First, the accounts which, transmitted by Herodotus, represent Egypt as the fountain-head of the Greek religion in its mass, are not sustained by the evidence of Homer. And even with respect to many points where the nucleus of the Greek system has something corresponding with it in the Egyptian, it neither follows that it was originally drawn from Egypt by the Greeks, nor that those from whom the Greeks received it had obtained it there. Yet there remains room for very important communications, such, for example, as the oracle of Dodona, or the worship of Minerva, which may be an historic token of an Egyptian colony at Athens.
Secondly, the correspondences between the Homeric system and the Eastern religions, as we know them, are commonly latent, rather than broad or palpable. This may, in part, be owing to the circumstance that our accounts of these religions are in great part so much later than Homer; and a greater resemblance, than is now to be traced, may have subsisted in his time.
Originality of the Olympian system.
But, thirdly, the differences are not differences of detail or degree. A different spirit pervades the Homeric creed and worship, from that which we find in Egyptian, or Median, or Persian systems. One has grovelling animalism, another has metaphysical aspirations, that we do not find in the Greek: but this is not all. If the Homeric scheme is capable of being described, as to its inventive part, by any one epithet, it will be this, that it is intensely human. I do not speak of the later mythology; nor of Hesiod, whose Theogony so marvellously spoils what it systematizes; but of Homer, in whom the ideal Olympus attained its perfection at a stroke. In his preternatural κοσμὸς there is, as far as I can see, much more of what is truly Divine, much more of the residue of primeval tradition, than we can find collected elsewhere: but there is also much more of what is human. The moral form is corrupt: but I am now also speaking of it as a work of human genius, and certainly as one of the most wonderful and splendid of its products. The deep sympathy with Nature, the refined perception of beauty, the freedom, the buoyancy, the elastic movement of every figure on the scene, the intimate sense of association between the denizens of Olympus and the generations of mortal men, the imposing development of a Polity on high, the vivid nationality that riveted its hold on Greece, the richness and inexhaustible diversity of those embellishments which a vigorous fancy knows how to provide, combine to make good the title I have asserted, and, if we are to believe that Homer, in no small part, made what he described, must place his share in the formation of the system in the very foremost rank even of his achievements.
At any rate, this one thing, I think, is clear; that whatever Greece borrowed from the East, she fairly made her own. All was thrown into the crucible; all came out again from the fire recast, in such combinations, and clothed in such forms and hues, as the specific exigencies of the Greek mind required. Hence we must beware of all precipitate identifications. We must take good heed, for example, not to assume, that because Athene may be Neith by metathesis, therefore the features of the Homeric Pallas were really gathered together in the Egyptian prototype of her name[33]. The strong hand of a transmuting fancy and intelligence passed as a preliminary condition upon everything foreign, not only to modify, but probably also to resolve into parts, and then to reconstruct. So that the preternatural system of Homer is, above all others, both national and original, and has, by its own vital energies, helped to maintain those characteristics even in the deteriorated copies which were made from it by so many after-generations.
SECT. II.
The traditive Element of the Homeric Theo-mythology.
The earliest Scriptural narrative presents to our view, with considerable distinctness, three main objects. These are, respectively, God, the Redeemer, and the Evil One. Nor do we pass even through the Book of Genesis without finding, that it shadows forth some mysterious combination of Unity with Trinity in the Divine Nature.
From the general expectation which prevailed in the East at the period of the Advent, and from the prophecies collected and carefully preserved in Rome under the name of the Sibylline books, we are at once led to presume, that the knowledge of the early promise of a Deliverer had not been confined to the Jewish nation. Their exclusive character, and that of their religion; their small significance in the political system and intellectual movement of the world; and the false as well as imperfect notions which seem to have prevailed elsewhere respecting them and their law[34]; all make it highly improbable that these expectations and predictions should have been drawn from them and their sacred books exclusively. Further, Holy Scripture distinctly exhibits to us the existence of channels of traditional knowledge severed from theirs. Thus much we learn particularly from the cases of Job, who was a prophet and servant of God, though he lived in a country where idolatry was practised[35]; and of Balaam, who, not being an Israelite, nor an upright man, was nevertheless a prophet also. Our Lord, in his answer respecting God as the God of Abraham[36], points to a great article of belief, not expressly propounded in the Mosaic books. And again, there are traditions adopted in the New Testament by apostolic authority, which prove to us that there were some fragments at least of early tradition remaining, even at a late date, among the Jews themselves, over and above what had been committed to writing in the older Scriptures. Such are those given by St. Jude respecting Balaam himself, the body of Moses, and the prophecy of Enoch[37]. Such is the record mentioned by St. Paul[38] of Jannes and Jambres, who are believed to have been the chief magicians of Pharaoh, referred to in Exodus, c. vii: and whose names are mentioned by Pliny, and, according to Eusebius, by Numenius the Philosopher[39]. But it is not necessary, and it might not be safe, to make any large assumption respecting a traditional knowledge of any parts of early revelation beyond what Scripture actually contains.
Dwelling therefore on what may be gathered from the Sacred Volume, we have seen that at the very earliest date it has set before men the ideas of God, the Redeemer, and the Evil One, and that it has spoken concerning God as in some sense Three in One. When we take the whole of the older Sacred Records into view, we may add some particulars respecting the other two great objects.