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THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

GIFT OF

Hugo de BussiSres

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2007 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

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IMMORTALITY AND THE NEW THEODICY. By

George A. Gordon, D. D. i6mo, ^i.oo. 1897. HUMAN IMMORTALITY: Two supposed Objections

to the Doctrine. By Professor William James.

i6mo, $1.00. 1898. DIONYSOS AND IMMORTALITY: The Greek Faith

in Immortality as affected by the rise of Individualism.

By President Benjamin Ide Wheeler. i6mo, $1.00.

1899.

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. Boston and New York.

DIONYSOS AND IMMORTALITY

THE GREEK FAITH IN IMMORTALITY AS AFFECTED BY THE RISE OF INDIVIDUALISM *

BY

BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER

PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AND INGERSOLL LECTURER FOR 1898-99

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

1899

COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

REP. GEN. UB. 17.9^0^1

access.no. '-'*-' GIFT

cfe Fu-ss'e^v*;

THE INGERSOLL LECTURESHIP

Mxtraci from the will of Miss Caroline Haskell Ingersoll^

•who died in Keene^ County of Cheshire^ New

Hampshire, Jan. 2b, iSqs.

First. In carrying out the wishes of my late beloved father, George Goldthwait Ingersoll, as declared by him in his last will and testament, I give and bequeath to Harvard University in Cam- bridge, Mass., where my late father was graduated, and which he always held in love and honor, the sum of Five thousand dollars ($5,000) as a fund for the establishment of a Lectureship on a plan some- what similar to that of the Dudleian lecture, that is — one lecture to be delivered each year, on any con- venient day between the last day of May and the first day of December, on this subject, *Uhe Im- mortality of Man," said lecture not to form a part of the usual college course, nor to be delivered by any Professor or Tutor as part of his usual routine of instruction, though any such Professor or Tutor may be appointed to such service. The choice of said lecturer is not to be limited to any one religious denomination, nor to any one profession, but may be that of either clergyman or layman, the appoint- ment to take place at least six months before the delivery of said lecture. The above sum to be safely invested and three fourths of the annual in- terest thereof to be paid to the lecturer for his services and the remaining fourth to be expended in the pubHshment and gratuitous distribution of the lecture, a copy of which is always to be fur- nished by the lecturer for such purpose. The same lecture to be named and known as " the Ingersoll lecture on the Immortality of Man."

^^885847

DIONYSOS AND IMMORTALITY

■SJO people has ever possessed a reli- ^ gion more delicately responsive to its moods than the people of ancient Greece. This they owed in large measure to the absence of an ecclesiastical organiza- tion. The Greek instinctively abhorred all mechanism, for mechanism, as guaranteeing like and constant output to like time and like material, ignored free personality, — and this free personality was to the Greek the one recognized source of all creative movement. Least of all did he need the ecclesiastical machine. There was no priestly hierarchy either for Greece as a whole or for single cantons; not even among priests of the same cult in different cantons was there organized cooperation. Some popular shrine or oracle might win more than local prestige and secure the

4 Dionysos and Immortality

protection and support of various neighbor- ing states, but there the drift toward central- ization and organization found its limit.

At no time did there exist an organized authority which could formulate standards of faith or dictate the usages of religious etiquette. Ritual, seeking that which in matter and manner was believed to be well pleasing to the gods, followed the traditions of the individual shrines, and there were no better theologians than the poets. Dogmas there were none. In cbntrast with^JJj^ religious experience of a^lapd lil^p^ Tnrlip, Greece stands at the extreme. There re- ligionjvas imposed as j^jystfim f rmp with- out, here it sprang as a social and civic impulse from within.

This fundamental characteristic endows the study of Greek religious thought at once with singular charm and with singular difficulty. We know on the one hand that if we can penetrate through the thick-tangled meshes of mythology and ritual to the un- spoken faiths lying behind, we shall find

The Greek Religion 5

them hard by the life conditions and the views of life which were their source. On the other hand, as no authority essayed to formulate what Greeks should believe, so no contemporary was moved to state in con- nected form, nor presumably even to think, what they did believe.

Research has spent itself in following the shifting forms of the mythology through glade, and fen, and grotto, until they prove themselves most mere will-o'-the-wisps, — light-winged fancies, whether of poets who write, or of poets who dream and write not. Sometimes they are mirror flashes from the ritual thrown upon the valley mist, some- times they are dim ghosts of a storied past, sometimes they are shadowy images of na- ture and her signs, but seldom are they trusty guides into the land of reality. Other guides we must follow if we would come to a knowledge of the plain faith by which men stayed their lives, measured their duty, esti- mated the meaning of life's beginning and life's end.

6 Dionysos and Immortality

I propose in what follows to speak of one phase of this plain, inner faith amoag_the Greeks, the belief in the life after death, and, lest 1 wander toofar afield, to speak in particular of the marvelous quickening and development which that belief under- went during one most significant epoch in the national life. It is in its readjustment to changed conditions of life and new views of the world that a people*s faith best be- trays whither its face is really set. tDiaL which conditions it then becomes the/bgckJ ground against jwhiich we measure it. I In ^ undertaking this task we do not shut pury%yes to the fact that in Old Greece there were, as now, many men and many minds,/ — that there was diversity in the beliefs of different tribes and districts, that there were strongly marked strata of intelli- gence or culture, that survivals from earlier horizons of belief, be it through the forms of ritual or through the revered texts of the national epic, continually intruded them- selves to confuse the bearings in the new,

Primitive Dualism ^

but still there is a law in things human that that which holds itself below the attacks of systematic reason tends toward homogeneity and unity, — and Greece in the period with which we deal had not yet fallen ill of phi- losophy.

As part of the common stock of primitive human thought the Greek inherited the nat- ural consciousness for being as absolute, as unbounded by non-being. To forget is the one gate of annulment. The common hu- man belief in the shadowy second-self, re-

xr/^alp/ij i> may -yvpll V>P^ in fVi^ f^vpAn'^nr^^c

of sleep and dreams, swr^^^pc ar»ri ^r>cfac;^<^ was alao his belief, and to him man was body and soul.

vVTYCii a man dies, the soul issues forth from the SSdy tO ^6ek Olhei' 1 esidence. And ■ not mar>\c|Jife alone is thus dual ; all life, of beast, of tree, of the river current, oL^the fountain, of the wind and the .<;i;r>rm-d^"<^, ^'s made up of bndy anH snni — For the primitive Greek as for the primitive man^ t^^r^ wag no other way in which to think of life.

