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Title: Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 2 of 3
Olympus
Author: W. E. Gladstone
Release Date: September 2, 2015 [EBook #49858]
Language: English
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[i]
STUDIES ON HOMER
AND
THE HOMERIC AGE.
BY THE
RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, D.C.L.
M. P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
Plenius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore.—Horace.
OXFORD:
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
M.DCCC.LVIII.
[ii]
[iii]
STUDIES ON HOMER
AND
THE HOMERIC AGE.
OLYMPUS:
OR,
THE RELIGION OF THE HOMERIC AGE.
BY THE
RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, D.C.L.
M. P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
Plenius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore.—Horace.
OXFORD:
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
M.DCCC.LVIII.
[The right of Translation is reserved.]
[iv]
[v]
THE CONTENTS.
OLYMPUS:
OR
THE RELIGION OF THE HOMERIC AGE.
SECT. I.
On the mixed character of the Supernatural System, or Theo-mythology of Homer.
Homer’s method not systematic
Page 1
Incongruities of his Theo-mythology point to diversity of sources
2
Remnants of primitive tradition likely to be found in the Poems
3
Extra-judaical relations between God and man
6
With tradition it combines invention
9
It is a true Theology corrupted
9
It has not its basis in nature-worship
10
It could not have sprung from invention only
13
Sacrifices admitted to be traditional
15
Tendency of primitive religion to decay
17
Downward course of the idea of God
18
Decline closely connected with Polytheism
20
Inducements to Nature-worship
21
The deterioration of religion progressive
23
Paganism in its old age
25
The impersonations of Homer
26
The nature of the myths of Homer
29
Tradition the proper key to many of them
30
He exhibits the two systems in active impact
32
Steps of the downward process
33
Sources of the inventive portions
35
Originality of the Olympian system
37
SECT. II.
The traditive element of the Homeric Theo-mythology.
The channels of early religious tradition
39
Some leading early traditions of Scripture
40
As to the Godhead
42
As to the Redeemer
42
As to the Evil One
43
Their defaced counterparts in Homer
43
Deities of equivocal position
46
Threefold materials of the Greek religion
48
Messianic traditions of the Hebrews
49
To be learned from three sources
49
Attributes ascribed to the Messiah
51
The deities of tradition in Homer
54
Minerva and Apollo jointly form the key
55
Notes of their Olympian rank
56
[vi]
Of their higher antiquity
57
The Secondaries of Minerva
59
The Secondaries of Apollo
60
Argument from the Secondaries
63
Picture of human society in Olympus
64
Dignity and precedence of Minerva
66
Of Apollo
69
Minerva’s relations of will and affection with Jupiter
70
Those of Apollo
71
Apollo the Deliverer of Heaven
72
Power of Minerva in the Shades
73
These deities are never foiled by others
74
The special honour of the Trine Invocation
78
They receive universal worship
79
They are not localized in any abode
82
They are objects together with Jupiter of habitual prayer
83
Exempt from appetite and physical limitations
86
Their manner of appreciating sacrifice
88
Their independent power of punishment
90
They handle special attributes of Jupiter
94
They exercise dominion over nature
98
Relation of Apollo (with Diana) to Death
101
Exemption from the use of second causes
104
Superiority of their moral standard
105
Special relation of Apollo to Diana
108
Disintegration of primitive traditions
108
The Legend of Alcyone
111
Place of Minerva and Apollo in Providential government
113
It is frequently ascribed to them
115
Especially the inner parts of it to Minerva
117
Apollo’s gift of knowledge
119
Intimacy of Minerva’s personal relations with man
121
Form of their relation to their attributes
122
The capacity to attract new ones
124
Wide range of their functions
125
Tradition of the Sun
126
The central wisdom of Minerva
129
The three characters of Apollo
130
The opposition between two of them
131
Minerva and Apollo do not fit into Olympus
133
Origin of the Greek names
133
Summary of their distinctive traits
134
Explanation by Friedreich
138
Treatment of Apollo by Müller
141
After-course of the traditions
142
The Diana of Homer
143
[vii]
Her acts and attributes in the poems
144
The Latona of Homer
147
Her attributes in the poems
149
Her relation to primitive Tradition
153
Her acts in the poems
154
The Iris of Homer
156
The Atè of Homer
158
The ἀτασθαλίη of Homer
162
Other traditions of the Evil One
162
Parallel citations from Holy Scripture
165
The Future State in Homer
167
Sacrificial tradition in Homer
171
He has no sabbatical tradition
171
SECT. III.
