I.—THE GODS OF OLYMPUS.
There were many forms of false worship in ancient times, when the knowledge of the one true God was preserved by the people of Israel alone. Almost every nation had its own system, differing from every other—its own gods, its own legends, and its own orders of priesthood—and learned men disagree as to the manner in which these systems grew up and spread. It is acknowledged that the worship of one God prevailed from the earliest times in the East, which was the cradle of the human race, until after the great dispersion, of which we are told in the Sacred Scriptures, which took place after the Deluge.
As time rolled on, all the races of mankind, with one exception, gradually lost the knowledge of the one God; and as the worship of some kind of superior being is a natural instinct of the human soul, they found objects of adoration in nature, choosing those first, probably, which struck the imagination by their splendor or grandeur, or which exerted the greatest amount of good or evil on the race of man. Sun-worship was one of the earliest forms of false religion. The worship of the moon and stars, of fire and water, was also introduced at a very early period. In later times men came to believe in a multitude of gods, who controlled all parts of external nature. When the thunder rolled and the lightning flashed, they ascribed these manifestations to some god who ruled the sky. The rising and setting of the sun and moon seemed to indicate presiding deities of these celestial objects. The sea, lakes, rivers, were believed to have gods of their own. The varying seasons were thought to be under the government of unseen deities; and in this way men at length came to believe in a multitude of gods of various degrees of superiority to the human race.
As men without Divine revelation can not form a conception of a pure spiritual being, they imagined their gods to possess the forms of men or women, and even of beasts. The ancient Greeks assigned human forms to their deities, but believed them to be superior to the weakness and imperfections of man, and to exceed him in power and knowledge. At the same time they were believed to have the same kind of nature as mankind. They had human passions and appetites. Their celestial abodes were similar in form to those of man, and like the dwellers on the earth they stood in daily need of food and repose. Magnificent chariots, drawn by horses or other animals of celestial breed, conveyed them through the clouds, or over earth and sea. The clothing and arms of the gods were fashioned like those of mortals, but of superior material and workmanship. No heathen system contained the idea of an eternal deity—without beginning and without end. According to most systems of mythology, the gods were born, and some systems assigned a limit to their duration.
The gods of Greece and Rome were all of the human form, but immeasurably superior in size and power. The helmet of the goddess Minerva would, we are told, cover the footmen of a hundred towns. When Juno was about to take an oath, she laid one hand on the earth, the other on the sea. The voices of Neptune and Mars were as loud as the shout of nine or ten thousand men. The gods, however, could increase or diminish their size, take the form of particular men, or of any animals, and make themselves visible or invisible at pleasure. Their bodies were of a finer nature than those of men, and instead of blood their veins were filled with a celestial fluid called ichór. They could be wounded by mortal weapons, but not slain. Their food was called ambrosia, and their drink nectar.
Olympus, a lofty mountain of Thessaly, was regarded by the early Greeks as the dwelling-place of the gods; but in later times it seems to have been elevated to some celestial region. It is thus described in the Odyssey:
"Olympus, where they say the ever-firm
Seat of the gods is, by the winds unshaken,
Nor ever wet with rain, nor ever showered
With snow, but cloudless æther o'er it spreads,
And glittering light encircles it around,
On which the happy gods aye dwell in bliss."
All the dwellings of the gods upon Olympus were of brass or copper. The gods had different ranks and offices. Jupiter (Zeus) was king of the air and clouds; the sea was the realm of his brother Neptune (Poseidon); the under-world that of Pluto (Aidés). The earth and Olympus were common property, but Jupiter as eldest brother, exercised a supremacy, and his power was the greatest.
The other inhabitants of Olympus were Juno (Héra), the wife of Jupiter; Apollo, the god of music and archery; his sister Diana (Artemis), the goddess of the chase; and their mother, Leto; Venus (Aphrodité), goddess of love, Mars (Arés), the god of war; Minerva (Pallas-Athéné), goddess of prudence and skill; Mercury (Hermeias), the god of gain; Vulcan (Hephæstos), celestial architect and smith, and a few others. Lesser gods were sometimes bidden to attend at consultations on Olympus.[1]