8 Dionysos and Immortality

Even philosophy when it made its first at- tempts began in terms of this same simple dualism which dominated all thought, and the apxfi, water, air, or fire, which Thales, Anaximenes, and Herakleitos inquired after, was conceived in the analogy of the ^x^ ; it was the world-soul.

If we are to believe, as it seems likely we mustjj:hat the religion of primitive man ^ receivedL its character in the struggle to conciliate and be at peace with soul-life dwelling and wandering in his environment, then we can say that the primitive Greek religion, or, if we dare use the term, the Indo-European religion,^ had made so much advance upon this, that it had introduced certain classifications, a certain system and order, certain limitations into th^ ^^^^s of soul-dreads anr^ <^mi1-wnrships. It had de- veloped the family, the greater family or clan, and the tribe as definite organizations existing for the purpose, or held together by the usage, of caring for the souls of an- cestors, the family the nearer, the tribe the

Soul'WorsUp and Nature-Worship g

remoter. It had restricted the care for spirits resident in natural objects mostly to specific cults and shrines, and through gen- eralization upon naturaL- objects and pheno- mena had obtained certain types of the so- called, " nature-gods." Nature-gods as such, however, there were none.

Between soul-worship and nature-worship, at least from the point of view of Greek re- ligion, no sharp line of demarcation is to be drawn. The primitive belief in the residence of souls in natural objects colored all the later developments of the theogony, and the great gods, the " nature-gods," carried up with them from their origin the sem- blances of ancestor-gods, and as such always had the character of persons, members of the community, first citizens of tribe or state.

Thus Hermes, who always bears in his character suggestions of the phenomena of the wind, and develops attributes determined by the impression which these phenomena make upon the minds of men, is a fellow-

lo Dionysos and Immortality

citizen, an honorary member of the state- guild, an embodiment of the purpose and meaning of society and the state. Respect for him is a constituent part of loyalty ; im- piety toward him and his kind is treason, and treason has no other definition than impiety.

After the analogies of ancestor-worship kings traced their descent back to these gods, who were thus joined by the geneal- ogies to the fate and fabric of the state. The gods, too, were related among them- selves, and their organization into a bond of relationship gave color to the instinct of unity among the diverse tribes who owned them as kin. One of- them bore, indeed, from Indo-European times, the title of "father" (Zev Trdrep, Jupiter), and he re- mained in his character as father the per- sonal sponsor for Hellenic unity.

All tb^ ()b«^'"rv;iTir^'i of the rifinl tpnlr their form from the primitive usages of frnjijc nnd rntrrtniiiiii^ iiirih The feast

for <4»A.Hpqrlj Qt ^^Th^rh in fhp innpr fljfrlfi of

Festival and Sacrifice 1 1

the family the soul of the departed was es- teemed the guest of honor, dfflered in^ sub- stance no whit from the great sacrifices which the state offered its great gods. The funeral games for Patroklos were of the same significance as those offered for en- tertainment of Zeug I'n thP'p\^\n nf mympjp^ Throughout the whole life and practice of Greek religion the festivals retained the scantly disguised form of entertainments in honor of the gods as "first citizens" of the state, the tribe, or the association. The sacrifices were feasts at which the god and his entertainers dined together and partook of the same food, if not of the same life. The priests were the specialists in divine etiquette who knew what portions and what manners were pleasing to the personages who were the guests of honor. The games were an entertainment offered to the guests which were as certainly believed to be grati- fying to their sight as a review of troops or a deer-hunt to a modern European sovereign.

!2 Dionysos and Immortality

To return now to our characterization of primitive, i, ^., prae-Homeric Greek religion,^ we know that it maintained a system of offerings to the souls of the departed, and that

to which on occasions they were won^ to return. They were offerings of food, in ^mchjtheoffering of Jbk>odjpkyeij,.,pi:^ nent part, ai^d were intended to appfia,gft and conciliate the sn^^]^ ^ ^nd prevent the baneful intrusion of their wrath into the life of living men.

A belief in a place beneath the earth, a deep cavernous abode where all the souls were assembled, not for punishment or blessing, but simply for residence, was a part of the earliest faith, apparently derived from prae-Greek, probably Indo-European ^ faith. The Vedic idea of a residence for

is, as Oldenberg^ has made almost cer- tain, a 'inbstjtiitg for nn earliftr bHif^f in an

abndft beneath the ^arfh In the Indo-

\A.

Cultus of the Dead ij

Iranian beliefs which lie behind the sepa- rate Indian and Iranian religions the dead were^ as he seems to have demonstrated, conceived of as residing in the eartTiTand in conformity to this view the cult of the dead was originally celebrated. To induce the soul to retire into this common abode of the dead and there find contented rest

is apparently <->>p QnprPmP qitt^ ppH pnrpngfi

of the rites ofj-he grave among the early indoos as among the early Grgeks^ In marked contrast now with this early faith and practice, which we have thus far been considering, the religion represented in the Homeric poems discovers an almost complete atrophy of the cultus of the dead. Once " the life-energy had left the white bonesl^^'^ana tne^ funeral pyre with its \ i "stout force of gleaming fire o'ermas- V^*^--^.^,,^^ tered '' flesh and bones, then the psyche "flitting off like a dreani is flown" to the " asphodel moors'' beyond the river.

There it tarries in a shadowy existence without memory or will, and without in-

14 Dionysos and Immortality

terest jiLthe affairs of men, or power to intrudeitself_into them. The recurring observances at the tomb had ceased. The feeding of souls and all the rites of soul- worship^ad been discontinued, for, after the soul had once been led by Hermes the guidedown " the dank ways " and under "the niisty gloom/' it never retraced the path nor crossed the river again. Some strange wind of skepticism, some cold, clear tramontana of spiritual agnosticism, whose source and meaning we may never know, had purged of ghosts the air of Homer's world.^ Proper burial was the one condi- tion of purgation. So much at least lin- gered of the old.

