Chapter 9

Legend of Marpessa.The reasons which lead me to suppose that the legend of Marpessa is not of a sensual character are these. The words used are[198];ὅτε μιν ἑκάεργος ἀνήρπασε Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων.Now none of the numerous intrigues of the mythical deities with women include violence: they always appear, so far as the language used gives them a specific character, to have been voluntarily accepted connections[199]. It was not likely that the case of Apollo should have been the exception. Again, they are always mentioned as having led to the birth of children: but there is no such mention in this case, and Apollo has no human progeny. Lastly, the word used does not meanravished, butseized and carried up. It nearly corresponds with the expression in the case of Ganymede[200],τὸν καὶ ἀνηρείψαντο θεοὶ Διὶ οἰνοχοεύειν,and it may have been either a case of translation, or one in which the maid was conceived to have been taken for the service of the deity, perhaps at the neighbouring shrine of Delphi.After the part which the lay of Demodocus assigns to him, the most, perhaps the only, discreditable transaction assigned to Apollo in the poems is the manner in which he disarms and partially disables Patroclus.Nothing can be more wretched than his operations on this occasion. The god comes up to the hero enveloped in cloud; strikes him from behind on the back; and knocks off his armour. I can conceive but one explanation for this singular passage, which appears alike unsatisfactory from a poetical and from a mythological point of view. That explanation I think is to be sought in intense nationality. The main purpose of the poem required the sacrifice of a principal Greek hero: but no genuine Greek hero could be killed by fair means, therefore it was necessary to dispose of him by such as were foul. It is perhaps also worth remark that the audacity of Patroclus in pushing on to the city may perhaps have rendered him punishable (Il. xvi. 698–711).It is remarkable, however, that the character of each of the two great traditive deities had begun to give way to corruption, and each in the point at which, according to the respective sex, its yielding might have been anticipated. As unchastity is more readily pardoned, according to social usage, in the man, so is deceit in the woman. And in this point the standard had already fallen for Minerva.Of this we have one most clear indication, in her being commissioned to undertake the charge of inciting Pandarus to a very black act of treachery, the breach of the Pact. So far from being unwilling in this matter, she was even eager[201];ὣς εἰπὼν ὤτρυνε πάρος μεμαυῖαν Ἀθήνην.Besides judgment and industrial skill, she gaveκέρδεαto Penelope[202]: and she describes herself[203]as excelling among the gods in craft as well as counsel;μήτι τε κλέομαι καὶ κέρδεσιν.With the exception of this initial tendency to degenerate on the side of craft, we may say with truth that the highest moral tone, both of speech and action, is reserved for Minerva in particular throughout the poems, whether in the Olympian Court, or in her intercourse with men. Alike in the Iliad and the Odyssey, her counsel, which prevails, undoubtedly also deserves to prevail. She is in both the champion of the righteous cause. And when she states for the second time the case of Ulysses before the assembled gods, it is not now as before his liberality in sacrifice that she pleads, but, as a last resort, she makes bold to urge the bad moral effect which will result, if they discourage virtue by permitting the ruin of this excellent man[204].Their place in Providential Government.2. It is in conformity with the expectations, which the superior morality of Apollo and Minerva tends to raise, that we find them occupying a position such as is accorded to no other deity in the Providential government both of the human mind and will, and likewise of the course of events external to it.The origin of this position may, as I conceive, be found in the traditions which they inherit, and according to which they would naturally be exhibited as the administrators of the government of the world, on behalf, if I may so speak, of the Godhead.But there were, among the inborn tendencies of polytheism, two at least which powerfully tended to give to these divinities a position not only associated with that of Jupiter, but on the one hand more palpable and practical, and on the other of higher moral elevation. These were the tendencies which, among the incidents of his supremacy, on the one hand,blessed him with personal repose, and, on the other, endowed him with unbounded appetite. The first, by making Apollo and Minerva, as his organs, the practical governors of the world, tended to increase their importance at the expense of his, and the second gave them a moral title as it were to gain ground upon him. In the time of Homer this process was considerably advanced; so that while they seem to share with Jupiter the office of general direction, which they hold subject to his control, it falls to one of them, to Minerva especially, to conduct the highest of all the divine processes in the administration of moral discipline, and in the exercise of influence over the human soul.In the war before Troy, what is done by Juno or by Neptune is commonly done in the way of unauthorized, or even of forbidden, interference. In this, Minerva shares: for she has a less perfect conformity of will with that of Jupiter than Apollo, though she has a more profound moral resemblance of character to the ideal, from which the Homeric Jupiter was a depravation. Of the action before Troy, however, as a whole, thus much remains true: that, when the will of Jupiter is to be wrought out in favour of the Greeks, it is done entirely by Minerva, and when in favour of the Trojans it is done entirely by Apollo. Each therefore appears as the proper minister of Jupiter, when willing, for conducting the government of mankind. One of them is always willing: and though the other is not equally acquiescent, still it is the view of the case taken by her, in common with other gods more weighty than numerous, to which Jupiter ultimately gives way. Thus we may discern, graven as it were upon the relation between themselves and Jupiter, themark which shows that it was originally derived from the office of Him, ‘by whom God made the worlds[205].’ Scarcely ever do we find Homer deviate from the general rule which exhibits them as the ordinary Providence of the world for governing the detail of life. There is, I think, but one part of the Iliad which exhibits to us any considerable assumption of this function by Jupiter himself. It is during the latter part of the day which was to be closed by a sunset fatal to Hector, that, besides sending forth Apollo with the blinding Ægis, he himself descends to such acts of minute interference as breaking the bowstring of Teucer[206].It is frequently ascribed to them.Regarded from without, these two deities appear to us as frequently receiving from men the ascriptions of Divine Providence.The idea of Divine Providence is frequently expressed by Homer under the namesθεὸς, θεοὶ, ἀθάνατοι, δαίμων. It is also often conveyed by the name Jupiter alone, or by such an expression as ‘Jupiter and the other immortal gods,’ in which he appears at their head. In one place of the Odyssey, though only one, the day being the festival of Apollo, this very extraordinary distinction is assigned to him: and theτιςof the Suitors thus places him at the head of the Olympian company[207];εἴ κεν Ἀπόλλωνἡμῖν ἱλήκῃσι καὶ ἀθάνατοι θεοὶ ἄλλοι.Sometimes mortal men look to one of these deities for success in their enterprises, even without naming Jupiter: sometimes that name is conjoined with one of theirs. Apollo himself, appearing to Hector in the form of Asius his uncle, exhorts that chieftain toattack Patroclus, ‘in the hope that Apollo may give him success[208].’ Presently, Patroclus, dying, attributes Hector’s victory to Jupiter and Apollo, his own death to Apollo andΜοῖρα[209]; Apollo, says Xanthus the immortal horse, slew Patroclus, and gave glory to Hector[210]. This cannot well apply to the direct agency of the god in the matter, as he only disarmed the Greek hero. Again, when Patroclus is slain, Minerva takes no part in the proceedings. When Hector is about to be vanquished Apollo retires, and Minerva straightway appears upon the field[211]. In the Doloneia, Ulysses and Diomed succeed, because Jupiter and Minerva befriend them[212]. Minerva rejoices, when she finds her name invoked first of all the gods[213]: and she instructs Laertes to call upon Jupiter with herself, assuming for her own name the first place;εὐξάμενος κούρῃ Γλαυκώπιδι καὶ Διὶ πατρί[214].Agamemnon feels that he is certain to take Troy, if only Jupiter and Minerva will it[215]. Ulysses expects to slay the Suitors ‘by the favour of Jupiter and Minerva[216].’ But in fact, the whole scheme of divine retribution, of which that hero is the organ, was planned by Minerva and not by Jupiter, as is twice declared to us from his own lips[217]. I must not, however, omit to notice one passage of peculiar grandeur, in which Jupiter and Minerva are combined, as joint arbiters of great events. In the Sixteenth Odyssey, Telemachus exhorts his father, amid their gloomy and doubtful prospects, to bethinkhim of obtaining some ally. He nobly replies as follows: ‘I will tell you, and do you answer me and say, whether Athene with Zeus her father will not suffice for us, or whether I shall study to find some other defender.’ The rejoinder of Telemachus is in the same exalted strain. ‘Yes, these are good, though they be afar off, sitting on high; for they prevail over all others, whether they be men, or whether they be immortal gods[218].’Especially in the highest sense to Minerva.It should be observed, that they are not the lower and more external forms of providential action which devolve on Minerva, with a reservation of the higher parts to Jupiter. On the contrary, in what we may call external and wholesale Providence, Jupiter is supreme; and in the conflict between Ulysses and the Ithacan rebels, as well as in various passages of the Iliad relating to external action, Jupiter interposes to check her eager spirit. In the last Odyssey she asks his designs. He recommends a pacification. She thereupon exhorts and assists old Laertes to begin the battle. At length a thunderbolt descends from Jupiter, and it falls at Minerva’s feet. She then interposes to make peace[219].Thus it is in battle and matters of the strong hand: but the higher and deeper forms of providential action appear to be unheeded by Jupiter, and to fall to the lot of these two deities, more particularly of Minerva.In the Odyssey, one of the Suitors, Amphinomus, better minded than the rest, anticipates evil at an early juncture, and is disposed to take the advice given him by Ulysses, that he should quit the palace, and return home. But he did not even now, says thePoet, escape doom: for Minerva fettered him, that he should fall beneath the hand of Telemachus[220]. And further, she works inwardly on the minds of the Suitors, ‘not suffering them,’ such is the remarkable phrase, ‘to abstain from their biting insolence:’ so that pain might yet more deeply pierce the soul of Ulysses[221]:μνηστῆρας δ’ οὐ πάμπαν ἀγήνορας εἴα Ἀθήνηλώβης ἴσχεσθαι θυμαλγέος, ὄφρ’ ἔτι μᾶλλονδύη ἄχος κραδίην Λαερτιάδην Ὀδυσῆα.This passage is subsequently repeated; and it stands as one of those remarkable Homeric formulæ, which are used with such extraordinary grandeur of effect in the later books of the Odyssey; returning upon the ear like the solemn tolling of a funeral bell.But the sentiments which the passage contains are in themselves most remarkable, and perhaps only find a parallel in the awful language of Holy Writ; ‘and the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, that he should not let the people go[222].’ They describe at once the doctrine of Providence, and the essential laws of human nature, in their loftiest and severest form. They show us the hardening power of a long continued course of offences against the moral law, which at length converts the most unbounded license into the most absolute slavery, under the iron yoke of habitual depravity; and they likewise exhibit the figure of Deity superintending this terrible, but natural as well as judicial retribution, which is the ultimate and effective sanction of the whole moral code, alike in the earlier and in the later stages of the Divine dispensations. Besides all this, the passage exhibits to us pain administered to the just man, in order to prove his resolution, and steel him, that hemay be the fitting minister of divine vengeance. Nor does this process of probation cease here: for the conflict with the Suitors is a prolonged one; and it is prolonged, because Minerva was still making trial of the constancy of Ulysses and his son[223], as of metal in the fire.It is hard to find even approximations to such a picture in the later heathen literature, particularly after Æschylus: and in Homer no function of this kind is ever attributed to an ordinary deity; nor even to Jupiter, whose place in the government of mankind, if estimated morally, is lower than that of Minerva. I shall have occasion shortly to glance further at this subject.The higher powers attaching to the character of the great Deliverer of man, besides being more or less obscured in each case, are by the disintegration, with which we may now have become familiar, divided between Apollo and Minerva; so that while in some, and indeed in most, points of view, it is a common character which distinguishes and severs them from the deities of mere invention, in others we must combine the gifts of one with those of the other, in order to get at the entire outline of the ancient tradition.Thus we have seen, that Minerva exercises higher functions in Providential government, and in the administration of the general laws of our nature, than are wielded even by the Homeric Jupiter. We have also partially considered why it is, that she thus attains a superiority which, undoubtedly, no pristine tradition could while unaltered accord to her. At present I proceed to observe, that we may find a counterpart to this paramount prerogative of Minerva in the gift of fore andafter knowledge, possessed most peculiarly and largely by Apollo.Calchas, Seer of the Greek army, knew what was, what had been, and what was to be, by the gift which Phœbus Apollo had conferred on him[224]. It is the business of this order, who are ministers of Apollo, to interpret all signs and presages to men in virtue of the prerogative of that deity. In the Fifteenth Book, indeed, Apollo inquires of Hector the cause of his evil plight: but he has not yet put off hisincognito, as we see from the reply of Hector;τίς δὲ σύ ἐσσι, φέριστε θεῶν[225];And, while Jupiter has the single and remote oak of Dodona for the delivery of oracles to men, Apollo has already his Pythian temple in the very heart of Greece, and hard by the great highway across the Corinthian gulf, and has likewise a shrine at Delos for that purpose; for we must presume that, when Ulysses[226]stopped to visit Delos on his way home, it was in order to obtain information as to his fate. Thus Apollo appears to stand first of the gods in regard to knowledge of events, as Minerva does with respect to the ordinary government of mankind. Nor does Homer scruple to call this favourite divinity the first of the gods; an expression, however, which he employs with latitude, and which must not be too rigidly construed[227]:θεῶν ὤριστος, ὃν ἠΰκομος τέκε Λητώ.I have already observed that the abstract wordsθεὸςandθεοὶ, which are generally used by Homer to convey the idea of Providence, are when so used commonly referable in the main to Jupiter, so far as we can connect them at all with any of the Olympian personages. Sometimes, however, they are determined by the sense of the passage to signify Minerva or Apollo; but I think they never, when they relate to Providential action, mean any other divinity.It is by no means from any merely national, or even personal predilection, but it is mainly from the lofty standing ground of a Providence, that Minerva follows Ulysses: it is in the same general character that Apollo is made a party in the final crisis of the Odyssey through the introduction of his festival, and of the Bow.In the Olympian assemblage, it is Minerva who really represents the element of mind and its inborn supremacy over all other forces. She proceeds upon principles, when Juno acts upon partial attachments; and her superiority is so great, as to be wholly inexplicable under the hypothesis which would represent the characters and attributes of all alike as the mere products of invention.Intimacy of Minerva’s personal relations.The offices of both these deities, but especially of Minerva, in relation to the guidance of human conduct, are much higher than those of any other deity in their kind. Not only do they both act in the largest and most free manner on the human mind by inward influence, but, if there is any trace in the Homeric system of what may be called spiritual religion, of the tender and intimate relations which have from the first subsisted between the children of faith and their Father in Heaven, it is in Minerva that we must seek for it. It is indeed but a faint resemblance that we shall find; the very application of the word may be disputable. Yet it is something, which appears to show that it was at any rate not of heathen origin: that it is a flower, sickly,because transplanted from a better to a less kindly soil; a shadow, or a wreck of something greater and better, and not a scheme built up from beneath. The mode in which Minerva cares for Ulysses deserves at least thus much of honour. It is a contact so close and intimate, a care so sleepless and so tender, embracing alike the course of events