ἡ δ’ οὔτ’ ἀθρῆσαι δύνατ’ ἀντίη, οὔτε νοῆσαι,
τῇ γὰρ Ἀθηναίη νόον ἔτραπεν[711].
With the exception of Juno, who in some sense reflects the majesty of Jupiter, and becomes entitled as a wife to handle his prerogatives, it may be stated generally respecting the deities of invention properly so called, that, except within the limits of their particular domain or office, they scarcely at all modify the laws of nature, never set in motion or direct her greater forces, nor act in an extraordinary manner on the mind or body of man. Each in his own province can stimulate a particular animal propensity, or improve a particular gift of mind or body: and that is all.
While therefore the strength of the Olympian deities lies in knowledge and in power, we find upon the whole that even in these particularly they are subject to manifold limitation. They could translate mortals out of this world in which the rule of Death prevails, as we see in the cases of Ganymede, and of Tithonus; but it does not appear that, if we except the traditive ideas represented in Minerva and Apollo, they could either raise men from the grave, prevent their dying in the course of nature, heal their wounds or diseases, or set their broken limbs. When even Latona and Diana heal Æneas[712], they do it apparently with greater speed indeed, but in other respects much as it would have been done by Podaleirius or Machaon.
They do not discern the thoughts.
Nor, again, does it appear that even the most exalted of their number had the knowledge of inward thoughts, otherwise than as they may be discovered by persons of particular sagacity. When Minerva detects the false accounts given of himself by Ulysses[713], no more is declared than the simple fact that she has a sufficient knowledge of his personal identity. Hence, with respect to the fraud of Laomedon upon Neptune and Apollo, Saint Augustine sarcastically wonders that even Apollo the diviner should not have known that Laomedon meant to cheat him[714]; and that one of such dignity as Neptune should have been in a like state of ignorance. With this we may compare the taunts of Elijah[715] against the priests of Baal.
While, then, the gift of anything like general foreknowledge appears to be withheld from all the deities of invention, that of the ‘discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,’ is nowhere found; nor was it believed of any member of the Olympian community, as it was said of One greater than they[716]: ‘He knew all men; and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man.’
Such, as far as I am able to present it, is the internal view of the Olympus of Homer: a scheme eminently national, and eminently poetical. Egypt, Persia, Phœnicia, the old Pelasgians, doubtless contributed materials towards its formation: but I have a lively conviction that Homer was (so to speak) the theo-mythologer who moulded these materials into system, the substitute for unity, invested them with the forms and colours of brilliant beauty, and gave them their hold in their historic shape upon the mind of his countrymen; with the sublime Olympus, so near the old Dodona, of which he probably contrived it as the rival, for their centre of life and power.