3. THE GREEKS.
As man rises in spiritual development, nature becomes to him a revelation ever more and more manifold of the divine. To the Greek (Pelasgi, Hellenes) the whole of nature was living, and his imagination peopled her everywhere with divine beings, who in wood and field, in rivers and on mountains (Oreads, Dryads, Naiads, Sileni, &c.), hovered friendly round him. The Greek was indeed distinguished from other nations by this richer and more elevated view of nature; but he excelled them most of all in this, that the divine object which he worshiped was conceived both in form and character after the human. Zeus, Phoebus Apollo, Pallas Athene, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus, Hestia, Hermes, Artemis, were originally powers of nature personified, as some epithets in Homer[4] still indicate; but they became, sometimes under the same names, types of power and lordship, science and art, courage and sensuous beauty. While Dionysus, Demeter, Hades, and Persephone remained earthly, and Helios, Eos, Iris, and Hecate, heavenly divinities, and Oceanus, Poseidon, Amphitrite, Proteus, and Nereus ruled the waters, Zeus was conceived as the god of the sky and of thunder, who hurled the bolts, the great king and lawgiver, the father of men, and Hera, originally the air, became the protecting goddess of married life; Apollo, the god of light, who shot forth his arrows, not at first identified with Helios, became the god of divination and poetry, who led the choir of the muses; the goddess of light, Athene, became the contentious goddess of wisdom; Aphrodite, born of the foam of the sea, once the symbol of the fruitful power of nature, later, encircled by the Graces, became the type of womanly beauty and charm, to which the strength of man, personified in Ares, corresponds. In like manner in the later mythology, Hephaestus, the god of fire, appeared as the god of the forge, Hestia, the goddess of fire, as the protector of the household hearth, and Hermes, the god of the storm and of rain, as the messenger of the gods, the type of cunning and craftiness, while Artemis, the goddess of the moon, the fruitful mother of nature, took the character of the chaste maiden, the goddess of hunting, who with her nymphs and hounds nightly roamed the fields and woods. The monsters, the Sphinx, the Minotaur, the Cyclops, the Centaurs, symbols of a yet unhuman or half human power of nature, were overcome by the Greek heroes, Perseus, Hercules, Jason, Theseus, Œdipus, the types of human strength and valor. The religious festivals were enlivened by trials of men's strength and skill in games, and the historian and poet offered to the gods the products of human genius. In the religion of the Greeks, however, the moral element, although not passed over and in the Greek epic and tragedy not seldom expressed in grand characters, stood nevertheless too little in the foreground, so that the worship of the divine, as in the older nature-worship, especially in the feasts in honor of Dionysus and Aphrodite, was marked by immoral practices. The conception of a future life, which taken in connection with a future retribution has a moral tendency, had but little attraction for the Greek, who rejoiced in the glory of the earth, and saw in nature and in man the kingdom of the divine. The passage from the earlier poetical nature-worship to the worship of the divine in human form seems to be indicated in the war which Olympian Zeus waged with Cronos and the Titans. The origin and development of the various elements and powers of nature, Chaos, Eros, Uranus, Gæa, the Giants, Styx, Erebus, Hemera, Æther, &c., became, with the poets and philosophers after Homer, matters of speculation, of which the theogonies of Hesiod, Orpheus, Pherecydes, and others furnish proof.