As Achilles slept in the night after slay- ing Hector, the psyche of Patroklos, still free to wander about; while the body re- mained" unburied, still possessed of reason and will, came and stood above Achilles' head, " altogether like to his very self, in stature, fair eyes, and voice, and like in the raiment he wore ; " and spoke to him thus :

The Souls in Hades 75

" So thou dost sleep, Achilles, but me thou hast forgotten. Not when I lived wast thou remiss, but now that I am dead. Make haste and bury me, that I may pass the gates of Hades. The spirits keep me wide aloof, these phantoms of the weary dead, nor suffer me to join with them beyond the river, and vainly do I roam around the wide- doored house of Hades. Nay, give me, I

entreat of thee, thy hand, for nevermore

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^,,^,^1^^ iimif<iiiwii,iiiiiiii mill. Mil iiw

shairrcom^^ from, Hadfi&Vklldiii»toM yejia^g^^d me once ^^y ^"** ^j, fifHnimftBidi. nevermore among the living sh^\gg^g|t without the circle of our comrades and there take counsel with each other '^*^"'''*^ TEe psyches, like vain shadows, "strength- less heads of the dead,'* reft of t\iQ fkreneSf the organs of will and emotion,® flitted hither and thither without plan or purpose or hope. Thus at the close of Achilles' vision : " So spake he, and stretched out his hands but grasped him not, for vapor-like the spirit vanished into the ground with squeaking, gibbering cry. And in marvel sprung up

i6 Dionysos and Immortality

Achilles, and smiting his hands together uttered the word of woe, Ay me, verily then there is in the dwellings of Hades a spirit, a phantom, hxnt phrenes it hath not at all/*

And so after Odysseus has slain the suit- ors : " Cyllenian Hermes summoned to- gether the shades of the suitors; and he held in his hands the wand that is golden and fair, wherewith he closes to sleep the eyes of whomsoever he will, while others he wakens from sleep. Therewith he started them forth and led them along, while they followed on with squeaking, gibbering cry. And just as when bats fly chirping about in the depth of some mon- strous cave, and one has fallen from the cluster on the rock, and they cling fast one to the other, so they went on and chirped as they went, but Hermes the helper went on leading them down the dank ways, past the streams of Oceanus, past the White Rock, along by the gates of the Sun, past the parish of Dreams, till they come to the asphodel moor, where

Odysseus and the Psyches //

the spirits have their abode, the phantoms of way-worn men." ^^

The psyches are fuj;thermor(^> repre- sented as without memory or the power of recognition, and in the N^^j^-^^^ through drinking the sacrificial blood from Odysseus* trench that these are restored ta- them.^ " And I drew my sharp blade from my thigh and therewith dug a pit as much as a cubit this way and that. Around it I poured my libation for all the departed, first with the milk and the honey, then with sweet wine, and thirdly with water; and over it barley-meal white I strewed."

Then the shades flocked about the trench, but Odysseus kept them off with his sword, waiting to catch sight of the seer Teiresias, who was the prime object of his search. Among them he saw the psyche of his mother ; " and I wept at sight of her and pitied her in my heart, but even so, sore grieved as I was I suffered her not to draw nigh to the blood, till I first had in- quired of Teiresias."

i8 Dionysos and Immortality

Finally, after Odysseus had found the seer and talked with him, he asks him how he may bring his mother to recognize her son : " I see the spirit here of my departed mother; silent she sits beside the blood, but has not ventured to look into the face of her son nor speak with him. Pray tell me, master, how she may know it is I. So I spoke, and straightway he gave me his answer: *An easy saying will I tell thee and fix it in thy heart : whomsoever of those who are dead and gone thou lettest draw nigh to the blood, he will speak the word of truth ; whom thou dost begrudge it, he will go back to his place.' So saying, the spirit entered the house of Hades, the spirit of great Teiresias, who had told the decrees of the gods. But I kept my place on the spot, till my mother came near and drank the dark blood. Straightway she knew me."

It is to Rohde and his famous book "Psyche''^ we owe it — a book which I cannot help thinking has in other regards

The Hades of Homer 19

set many simple things awry — that this service of blood has been recognized as a reminiscence or survival from a horizon of faith that has passed away. It lingered with other rites in the ceremonies of burial as mere form divorced from the earlier faith, which alone gave it meaning and which alone can give it now interpretation. It is a part of the old cult of souls, the feeding of the dead.

it was no cheerful place, this land of Hades where the shades abode. Slimy and wet were its paths, where the gloomy black poplar and willows grew, misty and murky was its air. The "asphodel moor " whither the souls were led by guide Hermes was not the green pastures. The pale, ghastly asphodel, blooming from its unsightly stem, haunts in the upper world, we know, the barren lands, and that was the part it played below. "Son of Laertes, seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many wiles, what seekest thou now, wretched man } Why hast thou left the light of the sun to come here and

20 Dionysos and Immortality

look on the dead and see this joyless place? "13

Onrg ^nd pT^ce only, in Homer there is an allusion to the Elysian Fields w1iefe"KKa- damanthys dwells, and where Menelaos, another kinsman of Zeus, will find a place of rest, " where is no snow, iand no wintry storrn, nor ever the torrent of rains, but ever the light-breathing zephyrs Oceanus sends from the west with cooling for men." But this, like the later refuge in the blessed islands, is only for here and. there one of the great ones of this earth, such as are really of the kin of gods, alro^lt^was' indeed, as such, a reminiscence of the old hero- worship, now for a time in abeyance, but to revive again in a reinvigorated Hellas.

For men after the flesh, the future life offers prospect neither of bliss nor of punish- ment. The passage, Odyssey XL 566-631, which tells of the punishments of Tityos, Tantalos, Sisyphos, has been unmistakably identified by Wilamowitz-Moellendorff ^^ as the product of a much later period, the

The Homeric Despair 21

times of Solon and Peisistratos, and infused with a spirit and with ideas for which Ho- meric life had no place.

