Even in this very late picture, we find a strong resemblance to what, from the Homeric text, would appear to have been the primitive cluster of the Pelasgian divinities. Earth is represented in Demeter, (Γῆ μήτηρ,) who appears in Il. xiv. 326 as one of the wives of Jupiter. The Celestial Venus may include traditions of Minerva, and of Artemis,—for the Scythians called her Artimpasa,—along with those which came to be represented in the Greek Ἀφροδίτη. All the deities, which from Homer’s text have appeared to be especially Hellenic, are also, it will be observed, absent from this list: Juno, Neptune, Aidoneus, Persephone, Vulcan, and Mercury.
But there were among these Scythians a tribe, called the Βασιλήϊοι Σκύθαι. It would seem plain from the name, that these must have held among the Scythians a position, in great measure analogous to that of the Hellenic tribes among the mass of the Pelasgian population. And certainly it is not a little curious, that these kingly Scythians added to the list of properly Pelasgian deities the worship of Thamimasidas, a god of the sea, apparently equivalent to the Hellenic Poseidon.
Again, let us take the account given by Herodotus of the information he obtained in Egypt about the Greek mythology. He states to us that, with certain exceptions, the names of the Greek deities had been known in Egypt from time immemorial. His exceptions are, Neptune and Juno, the Dioscuri, Vesta, Themis, the Graces and the Nereids. The statement may at least be accepted as good to this extent, that the deities here named were not drawn from Egypt. They include, as will be seen, only one personification of an idea which we have found cause to consider Pelasgian, namely, Ἱστίη or home; with this Neptune and Juno, who were Hellic deities; the Dioscouroi, representing in an early stage the deification of national heroes; the Graces, or the impersonations of ideas; and the Nereids, or the personification of natural objects. All of these persons and processes we have already referred to the influence of the Hellic tribes.
Upon the whole, we appear to have in these accounts a much clearer representation of the contribution made by the Pelasgian part of the nation to the Olympian system than we can find gathered elsewhere. The Egyptian resemblances are chiefly isolated, though it may have been from that quarter that Pelasgian Attica learned the name and worship of the deity, which was afterwards developed into the Homeric Pallas-Athene: but among these Scythians we appear to find a group, who exhibit to us in combination nearly all that we have reason to believe specially Pelasgian, and, with the obscure exception of Hercules, nothing besides. While this group, as being Scythian, would have the Arian country for its point of origin, it may still be probable that other parts of the Olympian religion, besides the worship of Neptune, such as the Juno and the Persephone in particular, had come from the ‘Kingly’ Arians of the hills.
Thus far as to the relation between the Homeric theo-mythology and any religious system or combination to be found elsewhere. Let us now consider how it stands with reference to each of the principal elements, out of which the religions of the world were habitually formed.
Four several bases of religious systems.
There appear to be four leading forms in which, either single or combined, religion has attracted, and more or less commanded, the mind of man. It is scarcely needful to add that one alone of these is genuine, and that the three others are essentially depraved, and finally self-destructive.
The first is the worship of the Divine Being: of which the Holy Scriptures form, down to the period with which they close, the principal record.
The second is the worship of man; founded, of course, upon his deification. Of this the Greek mythology affords the most conspicuous and weighty instance.
The third is the worship of external and inanimate nature, which I mention next, not because of its place in the order of ideas, but because of its great extension and influence over races of vast numerical strength, antiquity, and importance.