without, and the state of mind within; so affectionate in relation to the person, yet so entirely without the least partiality or caprice; so personal, yet so far from what Holy Scripture calls, with the highest perfection of phrase, respect of persons; so deeply founded on general laws of truth and justice, even if some deviations can be detected, by a jealous eye, in the choice of subsidiary means; that, as it is without any thing like a parallel in the ruder and meaner relations of men with the deities of invention, so it makes its own audible and legitimate claim to a higher origin. The principle at least of inward and sustained intercourse between the Deity and the soul of man is perceptibly represented to us by the literature of Greece in a case like this, and, with the very partial and qualified exception of theδαίμωνof Socrates, in such a case only.Minerva, again, can affect the mind with a friendly bewilderment; as when she paralyses for a moment the understanding of the nurse Euryclea, that she may not give an answer, which would be inconvenient, to the question of Penelope[228]. To her Ulysses looks for the right rearing of his son: and she assures him he need have no anxiety[229]. Even as respects the human person, no powers so large are any where ascribed by Homer to any other deity as those which she exercises, especially in the transformation and re-transformation of Ulysses.Form of their relation to their attributes.3. Another very remarkable distinction, or rather cluster of distinctions, attaching to these deities, relates to the manner in which they bear their attributes. Speaking generally, the deities of pure invention are the mere impersonations of a passion, or of an elemental or bodily power, or of a mental gift. They are, in the order of ideas, posterior and ministerial to their own attributes: the mere vehicles for carrying them into movement and action, so that in truth the persons are the embellishments and the attributes of qualities, and not the qualities attributes of persons. To state it at the very highest, the inventive divinity is the steward of his own gifts.Now the traditive god is their proprietor and master. In the case of the two great traditive deities, Apollo and Minerva, the relation between function and person exactly reverses that which has been described. Here the attribute is something attached to, something in the possession and under the command of, the person; as much so, as the unerring bow of Apollo, or the invincible spear of Minerva. It is not Apollo, but it is the bow of Apollo, which stands in the relation to his office as minister of death, that Vulcan himself bears to the element of fire and to the metallic art, or Mars to the passions and the strong hand of war. If we except the single case of the choice garment of Juno[230], Minerva neither spins nor hammers. Mars always appears fighting, but Apollo does not always appear prophesying or playing the lyre, a function which he seems to perform only in the company of the gods.The difference is strongly marked in Homer, by the fact that the invented divinities of the second order are identified in common language with their offices. Aresis a synonym for a spear: fire isφλὸξ Ἡφαίστοιο, or even simplyἭφαιστος[231]: the nameἨέλιοςis absolutely identified with a great natural object: corn isΔημήτερος ἀκτή. But no analogous phrase is applicable to Apollo or to Minerva in Homer. As, with the lapse of time, the will and fancy of man did its work more fully upon the idea of deity, the names of other divinities fell within the circle; and the remembrance of tradition having become fainter and fainter, in the time of Horace the word Minerva could be used for wit (Hor. Sat. II. ii. 3);Rusticus, abnormis sapiens, crassâque Minervâ.But, as is often the case, in this change, external as it is, and apparently slight, we have an outward sign of the profound alterative process, which in Homer’s time had largely begun, and which continued until the incrustation and absorption of religious truth became entire.Their capacity to attract new ones.4. In conformity with the last-named indication is another, which I have next to notice. The traditive god is capable of receiving new functions; apparently because he is not the servant of the old ones: but the deity who is a mere personal expression for a certain idea, can, as a general rule, have no duty or prerogative beyond its bounds, more than can a counter beyond the thing which it has been chosen to signify. Hence Vulcan, Venus, Mars, Ceres, Bacchus, even Mercury, the god of gain, continue, after as well as in Homer, to be devoted to and identified with their several functions. Only in the case of Mercury, as traffic involves motion from place to place, and the acts of both honest and dishonest persuasion, he is in Homer, and he afterwards continues to be more generally, a messenger and conductor, a negotiator and a rhetorician, as well as a thief. But even Juno, elevated as she is in station, yet, having been called into Olympus as a vehicle for conveying the idea of maternity, continues to be charged with that office, and is not specifically invested with any other. Such attributions as are implied in the Venus Victrix, or other like dedications, are indeed at variance with these propositions; but they belong to a later and greatly altered state of the old mythology, when it had reached to an immeasurable distance from its source, and had lost the traces even of its own early features. But in the cases of Apollo and Minerva, we perceive that the traditive deity was not thus ‘cabined, cribbed, confined.’We find the Apollo of Homer the deity of the following particular functions:1. The lyre and poetry, Il. i. 603.2. Divination, Il. i. 72.3. Healing, Il. xvi. 517.4. The bow, Il. i. 49. ii. 827.5. Death, either gentle and painless, or not referable to any known cause, such as ordinary disease or wounds.Besides all this, he may be called, with Pallas, the god of Help in general; and, even within the range of single attributes, he shews an immense diversity. He was the god at once of the severe and simple music of the Dorians[232], and of the rabid ecstasy of the Pythoness.It is hardly possible that he could have begun his career in the Greek mythology with such an assemblage of functions, not only not united by any obvious tie, but some of them in apparent contradiction with oneanother. Probably the constitutive ideas of the tradition he represented were fitted out by a gradual process with this outward apparatus of prerogatives; each of which, when taken singly, was in harmony with them. Nor was the operation completed even in the time of Homer, as we see from the curious case of the Sun.We may, I apprehend, view that case in either of two aspects. We may consider what was historically the progress of the traditions concerning the Sun from their source to their maturity, when they were incorporated into the comprehensive deity of Apollo: or we may examine the moral affinities, which determined the direction and conclusion of their career.Historically, I presume that the Homeric tradition of the Sun represents a separate and recent importation from a foreign country, which had not as yet been fitted into a place of its own in the Greek mythology. It therefore wanders as it were unappropriated, and hangs in temporary suspense.The Apollo had already undergone a formative process, and the ornaments of fancy had been embroidered upon the tissue of an ancient tradition. After Homer’s time, the function of animating and governing the Sun was added to the multifarious offices of that deity. As respects himself, this is a proof that his receptiveness was not yet exhausted; that he was independent and disengaged. As respects theἨέλιος, this result shows that there was some sympathy or moral gravitation, which led to the absorption of this Homeric divinity in Apollo.The oscillating condition of that conception in the Homeric poems, and the indeterminate state of its affinities, will be considered in the next Section.Wide range of their functions.In Homer the deities of invention are, without anexception, limited either to a single function (and this in the great majority of cases), or to functions which are connected, as in the case of Mercury, with one common and central idea, itself such as may belong to a mythological formation. But there is no such idea on which, as on a string, we can possibly hang all the various attributes of Homer’s Apollo: and the case becomes stronger when we find that it is this very god, already (if he be mythological only) quite overstocked, who shows a yet further capacity to absorb into his own person new powers of divinity, which in Homer’s time as yet stood apart from him.As respects mere multiplicity and diversity of function, the case of Minerva is somewhat less marked than that of Apollo: for it may be practicable to associate together all her offices as they are described in Homer, around one grand