For Homer's men, there was no hope for / a future life in wlncS action and personaliiy ti. were continued with values derived and , transplanted from the world of sunlight f and sense. Hades was a dreary land of ' banishment, where there was no trikl or joy, nothing to risk and nothing to achieve. All this belonged to the life under the '^' blessed sunlight, and when that closed, the mission of personality was at an end. The earlier faith had found its solace in the con- V ^ tinuation of personal life through the family """^**««fe and the tribe, as symbolized in the continued sacrifices for the dead. Homeric thought while living still under the shadow of the tribal idea had lost in lar2:e measure ils^^v cohsoTatioh, and could coritent itself only with recognition of the harsh inevitable. ^^

Homer stands at the end, not the be- ginning of an order of life, civilization, and thought. His voice is the swan's song

t/

22 Dionysos and Immortality

of an order that like all, both men and communities, which have lost, before or since, the power to trust and hope, was going down the ways of death. It told the tales of a mighty world whose record is left in the walls and art and treasure of Mykenai, Tiryns, Orchomenos, and told them in a guise of thought and speech peculiar to the old Ionian ^^ tribal aristo- cracy, itself doomed, in its materialism and its lifeless adherence, to the forms without the spirit of the old, to extinction and death. Between Homer and the new Hellenic life, that found its centre in the Athens of Pei- sistratos and Perikles, there is a deep gulf fixed, and across it come only the words of Homer and the thud of the rhapsode's foot. But it is this gulf which made Homer's words the message from another world, and transformed the lays to a sacred book. In the period between 750 and 600 b. c. Greece passed through a change that made it new from the foundations. It was the period of the. transition from mediaeval to

The National Awakening 23

classical GreecCj^^^^^^he phenomenally rapid colonialexpansion of the century from 750 to 650 B. c. marks the occasion, and to a large extent the cause. Within this cen- tury, prosperous mercantile colonies were formed along the coasts of the Euxine, the iEgean, the Mediterranean from Kolchis and the Crimea at the east to Cumae and Marseilles on the west. Through the con- trast with peoples of other race and tongue, the Greek people of many tribes and cities awoke to a consciousness of national unity, and the Greater Greece was born, named with the new name Hellas.

Trade with the colonies, and through the colonies with distant inland popula- tions, burst into sudden vigor. Everywhere the Phoenician trader yielded to the Greek. Industries rapidly developed to supply the demands of trade. The smith, the cutler, the potter, the weaver, the dyer, the wheel- wright, the shoemaker, and the shipbuilder, all were spurred to their utmost to supply the demands of the new export trade.

24 Dionysos and Immortality

The demand for labor brought in the slave, a new element. Thus far Greece had known only the serf. Wealth poured into the land, luxury increased, the demands of life became greater and more diversified. The coinage of money, just begun, rapidly extended. Barter and local exchanges gave way to the money standard. Prices were no longer fixed by local conditions, but the remotest villages became part of the eco- nomic world at large.

Men flocked from the farms and pastures into the cities. The new wealth came often into the hands of others than the old no- bility. Timocracy for a time displaced aristocracy. The new population of the mercantile and manufacturing centres, con- fused of merchants, tradesmen, manufactur- ers, and laborers, sundered from their old so- cial and political ties, could no longer respect the traditional usages and classifications of tribal aristocratic institutions, which in the undisturbed life of the home and the vil- lage had never been questioned.

New Legal and Political Conditions 25

The old law and the old methods of ad- ministering justice no longer suffice. The new conditions demand one law for all, nobleman and laborer, and a court main- tained by the state, and they demand that the caprice of the judge shall be limited by definite written statutes. Hence appear at this time all over Greece the great codifiers, Zaleukos the Locrian, Charondas of Ka- tana, Pheidon of Corinth, Pittakos of Mity- lene, Dracon, then Solon, in Athens.

In the political life,too, the old sacks would not do for the new wine. The old ruling class admits to its ranks here and there the holders of the new wealth and so com- promises with the new situation, but the tiers dtaty the demos, pushes for a hearing, and the assembly (or ekklesia) gradually asserts its claim to be the state. In the rapid shifting of conditions political and economic, it was the peasant and the coun- try squire who suffered most, but as is al- ways the case when economic and social dislodgments such as this occur in the his-

26 Dionysos and Immortality

tory of a people, discontent muttered on every hand. Discontent and joy are both the legitimate children of opportunity.

The breaking of the traditional moulds in which the old tribal life was set had re- leased the individual from bondage to the destiny of that group into which he was born, and given him the opportunity, and thrown upon him the responsibility of a man. He became the bearer of his own destiny. With the rise of individualism, culture, thought, literature, institutions, and life hastened in widely branching differen- tiation to assume the many-sided type that sets the Greece of the sixth and following centuries in such marked contrast- to the plain nai've monotony of its earlier days ; for Greece had then passed out of child- hood into the years of discretion and man- hood.

The rapid change of attitude which had thus passed over the Greek people in re- spect to the world of politics, of society, of justice, of economics, could not fail to seek

Individualism in Religion 27

its expression in terms of the greater world of ultimate destiny and purpose. The in- dividualism which had received in the marts equal opportunity, and had demanded of the courts equal justice, and was demanding of the state equal hearing, and which in life carried the burden of its own responsibility, could no longer be satisfied before the oracles of religion with a destiny that in arbitrary violence robbed personality of its fulfillment or merged its fate and its hope in the fate of the clan or the race.

The period with which we have been dealing marked the rise, and the following or sixth century the full development, of the Greek faith in personal irxunortality. From the seventh century on, new elements and new states, Corinth and iEgina, Megara and Sparta and Thebes, later Athens, came to the front in Greek affairs.

The, civilization localized in the eastern hem of Greek life, that which Homer repre- sents, and which bears the name of Ionian, burned itself out with luxury and material-

28 Dionysos and Immortality

ism in the exuberance of its precocious bloom. From the sturdy mountain peoples of central Hellas, who had thus far re- mained in the background, and in their iso- lation from the culture of the iEgean had preserved the old standards of simplicity and the old usages of religion, came a fresh infusion of Hellenic blood, new aggressive vigor, and above all a sturdier faith. It was preeminently the Dorian elements which lent to this second wave of the Greek tide its strength and mass. As it advanced into eastern Greece, it took on the color of the "Extern culture, but Jts Jife-strg^ was the primitive old Greek spirit.

