I have argued elsewhere that we see in Homer the Hellenic, not the Pelasgian, mind. And if it be so, then I think we are justified in associating with his Hellenism, as one among many signs, this remarkable silence. The ritual and external development of Pelasgian religion would delight in statues as visible signs: the Hellenic idealism would not improbably eschew them. Hence we may treat this practice of the period as belonging to Pelasgian peculiarities.
If this be so, then I think we may pass on to the conclusion, that the original tendency to produce visible forms of the Divinity was not owing to, and formed no part of, the efforts of the human imagination, so largely developed in Homer, to idealize religion, and to beautify the world by its imagery. But, on the contrary, so far as we can judge from Homer, it first prevailed among a race inclined to material and earthy conceptions in theology, and from them it spread to others of higher intelligence. It was a crutch for the lameness of man, and not a wing for his upward aspirations.
And indeed, as it appears to me, this proposition is sustained even by the past experience and present state of Christendom. When faith was strongest, images were unknown to the faithful. Nor is it art, which produces them: it is merely a kind of corporal and mechanical imitation. No considerable work of art is at this moment, I believe, in any Christian country, an object of religious worship. The sentiment which craves for material representations of such objects in order to worship them, appears also commonly to exact that they should be somewhat materialized. The higher office of art, in connection with devout affection, seems to be that it should point our veneration onwards, not arrest it. It holds out the finger which we are to follow, not the hand which we are to kiss.
As to Seers or Diviners.
The order of Seers or Diviners was common to Greeks, Trojans, and probably we may add, from its being known among the Cyclopes, to all contemporary races. It is singular that we should find here, and not among the priesthood, the traces of caste, or the hereditary descent of the gift. In all other points, this function stands apart from hierarchical developments. For the μάντις, except as to his gift, is like other men. Melampus engages to carry off oxen. Polypheides migrates upon a quarrel with his father. Cleitus is the lover of Aurora. Theoclymenus has committed homicide[361]. Teiresias is called ἄναξ, a lord or prince[362]. We do not know that Calchas fought as well as prophesied, but it may have been so, since Helenus, the son of Priam, and Eunomus, the Mysian leader, were seers or augurs not less than warriors. But the most instructive specimen of this order among the Greeks is the Suitor Leiodes[363], who was also θυοσκόος, or inspector of sacrifices, to the body of Suitors. Now Ulysses had, in consideration of a ransom, spared Maron the priest of Apollo at Ismarus[364]. But, far from recognising in the professional character of Leiodes a title to immunity, he answers the plea with characteristic and deadly repartee. And this, notwithstanding that Leiodes was, as we learn, distinguished from the rest of the Suitors by the general decency of his conduct.
The θυοσκόος apparently inspected sacrifices, but did not offer them; for this character is clearly distinguished in the Iliad[365] from that of the priest. Indeed, the word θύειν in Homer appears properly to apply to those minor offices of sacrifice, which did not involve the putting to death of victims; as in Il. ix. 219, where, it may be observed, the function is not performed by the principal person, but is deputed by Achilles to Patroclus. The inspection of slain animals would probably stand in the same category, among divine offices, as the interpretation of other signs and portents.
The members of this class are, upon the whole, as broadly distinguished from the priests in Homer, as are the prophets of the Old Testament from the Levitical priesthood.
They were called by the general name of μάντις, or by other names, some of them more limited: such as θεόπροπος, ὑποφήτης, οἰωνόπολος, ὀνειρόπολος. They sometimes interpreted from signs and omens; sometimes, as in Il. vi. 86, and vii. 44, without them.
The diffusion of the gift among the royal house of Troy, where Polydamas had it as well as Helenus, and possibly also Hector, is less marked than the great case of the family of Melampus. The augur was in all respects a citizen, while possessed of a peculiar endowment: and the ὑποφῆται[366] mentioned in the invocation of Achilles, whether they were the royal house, or persons dispersed through the community, evidently formed a more conspicuous object among the Helli than we find in any Pelasgian race. Again; in Greece we find the oracles of Delphi and Delos, as well as of Dodona; but there is no similar organ for the delivery of the divine will reported to us in Troy.