Exemption from other limitations partial.So much for the great gift of immortality. With reference to all the other limitations imposed upon finite being, the position of the Immortals, infinitely diversified according to the two great classes, and to individual cases, has this one feature applying to it as a whole, that it is a position of preference, not of independence.Every deity has some extension of personal liberties and powers beyond what men enjoy. But it is in general such as we should conceive to be rather characteristic of intermediate orders of creation, than properly attaching to the divine nature. We must however distinguish between these three things: 1. The personal exemptions of a divinity from the restraints of time and place, and other limiting conditions; 2. The general powers capable of being exercised over other gods, over man, over animal or inanimate nature; 3. The powers enjoyed within the particular province over which a divinity presides.Thus for example Calypso, though, as we have seenshe is of inferior rank, yet exercises very high prerogatives. She sends with Ulysses a favourable breeze: and she predicts calamity, which is to smite him before he reaches his home. Circe transforms men into beasts, and then restores them to forms of greater beauty and stature[649]. She is cognizant of events in the world beneath, and of what will occur on the arrival of Ulysses there. She then sends a favourable breeze to impel his vessel[650]; and on his return predicts to him the circumstances of his homeward voyage[651]. And Proteus delivers a similar prediction to Menelaus, to which he adds a declaration of his destiny after death[652]: he also converts himself into a multitude of forms.Now no Homeric deities order winds to blow, except Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, and Minerva; none issue predictions to men except Minerva and Apollo, the latter mediately, through Seers or through Oracles; of absolute transformation we have no example; but Minerva, and she alone, transforms Ulysses from one human form to another. I mean absolute transformation effected upon others: all the deities, apparently, can transform themselves at will; for even Venus appears to Helen disguised, though it would seem imperfectly, in the form of an aged attendant[653].This gift of knowledge of the future is the more remarkable, when we consider that some of the Olympian deities were without knowledge even of what had just happened; as Mars, on the occasion of the death of his son Ascalaphus[654]. Even Jupiter, with the rest of the gods, was wholly unaware of the clandestine mission of Iris by Juno to Achilles[655].Cases of minor deities with major powers.The great powers of these secondary deities may be accounted for, I think, by two considerations:1. These divinities belong to the circle of outer or Phœnician traditions, and the Poet is not therefore, in treating them, subject to the same laws as those by which he regulates the Olympian order. They are brought upon the stage with reference to Ulysses or Menelaus, and in the Wanderings only; thus they are adopted by Homer for this special purpose, and endowed with whatever gifts they require for it, just as strangers, while they remain, are treated more liberally in a house than the children of the family, for the very reason that they are strangers, and have no concern with the regular organization and continuing life of the household.2. Another principle of the mythology conducts us by another road to the same end. Every deity is liberally endowed within his own province. Now the province of Proteus, Calypso, and Circe, is the Outer sphere of Geography. Within the range of that sphere, the ordinary agency of the Olympian deities individually is suspended. Homer prefers to leave it to be governed by the divinities, whom he can frame out of his Phœnician materials for the purpose. In this way he is enabled to enlarge the circle of variety, and to draw new and salient lines of distinction between the two worlds. Neptune indeed is there perforce; for navigation is the staple of its theme, and theθάλασσαpervades it, from no portion of which can he possibly be excluded. The Olympian Court, too, oversee it, and their orders are conveyed thither by Mercury their agent. But, except Neptune for the reason given, the ordinary action of the deities individually is suspended[656], not onaccount of any limitation of power, for instance in Minerva, but for a poetical purpose, and with the excuse, that the whole sphere is removed beyond common life and experience. Hence, just as Vulcan works professionally the most extraordinary miracles, though he is but a secondary deity, because they are in the domain of metallic art, so Circe and the rest are empowered to do the like within a domain of which they are the rooted zoophytes and exclusive occupants.It may be well, before passing to the general limitations upon divine capacity in Homer, to illustrate a little farther this law of special endowment.Venus is among gods what Nireus was among men:ἄναλκις ἔην θεός[657]. Yet she overcomes the resistance of Helen[658]: and we have also the express record of her girdle as invincible in its operation[659]. The case of Mars is peculiar: for he is brought upon the stage to be beaten in his own province, as the exigencies of the poem require it: but inferior, nay pitiful, as he is in every point of mind and character, yet as to imposing personal appearance, he is made to take rank in a comparison with Jupiter and Neptune, between whose names his is placed[660]. Neptune exhibits vast power, and on his own domain, the sea, appears even to have an inkling of providential foreknowledge[661]: he is conscious that Ulysses will reach Scheria. Except upon the sea, he exhibits no such attributes of intelligence, though he always remains possessed of huge force. Mercury, again, shows in locomotion a greater independence of the laws of place, than some deities who are of a rank higher than his own: and doubtless it isbecause he is professionally an agent or messenger. Even so the journeys of Iris are no sooner begun than they are accomplished.Divine faculties an extension of human.But the general rule is, that the divine faculties represent, in regard to all the conditions of existence, no more than an improvement and extension of the human[662]. Man is the point of origin: and from this pattern invention strives to work upward and outward. The great traditive deities indeed are on a different footing, and appear rather to be the reductions and depravations of an ideal modelled upon the infinite. But the general rule holds good, in regard both to bodily and mental laws, for the mass of the Olympian Court.Thus deities are subject to sleep, both ordinarily, and under the special influences ofὝπνος, the god of sleep. We are furnished with a reason for Jupiter’s not being asleep at a given moment[663]; it is the special anxiety which presses on him. He had been asleep just before. Their bodies are not ethereal, but are capable of constraint by manacles. They are capable also of wounds; and they suffer pain even so as to scream under it: but their blood is ichor, and their hurts heal with great rapidity[664]. They eat ambrosia, and drink nectar. They also receive a sensible pleasure from the savour of sacrifices and libations[665]. Nor is this pleasure alone, it is also nourishment and strength, for Mercury speaks of it as highly desirable for support on any long journey. He, too, practises according to his precept, for he seems greatly to relish the meal of ambrosia and nectar, which is afforded him by the hospitality of Calypso[666].As regards the percipient organs, the Olympian gods appear to depend practically on the eye. Minerva alone has a perfect and unfailing acquaintance with whatever it concerns her to know. For even Jupiter, as we have seen, is not exempt from limitation in this point[667]. Juno sends Iris to Achilles in the Eighteenth Iliad without his knowledge,κρυβδὰ Διὸς ἄλλων τε θεῶν. Apollo does not immediately perceive the expedition of Ulysses and Diomed in the Doloneia. Being here opposed to Minerva, he could not but be worsted. Generally, even these great traditive deities perceive not by a gift of universal vision, but by attention[668]:οὐδ’ ἀλαοσκοπίην εἶχ’ ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων.Juno, keenly alive with anxiety, perceives from Olympus the slaughter that Hector and Mars are making on the plain of Troy; and likewise from the same spot watches Jupiter sitting upon Ida[669]. These four deities, Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, and Apollo, appear to be endowed with by far the largest range of vision. Even to Neptune no such powers are assigned, as to them; for we are never given to understand that any amount of mere distance is too great for their ken. But Neptune only sees the state of the battle before Troy by coming to Samothrace, apparently to bring it within view, and by looking from thence: nor is the Poet content without adding the