Everywhere the old simplicity of the earlier Greek-jidigiQiLxaYiyed^a^^ the standard; indeed, with these peoples themselves it had never flagged norTai[eff. Soul-worship in all its various forms,joffer- ings for the dead^ th,e., household^odS|^ the go3s of clans, institutions like the pryta- neion table as a feast with the gods of the state, hero-worship, the worship of cave

The New Quest of Faith 29

spirits and mountain spirits, consultation of spirits and oracles, in all these and many other forms emerged, and emerged not from long sleep, butJ»om.4oiig-GonG€alment. While the old jgjyJ^mMr.sto^Qg a soil upon which a new vision and assurance of the mission and fate of the soul beyond the ^ave might arise, it could not in itself afford that vision or satisfy the newborn craving of men. It dealt only with the re- lations of the living to the dead^ not with those^i)iJll^ii3d^^ ESbi^- Men wanted som^..Mmk^&&^

.iWjrf**'**"*'*''

what they were themselves to be and do in

the other life, and not merely to c)e occ

pied with Q^^ of the

spirits toward this life. That they shoma"! (r^ •

live after death, this they knew ; no forme _..--- —

of Tjreek faith had ever implied or taught {^lUS^^

anytmngeTse ; no Greek of the folk had <^^

eveFtKoB^Sf ' anything else ; but Aow theyJU^.

were to live, that was what the individual in

hisTSngcfousness qf a personality possess-

ing worth, meaning, and responsibility, de- V

50 Dionysos and Immortality

sired to know. To this desire the Mys- teries of Eleusis gave answer first.

In the isolation of the Thriasian plain had been maintained at Eleusis, time out of mind, the peculiar^cult "Of the earth-goddess Demeter. Something had invested its strange rites with an unusual sanctity, but still its repute, like the membership in its guild, remained until near the end of the seventh century well-nigh restricted to the immediate locality. It was a local institu- tion, owned and controlled by a few great families of the parish.

After the union of Eleusis and Attika, however, and the reception of the cult under the protection and guarantee of the state, an entirely new and larger careei: was opened, especially when Peisistratos, as the tribune of the people, reformed and broadened the organization of the worship so as to open it to universal use and make it worthy of the state.

So it became, in contrast to the cults of phratry and clan, in which membership

Eleusis J/

was determined by birth, an eminently democratic and popular association. No one was excluded, whatever his city or tribe. Citizens and metics, men and women, slaves and children, all were admitted. It was as individuals that they came to be cleansed, and to gain the assurances of /'""tuture blessin^^wlSch the mysteries had to give, anT*so no wonder that it was the sixth century, the century of the awakened t-—- ~^^_ individualism, in which the mysteries ac- I

quired their unique popularity.

No one of the thousands initiated to the rites has ev^ betm^ de-

bated secret. ButJJiey.JDau&t..lKfe^^,an be ^erSin, have offered something which an- sweredlo Hfg^pgTof IKreHeir '^:^ is he," sjLy^^.,JP^j4ai^^^^^ having seen

these rites goeth under the earth. He knoweth the end of life, he knoweth too its

"TKrice hagpy they among mortals who depart into Hades after their eyes^ have seen these rites: yea, for them alone is

\/

32 Dionysos and Immortality

there a life ; for jother^^men^l^ is

ill;" and Plato in the Phaedo:!^ "The "founders of the mysteries would appear to have had a real meaning, and were not talk- ing nonsense, when they intimated in a figure long ago, that he who passes un- sanctified and unmitiated , into the. world below will lie in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiatiQn and pydfifica- tion wTfl dwell wit h^,th^,^^Qd^;^^^ in the Frogs Aristophanes lightens the gloom of the nether world with the song of the in- itiates, ^^ who now dance in veritable flow- ery fields, — the song ending with the words : " We alone have the sun and its gladsome light, we who have taken the sacred vow, and have lived a^^l^fe^^ in, J:he fear of god toward stranger and toward friend."

Th^*iS5i!SSSX..9? ^^^ antiquity to the in- spiring and uplifting influence of the., mys- teries is impre^iyjim^uaa;^333^9!jij5. No voice K raised in criticism. Wherein lay their influence and convincing power we can

■J

The Mysteries 5^

only surmise from the sum of allusion. It certainly was not conveyed through doc- trine or creed, argument or exhortation, but rather through some f qroi of^rj^JS^^ which the loss and t^i^^^§aJ!,p^^ ,m^!^£^

sephone wa|.jh|,^j:S»t^^ like the Christian drama of the mass,** ,« quickening the dormant fjaith,^^^^ t<>^-

the beholder some suggestion of a definite State and condition of future existence. No one seems to have questioned the validity * or authority of the assurance that the in- itiated, and they alone, should find peace. They who saw knew, and they who knew must needs attain. It was no question of authority. Thejr^belie^^ constrained by their yearning to ,bdie;v;ip. The "faith and^its ^ j^^^ mm,,wM^ themselves.

Among the reforms of the Eleusinian worship, which in th^skth centui^ virtu- ally made the cult anew, and gave it its universally human fonn, and which all tend to attach themselves to the sponsorship of

J4 Dionysos and Immortality

Peisistratos, there is one which is almost certainly his work, and which apparently more than any other thing served to give the Mysteries their distinctive character. This was the introductTon" BrtEe youth lakchos and his^ worsKp'Tnfon^^ family and bond of Demeter and Persephone. Most^quently the shifting myths repre- sent him as son of Zeus and Persephone, rescued from the slaughter of the Titans to

a new resurrection life. Sometimes he is a son of Demeter, sometimes of Dionysos, again he seems merely a^l^aSpwQ^^^^ SOS himself, but whatey^r iie was, certain it is that his character and spirit was entirely the product of the J^^i^iZSg^SSIgljia^ shapen into the mystic forms of the Orphic theoRJgyT^ He was unmistakably the child JJonysos permanently^jgparated and difFer- entiated^^QjUtJ3£-^l^ -whok-stoiy-of ^^i^^ and made a distinct type by himself. Deme- ter searching in the darkness for ^er child that-^wafi.-*last< — symbol of the seed-corn buried in the earth, offered a ready analogy