The inventive element of the Homeric Theo-mythology.
The character of Jupiter
173
Its fourfold aspect.—1. Jupiter as Providence
174
2. Jupiter as Lord of Air
178
Earth why vacant in the Lottery
179
3. Jupiter as Head of Olympus
181
His want of moral elements
183
His strong political spirit
185
4. Jupiter as the type of animalism
186
Qualified by his parental instincts
189
The Juno of Homer
190
Juno of the Iliad and Juno of the Odyssey
191
Her intense nationality
192
Her mythological functions
193
Her mythological origin
197
The Neptune of Homer
199
His threefold aspect
200
His traits mixed, but chiefly mythological
201
His relation to the Phœnicians
205
His relation to the tradition of the Evil One
206
His grandeur is material
209
The Aidoneus of Homer
210
His personality shadowy and feeble
211
The Ceres or Demeter of Homer
212
Her Pelasgian associations
213
Her place in Olympus
215
Her mythological origin
215
The Proserpine or Persephone of Homer
217
Her marked and substantive character
218
Her connection with the East
220
Her place in Olympus doubtful
223
Her associations Hellenic and not Pelasgian
224
[viii]
The Mars of Homer
225
His limited worship and attributes
226
Mars as yet scarcely Greek
229
The Mercury of Homer
231
Preeminently the god of increase
233
Mercury Hellenic as well as Phœnician
235
But apparently recent in Greece
237
His Olympian function distinct from that of Iris
238
The poems consistent with one another in this point
241
The Venus of Homer
243
Venus as yet scarcely Greek
244
Advance of her worship from the East
247
Her Olympian rank and character
249
Her extremely limited powers
249
Apparently unable to confer beauty
251
Homer never by intention makes her attractive
252
The Vulcan of Homer
254
His Phœnician and Eastern extraction
255
His marriage with Venus
257
Vulcan in and out of his art
259
The Ἠέλιος of Homer
260
In the Iliad
261
In the Odyssey
262
Is of the Olympian court
263
His incorporation with Apollo
264
The Dionysus or Bacchus of Homer
266
His worship recent
266
Apparently of Phœnician origin
267
He is of the lowest inventive type
269
SECT. IV.
The Composition of the Olympian Court; and the classification of the whole supernatural order in Homer.
Principal cases of exclusion from Olympus
271
Case of Oceanus
273
Together with that of Kronos and Rhea
274
The Dî majores of the later tradition
275
Number of the Olympian gods in Homer
275
What deities are of that rank
277
The Hebe and the Paieon of Homer
278
The Eris of Homer
280
Classification of the twenty Olympian deities
282
The remaining supernatural order, in six classes
283
Destiny or Fate in Homer
285
Under the form of Αἶσα
286
Death inexorable to Fate or Deity alike
287
Destiny under the form of Μοῖρα
290
Under the form of μόρος
293
[ix]
[x]
General view of the Homeric Destiny
294
Not antagonistic to Divine will
297
The minor impersonations of natural powers
298
The Ἁρπυῖαι of Homer
300
The Erinues of Homer
302
Their office is to vindicate the moral order
305
Their operation upon the Immortals
306
Their connection with Aides and Persephone
308
Their relation to Destiny
310
Their operation upon man
310
Their occasional function as tempters
312
The translation of mortals
313
The deification of mortals
314
Growth of material for its extension
316
The kindred of the gods (1) the Cyclopes
318
(2) The Læstrygones
319
(3) The Phæacians
320
(4) Æolus Hippotades
322
SECT. V.