reason;ἔνθεν γὰρ ἐφαίνετο πᾶσα μὲν Ἴδηφαίνετο δὲ Πριάμοιο πόλις καὶ νῆες Ἀχαιῶν[670]·a passage which seems to imply, that his vision was much the same as that of mankind even in degree.General prevalence of limitation.In the Odyssey, Ulysses pursues his voyage on theraft without the knowledge of Neptune, although on the proper domain of the god, until the eighteenth day. Then he discovers him, but it is only because, coming up from the Ethiopian country, on reaching the Solyman mountains, he is supposed to have got within view of the hero. Being here, without special directions, in the zone of the Outer Geography, we have no means of measuring the terrestrial distance with precision, and the Poet has not informed us what interval of space he intended us to suppose.The inventive deities of the second order in Olympus are very slightly gifted in this matter. So much we perceive from the ignorance of Mars about the death of his son Ascalaphus. When Venus observes, that Æneas has been wounded, Homer does not name the spot from which she looked; but the general range of the powers of this divinity is so narrow, that we must suppose he means to place her immediately over the field of battle before Troy.Of the powers of Apollo or Minerva, as hearers of prayer irrespectively of distance, I have already spoken; but the local idea enters more freely into the anomalous character of the head of Olympus. In the First Iliad, Thetis explains to her son that she cannot introduce to Jupiter the matter of his wrongs, until he returns from the country of the Ethiopians, whither he has repaired with the other Immortals to a banquet[671]. This may mean either that he is too far off to attend to the business, or that he must not be disturbed while inhaling the odours of a hecatomb.Very great diversity in individual cases, but at the same time a general and pervading law of restraint,are evident in the descriptions of the deities with respect to their powers of locomotion. Facility of movement accrues to them variously according to 1. their peculiar work and office; 2. their general dignity and freedom from merely mythological traits; 3. the exigencies of the particular situation. As to the first, I have noticed that Mercury and Iris have a rapidity as messenger-gods, which in their simple capacity as gods they could scarcely possess. Yet even Mercury follows a route: from Olympus he strikes across Pieria, and next descending skims the surface of the sea; then at length passes to the beach of the island, and so onwards to the cave of the Nymph[672]. Minerva, on the other hand, in virtue not of any special function, but of her general power and grandeur, is conceived as swifter still. The journeys of Apollo, in like manner, are conceived of as instantaneous: the rule in both cases being subject to poetical exceptions only. The chariots of Juno and of Neptune[673], again, proceed with measured pace. Each step of Juno’s horses covers the distance over which a man can see[674]. Neptune himself passes in four steps from Samothrace to Ægæ[675]. The driving of Jupiter from Olympus to Ida is described in terms before used for Juno’s journey[676]. Juno travels at another time from Olympus to Lemnos by Pieria, Emathia, and the tops of the Thracian mountains. Here Homer seems to supply her with a sort of made road on which to tread: for the route is a little circuitous[677]. Mars, when wounded, takes wing to Olympus: but Venus, though only hurt in the wrist, cannot get thither until she obtains the aid of his chariot, which happily for her was then waiting on the field[678].But poetical utility, so to speak, enters very largely into the whole subject of Olympian locomotion, and makes it difficult to draw with rigour the proper mythological conclusions. This may be sufficiently illustrated by the following cases. We have seen the majestic march of Juno from one hill top to another, and the measured though speedy course of her chariot. Yet, under the pressure of urgent considerations, she flies from Ida to Olympus, as the bearer of Jupiter’s message, with a rapidity that Homer illustrates by the remarkable simile of the travelling of Thought[679]. Again, where an imposing magnificence is the object, measure is introduced into the movement of Apollo himself by the clang of the darts upon his shoulder as he goes[680]. And, even more, Venus, whom we have seen so impotent on the field of Troy, after her exposure in the Eighth Odyssey, flies at once all the way to Paphos; as does Mars to Thrace[681]. This in both cases is probably because the occasion did not admit of ornamental enlargements, such as befitted the journey of a god. And when Vulcan is represented as actually engaged in falling during the whole day from Olympus down into Lemnus[682], a poetical allusion to his lameness may probably be intended.Chief heads of superiority to mankind.Thus we see not the mental only, but also the corporeal existence of the mythological god hemmed in on every side. A great force of appetite, and a disposition to give it unbridled indulgence, can hardly be reckoned among elevating gifts. But if it be asked, wherein does Homer enlarge and improve for his mythical gods the human conditions of being, besides,(1.) The one grand point of immortality, I should answer, in(2.) An unlimited abundance of the means of corporal enjoyment, and a general freedom from the interruptions of care.(3.) A liberal dispensation of the somewhat vulgar commodities of physical strength and stature; and of the higher gift of absolute beauty, into which the idea of stature, however, materially enters.The former of these two we learn from the fact, that the banquet is the habitual and normal occupation of the Olympian Court. In the First Book, the fray between Jupiter and Juno passes off naturally, and as a matter of course, into a feast that lasts all day[683]. And when Juno, in the Fifteenth Book, reaches Olympus with a message from Jupiter, Thetis, whom she meets first, salutes her by offering the cup[684].There is also among the gods a kind of ‘high life below stairs.’ When Iris repairs on behalf of Achilles to the Winds, she finds them too banqueting in the palace of Zephyr, probably their chief[685]; but she hastes away, when her message is delivered, to feast in preference among divinities of her own rank upon an Ethiopian sacrifice.Their stature and beauty.As regards size and stature, these gifts are so freely bestowed as to be almost without measure: nor does the Poet even care in such cases to be at strict unity with himself. Mars, who in the Fifth Book, draws no very peculiar notice on the battle field from his size, in the Theomachy, when laid prostrate, covers seven acres. Eris, treading on the earth, strikes heaven with her head. The helmet of Minerva would suffice for the soldiery of a hundred cities; the golden tassels of her ægis, a hundred in number, and each worth a hundredoxen, after every allowance for mere laxity in the use of numbers, would imply vast weight and bulk. Accordingly, the axle of Juno’s chariot may well groan beneath the weight of Pallas[686]. Apollo, without the smallest seeming effort, stops Diomed and Patroclus in mid-career; and overthrows the Greek wall as easily as a child overthrows his plaything heap of sand[687]. Other signs might be quoted, such as the tread that shakes the earth, and the voices of Mars and Neptune, equal to those of nine or ten thousand[688]mortals.With the one marked exception of Vulcan, beauty is generally indicated as the characteristic of the Olympian deities. Among the gods, it extends even to Mars[689]. It is sufficiently indicated for the goddesses by their habitual epithets. Even Minerva, in whom personal charms are as it were eclipsed by the sublime gifts of the mind, is sometimes calledἠΰκομοςandἐϋπλόκαμος(Il. vi. 92. Od. vii. 40): and Calypso declares the superiority of goddesses to women in beauty, as a general proposition[690],ἐπεὶ οὔπως οὐδὲ ἔοικενθνητὰς ἀθανάτῃσι δέμας καὶ εἶδος ἐρίζειν.The mythological or invented deities generally, but none of the strictly traditive deities, appear to be tainted with libertinism. Among the former we may, however, observe degrees. Jupiter and Venus stand at the head. Neptune, Mars, Mercury, Ceres, Aurora, follow. Juno evidently treats the passion simply as an instrument for political ends. Of this Homer has given us a very remarkable indication. For when she sees Jupiter on Ida, though she is just then conceiving herdesign, she views him with disgust:στυγερὸς δέ οἱ ἔπλετο θυμῷ[691]. So careful is the Poet that we shall not imagine her to have been under the gross influence of a merely sensual passion. Thetis suggests a remedy of that nature to her son for his grief[692]. In mere impersonations, not yet endowed with the strong human individuality of the Greek Olympus, such as Themis and Helios, we do not expect to find this trait. But of all the fully personified deities of invention, Vulcan alone, privileged by Labour and Ugliness, appears in Homer to be exempt. The Hellenic goddesses generally