Dionysos-Iakcbos 35

to the fostering lov£^a^^^ which

the Maenad nurses tended thQ ba.be of Jifysi^e, — the springing vegetation of the new^^b^^ ginnii}^ y^ar. Though it has been ques- tioned -- 1 think on insufficient grounds — that the legend of Demeter and Persephone has its source in the alternate 4ist^i^®^i^P«ice , > L^ and reappearance of the grain, it cannot be doubted that it came to be interpreted in connection with that phenomenon and received much of its character from the analogy. In the cult of Dionysos-Iakchos, however, resided from the beginning a direct meaning for the ex^^^^ /

ual human life, and it was through this V type of lakchos that the mystery of Per-

sephone's xetura.^iKaa..giwn4t^fik^ application to the resurrection ho^e of hu- manity. The mysteries, in other words, were made what they^wgrg^^J^^^ ingraft- ing ^he^J3iQ|^^,s..^pirit.

j The rise of Dionysos worship is the most Lm important single phenomenon in the history of Greek religion. Unknown to the loni-

')

S6 Dionysos and Immortality

ans of Homer's day except as a local or a stranger's worship, and having no place within the Olympfen circle, it arose from its obscurity, and coming out from the mountains and from the villages of pea- sants, witF the fresh flbod'o^^ seventh century brought into eastern Greece, it swept into city and state as the Solvation Army of the tiers ^taty and in de- fiance of all the opposition of the staid con- servatives and of the j^^-fe^^ who, cling- ing to the old Ipqal and private worships, would hear nothing of Demeter or Diony- sos, it forced its way into public sud. official i^gggsM9B.^P^^^"^^%^ ^-Atta^a^ domi- nated the popular interest, infused a new life into the dead formalism of religion, quickened^^and _ enej^ed- ..tk^ lectual and ^,,$piritual life of Greece .to..the very^^fingep^tips. It was the religion of

J Its primitive form we know in outline from the practices observed among the Thracians, who like their brother Phrygi-

Genesis of Dionysos Worship ^7

ans were distinguished as its devotees, and through whom indirectly the worship may well have found introduction into Greece, but usages and a belief in general analo- gous, and resting upon the same general attitude toward nature, are found widely scattered among European peoples.

A primitive belief that regards the life and death of vegetation after the analogies of human life, attributes the withering winter ai>d the revival of spring t^^^^^ de- parture and return, or the slumbering and reawakening, of the psyches or spirits whose reunion with matter all life consists. The spirits ox(daimonts of the vegetation which has slumbered^thrqugh_the w ,

needs be wakened or recalled in sprine:.. In the wild dances and cries of those who , act the life of the spirits they wish to re- ca^the bacchagiaJ^ecstas^

their root ; the blood of the J^orn victini '•*'^^,,g,|f which the maenad ^catter^^^^ is then a reminiscence of Jheblo^^ /

feeds the spirits aad..,brin^ them to con-

}8 Dionysos and Immortality

sciousness and activity ; the maenad who devouri''tTile f^W'lteSh'"'^^^^ drinks the blood is herself inspired to the ecstas}r \vhich re- preseiits the revived and restore^, life ; the ? " satyrs who followed in the thiasos of Diony- sos are in their first signification, if this all be true, nielfiemBodirnents of ^h^daimm^es of vegetation conceived in the form. of- Jd victim through whose death they come to* lif erand following in the train of their lord Dionysos himself, whois Zagreus, the first- fruits of the resurrection. The limitation of his festivals to the period between the winter solstice, as the primitive Christmas, and the vernaTequino^ as the primitive Easter, and his occupation of the Delphic shrine during \^ the winter months while Apollo withdrew,

|/ vii%'' *^ ^ould also conform to this explanation of t} ^^^ c^ijyisinv^ and4;^yal

oftheveg^tatioa, 4^^

But whether this be or be not the native source of the bacchanal rites, certain it is that their central feature f;f:jgm-ik^ earliest obtainable evidence is tl^^ ** ecstasy J) of the

Genesis of Dionysos Worship 59

or^ia. In many different forms among people of various civilization there appear ever and anon these practices whereby with different means the body is benumbed or otherwise brought into apparent subjection and annulment in order that the soul may wander in realms other^than those of its everj^^ajLejgDerienci,^^^ with V

spirits outside of and above the known. \J The reiterated cadences of music, the rhythm / ^ of the dance, the repetition of words, con- tinued swaying or whirling of ^t^^^^^^ influences of narcotics or stimulants, are all S^ used to produce in most various types, from that of the Indian medicine man to that of the Mahomedan dervish, these superpersonal states whereby one thinks to lose himself in union with the spirit jw^yi.

Though profoundly tempered from its primitive crudity in the atmosphere of Greece, and particularly in the sobering atmosphere of Attika, the holy madness of the Dionysos revels was in genesis and in spirit one and the same with them alL

40 Dionysos and Immortality

Except as we appreciate this, we cannot understand the various outgrowths and in- fluences of the Dionysiac religion, nor indeed that religion itself.

Even the drama, choicest of its products, and impersonation, upon which it depends ^, for its existence, arise out <)f the Dipnysiac M / effort to break loose from one life and (^ livelSnotiliii"' ^ the be-

ginning the charm of the drama, and has been, so far as it is true to itself, ever since, is its power to release those who behold it for a littje while from the Jgurden 'and ,in- thrallment of the commonplace, workaday life, and batKeTfieir wearied souls in dreap^j^^

This is the very heart of Dionysos, and this, too, is his claim to control of the fruit of the vine. But his relation to the vine is no more than an incident. His mission is to lift men out of themselves^ angLi^^fcli^^ ing them into cominunion and -assoaklfen witii that above and withoaitJ:henv.to^which they are unwittingly akin,and which is nobler, higher, and purer than they, t^ pm^e^and

The Orphic Theology 41

renew them. He is the god of the cleans- ing in the ideairTis'sucff TTTefies^ EeFpollution, calls upon him by the lips of the Sophoclean chorus to " come with cleans- ing foot ovei^heslo£)e^^;^^ the moaning strait." ^i

His faith lay hard by the gate of mys- ticism, and men entered abundantly in. In Southern Italy, Sicily, and Attika, there arose during the sixth century the strange apparition of the J&f|Smcth^^ With

its doctrine of the body as a prison house and of the soul as akin,, to G^.jof the long toil of liberation, and the devious wavto

-"-'flifinriaiii*

reunion with its own, and the "wheelof

birtihsT^it is a strange phenomenon indeed, and has tempted men to dream of some

mysterious channel of Easte]|^ ^^influence.

co?necpig, despite chron^oggjj^^jjgj^ with Buddha, which should explain this and Pythagoras as well.22 But sharp as the contrast is with the traditional mood of Hel- lenic faith, both Orphism and Pythagoras are the^^^o^yg^^mistakably ajtid directly

42 Dionysos and Immortality

of Dionysos. The Orphic religion is merely a speculative theology of the Dionysiac faith, confused with weird fancies and popular superstition, and ca.st , iiiL^^^,^oetic mouldj^ — that and nothing more.