combination of Power with Wisdom, as their central point. But even then, when we consider that she supremely administers political society, personal conduct, war, and skilled industry, in fact that the whole intelligence of the world, individual and collective, appears to be under her paramount guidance, besides all the power she exercises over inanimate and animate nature, and even in the innermost sphere of personal action, we perceive that, apart from the elevation and glory of her position, the range of her gifts goes to an extent which, simply as such, could never have been assigned by mere human invention to any deity but the supreme one. The idea of the goddess of Wisdom, conceived as largely as it must be in order to cover all Minerva’s Homeric attributes, leaves no room for the other conceptions necessary to fit out a mythology.For what a range do these attributes include!Minerva is in heaven armed with such power that to none of the gods, except Jove only, and to him scarcely, does she succumb. She is supreme in war, supreme in policy, supreme in art; supreme in prudence and the practical business of life; supreme in manual skill; supreme in or over all contests of force: while at the same time the lower and executory parts of each of these functions, where she drops them, are taken up, as we have seen, by deities far inferior to her, though still of the first or Olympian order. Even physical strength, if combined with skill, is under her supreme management: for it is through her aid that Tydeus wins in the games at Thebes[233], as well as Mecisteus on another occasion, and that Nestor conquers Ereuthalion[234].When Jupiter admonishes Venus to abandon attempts at war, he adds[235],ταῦτα δ’ Ἄρηϊ θοῷ καὶ Ἀθήνῃ πάντα μελήσει.There can be no doubt which of these two war-divinities was superior and which subordinate; the exploit of Diomed alone would avail to settle the question: but more direct evidence is to be found in the singular passage which describes Minerva as invested with the charge of chastising Mars, and in the mode after which, in the Fifteenth and Twenty-first Books, she herself recognises and fulfils the obligation of her office. (Il. v. 766. xv. 123–42).Again, her name is connected with that of Vulcan as to his own special and sole art of working in metals.Twice in the Odyssey the silversmith is introduced in a simile, and he is called a man educated by these two[236];ἴδρις, ὃν Ἥφαιστος δέδαεν καὶ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνητέχνην παντοίην.Only in the arts of tissue and embroidery she seems to have no coadjutor. This probably is on account of their purely feminine character. But generally all the principles and foundations of art are hers. Thus she even teaches mensuration to the carpenter[237]:ὅς ῥά τε πάσηςεὖ εἰδῇ σοφίης, ὑποθημοσύνῃσιν Ἀθήνης.As some of her distinctive epithets, likeἐρυσίπτολις, φθισίμβροτοςrefer especially to war, so she has others which look either mainly or exclusively to the supreme care of political order. Such areἀλαλκομένηις, λαόσσοος, andἀγελείη(collector or leader of a people). It is the executory duty that is intrusted to Themis. She is the messenger, who summons the deities, and she both collects and dissolves human assemblies[238]: thus discharging a subordinate function, where Pallas is the presiding goddess. It is probably for this reason that, notwithstanding the strong political spirit of Homer, we find Themis act so secondary a part in Olympus.The central Wisdom of Minerva.Thus Wisdom is the centre, and every thing that flows forth from it is hers, whether in peace or war.Over and above all these offices, which seem to have a connection with her ordinary attributes, she appears to share in the most recondite and peculiar functions of other deities. She enters into Apollo’s knowledge of the future; for in the Ithacan cave she foretells to Ulysses all that he has yet to suffer. Her power even descends, as we have seen, into the nether world.It seems as if this power in the Shades were the portion falling to her out of the supremacy over death, assigned by tradition to the Messiah. And she has also, if not the jurisdiction over death lodged peculiarly in her hands, a faculty yet more wonderful ascribed to her, that of staying its approach; for Euryclea bids Penelope in her distress pray to Minerva, who can deliver Telemachus from death; that is, can raise him up again:ἡ γάρ κέν μιν ἔπειτα καὶ ἐκ θανάτοιο σαώσαι[239].In truth it seems to be the distinctive character of Minerva in the Homeric theo-mythology, that though she is not the sole deity, yet the very flower of the whole office and work of deity is every where reserved for her: and though she is not directly invested with the external form and body of every gift, yet she has the heart, essence and virtue of them all; insomuch that, practically, no limit can be placed upon her powers and functions. The whole conception is therefore fundamentally at variance with the measured and finite organization of an invented system of religion, and by its own incongruities with that system it proves itself to be an exotic element.By another path, we arrive at the very same conclusion for Apollo. He too has much of that inwardness and universality of function, which belongs to Minerva, as well as a diversity of offices peculiarly his own. But the argument here admits of being presented in a different form. All his peculiar gifts in Homer are referable to one of three characters, those of Prophet, Deliverer, and Avenger, or Judge. In the first, gifted with all knowledge, he is also the God of Song, which was its vehicle. In the second, he is the hearer ofprayer, the healer of wounds, the champion of Heaven itself against rebellion. In the third, he punishes the guilty, and especially administers the one grand penal law of death. All this he does as the organ of one, with whom in will he is perfectly united. The tangled thread runs out without knot or break, when we unravel it by primitive Messianic tradition; because it was fundamental in that tradition, that the person who was the subject of it, should exhibit this many sided union of character and function. But could Deliverance and Destruction, there combined, any where else have been read otherwise than as contradictory to one another, and incapable of being united in the same being?The conflicting Characters of Apollo.I know no other principle, on which we can satisfactorily explain either the double character of Apollo as Saviour and as Destroyer, or the apparently miscellaneous character of the attributes which successively attached to him[240]. How strange in itself, that the God, who alone has a peculiar office in bringing death, should also be the God of deliverance from it! The contradiction is harmonized by the supposition of a traditionary origin, but otherwise it obstinately remains a contradiction. Again, look at the nature of this peculiar relation. Death by slow disease was not thought worthy to be referred to the agency of a god, (Od. xi. 200.): the calm death of old age, the sharp and agonizing death of a plague, both these were so, and both are referred to Apollo. How can this be, and what has become of the fineimaginative discrimination of the Greeks, and of their love for logical consistency even in that domain, if we suppose that in all this they were working by pure fancy? Now the difficulty vanishes, if we suppose them to be the mere utterers of the disjointed fragments of pristine tradition, when they had lost the key to their common meaning. For then, He that was to grind his enemies to powder, was likewise to take the sting from death itself, and to make the king of terrors gentle and humane. Again, why was Apollo, thus associated with death, likewise the god of foreknowledge? Why did he, and he only, partake of this privilege with Jupiter? Nay, he enjoyed knowledge apparently in a greater degree; for we are not furnished with any case in which Apollo is grossly deluded like Jupiter by Juno. Why, again, should the god of foreknowledge be the god of medicine? And why should the god of medicine also absorb into himself the divinity of the sun, separate from him in Homer, but afterwards identified with him? Why does his character, as compared with that of the other gods, approach to purity? As the dignity of Minerva is explained by our supposing her to impersonate the ancient traditions of the Wisdom; so in the case of Apollo, we obtain a thread upon which each and all of these otherwise incongruous notions may be hung, if we suppose that he, after a certain severance of those shades of character, which could only find expression for a Greek in the female order, represented the legendary anticipations of a person to come, in whom should be combined all the great offices, in which God the Son is now made known to man as the Light of our paths, the Physician of our diseases, the Judge of our misdeeds, and the Conqueror and disarmer, but not yet abolisher, of death?