do not, however, like the more Pelasgian Venus, Ceres, and probably Aurora, debase themselves by intrigues with mortal men.The chastity of the traditive deities, Minerva, Diana, Latona, and probably Apollo, I take for one of the noblest and most significant proofs of the high origin of the materials which they respectively embody.There is also in the deities of Homer not merely a dependance upon physical nourishment, but even a passion of gluttony connected with it. The basis of this idea is laid in the conception which made feasting the normal occupation of Olympus. It followed that they were not only bound by something in the nature of necessity to food, but also enslaved to it by greediness as a rooted habit.Nature of their regard for sacrifice.Of this we find traces all through the poems, in the course which divine favour usually takes. When Homer speaks of the gods in the sense of Providential governors, it is the just man that they regard, and the unjust that they visit with wrath. But when he carries us into Olympus, and we behold them in the livingenergy of their individualities, it is sacrifice which they want, and which forms their share in the fruits of earth and of human labour, as we learn from the emphatic words of Jupiter himself;τὸ γὰρ λάχομεν γέρας ἡμεῖς[693].It was the bounty of Autolycus in lambs and kids which induced Mercury to bestow on him in return the gifts of thievery and perjury[694].Moral retribution in Homer lags and limps at a great distance behind the offence, but the omission to sacrifice is visited condignly and at once. Again, in the case of Troy, liberality in this particular even seems to create a party in Olympus on behalf of an offending race. On the erection of the rampart by the Greeks, Neptune immediately urges the omission of the regular hecatombs against them. It is punished by Diana in Ætolia, by the gods generally on the departure from Troas; and Menelaus in like manner is for this offence wind-bound in Pharos[695].The reason of this preeminence of sacrifices, both as to punishment and as to reward, may lie partly in the tendency of man (though, as we shall presently see, the practice had its moral side also) to substitute positive observances for moral obedience; but partly, likewise, in the importance of sacrifices to the anthropophuism of the Olympian deities themselves.Putting out of view what each deity can do in his particular domain, we shall find that but little of power over nature—whether human, animal, or inanimate—attaches to the Homeric gods as such. Juno conveys a suggestion to the mind of Agamemnon[696], and gives, with Minerva, courage to a warrior; but thisis the whole of her immediate action, I mean action without a mean, in this department, exhibited by any passage in the Poems. Indeed, no other mythological deity ascends to agency of this kind at all.Upon animal and inanimate nature Juno exercises the highest powers. When she thunders with Minerva, sends cloud to impede the flying Trojans, retards the sunset, and assists the voyage of Jason, we may consider her as in the reflex use of the atmospheric powers of her husband: but the gift of a voice to the horse Xanthus, apparently can lie within her reach only by derivation from the higher or traditive element in his character, as representing the idea of supreme deity.Among the deities of invention, the general rule is, with respect to the exercise of power over nature or the human mind, that it is confined to matters in immediate connection with their several specialties. Two extraordinary acts of power over nature appear, however, to be within the competency of them all. One is the production of a patch of cloud or vapour at will; the other is that of assuming the human form for themselves, either generally or in the likeness of some particular person. I do not, however, recollect any instance in which this power is exercised by a deity of invention in the manner in which Minerva employs it in the First Iliad[697], that is, under the condition of being visible only to one person out of many who are present. In that image we seem to find a figure, perhaps a traditionary remnant, of that inward and personal communication between the Almighty and the individual soul, which constitutes a high distinguishing note of the true religion.There would appear to have been certain visible marks which went to distinguish a god, up to a certain point, from men. Hector in the Fifteenth Iliad knows Apollo to be a god[698], but does not know what god. Minerva clears the vision of Diomed, that he may be able to discriminate between gods and men[699]. Pandarus, eyeing Diomed, is uncertain whether he is a mortal or a god[700]. The recognition of Venus by Helen may, indeed, have been due to the imperfectness of her power of self-transformation[701]; but it may also have been owing to these general traces of resemblance to the divine order, which subsisted even under the human disguise.Homer represents Minerva as weighing down the chariot of Diomed, and making the axle creak[702];μέγα δ’ ἔβραχε φήγινος ἄξωνβριθοσύνῃ· δεινὴν γὰρ ἄγεν θεὸν, ἄνδρα τ’ ἄριστον.This passage may be taken as a proof, since it applies to the most spiritual of the Homeric divinities, how far the Poet was from considering that they were endowed with the properties of pure spirit.Parts of the body, how ascribed.Of this he has given us farther proof by his free and constant reference, wherever occasion serves, to the parts and organs of the body as appertaining to the gods.I think that references of this kind in Holy Scripture usually bear a mark, which yields decisive witness to the fact that their use is wholly relative and analogical: as, for example, the eye of God, namely, the instrument by which He watches us, the mouth of God, by which He instructs us, the hand and the arm of God, bywhich He sustains, or delivers, or corrects, or crushes us. It does not therefore appear that we could justly and fully draw our conclusions as to the corporeal constitution of an Olympic deity from the mere circumstance that we are told of the knees or lap of the gods, by which it might be figuratively expressed, that the disposal of human affairs rests with them[703]; or because of that gorgeous description, which the Poet has given us, of the head and nod, meaning the decree of Jupiter. For all these allusions are capable of explanation on the same principle with those of Holy Scripture, namely, as being relative and explanatory to man.But he has a multitude of other references to parts of the body, which do not at all belong to the use of them as organs for communication with the imperfect apprehensions of mankind. Thus:1. Thetis takes hold of the chin of Jupiter, Il. i. 501.2. Diomed wounds Venus on the wrist, Il. v. 336.3. And Mars in the abdomen, Il. v. 857; whom Minerva likewise overthrows by a blow on the neck, Il. xxi. 406.4. Hercules wounds Juno in the right breast, Il. v. 393; and we have her hair, flesh, chest, and feet, in the toilette of Il. xiv. 170–86.5. Helen discovers the neck and breast as well as eyes of Venus, Il. iii. 396. See Il. xxi. 424.6. The legs of Vulcan are weak, his neck strong, and his chest shaggy, Il. xviii. 411–15.7. Mercury attaches wings to his feet, Od. v.8. Juno seizes the wrists of Diana, takes the bow and arrows from her back, and beats her about the ears, Il. xxi. 489–91.9. The arrows rattle on the shoulder of Apollo, Il. i. 46.10. The arming of Minerva introduces her shoulders, head, and feet, Il. v. 738–45.We need not, however, be surprised at failing to find in Homer any conception approaching to that of pure spirit, or any thing resembling that refined discernment, which has led Christian Art to represent the figure of our Lord alone as self-poised and self-supported in the air, while all other human forms, even when transfigured, have a ground beneath their feet, though it be but made of cloud. Even in some of the very highest among Christian writers, such as Dante and St. Bernard, the human being, after the soul has gone through dismissal from the flesh, still appears to be invested with a lighter form and species of body, apparently on the assumption that the two elements of matter and spirit are not only essentially, but inseparably wedded in our nature.Examples of miracle in Homer.Full as they are of preternatural signs and operations, the poems of Homer do not, nevertheless, deal much with miracle, with the specific purpose of which he had no concern.By miracle I understand, speaking generally, not the mere use of the common natural powers, accumulated or enlarged, but an operation involving what, I suppose, would be called medically an organic departure from her customary laws: an operation too, which must absolutely be performed, upon man himself or some other object, after some manner which shall be appreciable in its results by his faculties, and calculated to satisfy them, when in their greatest vigilance, that it is a real experience, and not a mere delusion of the senses.Thus understood, the miracles of Homer are, I think,scarcely more numerous than the following: for, under this definition, the ambrosia of Simois and the flowers of Ida are not miracles[704].1. The crawling and lowing of the oxen of the Sun after their death, Od. xii. 395, 6.2. The acceleration of the Sunset, Il. xviii. 