Between the essential Pantheism of In- dian thought and the mystical Idealism involved in that feature of Greek thought we are now discussing, there was in reality no highway. To the one tl|e AlDis the

\god ; the visible world of matenal is his * urLMdigg ; there is from it no escape ; weal is found in submisSiolT and accord. To the Other the material things of sense are the ^ouTsJb^ll and^ the divine has cre-

ated them, but is not in them and they are

f I flight. The Dionysiac "i^ay of salvatioipL*'

\ is the way of liberation and cleahsine^. The

., soul is in essence divine. Because of its

I sin it is shut off in,, .the,, world of body

\ and matter. /The ,,fe,,Q4yi jl^-a-priso^

^^ \ Now and again in ecstatic vision the god- born spul^esgapes from its duress, realizes

The Uplifting Power of the New Insight 4)

its higher being and mission, and revels in communion with its own. Howlo be rid forever of the ball and chain, how to turn the brief vision into a continuous life — V^x*-*-^ that is the Dionysiac problem of salvation. ^^\ Death will not accomplish it. Through the long circuit of births thesbul must toil

U--

on, freeinsf itself more and more from the drosSj^jLintil at the distant goal, "rescued from misery it breathes free at last/'f* IntEe'rec^e for cleansing and liberation,

/mortification of the body and moral ;^sceti- cism found smalljplace, or none at aj[l. The question.. of morals ^ was for that matter in jio wise involved. It was, if we may so term

I it, a ir^t^aj>fiysical salvatio]6i^ not a moral one, that men weresegg^jg. The means of re^ cue, too, which was proposed, was positives

not negative, — ike expulsive pozvcr of J^d^

^^^^iW^^'^^^i^^ |P^hfagH3i^^l!^. or better,

^^^ Igiiililiiliiii(lii[p<l^

The force and influence of this new de- parture in the life of Greece did not exhaust itself in religious fervors. It laid hold upon

jM

44 Dionysos and Immortality

all the thought of men and gave shape even to the forming moulds of philosophic re- flection. Without Dionysos and Orphism there could tetve--4)ee»y-f#r- Jastance, no Plafor~iFlat6's philpsophy builds oi a faith, and that faith is Dionysisrii) Everywhere in his thinking 2^ religion gleams through thejl^ijn Ifauze of philosophic form, and ex- cept his system be understood as a religion and as a part of the history of Greek re- ligion, it yields no self-consistent interpre- tation, and is not intelligible either in its whence or whither. The things many and various he has to tell about the Ideas refuse to take orderly place and position in a doc- trine of logical realism ^uch as metaphysics teaches, but. are 5^^:1566^^-9}^^^ of spirituality and the higher life, such as poetry and religion can preach.

The universe which Plato feels is in sub- stance the universe which the Dionysos en- thusiasms presuppose. There is a world of th^ outward and material, ever shifting, un- steady, perishable, behind it. is a vwld^of

V

Plato's Religion 45

the unchanging norm, the essential pur- pose, the supreme reaHty. To the former belongs the body, to the latter by nature andjgigjgg the soul. This mortal life is an entanglement of the soul in the meshesjDf the materSli' Still, through the pervertins: and obscuring medium of that which enfolds it iGGe soul catches glimpses of the "true, and gathers intimations of its own kinship with the ideal and the abiding. All the Platonic arguments for the immortality of the soul, in the Phaedrus, in the Republic,^^ in the Phaedo, diverse as they seem, unite * as being merely^,,:v:ariQu§^^^ayj5 g^^^d^^ i for setting forth a central faith whose fixsJ: I inspiration had come f rpm the Dignysps cult.

The influence of Eleusis and of Dionysos X covers all the latter day of Hellenic, Jife, but peculiarly strong is it written upon the thought and in the literature of the closing years of the sixth century and of the greater pcSionl of tfie fifth. The sixth century marked a period of genuine reli- hM^^ — not a revival merely of ob-

^^

46 Dionysos and Immortality

servances and rites, but a stirring of the personal interest in matters of faith and personal destiny that approaches the devel- opment-t5f -^^Xmae^^ re-

ligion. We miss, to be sure, from our point of view, the firm outlines of a formulated theologic faith concerning personal relation to the eternal, such as we are wont to iden- tify with personal religion; but men were thinkin§^^J^Qa^,^gfed^^ responsi- bilitjr, and forms of theology distinct from Jthe state and tribal tj^os^^^^^Q^^trgmg an^d'Were preparing the way for the rgjipn- alism of which Euripides stands in litera- ture as the early exponent.

