3. Their relation to their mythological attributes is different in kind from that of the ordinary Olympian divinities.
4. They have a number and range of attributes quite without parallel in the Olympian system: and yet with this a capacity of receiving new ones.
5. Both in themselves, and in reference to that system, the whole conception of Apollo and Minerva, if it be viewed mythologically, is full of inexplicable anomaly: and the only solution to be found is in the recognition of the traditional basis, on which the Homeric representations of them must be founded.
Although what I have built upon this evidence may be termed an hypothesis, the whole of the evidence itself is circumstantial: and I feel that the effect of it is not only to draw a broad line, but almost to place an impassable gulf, between such divinities as the Homeric Minerva and Apollo, on the one hand, and the Homeric Mars, Venus, Vulcan, and Mercury on the other. The differences between them are, however, graduated and shaded off by the interposition, first, of the minor traditive deities, such as Latona and Diana; and, secondly, of the greatest among the Olympian personages chiefly or wholly mythological, such as Neptune and Juno: and it is probably this graduation, running through the Olympian body, which has prevented our duly appreciating the immense interval that lies between its extremes.
It is to the indefatigable students of Germany that we, the less laborious English, are, along with the rest of the world, indebted for what may be called the systematic treatment of the Homeric poems with respect to the facts they contain. To amass evidence is one thing; to penetrate into its heart and spirit, is another. The former without the latter is insufficient; but the former is to the latter an indispensable preliminary. The works of Homer should be viewed, and their testimony registered, like the phenomena of a geological period: so unencumbered is he with speculation or the bias of opinion; so true, clear, direct, and unmixed is his exhibition of historical and moral fact. This method of investigation, honestly pursued, carries with it an adequate and a self-acting provision for the correction of its own errors.
Explanation by Friedreich.
Since I commenced the examination of the question now before us, there has appeared the second edition of a work, which I believe to be the latest compendium of what may be called the facts of the Homeric poems, by J. B. Friedreich. I find that this writer has been struck by the overpowering evidence of the vestiges of an early revelation in the characters of the Homeric Minerva and Apollo[246]. He observes the separate character of their relations both to Jupiter and to mankind; assigns to them an unbounded power over all events and the whole of human life; and says, ‘This Triad of Zeus, Athene, and Apollo, bears an unmistakeable analogy to the Christian Trinity, of Father, Holy Ghost, and Son: Jupiter answering to God the Father, Athene to the Holy Ghost, and Apollo to the Son of God, the Declarer of the will of His Heavenly Father: like as, furthermore, the early Christians have largely compared Christ with Apollo.’
In this representation I find a fundamental agreement with the views expressed in the present work. But I venture to think that the particular mode of the relation between the Homeric and the primitive tradition, which has been set forth in this work, is more natural and probable than that asserted by Friedreich. As it has been here represented, we are to consider the primitive tradition as disintegrated and subdivided. First, that of the Redeemer is severed from that of the Holy Trinity. Next, its two aspects of the Wisdom and the Messiah, become two impersonations. And then the impersonation which represents the tradition properly Messianic, is itself again subjected to duplication. As the result of this threefold operation, we have—
1. The trine Kronid brotherhood.
2. Minerva and Apollo.