Legend of Marpessa.

The reasons which lead me to suppose that the legend of Marpessa is not of a sensual character are these. The words used are[198];

ὅτε μιν ἑκάεργος ἀνήρπασε Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων.

Now none of the numerous intrigues of the mythical deities with women include violence: they always appear, so far as the language used gives them a specific character, to have been voluntarily accepted connections[199]. It was not likely that the case of Apollo should have been the exception. Again, they are always mentioned as having led to the birth of children: but there is no such mention in this case, and Apollo has no human progeny. Lastly, the word used does not meanravished, butseized and carried up. It nearly corresponds with the expression in the case of Ganymede[200],

τὸν καὶ ἀνηρείψαντο θεοὶ Διὶ οἰνοχοεύειν,

and it may have been either a case of translation, or one in which the maid was conceived to have been taken for the service of the deity, perhaps at the neighbouring shrine of Delphi.

After the part which the lay of Demodocus assigns to him, the most, perhaps the only, discreditable transaction assigned to Apollo in the poems is the manner in which he disarms and partially disables Patroclus.Nothing can be more wretched than his operations on this occasion. The god comes up to the hero enveloped in cloud; strikes him from behind on the back; and knocks off his armour. I can conceive but one explanation for this singular passage, which appears alike unsatisfactory from a poetical and from a mythological point of view. That explanation I think is to be sought in intense nationality. The main purpose of the poem required the sacrifice of a principal Greek hero: but no genuine Greek hero could be killed by fair means, therefore it was necessary to dispose of him by such as were foul. It is perhaps also worth remark that the audacity of Patroclus in pushing on to the city may perhaps have rendered him punishable (Il. xvi. 698–711).

It is remarkable, however, that the character of each of the two great traditive deities had begun to give way to corruption, and each in the point at which, according to the respective sex, its yielding might have been anticipated. As unchastity is more readily pardoned, according to social usage, in the man, so is deceit in the woman. And in this point the standard had already fallen for Minerva.

Of this we have one most clear indication, in her being commissioned to undertake the charge of inciting Pandarus to a very black act of treachery, the breach of the Pact. So far from being unwilling in this matter, she was even eager[201];

ὣς εἰπὼν ὤτρυνε πάρος μεμαυῖαν Ἀθήνην.

Besides judgment and industrial skill, she gaveκέρδεαto Penelope[202]: and she describes herself[203]as excelling among the gods in craft as well as counsel;

μήτι τε κλέομαι καὶ κέρδεσιν.

With the exception of this initial tendency to degenerate on the side of craft, we may say with truth that the highest moral tone, both of speech and action, is reserved for Minerva in particular throughout the poems, whether in the Olympian Court, or in her intercourse with men. Alike in the Iliad and the Odyssey, her counsel, which prevails, undoubtedly also deserves to prevail. She is in both the champion of the righteous cause. And when she states for the second time the case of Ulysses before the assembled gods, it is not now as before his liberality in sacrifice that she pleads, but, as a last resort, she makes bold to urge the bad moral effect which will result, if they discourage virtue by permitting the ruin of this excellent man[204].

Their place in Providential Government.

2. It is in conformity with the expectations, which the superior morality of Apollo and Minerva tends to raise, that we find them occupying a position such as is accorded to no other deity in the Providential government both of the human mind and will, and likewise of the course of events external to it.

The origin of this position may, as I conceive, be found in the traditions which they inherit, and according to which they would naturally be exhibited as the administrators of the government of the world, on behalf, if I may so speak, of the Godhead.

But there were, among the inborn tendencies of polytheism, two at least which powerfully tended to give to these divinities a position not only associated with that of Jupiter, but on the one hand more palpable and practical, and on the other of higher moral elevation. These were the tendencies which, among the incidents of his supremacy, on the one hand,blessed him with personal repose, and, on the other, endowed him with unbounded appetite. The first, by making Apollo and Minerva, as his organs, the practical governors of the world, tended to increase their importance at the expense of his, and the second gave them a moral title as it were to gain ground upon him. In the time of Homer this process was considerably advanced; so that while they seem to share with Jupiter the office of general direction, which they hold subject to his control, it falls to one of them, to Minerva especially, to conduct the highest of all the divine processes in the administration of moral discipline, and in the exercise of influence over the human soul.

In the war before Troy, what is done by Juno or by Neptune is commonly done in the way of unauthorized, or even of forbidden, interference. In this, Minerva shares: for she has a less perfect conformity of will with that of Jupiter than Apollo, though she has a more profound moral resemblance of character to the ideal, from which the Homeric Jupiter was a depravation. Of the action before Troy, however, as a whole, thus much remains true: that, when the will of Jupiter is to be wrought out in favour of the Greeks, it is done entirely by Minerva, and when in favour of the Trojans it is done entirely by Apollo. Each therefore appears as the proper minister of Jupiter, when willing, for conducting the government of mankind. One of them is always willing: and though the other is not equally acquiescent, still it is the view of the case taken by her, in common with other gods more weighty than numerous, to which Jupiter ultimately gives way. Thus we may discern, graven as it were upon the relation between themselves and Jupiter, themark which shows that it was originally derived from the office of Him, ‘by whom God made the worlds[205].’ Scarcely ever do we find Homer deviate from the general rule which exhibits them as the ordinary Providence of the world for governing the detail of life. There is, I think, but one part of the Iliad which exhibits to us any considerable assumption of this function by Jupiter himself. It is during the latter part of the day which was to be closed by a sunset fatal to Hector, that, besides sending forth Apollo with the blinding Ægis, he himself descends to such acts of minute interference as breaking the bowstring of Teucer[206].

It is frequently ascribed to them.

Regarded from without, these two deities appear to us as frequently receiving from men the ascriptions of Divine Providence.

The idea of Divine Providence is frequently expressed by Homer under the namesθεὸς, θεοὶ, ἀθάνατοι, δαίμων. It is also often conveyed by the name Jupiter alone, or by such an expression as ‘Jupiter and the other immortal gods,’ in which he appears at their head. In one place of the Odyssey, though only one, the day being the festival of Apollo, this very extraordinary distinction is assigned to him: and theτιςof the Suitors thus places him at the head of the Olympian company[207];

εἴ κεν Ἀπόλλωνἡμῖν ἱλήκῃσι καὶ ἀθάνατοι θεοὶ ἄλλοι.

εἴ κεν Ἀπόλλων

ἡμῖν ἱλήκῃσι καὶ ἀθάνατοι θεοὶ ἄλλοι.

Sometimes mortal men look to one of these deities for success in their enterprises, even without naming Jupiter: sometimes that name is conjoined with one of theirs. Apollo himself, appearing to Hector in the form of Asius his uncle, exhorts that chieftain toattack Patroclus, ‘in the hope that Apollo may give him success[208].’ Presently, Patroclus, dying, attributes Hector’s victory to Jupiter and Apollo, his own death to Apollo andΜοῖρα[209]; Apollo, says Xanthus the immortal horse, slew Patroclus, and gave glory to Hector[210]. This cannot well apply to the direct agency of the god in the matter, as he only disarmed the Greek hero. Again, when Patroclus is slain, Minerva takes no part in the proceedings. When Hector is about to be vanquished Apollo retires, and Minerva straightway appears upon the field[211]. In the Doloneia, Ulysses and Diomed succeed, because Jupiter and Minerva befriend them[212]. Minerva rejoices, when she finds her name invoked first of all the gods[213]: and she instructs Laertes to call upon Jupiter with herself, assuming for her own name the first place;

εὐξάμενος κούρῃ Γλαυκώπιδι καὶ Διὶ πατρί[214].