The Olympian Community and its Members considered in themselves.
The family order in Olympus
325
The political order in Olympus
326
Absence of important restraints upon their collective action
327
They are influenced by courtesy and intelligence
328
Superiority of the Olympian Immortals
330
Their unity imperfect
331
Their polity works constitutionally
332
The system not uniform
333
They are inferior in morality to men
334
And are governed mainly by force and fraud
335
Their dominant and profound selfishness
337
The cruelty of Calypso in her love
339
Their standard of taste and feeling low
340
The Olympian life is a depraved copy of the heroic
341
The exemption from death uniform
342
The exemption from other limitations partial
345
Sometimes based on peculiar grounds
346
Divine faculties for the most part an extension from the human
348
Their dependence on the eye
350
Their powers of locomotion
352
Chief heads of superiority to mankind
353
Their superiority in stature and beauty
354
Their libertinism
355
Their keen regard to sacrifice and the ground of it
357
Their circumscribed power over nature
358
Parts of the body how ascribed to them
359
[xi]
Examples of miracle in Homer
361
Mode of their action on the human mind
363
They do not discern the thoughts
365
SECT. VI.
The Olympian Community and its Members considered in their influence on human society and conduct.
Lack of periodical observances and of a ministering class
367
Yet the religion was a real power in life
368
The effect of the corruption of the gods was not yet fully felt
369
They show little regard to human interests
371
A moral tone is occasionally perceptible
373
Prevalent belief as to their views of man and life
374
It lent considerable support to virtue
377
Their course with respect to Troy
378
Bearing of the religion on social ties
380
And on political relations
382
The Oath
383
Bearing of the religion on the poems
385
As regards Neptune’s wrath in the Odyssey
387
As regards the virtue of purity
388
As regards poetic effect
388
Comparison of its earliest and latest form
390
Gloom prevails in Homer’s view of human destiny
392
The personal belief of Homer
394
SECT. VII.
On the traces of an origin abroad for the Olympian Religion.
The Olympian deities classified according to local extraction
397
Their connection as a body with the Æthiopes
399
Confirms the hypothesis of Persian origin
402
Herodotus on the Scythian religion
402
His report from Egypt about the Greek deities
404
Four several bases of religious systems
405
Anthropophuism in the Olympian religion
406
Nature-worship as described in the Book of Wisdom
406
Its secondary place in the Olympian religion
407
In what sense it follows a prior Nature-worship
409
The principle of Brute-worship
410
Its traces in the Olympian religion
411
Chief vestige: oxen of the Sun
412
Xanthus the horse of Achilles
414
SECT. VIII.
The Morals of the Homeric Age.
The general type of Greek character in the heroic age
417
The moral sense in the heroic age
418
Use of the words ἀγαθός and κακός
421
Of the word δίκαιος
423
[xii]
Religion and morals were not dissociated
425
Moral elements in the practice of sacrifice
427
Three main motives to virtue. 1. Regard to the gods
427
2. The power of conscience
428
3. Regard for the sentiments of mankind
430
The force and forms of αἰδὼς
431
Other cognate terms
435
Homicide in the heroic age
436
Eight instances in the poems
437
Why viewed with little disfavour
440
Piracy in the heroic age
442
Its nature as then practised
443
Mixed view of it in the poems
444
Family feuds in the heroic age
446
Temperance in the heroic age
447
Self-control in the heroic age
448
Absence of the vice of cruelty
450
Savage ideas occasionally expressed
451
These not unfamiliar to later Greece
453
Wrath in Ulysses
454
Wrath in Achilles
455
Domestic affections in the heroic age
456
Relationships close, not wide
459
Purity in the heroic age
460
Lay of the Net of Vulcan
461
Direct evidence of comparative purity
465
Treatment of the human form
466
Treatment of various characters
467
Outline of Greek life in the heroic age
468
Its morality, and that of later Greece
471
Points of its superiority
472
Inferior as to crimes of violence
475
Some effects of slavery
476
Signs of degeneracy before Homer’s death
477
SECT. IX.
