Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 2 of 3 / Olympus; or, the Religion of the Homeric Age

by W. E. Gladstone

In the enumeration which it will be requisite to make, it might be allowable to treat Neptune and Pluto as traditive divinities, because in their relation to Jupiter, which abstractedly is one of equal birth and equal honour, they appear to share in representing the primitive tradition, which combined a trine personality with unity in the godhead. Effect was given to this tradition by supposing the existence of three deities, who were united by the bond of brotherhood, and of whom each had an important portion of the universe assigned to his immediate superintendence. But for the assignment of attributes to these personages, when severally constituted, tradition seems to have afforded no aid. Jupiter, as the eldest and most powerful, became heir general, as it were, to whatever ideas were current respecting the one supreme God: or the point might be otherwise stated, as for instance thus, that the conception which the Greeks derived from elsewhere of a supreme God, they, on taking it over, shaped into the Eldest Brother of their Trinity. But the concentration of ideas of supremacy upon him was at variance with, and enfeebled the notion of, the trine combination. The tradition itself, moreover, did not determine provinces for Neptune or Pluto; and consequently, though these deities may be considered traditional with regard to their basis, they belonged to the invented class as respects character and attributes, and it is in conjunction with that class that I propose to consider them.

Again, Jupiter does not fully represent any one specific tradition: but he assembles irregularly around him the fragments of such traditions as belonged to the relation between men and the One Ruler of the universe. On the one hand he is in competition with other impersonations; on the other hand, with abstractions, which, if they wanted the life, yet had not forfeited the purity of godhead.

Latona, again, will be known rather by relative and negative, than by absolute and positive, signs; except as to the point of her maternity.

So Diana does not equally divide with Apollo, her twin brother, the substance of the tradition that they jointly represent; but rather is the figure of a person on whom the residue, consisting of properties that the Homeric Apollo could not receive, is bestowed. It is mainly in her ancillary relation to Apollo that she should be viewed.

It will of course be my object to bring out, as clearly and fully as I can, that portion of the evidence, which proves the presence of a strong traditive element in the Theomythology of Homer.

But it is not free from difficulty to determine the best mode of proceeding with this view. The traditive part of the materials is not separated by a broad and direct line from the inventive; nor has it been lodged without admixture in any of the members of the Olympian system. Like the fables of the East, it has undergone the transforming action of the Greek mind, and it is throughout the scheme variously mingled and combined with ideas of human manufacture. There is scarcely any element of the old revelation that is presented to our view under unaltered conditions: scarcely any personage of the divine order, as represented by the Poet, stands in the same relation of resemblance to those primeval traditions, which are to be traced in his figure and attributes. The ancient truths are not merely imperfect; they are dislocated, and, with heavy waste of material in the process, afterwards recast.

On account of this bewildering diversity, it will, I conceive, be most conducive to my purpose if I commence the inquiry with those deities in whom the propositions I maintain are best represented: for the present putting aside others, in whom the representation of tradition, either from the overpowering presence of other elements, or from the general insignificance of the character, is less effective.

I have spoken, thus far, of the ancient traditions, as they are delivered either in the ancient or in the more recent books of the Bible. And I hope it will not be thought to savour of mere paradox, if the result of my search into the text of Homer shall be to exhibit the religion of the Greeks, in the heroic age, as possessed of more resemblances to a primitive revelation, than those religions of the East from which they must have borrowed largely, and which we presume to have stood between them and the fountain-head.

We have doubtless to consider the Greeks, as to their religion, in three capacities: first, as receivers of the remains of pristine tradition; secondly, as having imported, along with it, from abroad the depraved forms of human fable; thirdly, as themselves powerful inventors, working upon and adding to both descriptions of material. But, before we conclude that the religion of Homer must needs be farther from that of the patriarchs than the religions, as we now read them, of Persia, Assyria, or Egypt, we ought to be assured that the editions, so to speak, in which we study those religions, are older than the Homeric poems. Whereas, with respect to the great bulk of the records at our command, this, I apprehend, is the very reverse of the truth.

Messianic traditions of the Hebrews.