Agamemnon feels that he is certain to take Troy, if only Jupiter and Minerva will it[215]. Ulysses expects to slay the Suitors ‘by the favour of Jupiter and Minerva[216].’ But in fact, the whole scheme of divine retribution, of which that hero is the organ, was planned by Minerva and not by Jupiter, as is twice declared to us from his own lips[217]. I must not, however, omit to notice one passage of peculiar grandeur, in which Jupiter and Minerva are combined, as joint arbiters of great events. In the Sixteenth Odyssey, Telemachus exhorts his father, amid their gloomy and doubtful prospects, to bethinkhim of obtaining some ally. He nobly replies as follows: ‘I will tell you, and do you answer me and say, whether Athene with Zeus her father will not suffice for us, or whether I shall study to find some other defender.’ The rejoinder of Telemachus is in the same exalted strain. ‘Yes, these are good, though they be afar off, sitting on high; for they prevail over all others, whether they be men, or whether they be immortal gods[218].’

Especially in the highest sense to Minerva.

It should be observed, that they are not the lower and more external forms of providential action which devolve on Minerva, with a reservation of the higher parts to Jupiter. On the contrary, in what we may call external and wholesale Providence, Jupiter is supreme; and in the conflict between Ulysses and the Ithacan rebels, as well as in various passages of the Iliad relating to external action, Jupiter interposes to check her eager spirit. In the last Odyssey she asks his designs. He recommends a pacification. She thereupon exhorts and assists old Laertes to begin the battle. At length a thunderbolt descends from Jupiter, and it falls at Minerva’s feet. She then interposes to make peace[219].

Thus it is in battle and matters of the strong hand: but the higher and deeper forms of providential action appear to be unheeded by Jupiter, and to fall to the lot of these two deities, more particularly of Minerva.

In the Odyssey, one of the Suitors, Amphinomus, better minded than the rest, anticipates evil at an early juncture, and is disposed to take the advice given him by Ulysses, that he should quit the palace, and return home. But he did not even now, says thePoet, escape doom: for Minerva fettered him, that he should fall beneath the hand of Telemachus[220]. And further, she works inwardly on the minds of the Suitors, ‘not suffering them,’ such is the remarkable phrase, ‘to abstain from their biting insolence:’ so that pain might yet more deeply pierce the soul of Ulysses[221]:

μνηστῆρας δ’ οὐ πάμπαν ἀγήνορας εἴα Ἀθήνηλώβης ἴσχεσθαι θυμαλγέος, ὄφρ’ ἔτι μᾶλλονδύη ἄχος κραδίην Λαερτιάδην Ὀδυσῆα.

μνηστῆρας δ’ οὐ πάμπαν ἀγήνορας εἴα Ἀθήνη

λώβης ἴσχεσθαι θυμαλγέος, ὄφρ’ ἔτι μᾶλλον

δύη ἄχος κραδίην Λαερτιάδην Ὀδυσῆα.

This passage is subsequently repeated; and it stands as one of those remarkable Homeric formulæ, which are used with such extraordinary grandeur of effect in the later books of the Odyssey; returning upon the ear like the solemn tolling of a funeral bell.

But the sentiments which the passage contains are in themselves most remarkable, and perhaps only find a parallel in the awful language of Holy Writ; ‘and the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, that he should not let the people go[222].’ They describe at once the doctrine of Providence, and the essential laws of human nature, in their loftiest and severest form. They show us the hardening power of a long continued course of offences against the moral law, which at length converts the most unbounded license into the most absolute slavery, under the iron yoke of habitual depravity; and they likewise exhibit the figure of Deity superintending this terrible, but natural as well as judicial retribution, which is the ultimate and effective sanction of the whole moral code, alike in the earlier and in the later stages of the Divine dispensations. Besides all this, the passage exhibits to us pain administered to the just man, in order to prove his resolution, and steel him, that hemay be the fitting minister of divine vengeance. Nor does this process of probation cease here: for the conflict with the Suitors is a prolonged one; and it is prolonged, because Minerva was still making trial of the constancy of Ulysses and his son[223], as of metal in the fire.

It is hard to find even approximations to such a picture in the later heathen literature, particularly after Æschylus: and in Homer no function of this kind is ever attributed to an ordinary deity; nor even to Jupiter, whose place in the government of mankind, if estimated morally, is lower than that of Minerva. I shall have occasion shortly to glance further at this subject.

The higher powers attaching to the character of the great Deliverer of man, besides being more or less obscured in each case, are by the disintegration, with which we may now have become familiar, divided between Apollo and Minerva; so that while in some, and indeed in most, points of view, it is a common character which distinguishes and severs them from the deities of mere invention, in others we must combine the gifts of one with those of the other, in order to get at the entire outline of the ancient tradition.

Thus we have seen, that Minerva exercises higher functions in Providential government, and in the administration of the general laws of our nature, than are wielded even by the Homeric Jupiter. We have also partially considered why it is, that she thus attains a superiority which, undoubtedly, no pristine tradition could while unaltered accord to her. At present I proceed to observe, that we may find a counterpart to this paramount prerogative of Minerva in the gift of fore andafter knowledge, possessed most peculiarly and largely by Apollo.

Calchas, Seer of the Greek army, knew what was, what had been, and what was to be, by the gift which Phœbus Apollo had conferred on him[224]. It is the business of this order, who are ministers of Apollo, to interpret all signs and presages to men in virtue of the prerogative of that deity. In the Fifteenth Book, indeed, Apollo inquires of Hector the cause of his evil plight: but he has not yet put off hisincognito, as we see from the reply of Hector;

τίς δὲ σύ ἐσσι, φέριστε θεῶν[225];

And, while Jupiter has the single and remote oak of Dodona for the delivery of oracles to men, Apollo has already his Pythian temple in the very heart of Greece, and hard by the great highway across the Corinthian gulf, and has likewise a shrine at Delos for that purpose; for we must presume that, when Ulysses[226]stopped to visit Delos on his way home, it was in order to obtain information as to his fate. Thus Apollo appears to stand first of the gods in regard to knowledge of events, as Minerva does with respect to the ordinary government of mankind. Nor does Homer scruple to call this favourite divinity the first of the gods; an expression, however, which he employs with latitude, and which must not be too rigidly construed[227]:

θεῶν ὤριστος, ὃν ἠΰκομος τέκε Λητώ.

I have already observed that the abstract wordsθεὸςandθεοὶ, which are generally used by Homer to convey the idea of Providence, are when so used commonly referable in the main to Jupiter, so far as we can connect them at all with any of the Olympian personages. Sometimes, however, they are determined by the sense of the passage to signify Minerva or Apollo; but I think they never, when they relate to Providential action, mean any other divinity.

It is by no means from any merely national, or even personal predilection, but it is mainly from the lofty standing ground of a Providence, that Minerva follows Ulysses: it is in the same general character that Apollo is made a party in the final crisis of the Odyssey through the introduction of his festival, and of the Bow.

In the Olympian assemblage, it is Minerva who really represents the element of mind and its inborn supremacy over all other forces. She proceeds upon principles, when Juno acts upon partial attachments; and her superiority is so great, as to be wholly inexplicable under the hypothesis which would represent the characters and attributes of all alike as the mere products of invention.

Intimacy of Minerva’s personal relations.