Woman in the heroic age.
The place of Woman generally, and in heroic Greece
479
Its comparative elevation
480
1. State of the law and custom of marriage
481
Marriage was uniformly single
483
2. Conceived in a spirit of freedom
483
Its place in the career of life
485
Mode of contraction
486
3. Perpetuity of the tie of marriage
487
Adultery
488
Desertion
489
[xiii]
4. Greek ideas of incest
489
5. Fidelity in married life
492
Treatment of spurious children
494
Case of Briseis
495
Mode of contracting marriage
496
Concubinage of Greek chieftains in Troas
497
Dignity of conjugal and feminine manners
499
Social position of the wife
500
Force of conjugal attachments
502
Woman characters of Homer
503
The province of Woman well defined
505
Argument from the position of the goddesses
506
Women admitted to sovereignty
507
And to the service of the gods
509
Their household employments
511
Their service about the bath
512
Explanation of the presumed difficulty
515
Proof from the case of Ulysses in Scheria
517
Subsequent declension of Woman
518
SECT. X.
The Office of the Homeric Poems in relation to that of the early Books of Holy Scripture.
Points of literary resemblance
521
Providential functions of Greece and Rome
523
Of the Early records of Holy Scripture
524
The Sacred Books are not mere literary works
525
Providential use of the Homeric poems
527
They complete the code of primitive instruction
529
Human history had no visible centre up to the Advent
531
Nor for some time after it
532
A purpose served by the whole design
533
[xiv]
[1]
Extended relations of God to
man.
OLYMPUS,
OR
THE RELIGION OF THE HOMERIC AGE.
SECT. I.
On the Mixed Character of the Supernatural System, or Theo-Mythology, of Homer.
Though the poems of Homer are replete, perhaps beyond any others, with refined and often latent adaptations, yet it
may be observed in general of the modes of representation used by him, that they are preeminently the reverse of
systematic. Institutions or characters, which are in themselves consistent, probably gain by this method of proceeding,
provided the execution be not unworthy of the design. For it secures their exhibition in more, and more varied, points of
view, than can possibly be covered by the more didactic process. But the possession of this advantage depends upon
the fact, that there is in them a harmony, which is their base, and which we have only to discover. Whereas, if that
harmony be wanting, if in lieu of it there be a groundwork of fundamental discrepancy, then the conditions of effect are
wholly changed. The multiplied variety of view becomes a multiplication of incongruity; each new aspect offers a new
problem: and the more masterly the hand of the artist, the more arduous becomes the attempt to comprehend and
present in their mutual bearings the pictures he has drawn, and the suggestions he has conveyed.
Thus it has been with that which, following German example, I have denominated the Theo-mythology of Homer. By
that term it seems not improper to designate a mixture of theology and mythology, as these two words are commonly
understood. Theology I suppose to mean, a system dealing with the knowledge of God and the unseen world:
mythology, a system conversant with the inventions of man concerning them. In the Homeric poems I find both of these
largely displayed: but with this difference, that the first was in visible decline, the second in such rapid and prolific
development, that, while Homer is undoubtedly a witness to older fable, which had already in his time become settled
tradition, he is also in this department himself evidently and largely a Maker and Inventor, and the material of the Greek
mythology comes out of his hands far more fully moulded, and far more diversified, than it entered them.
Of the fact that the Homeric religion does not present a consistent and homogeneous whole, we have abundant
evidence in the difficulties with which, so soon as the literary age of Greece began, expositors found themselves
incumbered; and which drove them sometimes upon allegory as a resource, sometimes, as in the case of Plato, upon
censure and repudiation[1].