239.3. The retardation of the dawn, Od. xxiii. 241.4. The speaking horse, Il. xix. 407.3. Theεἴδωλονof Æneas, Il. v. 449.6. The portents of the banquet night in Od. xx. 347–62. I feel some doubt, however, whether this is objective, or whether it is only an impression on the senses.7. The transformation and re-transformation of Ulysses[705], Od. xiii. 398, 429, and xxiii. 156–63.8. Perhaps, also, theεἴδωλονof Iphthime, Od. ix. 797.9. The gouts of blood, shed down from the air by Jupiter, Il. xi. 53.10. The transformation of the serpent into a stone in the sight of all the Greeks;ἡμεῖς δ’ ἑσταότες θαυμάζομεν οἷον ἐτύχθη, Il. ii. 320.The first seems due to the divine power as a whole; the second and fourth to Juno; the third and seventh and eighth to Minerva; the fifth and sixth are the works of Apollo; the ninth and tenth of Jupiter. I do not add as an eleventh the conversion of the Phæacian ship into a rock, by Neptune, in the sight of the people; because this is rather of the class of marvels which appertained to other, even secondary gods, such as Vulcan, in their own particular domains, Od. xiii. 159–87.The buoyant arms of Achilles (Il. xix. 386), and other works of Vulcan, might at first sight seem to belongto the list, but it is doubtful whether they are not poetical rather than mythological representations, and in any case they would appear as gifts strictly professional, exercised in the ordinary administration of his peculiar function.Telemachus appears to recognise the existence of miraculous powers in the passage[706],οὐ γάρ πως ἂν θνητὸς ἀνὴρ τάδε μηχανόῳτοᾧ αὐτοῦ γε νόῳ, ὅτε μὴ θεὸς αὐτὸς ἐπελθὼνῥηϊδίως ἐθέλων θήσει νεὸν ἠὲ γέροντα.But this is spoken of the Godhead rather than of any particular deity, and cannot by Homeric analogy be applied except to those of the highest natures.Their operation on the human mind.It will however be observed, that several of these prodigies are not stated to have challenged human observation when performed: and unless they submit themselves to the test of the senses they are not properly miracles at all. Others of them entirely comply with the condition, as especially that of Il. ii. 320.The retardation of sunset and sunrise, and the rain of blood, appear to pass wholly unobserved. Prodigies not setting out from a basis in nature, such as the tears of blood shed by Jupiter[707], are wholly beyond the scope of these observations.On the whole, we find stringent limitation prevailing in this province, as regards the majority of the gods.Indeed the forces of nature, which the mythological divinities in part represent, were sometimes too strong for them: for Homer tells us that Notus and Zephyr[708]sometimes shatter vessels at sea without or against the will of the gods:θεῶν ἀέκητι ἀνάκτων.Even man, and that without impiety, can occasionally think of resistance. When Menelaus, alone in the field, decides on retiring before Hector (who fightsἐκ θεόφιν), rather than contendπρὸς δαίμονα, he looks around for Ajax, and observes that, could he but see him, they two would fightκαὶ πρὸς δαίμονά περ, even with the deity opposed to them, in order to recover the body of Patroclus[709].There is, however, I think, another reason, besides feebleness in his conception of the gods, which prevents the Greek Poet from representing them as omnipotent in regard to the operations of the human mind; and that is, his profound sense of the free agency of man. This principle with him, as it were, confronts the deity on every side; who respects its dignity, and never really invades its sphere, but pursues his work by means compatible with its essential character. The idea of the deity pervading the poems is mainly that of a cooperative power, who helps us when and as we help ourselves. It is expressed with an unrivalled simplicity when Telemachus, coming as a young man into the presence of Nestor, feels oppressed with a nervous shyness; and Minerva encourages him by telling him that he can of himself find something to say, and that the divinity will prompt more to him[710],ἄλλα μὲν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ φρεσὶ σῇσι νοήσεις,ἄλλα δὲ καὶ δαίμων ὑποθήσεται.Heavenly influence never overpowers or suppresses the will, but sometimes suggests thoughts to the mind, and sometimes diverts it, not perhaps from the thought of an object already perceived, but from the chance of perceiving it. Thus, when Euryclea, through surprise on beholding the scar, and so recognising Ulysses, oversets the foot-bath, Penelope, who is present, mightnaturally have observed the miscarriage; but Minerva interposes to abstract her attention from what was passing, lest she should recognise her husband prematurely:ἡ δ’ οὔτ’ ἀθρῆσαι δύνατ’ ἀντίη, οὔτε νοῆσαι,τῇ γὰρ Ἀθηναίη νόον ἔτραπεν[711].With the exception of Juno, who in some sense reflects the majesty of Jupiter, and becomes entitled as a wife to handle his prerogatives, it may be stated generally respecting the deities of invention properly so called, that, except within the limits of their particular domain or office, they scarcely at all modify the laws of nature, never set in motion or direct her greater forces, nor act in an extraordinary manner on the mind or body of man. Each in his own province can stimulate a particular animal propensity, or improve a particular gift of mind or body: and that is all.While therefore the strength of the Olympian deities lies in knowledge and in power, we find upon the whole that even in these particularly they are subject to manifold limitation. They could translate mortals out of this world in which the rule of Death prevails, as we see in the cases of Ganymede, and of Tithonus; but it does not appear that, if we except the traditive ideas represented in Minerva and Apollo, they could either raise men from the grave, prevent their dying in the course of nature, heal their wounds or diseases, or set their broken limbs. When even Latona and Diana heal Æneas[712], they do it apparently with greater speed indeed, but in other respects much as it would have been done by Podaleirius or Machaon.
Exemption from other limitations partial.
So much for the great gift of immortality. With reference to all the other limitations imposed upon finite being, the position of the Immortals, infinitely diversified according to the two great classes, and to individual cases, has this one feature applying to it as a whole, that it is a position of preference, not of independence.
Every deity has some extension of personal liberties and powers beyond what men enjoy. But it is in general such as we should conceive to be rather characteristic of intermediate orders of creation, than properly attaching to the divine nature. We must however distinguish between these three things: 1. The personal exemptions of a divinity from the restraints of time and place, and other limiting conditions; 2. The general powers capable of being exercised over other gods, over man, over animal or inanimate nature; 3. The powers enjoyed within the particular province over which a divinity presides.
Thus for example Calypso, though, as we have seenshe is of inferior rank, yet exercises very high prerogatives. She sends with Ulysses a favourable breeze: and she predicts calamity, which is to smite him before he reaches his home. Circe transforms men into beasts, and then restores them to forms of greater beauty and stature[649]. She is cognizant of events in the world beneath, and of what will occur on the arrival of Ulysses there. She then sends a favourable breeze to impel his vessel[650]; and on his return predicts to him the circumstances of his homeward voyage[651]. And Proteus delivers a similar prediction to Menelaus, to which he adds a declaration of his destiny after death[652]: he also converts himself into a multitude of forms.
Now no Homeric deities order winds to blow, except Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, and Minerva; none issue predictions to men except Minerva and Apollo, the latter mediately, through Seers or through Oracles; of absolute transformation we have no example; but Minerva, and she alone, transforms Ulysses from one human form to another. I mean absolute transformation effected upon others: all the deities, apparently, can transform themselves at will; for even Venus appears to Helen disguised, though it would seem imperfectly, in the form of an aged attendant[653].
This gift of knowledge of the future is the more remarkable, when we consider that some of the Olympian deities were without knowledge even of what had just happened; as Mars, on the occasion of the death of his son Ascalaphus[654]. Even Jupiter, with the rest of the gods, was wholly unaware of the clandestine mission of Iris by Juno to Achilles[655].
Cases of minor deities with major powers.