4. THE ROMANS.
In the religion of the Greeks, the æsthetic and moral character of the Grecian people was deified, and in the Romans also we see how that which men value most exerts an influence upon their worship of the divine. The primitive religion of the Romans, borrowed from the Sabines and Etruscans, bears everywhere, in distinction to that of the Greeks, the marks of the practical and political character of the Roman people. The oldest national divinities are, first, Jupiter or Jovis, the god of the heavens, Mars or Mavors, the god of the field and of war, Quirinus (Janus?) the protector of the Quirites, afterwards, together with Juno (Dione) and Minerva, worshiped in the Capitol, (Dii Capitolini); second, Vesta, and the gods of the house and family, the Lares and Penates; third, the rural divinities, Saturnus, Ops, Liber, Faunus, Silvanus, Terminus, Flora, Vertumnus, and Pomona; fourth and last, personifications, in part of the powers of nature, Sol, Luna, Tellus, Neptunus, Orcus, Proserpina, in part of moral and social qualities and states, such as Febris, Salus, Mens, Spes, Pudicitia, Pietas, Fides, Concordia, Virtus, Bellona, Victoria, Pax, Libertas, and others. Peculiarly Roman also is the conception of the manes, or shades of the departed, who hover as protecting genii about the living. Afterwards, along with the culture of the Greeks, their gods also were taken, although rather outwardly than inwardly, into the spirit of the people, and the original character of the gods of Latium was modified after the new mythology. Notwithstanding this, however, the worship of the Romans retained its political and practical character. The priests (sacerdotes) Flamines, Salii, Feciales, the Pontifices with the Pontifex Maximus at their head, the Augurs, were likewise officers of the state, and did not form a hierarchy apart from the state and alongside of it.
5. THE CELTS.
Among the Celtic tribes in Brittany, Ireland, and Gaul, and on both banks of the Rhine, out of an aboriginal life of nature characterized by wildness and license, religion developed itself in the form of the worship of two chief divinities, a male divinity, Hu, the begetting, and a female, Ceridwen, the bearing, power of nature. The priesthood busied itself with speculations about the divine, the origin of the world, and the continued existence of man after death, conceived in the form of the transmigration of souls. Nor did the people's faith lack the conception of good and evil spirits, fairies, dwarfs, elves, which to the still childish fancy are objects of fear or superstitious veneration. To the service of these divinities the priesthood, the Druids, were consecrated, and beside them the bards, or poets, held a more independent place.
6. THE GERMANS AND SCANDINAVIANS.
More developed intellectually is the nature-religion of the ancient Germans (Teutons) and Scandinavians, which betrays thereby the character of the Aryan race to which these nations, like the Celts, originally belonged. The highest god of the Germans is Wodan, called Odhin among the Norsemen, the god of the heavens, and of the sun, who protects the earth, and is the source of light and fruitfulness, the spirit of the world, and the All-father (Alfadhir). From the union of heaven and earth, there springs the god Thunar or Donar among the Germans, Thor among the Norsemen, the bold god of thunder who wages war against the enemies of gods and men. Besides these there are the sons of Wodan, Fro (German), Freyx (Norse), the god of peace, Zio (German), Tyx (Norse), the god of war, Aki (German), Oegir (Norse), god of the sea, Vol (German), Ullr (Norse), god of hunting, and others, to whom are joined female divinities, such as Nerthus (German), Jördh (Norse), the fruitful goddess of the earth, Holda (German), Freiya (Norse), the goddess of love, Nehalennia, goddess of plenty, Frikka (German), Frigg (Norse), the wife of Wodan, mother of all the living, Hellia (German), Hel (Norse), the inexorable goddess of the lower world. Opposed to these divinities (Asen and Asinnen) stands Loko (German), Loki (Norse), enemy of the divine. In addition to these there appear in the Norse and German Sagas, besides the heroes, a multitude of spirits, good and hostile, giants, elves, Elfen (German), Alfen (Norse), white spirits of light, and black dwarfs, house, forest, and water spirits. The worship was most simple, and, as was the case with the ancient Semites, the Indians of the Veda, and the Greeks, as yet independent of temple service and priestly constraint. The holy places of the Germans were woods, and hills, and fountains, and in the mysterious rustling of the leaves and in the murmuring of the waters the pious spirit caught the breathing of the deity.[5] The father of the house is priest, and the recognition by these races more than elsewhere of worth in woman is apparent also in their religion. In the description of the kingdom of the dead in the German-Norse mythology, Walhalla is the abode of the heroes, hell the gathering place of the other dead. Notwithstanding these still childish conceptions, there was revealed in the moral character and heroic spirit of the German forefathers the germ of a higher development, which makes the nations of Germany and Northern class='center'Europe capable beyond others of a constantly higher conception and estimation of the Christian religion.[6]