I know not whether it has been owing to our somewhat narrow jealousies concerning the
function of Holy Scripture, or to our want of faith in the extended Providence of God,
and His manifestations in the world, or to the real incongruity in the evidence at our
command, or to any other cause, but the fact, at least, seems to me beyond doubt, that our modes of dealing with the
Homeric poems in this cardinal respect have been eminently unsatisfactory. Those who have found in Homer the
elements of religious truth, have resorted to the far-fetched and very extravagant supposition, that he had learned them
from the contemporary Hebrews, or from the law of Moses. The more common and popular opinion[2] has perhaps
been one, which has put all such elements almost or altogether out of view; one which has treated the Immortals in
Homer as so many impersonations of the powers of nature, or else magnified men, and their social life as in substance
no more than as a reflection of his picture of heroic life, only gilded with embellishments, and enlarged in scale, in
proportion to the superior elevation of its sphere. Few, comparatively, have been inclined to recognise in the Homeric
poems the vestiges of a real traditional knowledge, derived from the epoch when the covenant of God with man, and
the promise of a Messiah, had not yet fallen within the contracted forms of Judaism for shelter, but entered more or less
into the common consciousness, and formed a part of the patrimony of the human race[3].
But surely there is nothing improbable in the supposition, that in the poems of Homer such vestiges may be found. Every
recorded form of society bears some traces of those by which it has been preceded: and in that highly primitive form,
which Homer has been the instrument of embalming for all posterity, the law of general reason obliges us to search for
elements and vestiges belonging to one more primitive still. And, if we are to inquire in the Iliad and the Odyssey for
what belongs to antecedent manners and ideas, on what ground can it be pronounced improbable, that no part of these
earlier traditions should be old enough to carry upon them the mark of belonging to the religion, which the Book of
Genesis represents as brought by our first parents from Paradise, and as delivered by them to their immediate
descendants in general? The Hebrew Chronology, considered in connection with the probable date of Homer, would
even render it difficult or irrational to proceed upon any other supposition: nor if, as by the Septuagint or otherwise, a
larger period is allowed for the growth of our race, will the state of this case be materially altered. For the facts must
remain, that the form of society exhibited by Homer was itself in many points essentially patriarchal, that it contains, in
matter not religious, such, for instance, as the episode of the Cyclops, clear traces of a yet earlier condition yet more
significant of a relation to that name, and that there is no broadly marked period of human experience, or form of
manners, which we can place between the great trunk of human history in Holy Scripture, and this famed Homeric
branch, which of all literary treasures appears to be its eldest born. Standing next to the patriarchal histories of Holy
Scripture, why should it not bear, how can it not bear, traces of the religion under which the patriarchs lived?
The immense longevity of the early generations of mankind was eminently favourable to the preservation of pristine
traditions. Each individual, instead of being as now a witness of, or an agent in, one or two transmissions from father to
[2]
[3]
[4]
Sufficiently proved from Holy
Scripture.
The question one of history.
son, would observe or share in ten times as many. According to the Hebrew Chronology, Lamech the father of Noah
was of mature age before Adam died: and Abraham was of mature age before Noah died. Original or early witnesses,
remaining so long as standards of appeal, would evidently check the rapidity of the darkening and destroying process.
Let us suppose that man now lived but twenty years, instead of fourscore. Would not this greatly quicken the waste of
ancient traditions? And is not the converse also true?
Custom has made it with us second nature to take for granted a broad line of
demarcation between those who live within the pale of Revelation, and the residue of
mankind. But Holy Scripture does not appear to recognise such a severance in any
manner, until we come to the revelation of the Mosaic law, which was like the erection of a temporary shelter for truths
that had ranged at large over the plain, and that were apparently in danger of being totally absorbed in the mass of
human inventions. But before this vineyard was planted, and likewise outside its fence, there were remains, smaller or
greater, of the knowledge of God; and there was a recognised relation between Jehovah and mankind, which has been
the subject of record from time to time, and the ground of acts involving the admonition, or pardon, or correction, or
destruction, of individuals or communities.