The great powers of these secondary deities may be accounted for, I think, by two considerations:
1. These divinities belong to the circle of outer or Phœnician traditions, and the Poet is not therefore, in treating them, subject to the same laws as those by which he regulates the Olympian order. They are brought upon the stage with reference to Ulysses or Menelaus, and in the Wanderings only; thus they are adopted by Homer for this special purpose, and endowed with whatever gifts they require for it, just as strangers, while they remain, are treated more liberally in a house than the children of the family, for the very reason that they are strangers, and have no concern with the regular organization and continuing life of the household.
2. Another principle of the mythology conducts us by another road to the same end. Every deity is liberally endowed within his own province. Now the province of Proteus, Calypso, and Circe, is the Outer sphere of Geography. Within the range of that sphere, the ordinary agency of the Olympian deities individually is suspended. Homer prefers to leave it to be governed by the divinities, whom he can frame out of his Phœnician materials for the purpose. In this way he is enabled to enlarge the circle of variety, and to draw new and salient lines of distinction between the two worlds. Neptune indeed is there perforce; for navigation is the staple of its theme, and theθάλασσαpervades it, from no portion of which can he possibly be excluded. The Olympian Court, too, oversee it, and their orders are conveyed thither by Mercury their agent. But, except Neptune for the reason given, the ordinary action of the deities individually is suspended[656], not onaccount of any limitation of power, for instance in Minerva, but for a poetical purpose, and with the excuse, that the whole sphere is removed beyond common life and experience. Hence, just as Vulcan works professionally the most extraordinary miracles, though he is but a secondary deity, because they are in the domain of metallic art, so Circe and the rest are empowered to do the like within a domain of which they are the rooted zoophytes and exclusive occupants.
It may be well, before passing to the general limitations upon divine capacity in Homer, to illustrate a little farther this law of special endowment.
Venus is among gods what Nireus was among men:ἄναλκις ἔην θεός[657]. Yet she overcomes the resistance of Helen[658]: and we have also the express record of her girdle as invincible in its operation[659]. The case of Mars is peculiar: for he is brought upon the stage to be beaten in his own province, as the exigencies of the poem require it: but inferior, nay pitiful, as he is in every point of mind and character, yet as to imposing personal appearance, he is made to take rank in a comparison with Jupiter and Neptune, between whose names his is placed[660]. Neptune exhibits vast power, and on his own domain, the sea, appears even to have an inkling of providential foreknowledge[661]: he is conscious that Ulysses will reach Scheria. Except upon the sea, he exhibits no such attributes of intelligence, though he always remains possessed of huge force. Mercury, again, shows in locomotion a greater independence of the laws of place, than some deities who are of a rank higher than his own: and doubtless it isbecause he is professionally an agent or messenger. Even so the journeys of Iris are no sooner begun than they are accomplished.
Divine faculties an extension of human.
But the general rule is, that the divine faculties represent, in regard to all the conditions of existence, no more than an improvement and extension of the human[662]. Man is the point of origin: and from this pattern invention strives to work upward and outward. The great traditive deities indeed are on a different footing, and appear rather to be the reductions and depravations of an ideal modelled upon the infinite. But the general rule holds good, in regard both to bodily and mental laws, for the mass of the Olympian Court.
Thus deities are subject to sleep, both ordinarily, and under the special influences ofὝπνος, the god of sleep. We are furnished with a reason for Jupiter’s not being asleep at a given moment[663]; it is the special anxiety which presses on him. He had been asleep just before. Their bodies are not ethereal, but are capable of constraint by manacles. They are capable also of wounds; and they suffer pain even so as to scream under it: but their blood is ichor, and their hurts heal with great rapidity[664]. They eat ambrosia, and drink nectar. They also receive a sensible pleasure from the savour of sacrifices and libations[665]. Nor is this pleasure alone, it is also nourishment and strength, for Mercury speaks of it as highly desirable for support on any long journey. He, too, practises according to his precept, for he seems greatly to relish the meal of ambrosia and nectar, which is afforded him by the hospitality of Calypso[666].
As regards the percipient organs, the Olympian gods appear to depend practically on the eye. Minerva alone has a perfect and unfailing acquaintance with whatever it concerns her to know. For even Jupiter, as we have seen, is not exempt from limitation in this point[667]. Juno sends Iris to Achilles in the Eighteenth Iliad without his knowledge,κρυβδὰ Διὸς ἄλλων τε θεῶν. Apollo does not immediately perceive the expedition of Ulysses and Diomed in the Doloneia. Being here opposed to Minerva, he could not but be worsted. Generally, even these great traditive deities perceive not by a gift of universal vision, but by attention[668]:
οὐδ’ ἀλαοσκοπίην εἶχ’ ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων.
οὐδ’ ἀλαοσκοπίην εἶχ’ ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων.
οὐδ’ ἀλαοσκοπίην εἶχ’ ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων.
οὐδ’ ἀλαοσκοπίην εἶχ’ ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων.
Juno, keenly alive with anxiety, perceives from Olympus the slaughter that Hector and Mars are making on the plain of Troy; and likewise from the same spot watches Jupiter sitting upon Ida[669]. These four deities, Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, and Apollo, appear to be endowed with by far the largest range of vision. Even to Neptune no such powers are assigned, as to them; for we are never given to understand that any amount of mere distance is too great for their ken. But Neptune only sees the state of the battle before Troy by coming to Samothrace, apparently to bring it within view, and by looking from thence: nor is the Poet content without adding the reason;
ἔνθεν γὰρ ἐφαίνετο πᾶσα μὲν Ἴδηφαίνετο δὲ Πριάμοιο πόλις καὶ νῆες Ἀχαιῶν[670]·
ἔνθεν γὰρ ἐφαίνετο πᾶσα μὲν Ἴδηφαίνετο δὲ Πριάμοιο πόλις καὶ νῆες Ἀχαιῶν[670]·
ἔνθεν γὰρ ἐφαίνετο πᾶσα μὲν Ἴδηφαίνετο δὲ Πριάμοιο πόλις καὶ νῆες Ἀχαιῶν[670]·
ἔνθεν γὰρ ἐφαίνετο πᾶσα μὲν Ἴδη
φαίνετο δὲ Πριάμοιο πόλις καὶ νῆες Ἀχαιῶν[670]·
a passage which seems to imply, that his vision was much the same as that of mankind even in degree.
General prevalence of limitation.
In the Odyssey, Ulysses pursues his voyage on theraft without the knowledge of Neptune, although on the proper domain of the god, until the eighteenth day. Then he discovers him, but it is only because, coming up from the Ethiopian country, on reaching the Solyman mountains, he is supposed to have got within view of the hero. Being here, without special directions, in the zone of the Outer Geography, we have no means of measuring the terrestrial distance with precision, and the Poet has not informed us what interval of space he intended us to suppose.
The inventive deities of the second order in Olympus are very slightly gifted in this matter. So much we perceive from the ignorance of Mars about the death of his son Ascalaphus. When Venus observes, that Æneas has been wounded, Homer does not name the spot from which she looked; but the general range of the powers of this divinity is so narrow, that we must suppose he means to place her immediately over the field of battle before Troy.
Of the powers of Apollo or Minerva, as hearers of prayer irrespectively of distance, I have already spoken; but the local idea enters more freely into the anomalous character of the head of Olympus. In the First Iliad, Thetis explains to her son that she cannot introduce to Jupiter the matter of his wrongs, until he returns from the country of the Ethiopians, whither he has repaired with the other Immortals to a banquet[671]. This may mean either that he is too far off to attend to the business, or that he must not be disturbed while inhaling the odours of a hecatomb.
