, not whether there would be any miraculous cures, but how many deaths there would be in the six or seven hours of confinement before even the doors were again opened.
But this is the practice at its worst. Where there is more time available, there is nothing insanitary in it. In the list of cures at Tenos, to which I have alluded, there are many cases in which the patient spent not one night only but several months in the church. As a typical case I may take that of a sailor who while keeping look-out on a steamer in the harbour of Patras had some kind of paralytic seizure. He was taken to Tenos and for four months suffered terribly. Then about midday at Easter he had fallen asleep and heard a voice bidding him rise. He woke up and asked those about him who had called him; they said no one; so he slept again. This happened twice. The third time on hearing the voice he opened his eyes and saw entering the church a woman of unspeakable beauty and brilliance, and at the shock he rose to his feet and began to walk; and the same day accompanied the festival procession round the town to the astonishment of all the people.