The latest of these indications, such as the visit of the Wise Men from the East, are not the most remarkable: because
first the captivity in Babylon, and subsequently the dissemination of Jewish groups through so many parts of the world,
could not but lead to direct communications of divine knowledge, at least, in some small degree. From such causes,
there would be many a Cornelius before him who became the first-fruits of the Gentiles. Yet even the interest, which
probably led to such communications from the Jew, must have had its own root in relics of prior tradition, which
attested the common concern of mankind in Him that was to come. But in earlier times, and when the Jewish nation was
more concentrated, and was certainly obscure, the vestiges of extra-patriarchal and extra-judaical relations between
God and man are undeniable. They have been traced with clearness and ability in a popular treatise by the hand of
Bishop Horsley[4].
Let us take, for instance, that case of extreme wickedness, which most severely tries the general proposition. The
punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins was preceded by a declaration from the Most High, importing a
direct relation with those guilty cities[5]; and two angels, who had visited Abraham on the plains of Mamre, ‘came to
Sodom at even.’ Ruth the Moabitess was an ancestress, through king David, of our Lord. Rahab in Jericho, ‘by faith,’
as the Apostle assures us, entertained the spies of the Israelites. Job, living in a country where the worship of the sun
was practised, had, as had his friends, the knowledge of the true God. Melchizedek, the priest of On, whose daughter
Joseph married, and Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, are other conspicuous instances. Later in time, Nineveh, the
great Assyrian capital, received the message of the prophet Jonah, and repented at his preaching. Here the teaching
organ was supplied from among the Jews: but Balaam exhibits to us the gift of inspiration beyond their bounds. Once
more; many centuries after the Homeric manners had disappeared, and during the captivity, we find not only a
knowledge of God, but dreams and signs vouchsafed to Assyrian kings, and interpreted for them by the prophet Daniel.
We have, in short, mingling with the whole course of the Old Testament, a stream of evidence which shows the partial
remnants of the knowledge of God, apart from that main current of it which is particularly traced for us in the patriarchal
and Mosaic histories. Again, many centuries after Homer, when all traces of primitive manners had long vanished, still in
the Prometheus of Æschylus, and in the Pollio of Virgil, we have signs, though I grant they are faint ones, that the
celestial rays had not even then ‘faded into the light of common day’ for the heathen world. It would really be strange,
and that in a high degree, if a record like that of Homer, with so many resemblances to the earliest manners in other
points, had no link to connect it with them in their most vital part.
The general proposition, that we may expect to find the relics of Scriptural traditions in
the heroic age of Greece, though it leads, if proved, to important practical results, is
independent even of a belief in those traditions, as they stand in the scheme of revealed
truth. They must be admitted to have been facts on earth, even by those who would deny them to be facts of heavenly
origin, in the shape in which Christendom receives them: and the question immediately before us is one of pure historical
probability. The descent of mankind from a single pair, the lapse of that pair from original righteousness, are apart from
and ulterior to it. We have traced the Greek nation to a source, and along a path of migration, which must in all
likelihood have placed its ancestry, at some point or points, in close local relations with the scenes of the earliest Mosaic
records: the retentiveness of that people equalled its receptiveness, and its close and fond association with the past
made it prone indeed to incorporate novel matter into its religion, but prone also to keep it there after its incorporation.
If such traditions existed, and if the laws which guide historical inquiry require or lead us to suppose that the forefathers
of the Greeks must have lived within their circle, then the burden of proof must lie not so properly with those who assert
that the traces of them are to be found in the earliest, that is, the Homeric, form of the Greek mythology, as with those
who deny it. What became of those old traditions? They must have decayed and disappeared, not by a sudden
process, but by a gradual accumulation of the corrupt accretions, in which at length they were so completely interred as
to be invisible and inaccessible. Some period therefore there must have been, at which they would remain clearly
perceptible, though in conjunction with much corrupt matter. Such a period might be made the subject of record, and if
such there were, we might naturally expect to find it in the oldest known work of the ancient literature.
If the poems of Homer do, however, contain a picture, even though a defaced picture, of the primeval religious
traditions, it is obvious that they afford a most valuable collateral support to the credit of the Holy Scripture, considered
as a document of history. Still we must not allow the desire of gaining this advantage to bias the mind in an inquiry,
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