Very great diversity in individual cases, but at the same time a general and pervading law of restraint,are evident in the descriptions of the deities with respect to their powers of locomotion. Facility of movement accrues to them variously according to 1. their peculiar work and office; 2. their general dignity and freedom from merely mythological traits; 3. the exigencies of the particular situation. As to the first, I have noticed that Mercury and Iris have a rapidity as messenger-gods, which in their simple capacity as gods they could scarcely possess. Yet even Mercury follows a route: from Olympus he strikes across Pieria, and next descending skims the surface of the sea; then at length passes to the beach of the island, and so onwards to the cave of the Nymph[672]. Minerva, on the other hand, in virtue not of any special function, but of her general power and grandeur, is conceived as swifter still. The journeys of Apollo, in like manner, are conceived of as instantaneous: the rule in both cases being subject to poetical exceptions only. The chariots of Juno and of Neptune[673], again, proceed with measured pace. Each step of Juno’s horses covers the distance over which a man can see[674]. Neptune himself passes in four steps from Samothrace to Ægæ[675]. The driving of Jupiter from Olympus to Ida is described in terms before used for Juno’s journey[676]. Juno travels at another time from Olympus to Lemnos by Pieria, Emathia, and the tops of the Thracian mountains. Here Homer seems to supply her with a sort of made road on which to tread: for the route is a little circuitous[677]. Mars, when wounded, takes wing to Olympus: but Venus, though only hurt in the wrist, cannot get thither until she obtains the aid of his chariot, which happily for her was then waiting on the field[678].
But poetical utility, so to speak, enters very largely into the whole subject of Olympian locomotion, and makes it difficult to draw with rigour the proper mythological conclusions. This may be sufficiently illustrated by the following cases. We have seen the majestic march of Juno from one hill top to another, and the measured though speedy course of her chariot. Yet, under the pressure of urgent considerations, she flies from Ida to Olympus, as the bearer of Jupiter’s message, with a rapidity that Homer illustrates by the remarkable simile of the travelling of Thought[679]. Again, where an imposing magnificence is the object, measure is introduced into the movement of Apollo himself by the clang of the darts upon his shoulder as he goes[680]. And, even more, Venus, whom we have seen so impotent on the field of Troy, after her exposure in the Eighth Odyssey, flies at once all the way to Paphos; as does Mars to Thrace[681]. This in both cases is probably because the occasion did not admit of ornamental enlargements, such as befitted the journey of a god. And when Vulcan is represented as actually engaged in falling during the whole day from Olympus down into Lemnus[682], a poetical allusion to his lameness may probably be intended.
Chief heads of superiority to mankind.
Thus we see not the mental only, but also the corporeal existence of the mythological god hemmed in on every side. A great force of appetite, and a disposition to give it unbridled indulgence, can hardly be reckoned among elevating gifts. But if it be asked, wherein does Homer enlarge and improve for his mythical gods the human conditions of being, besides,
(1.) The one grand point of immortality, I should answer, in
(2.) An unlimited abundance of the means of corporal enjoyment, and a general freedom from the interruptions of care.
(3.) A liberal dispensation of the somewhat vulgar commodities of physical strength and stature; and of the higher gift of absolute beauty, into which the idea of stature, however, materially enters.
The former of these two we learn from the fact, that the banquet is the habitual and normal occupation of the Olympian Court. In the First Book, the fray between Jupiter and Juno passes off naturally, and as a matter of course, into a feast that lasts all day[683]. And when Juno, in the Fifteenth Book, reaches Olympus with a message from Jupiter, Thetis, whom she meets first, salutes her by offering the cup[684].
There is also among the gods a kind of ‘high life below stairs.’ When Iris repairs on behalf of Achilles to the Winds, she finds them too banqueting in the palace of Zephyr, probably their chief[685]; but she hastes away, when her message is delivered, to feast in preference among divinities of her own rank upon an Ethiopian sacrifice.
Their stature and beauty.
As regards size and stature, these gifts are so freely bestowed as to be almost without measure: nor does the Poet even care in such cases to be at strict unity with himself. Mars, who in the Fifth Book, draws no very peculiar notice on the battle field from his size, in the Theomachy, when laid prostrate, covers seven acres. Eris, treading on the earth, strikes heaven with her head. The helmet of Minerva would suffice for the soldiery of a hundred cities; the golden tassels of her ægis, a hundred in number, and each worth a hundredoxen, after every allowance for mere laxity in the use of numbers, would imply vast weight and bulk. Accordingly, the axle of Juno’s chariot may well groan beneath the weight of Pallas[686]. Apollo, without the smallest seeming effort, stops Diomed and Patroclus in mid-career; and overthrows the Greek wall as easily as a child overthrows his plaything heap of sand[687]. Other signs might be quoted, such as the tread that shakes the earth, and the voices of Mars and Neptune, equal to those of nine or ten thousand[688]mortals.
With the one marked exception of Vulcan, beauty is generally indicated as the characteristic of the Olympian deities. Among the gods, it extends even to Mars[689]. It is sufficiently indicated for the goddesses by their habitual epithets. Even Minerva, in whom personal charms are as it were eclipsed by the sublime gifts of the mind, is sometimes calledἠΰκομοςandἐϋπλόκαμος(Il. vi. 92. Od. vii. 40): and Calypso declares the superiority of goddesses to women in beauty, as a general proposition[690],
ἐπεὶ οὔπως οὐδὲ ἔοικενθνητὰς ἀθανάτῃσι δέμας καὶ εἶδος ἐρίζειν.
ἐπεὶ οὔπως οὐδὲ ἔοικενθνητὰς ἀθανάτῃσι δέμας καὶ εἶδος ἐρίζειν.
ἐπεὶ οὔπως οὐδὲ ἔοικενθνητὰς ἀθανάτῃσι δέμας καὶ εἶδος ἐρίζειν.
ἐπεὶ οὔπως οὐδὲ ἔοικεν
θνητὰς ἀθανάτῃσι δέμας καὶ εἶδος ἐρίζειν.
The mythological or invented deities generally, but none of the strictly traditive deities, appear to be tainted with libertinism. Among the former we may, however, observe degrees. Jupiter and Venus stand at the head. Neptune, Mars, Mercury, Ceres, Aurora, follow. Juno evidently treats the passion simply as an instrument for political ends. Of this Homer has given us a very remarkable indication. For when she sees Jupiter on Ida, though she is just then conceiving herdesign, she views him with disgust:στυγερὸς δέ οἱ ἔπλετο θυμῷ[691]. So careful is the Poet that we shall not imagine her to have been under the gross influence of a merely sensual passion. Thetis suggests a remedy of that nature to her son for his grief[692]. In mere impersonations, not yet endowed with the strong human individuality of the Greek Olympus, such as Themis and Helios, we do not expect to find this trait. But of all the fully personified deities of invention, Vulcan alone, privileged by Labour and Ugliness, appears in Homer to be exempt. The Hellenic goddesses generally do not, however, like the more Pelasgian Venus, Ceres, and probably Aurora, debase themselves by intrigues with mortal men.
The chastity of the traditive deities, Minerva, Diana, Latona, and probably Apollo, I take for one of the noblest and most significant proofs of the high origin of the materials which they respectively embody.
There is also in the deities of Homer not merely a dependance upon physical nourishment, but even a passion of gluttony connected with it. The basis of this idea is laid in the conception which made feasting the normal occupation of Olympus. It followed that they were not only bound by something in the nature of necessity to food, but also enslaved to it by greediness as a rooted habit.
Nature of their regard for sacrifice.
Of this we find traces all through the poems, in the course which divine favour usually takes. When Homer speaks of the gods in the sense of Providential governors, it is the just man that they regard, and the unjust that they visit with wrath. But when he carries us into Olympus, and we behold them in the livingenergy of their individualities, it is sacrifice which they want, and which forms their share in the fruits of earth and of human labour, as we learn from the emphatic words of Jupiter himself;
τὸ γὰρ λάχομεν γέρας ἡμεῖς[693].
τὸ γὰρ λάχομεν γέρας ἡμεῖς[693].