The offices of both these deities, but especially of Minerva, in relation to the guidance of human conduct, are much higher than those of any other deity in their kind. Not only do they both act in the largest and most free manner on the human mind by inward influence, but, if there is any trace in the Homeric system of what may be called spiritual religion, of the tender and intimate relations which have from the first subsisted between the children of faith and their Father in Heaven, it is in Minerva that we must seek for it. It is indeed but a faint resemblance that we shall find; the very application of the word may be disputable. Yet it is something, which appears to show that it was at any rate not of heathen origin: that it is a flower, sickly,because transplanted from a better to a less kindly soil; a shadow, or a wreck of something greater and better, and not a scheme built up from beneath. The mode in which Minerva cares for Ulysses deserves at least thus much of honour. It is a contact so close and intimate, a care so sleepless and so tender, embracing alike the course of events without, and the state of mind within; so affectionate in relation to the person, yet so entirely without the least partiality or caprice; so personal, yet so far from what Holy Scripture calls, with the highest perfection of phrase, respect of persons; so deeply founded on general laws of truth and justice, even if some deviations can be detected, by a jealous eye, in the choice of subsidiary means; that, as it is without any thing like a parallel in the ruder and meaner relations of men with the deities of invention, so it makes its own audible and legitimate claim to a higher origin. The principle at least of inward and sustained intercourse between the Deity and the soul of man is perceptibly represented to us by the literature of Greece in a case like this, and, with the very partial and qualified exception of theδαίμωνof Socrates, in such a case only.

Minerva, again, can affect the mind with a friendly bewilderment; as when she paralyses for a moment the understanding of the nurse Euryclea, that she may not give an answer, which would be inconvenient, to the question of Penelope[228]. To her Ulysses looks for the right rearing of his son: and she assures him he need have no anxiety[229]. Even as respects the human person, no powers so large are any where ascribed by Homer to any other deity as those which she exercises, especially in the transformation and re-transformation of Ulysses.

Form of their relation to their attributes.

3. Another very remarkable distinction, or rather cluster of distinctions, attaching to these deities, relates to the manner in which they bear their attributes. Speaking generally, the deities of pure invention are the mere impersonations of a passion, or of an elemental or bodily power, or of a mental gift. They are, in the order of ideas, posterior and ministerial to their own attributes: the mere vehicles for carrying them into movement and action, so that in truth the persons are the embellishments and the attributes of qualities, and not the qualities attributes of persons. To state it at the very highest, the inventive divinity is the steward of his own gifts.

Now the traditive god is their proprietor and master. In the case of the two great traditive deities, Apollo and Minerva, the relation between function and person exactly reverses that which has been described. Here the attribute is something attached to, something in the possession and under the command of, the person; as much so, as the unerring bow of Apollo, or the invincible spear of Minerva. It is not Apollo, but it is the bow of Apollo, which stands in the relation to his office as minister of death, that Vulcan himself bears to the element of fire and to the metallic art, or Mars to the passions and the strong hand of war. If we except the single case of the choice garment of Juno[230], Minerva neither spins nor hammers. Mars always appears fighting, but Apollo does not always appear prophesying or playing the lyre, a function which he seems to perform only in the company of the gods.

The difference is strongly marked in Homer, by the fact that the invented divinities of the second order are identified in common language with their offices. Aresis a synonym for a spear: fire isφλὸξ Ἡφαίστοιο, or even simplyἭφαιστος[231]: the nameἨέλιοςis absolutely identified with a great natural object: corn isΔημήτερος ἀκτή. But no analogous phrase is applicable to Apollo or to Minerva in Homer. As, with the lapse of time, the will and fancy of man did its work more fully upon the idea of deity, the names of other divinities fell within the circle; and the remembrance of tradition having become fainter and fainter, in the time of Horace the word Minerva could be used for wit (Hor. Sat. II. ii. 3);

Rusticus, abnormis sapiens, crassâque Minervâ.

But, as is often the case, in this change, external as it is, and apparently slight, we have an outward sign of the profound alterative process, which in Homer’s time had largely begun, and which continued until the incrustation and absorption of religious truth became entire.

Their capacity to attract new ones.

4. In conformity with the last-named indication is another, which I have next to notice. The traditive god is capable of receiving new functions; apparently because he is not the servant of the old ones: but the deity who is a mere personal expression for a certain idea, can, as a general rule, have no duty or prerogative beyond its bounds, more than can a counter beyond the thing which it has been chosen to signify. Hence Vulcan, Venus, Mars, Ceres, Bacchus, even Mercury, the god of gain, continue, after as well as in Homer, to be devoted to and identified with their several functions. Only in the case of Mercury, as traffic involves motion from place to place, and the acts of both honest and dishonest persuasion, he is in Homer, and he afterwards continues to be more generally, a messenger and conductor, a negotiator and a rhetorician, as well as a thief. But even Juno, elevated as she is in station, yet, having been called into Olympus as a vehicle for conveying the idea of maternity, continues to be charged with that office, and is not specifically invested with any other. Such attributions as are implied in the Venus Victrix, or other like dedications, are indeed at variance with these propositions; but they belong to a later and greatly altered state of the old mythology, when it had reached to an immeasurable distance from its source, and had lost the traces even of its own early features. But in the cases of Apollo and Minerva, we perceive that the traditive deity was not thus ‘cabined, cribbed, confined.’

We find the Apollo of Homer the deity of the following particular functions:

1. The lyre and poetry, Il. i. 603.

2. Divination, Il. i. 72.

3. Healing, Il. xvi. 517.

4. The bow, Il. i. 49. ii. 827.

5. Death, either gentle and painless, or not referable to any known cause, such as ordinary disease or wounds.

Besides all this, he may be called, with Pallas, the god of Help in general; and, even within the range of single attributes, he shews an immense diversity. He was the god at once of the severe and simple music of the Dorians[232], and of the rabid ecstasy of the Pythoness.

It is hardly possible that he could have begun his career in the Greek mythology with such an assemblage of functions, not only not united by any obvious tie, but some of them in apparent contradiction with oneanother. Probably the constitutive ideas of the tradition he represented were fitted out by a gradual process with this outward apparatus of prerogatives; each of which, when taken singly, was in harmony with them. Nor was the operation completed even in the time of Homer, as we see from the curious case of the Sun.

We may, I apprehend, view that case in either of two aspects. We may consider what was historically the progress of the traditions concerning the Sun from their source to their maturity, when they were incorporated into the comprehensive deity of Apollo: or we may examine the moral affinities, which determined the direction and conclusion of their career.

Historically, I presume that the Homeric tradition of the Sun represents a separate and recent importation from a foreign country, which had not as yet been fitted into a place of its own in the Greek mythology. It therefore wanders as it were unappropriated, and hangs in temporary suspense.

The Apollo had already undergone a formative process, and the ornaments of fancy had been embroidered upon the tissue of an ancient tradition. After Homer’s time, the function of animating and governing the Sun was added to the multifarious offices of that deity. As respects himself, this is a proof that his receptiveness was not yet exhausted; that he was independent and disengaged. As respects theἨέλιος, this result shows that there was some sympathy or moral gravitation, which led to the absorption of this Homeric divinity in Apollo.

The oscillating condition of that conception in the Homeric poems, and the indeterminate state of its affinities, will be considered in the next Section.

Wide range of their functions.

In Homer the deities of invention are, without anexception, limited either to a single function (and this in the great majority of cases), or to functions which are connected, as in the case of Mercury, with one common and central idea, itself such as may belong to a mythological formation. But there is no such idea on which, as on a string, we can possibly hang all the various attributes of Homer’s Apollo: and the case becomes stronger when we find that it is this very god, already (if he be mythological only) quite overstocked, who shows a yet further capacity to absorb into his own person new powers of divinity, which in Homer’s time as yet stood apart from him.

