3. Apollo and Diana.
The principle of the severance always being, to get rid of some difficulty, encountered by the human apprehension in embracing the integral tradition.
The difficulty at the first step was to reconcile equality, or what the Christian dogma more profoundly terms consubstantiality, with a ministerial manifestation.
The difficulty at the second step probably was to combine in one impersonation two groups of images, the one (the Wisdom), relating to function that dwells purely in the Godhead; the other, to function containing the element of humanity; it was, in short, to grasp the doctrine, ‘One altogether; not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person.’
The difficulty at the third step apparently was, as has been stated, to associate the ideal of a strict and severe chastity with any but a female nature.
There is no question now before us as to Apollo: the point at issue is, whether we are to regard the Athene, or Minerva, of Homer as derived from traditions of the Logos, or from traditions of the Holy Spirit.
I urge the former, for the following reasons:
1. Setting aside what was involved in the doctrine of a Trinity (which is otherwise represented), we have no evidence that there was any such substantive body of primitive tradition respecting the Holy Spirit, as would be likely to form the nucleus of a separate mythological impersonation, and especially of one endowed with such comprehensiveness, solidity, and activity of function as Minerva. Whereas it appears that there was that kind of substantive tradition with respect to the Λόγος, the Word or Wisdom of God.
2. In the order of primitive tradition, the Son of God would precede the Holy Spirit, as is the case in the order of the Christian dogma; and the fragments of such tradition, when carried into mythology, would preserve and probably exaggerate, at any rate would not invert, the relation. But in the Homeric mythology, Minerva has a decided practical precedence over Apollo, and above all, when they come into collision, it is Apollo that yields, as in the incidents of the Seventh and Tenth Iliads, and in the general issue of the Trojan war.
3. But this difference is just what might be expected to follow, upon the natural divergence of the two traditions of the Word and the Incarnate Messiah respectively. The latter, as more human, would take rank after the former as more Divine.