τὸ γὰρ λάχομεν γέρας ἡμεῖς[693].
τὸ γὰρ λάχομεν γέρας ἡμεῖς[693].
It was the bounty of Autolycus in lambs and kids which induced Mercury to bestow on him in return the gifts of thievery and perjury[694].
Moral retribution in Homer lags and limps at a great distance behind the offence, but the omission to sacrifice is visited condignly and at once. Again, in the case of Troy, liberality in this particular even seems to create a party in Olympus on behalf of an offending race. On the erection of the rampart by the Greeks, Neptune immediately urges the omission of the regular hecatombs against them. It is punished by Diana in Ætolia, by the gods generally on the departure from Troas; and Menelaus in like manner is for this offence wind-bound in Pharos[695].
The reason of this preeminence of sacrifices, both as to punishment and as to reward, may lie partly in the tendency of man (though, as we shall presently see, the practice had its moral side also) to substitute positive observances for moral obedience; but partly, likewise, in the importance of sacrifices to the anthropophuism of the Olympian deities themselves.
Putting out of view what each deity can do in his particular domain, we shall find that but little of power over nature—whether human, animal, or inanimate—attaches to the Homeric gods as such. Juno conveys a suggestion to the mind of Agamemnon[696], and gives, with Minerva, courage to a warrior; but thisis the whole of her immediate action, I mean action without a mean, in this department, exhibited by any passage in the Poems. Indeed, no other mythological deity ascends to agency of this kind at all.
Upon animal and inanimate nature Juno exercises the highest powers. When she thunders with Minerva, sends cloud to impede the flying Trojans, retards the sunset, and assists the voyage of Jason, we may consider her as in the reflex use of the atmospheric powers of her husband: but the gift of a voice to the horse Xanthus, apparently can lie within her reach only by derivation from the higher or traditive element in his character, as representing the idea of supreme deity.
Among the deities of invention, the general rule is, with respect to the exercise of power over nature or the human mind, that it is confined to matters in immediate connection with their several specialties. Two extraordinary acts of power over nature appear, however, to be within the competency of them all. One is the production of a patch of cloud or vapour at will; the other is that of assuming the human form for themselves, either generally or in the likeness of some particular person. I do not, however, recollect any instance in which this power is exercised by a deity of invention in the manner in which Minerva employs it in the First Iliad[697], that is, under the condition of being visible only to one person out of many who are present. In that image we seem to find a figure, perhaps a traditionary remnant, of that inward and personal communication between the Almighty and the individual soul, which constitutes a high distinguishing note of the true religion.
There would appear to have been certain visible marks which went to distinguish a god, up to a certain point, from men. Hector in the Fifteenth Iliad knows Apollo to be a god[698], but does not know what god. Minerva clears the vision of Diomed, that he may be able to discriminate between gods and men[699]. Pandarus, eyeing Diomed, is uncertain whether he is a mortal or a god[700]. The recognition of Venus by Helen may, indeed, have been due to the imperfectness of her power of self-transformation[701]; but it may also have been owing to these general traces of resemblance to the divine order, which subsisted even under the human disguise.
Homer represents Minerva as weighing down the chariot of Diomed, and making the axle creak[702];
μέγα δ’ ἔβραχε φήγινος ἄξωνβριθοσύνῃ· δεινὴν γὰρ ἄγεν θεὸν, ἄνδρα τ’ ἄριστον.
μέγα δ’ ἔβραχε φήγινος ἄξωνβριθοσύνῃ· δεινὴν γὰρ ἄγεν θεὸν, ἄνδρα τ’ ἄριστον.
μέγα δ’ ἔβραχε φήγινος ἄξωνβριθοσύνῃ· δεινὴν γὰρ ἄγεν θεὸν, ἄνδρα τ’ ἄριστον.
μέγα δ’ ἔβραχε φήγινος ἄξων
βριθοσύνῃ· δεινὴν γὰρ ἄγεν θεὸν, ἄνδρα τ’ ἄριστον.
This passage may be taken as a proof, since it applies to the most spiritual of the Homeric divinities, how far the Poet was from considering that they were endowed with the properties of pure spirit.
Parts of the body, how ascribed.
Of this he has given us farther proof by his free and constant reference, wherever occasion serves, to the parts and organs of the body as appertaining to the gods.
I think that references of this kind in Holy Scripture usually bear a mark, which yields decisive witness to the fact that their use is wholly relative and analogical: as, for example, the eye of God, namely, the instrument by which He watches us, the mouth of God, by which He instructs us, the hand and the arm of God, bywhich He sustains, or delivers, or corrects, or crushes us. It does not therefore appear that we could justly and fully draw our conclusions as to the corporeal constitution of an Olympic deity from the mere circumstance that we are told of the knees or lap of the gods, by which it might be figuratively expressed, that the disposal of human affairs rests with them[703]; or because of that gorgeous description, which the Poet has given us, of the head and nod, meaning the decree of Jupiter. For all these allusions are capable of explanation on the same principle with those of Holy Scripture, namely, as being relative and explanatory to man.
But he has a multitude of other references to parts of the body, which do not at all belong to the use of them as organs for communication with the imperfect apprehensions of mankind. Thus:
1. Thetis takes hold of the chin of Jupiter, Il. i. 501.
2. Diomed wounds Venus on the wrist, Il. v. 336.
3. And Mars in the abdomen, Il. v. 857; whom Minerva likewise overthrows by a blow on the neck, Il. xxi. 406.
4. Hercules wounds Juno in the right breast, Il. v. 393; and we have her hair, flesh, chest, and feet, in the toilette of Il. xiv. 170–86.
5. Helen discovers the neck and breast as well as eyes of Venus, Il. iii. 396. See Il. xxi. 424.
6. The legs of Vulcan are weak, his neck strong, and his chest shaggy, Il. xviii. 411–15.
7. Mercury attaches wings to his feet, Od. v.
8. Juno seizes the wrists of Diana, takes the bow and arrows from her back, and beats her about the ears, Il. xxi. 489–91.
9. The arrows rattle on the shoulder of Apollo, Il. i. 46.
10. The arming of Minerva introduces her shoulders, head, and feet, Il. v. 738–45.
We need not, however, be surprised at failing to find in Homer any conception approaching to that of pure spirit, or any thing resembling that refined discernment, which has led Christian Art to represent the figure of our Lord alone as self-poised and self-supported in the air, while all other human forms, even when transfigured, have a ground beneath their feet, though it be but made of cloud. Even in some of the very highest among Christian writers, such as Dante and St. Bernard, the human being, after the soul has gone through dismissal from the flesh, still appears to be invested with a lighter form and species of body, apparently on the assumption that the two elements of matter and spirit are not only essentially, but inseparably wedded in our nature.
Examples of miracle in Homer.
Full as they are of preternatural signs and operations, the poems of Homer do not, nevertheless, deal much with miracle, with the specific purpose of which he had no concern.
By miracle I understand, speaking generally, not the mere use of the common natural powers, accumulated or enlarged, but an operation involving what, I suppose, would be called medically an organic departure from her customary laws: an operation too, which must absolutely be performed, upon man himself or some other object, after some manner which shall be appreciable in its results by his faculties, and calculated to satisfy them, when in their greatest vigilance, that it is a real experience, and not a mere delusion of the senses.
Thus understood, the miracles of Homer are, I think,scarcely more numerous than the following: for, under this definition, the ambrosia of Simois and the flowers of Ida are not miracles[704].
1. The crawling and lowing of the oxen of the Sun after their death, Od. xii. 395, 6.
2. The acceleration of the Sunset, Il. xviii. 239.
3. The retardation of the dawn, Od. xxiii. 241.
4. The speaking horse, Il. xix. 407.
3. Theεἴδωλονof Æneas, Il. v. 449.
6. The portents of the banquet night in Od. xx. 347–62. I feel some doubt, however, whether this is objective, or whether it is only an impression on the senses.