As respects mere multiplicity and diversity of function, the case of Minerva is somewhat less marked than that of Apollo: for it may be practicable to associate together all her offices as they are described in Homer, around one grand combination of Power with Wisdom, as their central point. But even then, when we consider that she supremely administers political society, personal conduct, war, and skilled industry, in fact that the whole intelligence of the world, individual and collective, appears to be under her paramount guidance, besides all the power she exercises over inanimate and animate nature, and even in the innermost sphere of personal action, we perceive that, apart from the elevation and glory of her position, the range of her gifts goes to an extent which, simply as such, could never have been assigned by mere human invention to any deity but the supreme one. The idea of the goddess of Wisdom, conceived as largely as it must be in order to cover all Minerva’s Homeric attributes, leaves no room for the other conceptions necessary to fit out a mythology.

For what a range do these attributes include!

Minerva is in heaven armed with such power that to none of the gods, except Jove only, and to him scarcely, does she succumb. She is supreme in war, supreme in policy, supreme in art; supreme in prudence and the practical business of life; supreme in manual skill; supreme in or over all contests of force: while at the same time the lower and executory parts of each of these functions, where she drops them, are taken up, as we have seen, by deities far inferior to her, though still of the first or Olympian order. Even physical strength, if combined with skill, is under her supreme management: for it is through her aid that Tydeus wins in the games at Thebes[233], as well as Mecisteus on another occasion, and that Nestor conquers Ereuthalion[234].

When Jupiter admonishes Venus to abandon attempts at war, he adds[235],

ταῦτα δ’ Ἄρηϊ θοῷ καὶ Ἀθήνῃ πάντα μελήσει.

There can be no doubt which of these two war-divinities was superior and which subordinate; the exploit of Diomed alone would avail to settle the question: but more direct evidence is to be found in the singular passage which describes Minerva as invested with the charge of chastising Mars, and in the mode after which, in the Fifteenth and Twenty-first Books, she herself recognises and fulfils the obligation of her office. (Il. v. 766. xv. 123–42).

Again, her name is connected with that of Vulcan as to his own special and sole art of working in metals.Twice in the Odyssey the silversmith is introduced in a simile, and he is called a man educated by these two[236];

ἴδρις, ὃν Ἥφαιστος δέδαεν καὶ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνητέχνην παντοίην.

ἴδρις, ὃν Ἥφαιστος δέδαεν καὶ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη

τέχνην παντοίην.

Only in the arts of tissue and embroidery she seems to have no coadjutor. This probably is on account of their purely feminine character. But generally all the principles and foundations of art are hers. Thus she even teaches mensuration to the carpenter[237]:

ὅς ῥά τε πάσηςεὖ εἰδῇ σοφίης, ὑποθημοσύνῃσιν Ἀθήνης.

ὅς ῥά τε πάσης

εὖ εἰδῇ σοφίης, ὑποθημοσύνῃσιν Ἀθήνης.

As some of her distinctive epithets, likeἐρυσίπτολις, φθισίμβροτοςrefer especially to war, so she has others which look either mainly or exclusively to the supreme care of political order. Such areἀλαλκομένηις, λαόσσοος, andἀγελείη(collector or leader of a people). It is the executory duty that is intrusted to Themis. She is the messenger, who summons the deities, and she both collects and dissolves human assemblies[238]: thus discharging a subordinate function, where Pallas is the presiding goddess. It is probably for this reason that, notwithstanding the strong political spirit of Homer, we find Themis act so secondary a part in Olympus.

The central Wisdom of Minerva.

Thus Wisdom is the centre, and every thing that flows forth from it is hers, whether in peace or war.

Over and above all these offices, which seem to have a connection with her ordinary attributes, she appears to share in the most recondite and peculiar functions of other deities. She enters into Apollo’s knowledge of the future; for in the Ithacan cave she foretells to Ulysses all that he has yet to suffer. Her power even descends, as we have seen, into the nether world.It seems as if this power in the Shades were the portion falling to her out of the supremacy over death, assigned by tradition to the Messiah. And she has also, if not the jurisdiction over death lodged peculiarly in her hands, a faculty yet more wonderful ascribed to her, that of staying its approach; for Euryclea bids Penelope in her distress pray to Minerva, who can deliver Telemachus from death; that is, can raise him up again:

ἡ γάρ κέν μιν ἔπειτα καὶ ἐκ θανάτοιο σαώσαι[239].

In truth it seems to be the distinctive character of Minerva in the Homeric theo-mythology, that though she is not the sole deity, yet the very flower of the whole office and work of deity is every where reserved for her: and though she is not directly invested with the external form and body of every gift, yet she has the heart, essence and virtue of them all; insomuch that, practically, no limit can be placed upon her powers and functions. The whole conception is therefore fundamentally at variance with the measured and finite organization of an invented system of religion, and by its own incongruities with that system it proves itself to be an exotic element.

By another path, we arrive at the very same conclusion for Apollo. He too has much of that inwardness and universality of function, which belongs to Minerva, as well as a diversity of offices peculiarly his own. But the argument here admits of being presented in a different form. All his peculiar gifts in Homer are referable to one of three characters, those of Prophet, Deliverer, and Avenger, or Judge. In the first, gifted with all knowledge, he is also the God of Song, which was its vehicle. In the second, he is the hearer ofprayer, the healer of wounds, the champion of Heaven itself against rebellion. In the third, he punishes the guilty, and especially administers the one grand penal law of death. All this he does as the organ of one, with whom in will he is perfectly united. The tangled thread runs out without knot or break, when we unravel it by primitive Messianic tradition; because it was fundamental in that tradition, that the person who was the subject of it, should exhibit this many sided union of character and function. But could Deliverance and Destruction, there combined, any where else have been read otherwise than as contradictory to one another, and incapable of being united in the same being?

The conflicting Characters of Apollo.

I know no other principle, on which we can satisfactorily explain either the double character of Apollo as Saviour and as Destroyer, or the apparently miscellaneous character of the attributes which successively attached to him[240]. How strange in itself, that the God, who alone has a peculiar office in bringing death, should also be the God of deliverance from it! The contradiction is harmonized by the supposition of a traditionary origin, but otherwise it obstinately remains a contradiction. Again, look at the nature of this peculiar relation. Death by slow disease was not thought worthy to be referred to the agency of a god, (Od. xi. 200.): the calm death of old age, the sharp and agonizing death of a plague, both these were so, and both are referred to Apollo. How can this be, and what has become of the fineimaginative discrimination of the Greeks, and of their love for logical consistency even in that domain, if we suppose that in all this they were working by pure fancy? Now the difficulty vanishes, if we suppose them to be the mere utterers of the disjointed fragments of pristine tradition, when they had lost the key to their common meaning. For then, He that was to grind his enemies to powder, was likewise to take the sting from death itself, and to make the king of terrors gentle and humane. Again, why was Apollo, thus associated with death, likewise the god of foreknowledge? Why did he, and he only, partake of this privilege with Jupiter? Nay, he enjoyed knowledge apparently in a greater degree; for we are not furnished with any case in which Apollo is grossly deluded like Jupiter by Juno. Why, again, should the god of foreknowledge be the god of medicine? And why should the god of medicine also absorb into himself the divinity of the sun, separate from him in Homer, but afterwards identified with him? Why does his character, as compared with that of the other gods, approach to purity? As the dignity of Minerva is explained by our supposing her to impersonate the ancient traditions of the Wisdom; so in the case of Apollo, we obtain a thread upon which each and all of these otherwise incongruous notions may be hung, if we suppose that he, after a certain severance of those shades of character, which could only find expression for a Greek in the female order, represented the legendary anticipations of a person to come, in whom should be combined all the great offices, in which God the Son is now made known to man as the Light of our paths, the Physician of our diseases, the Judge of our misdeeds, and the Conqueror and disarmer, but not yet abolisher, of death?

Back to Index Next