7. The transformation and re-transformation of Ulysses[705], Od. xiii. 398, 429, and xxiii. 156–63.
8. Perhaps, also, theεἴδωλονof Iphthime, Od. ix. 797.
9. The gouts of blood, shed down from the air by Jupiter, Il. xi. 53.
10. The transformation of the serpent into a stone in the sight of all the Greeks;ἡμεῖς δ’ ἑσταότες θαυμάζομεν οἷον ἐτύχθη, Il. ii. 320.
The first seems due to the divine power as a whole; the second and fourth to Juno; the third and seventh and eighth to Minerva; the fifth and sixth are the works of Apollo; the ninth and tenth of Jupiter. I do not add as an eleventh the conversion of the Phæacian ship into a rock, by Neptune, in the sight of the people; because this is rather of the class of marvels which appertained to other, even secondary gods, such as Vulcan, in their own particular domains, Od. xiii. 159–87.
The buoyant arms of Achilles (Il. xix. 386), and other works of Vulcan, might at first sight seem to belongto the list, but it is doubtful whether they are not poetical rather than mythological representations, and in any case they would appear as gifts strictly professional, exercised in the ordinary administration of his peculiar function.
Telemachus appears to recognise the existence of miraculous powers in the passage[706],
οὐ γάρ πως ἂν θνητὸς ἀνὴρ τάδε μηχανόῳτοᾧ αὐτοῦ γε νόῳ, ὅτε μὴ θεὸς αὐτὸς ἐπελθὼνῥηϊδίως ἐθέλων θήσει νεὸν ἠὲ γέροντα.
οὐ γάρ πως ἂν θνητὸς ἀνὴρ τάδε μηχανόῳτοᾧ αὐτοῦ γε νόῳ, ὅτε μὴ θεὸς αὐτὸς ἐπελθὼνῥηϊδίως ἐθέλων θήσει νεὸν ἠὲ γέροντα.
οὐ γάρ πως ἂν θνητὸς ἀνὴρ τάδε μηχανόῳτοᾧ αὐτοῦ γε νόῳ, ὅτε μὴ θεὸς αὐτὸς ἐπελθὼνῥηϊδίως ἐθέλων θήσει νεὸν ἠὲ γέροντα.
οὐ γάρ πως ἂν θνητὸς ἀνὴρ τάδε μηχανόῳτο
ᾧ αὐτοῦ γε νόῳ, ὅτε μὴ θεὸς αὐτὸς ἐπελθὼν
ῥηϊδίως ἐθέλων θήσει νεὸν ἠὲ γέροντα.
But this is spoken of the Godhead rather than of any particular deity, and cannot by Homeric analogy be applied except to those of the highest natures.
Their operation on the human mind.
It will however be observed, that several of these prodigies are not stated to have challenged human observation when performed: and unless they submit themselves to the test of the senses they are not properly miracles at all. Others of them entirely comply with the condition, as especially that of Il. ii. 320.
The retardation of sunset and sunrise, and the rain of blood, appear to pass wholly unobserved. Prodigies not setting out from a basis in nature, such as the tears of blood shed by Jupiter[707], are wholly beyond the scope of these observations.
On the whole, we find stringent limitation prevailing in this province, as regards the majority of the gods.
Indeed the forces of nature, which the mythological divinities in part represent, were sometimes too strong for them: for Homer tells us that Notus and Zephyr[708]sometimes shatter vessels at sea without or against the will of the gods:
θεῶν ἀέκητι ἀνάκτων.
θεῶν ἀέκητι ἀνάκτων.
θεῶν ἀέκητι ἀνάκτων.
θεῶν ἀέκητι ἀνάκτων.
Even man, and that without impiety, can occasionally think of resistance. When Menelaus, alone in the field, decides on retiring before Hector (who fightsἐκ θεόφιν), rather than contendπρὸς δαίμονα, he looks around for Ajax, and observes that, could he but see him, they two would fightκαὶ πρὸς δαίμονά περ, even with the deity opposed to them, in order to recover the body of Patroclus[709].
There is, however, I think, another reason, besides feebleness in his conception of the gods, which prevents the Greek Poet from representing them as omnipotent in regard to the operations of the human mind; and that is, his profound sense of the free agency of man. This principle with him, as it were, confronts the deity on every side; who respects its dignity, and never really invades its sphere, but pursues his work by means compatible with its essential character. The idea of the deity pervading the poems is mainly that of a cooperative power, who helps us when and as we help ourselves. It is expressed with an unrivalled simplicity when Telemachus, coming as a young man into the presence of Nestor, feels oppressed with a nervous shyness; and Minerva encourages him by telling him that he can of himself find something to say, and that the divinity will prompt more to him[710],
ἄλλα μὲν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ φρεσὶ σῇσι νοήσεις,ἄλλα δὲ καὶ δαίμων ὑποθήσεται.
ἄλλα μὲν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ φρεσὶ σῇσι νοήσεις,ἄλλα δὲ καὶ δαίμων ὑποθήσεται.
ἄλλα μὲν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ φρεσὶ σῇσι νοήσεις,ἄλλα δὲ καὶ δαίμων ὑποθήσεται.
ἄλλα μὲν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ φρεσὶ σῇσι νοήσεις,
ἄλλα δὲ καὶ δαίμων ὑποθήσεται.
Heavenly influence never overpowers or suppresses the will, but sometimes suggests thoughts to the mind, and sometimes diverts it, not perhaps from the thought of an object already perceived, but from the chance of perceiving it. Thus, when Euryclea, through surprise on beholding the scar, and so recognising Ulysses, oversets the foot-bath, Penelope, who is present, mightnaturally have observed the miscarriage; but Minerva interposes to abstract her attention from what was passing, lest she should recognise her husband prematurely:
ἡ δ’ οὔτ’ ἀθρῆσαι δύνατ’ ἀντίη, οὔτε νοῆσαι,τῇ γὰρ Ἀθηναίη νόον ἔτραπεν[711].
ἡ δ’ οὔτ’ ἀθρῆσαι δύνατ’ ἀντίη, οὔτε νοῆσαι,τῇ γὰρ Ἀθηναίη νόον ἔτραπεν[711].
ἡ δ’ οὔτ’ ἀθρῆσαι δύνατ’ ἀντίη, οὔτε νοῆσαι,τῇ γὰρ Ἀθηναίη νόον ἔτραπεν[711].
ἡ δ’ οὔτ’ ἀθρῆσαι δύνατ’ ἀντίη, οὔτε νοῆσαι,
τῇ γὰρ Ἀθηναίη νόον ἔτραπεν[711].
With the exception of Juno, who in some sense reflects the majesty of Jupiter, and becomes entitled as a wife to handle his prerogatives, it may be stated generally respecting the deities of invention properly so called, that, except within the limits of their particular domain or office, they scarcely at all modify the laws of nature, never set in motion or direct her greater forces, nor act in an extraordinary manner on the mind or body of man. Each in his own province can stimulate a particular animal propensity, or improve a particular gift of mind or body: and that is all.
While therefore the strength of the Olympian deities lies in knowledge and in power, we find upon the whole that even in these particularly they are subject to manifold limitation. They could translate mortals out of this world in which the rule of Death prevails, as we see in the cases of Ganymede, and of Tithonus; but it does not appear that, if we except the traditive ideas represented in Minerva and Apollo, they could either raise men from the grave, prevent their dying in the course of nature, heal their wounds or diseases, or set their broken limbs. When even Latona and Diana heal Æneas[712], they do it apparently with greater speed indeed, but in other respects much as it would have been done by Podaleirius or Machaon.