Expressions concerning the life after death, however much they rnigjit cling to the traditional moulds of the old-time, or to what we may call the Homeric, faith regard- ing the geoggijj^^jfj^^^^ as contrasted with the Homeric view, a radi- cal change in the conception ,.o£.^^ life itself. Thus Pindarics

"Victory setteth free the essayer from

Pindar 4y

the struggle's griefs, yea, and the wealth that a noble nature hath made glorious bringeth power for this and that, putting into The iieart of man a deep and eager mood, a staFTfar seen, a light wherein a man shall trust, if but the holder thereof knoweth the things that shall be, how that of , all^who die the guilty souls pay penalty, for all the sins sinned in this realm of Zeus One judgeth under earth, pronouncing sen- tencS'by unloved constfainfr'"

" But evenly ever in sunlight night and day an unlaborious life the good receive, neither with violent hand vex they the earth ngrttae^aterr \gyrld ; but with th^e ji^ whosoever had pleasure in keeping.ofi^ thejr^ossess a tearless life; but the other part sufiEa:4iaku^o dire to look upon,

" Then whosoever harcTJeeSoF^gooH' cour- age to the abiding steadfast thrice on either side of death, and have refrained their souls from all^inijui]^^^ the road

of Zeus unto the tower of Kronos ; there

48 Dionysos and Immortality

around the islands of the blest the ocean breezes blow, and golden flowers are glow- ing, some from the land on trees of splen- dor,'^nd some the water leedetti, with wreaths whereof they entwine ffielr'TSands : So ordereth RhacSmanffios' ''] ust'^^^^d^^ whom at his own right hand hath ever the father Kronos, husband of Rhea, throned above all worlds."

Similarly in the following fragments of dirges : —

"For them shineth below the strength of the sun while in our world it is night, and the space of crimson-flowered meadows before their city is full of the ^^ shade of frankincense trees, and of f ruits-rf--gold. And some in horses, and in bodily feats, and some in dice, and some in harp-playing have delight ; and among them thriveth all fair-flowered T)liss ; and fragrance streameth ever through— the— levely^- land, as they mingle incense of every kind upon the altars of the gods.^

" By happy lot travel all unto an end that

Pindar 49

giveth them rest from tojls. And the body indeed is subject unto the great power of death, but there remaineth yet alive a shadow of the life; for this oiily is from the gods ; and while the, lijiihs stir, it sleep- eth, but unto sleepers in dreams discover- eth oftentimes the judgment that draweth nigh for sorrow or for joy/* ^

Most significant here, as betraying how fully Pindar's thought shaped itself in Dio- nysiac or Orphic moulds, are the expressions "this only is from the gods," and "while the limbs stir, it sleepeth." The real ex-

istence of th£ soul as thedivine element of , man's life is the existence freed from the \

tifM«m¥mi*9mimt

constraint of the body which dulls it and ! \/

' lit I iiiiiii iJiiiwmwi^iwwitAioBwfey^--- ■-■■--- -^■■^y^.ry^ mmX

This is Paul's "Now we see in a mirror darkly."^

Another more distinctively Orphic touch is involved in a third fragment : " But from whomsoever Persephone accepteth atone- ment for pn^^oxdent woe, their souls unto the light of the sun above she sendeth

$0 Dionysos and Immortality

back again in the ninth year. And from those soHls^.^prjjig.,jiiQhle. .finp^ men

swift and strong and in wisdom very great : and through the alter'time they are cd^ holy heroes^amoii^menr^ar^^

^"Sophocles represents his Antigone as act- ing in this present world of transitory and superficial law in respect for the " unwrit- ten, irrefragable ordinances of the gods,"^ which "not for to-day alone and for yester- day but forevSr'Ii^e their, life, — and no man knoweth wh^^^ are. ' ' ^^ These

laws are the laws of Hades as the great other, outer world of the eternal, and they govern \]^^i^.,^^i^^/d^^ of J)ik6,

who " dwells with the netJte'gads/*^^^^^^^^^ ance of temporal la32^,,§fegu.«^ the

bu;rial rites of her brother : "Fair thing it is for me in doing this to die ; dear shall I lie with him my dear one, having wrought a pious crime ; for^ long<^x is the time that I m^l jiJe3L^&jth§jp«Les.4)^^ those up

here ; since there forev^r^^^^ll J li<^'' ^ In obeying the laws of the nether kingdom

Sophocles 5/

she counts herself already its subject and its citizen ; such she has become that she Iniiay minister unto those of her kindred who dwell within it. Her sister Ismene, who in fear of the laws of the upper world has withheld her aid, she counts as of this world. " Thou art alive, but my soulldtig since passed into death, to mtdtstcr^ unto those who are dead." ^ _^

It is in the light of thisjsense for a con- I tinuance of personal ties beyond the grave, that the Attic segulchral monuments, with their peaceful scenes of family reunion and associatiQ^^ mu.st fittdtb^ rightful interpre- ta^iipn. It remained now for Plato, in har- mony with this newly quickened conception of a real personal continuance after death and continuance, in a life bearing relations to the life on earthr to £ffer the first philo- sophic argument for tJxoi^ thej soyJL -

The chirping psyches of Homer's nether world were rnex^^^^j^ apologies to a

stolid, helple§j§.,Jb^ef in continuance; the

52 Dionysos and Immortality

offerings^ the

early non-Homeric Greeks were a tribute to the idea olXj^^d^MdmxlYM^ity- This was all that the older faith of the Greeks could offer.

.^^ith Dionysos, however, therecame into /Greek religion and thought a new element, f an utterly n<sw point of view. He taught

y

, his followers to know that the inner life of ^ \ man, the soul, is of like substance with the godsj^ and that it may commune with the divine. Before the days of his revelation there had been between the generations of nxgrJaUaen, who fell like the ^enfj^^^ of leaves, and the undying gods whose food is ambrosia and wjiose drink nectar, a gulf fixed deep §nd impassable. After his reve- lation the soul was divine and might claim I an immortality like to that of tlie. gods. Dionysos had waited long m the vales of Nysa and Parnassos, buried like the uncut gem m crude^as^jJlJ^uth j^ds^^ when

A Touch of Human Need 5^

A human hand, lifting its grasp toward immortality, stands a mute witness to a con- sciousness arising in the single human soul that it has a meaning in itsett, that it has a purpose and a mission of its own, that it holds direct account with the heart of the world, and of a worMlio^wfiSlSe peerage ^It belongs and with whose plan" and reason it has rights and a hearing. ' '*"

The faitHs of men are quoted under va- rious names and are set forth in vari- ous articles, but we may not be confused thereby, for men are men ; control of nature has grown stronger and history longer since the day when Greece first frankly and straight looked nature and life in the face, but man himself stays much the same, — given the same conditions, the plain touch of need makes all the centuries kin.

If in thejttoghjOf^JDtoiaysos' passion men seem to gain an insight into the spiritual harpaai»€S'^*<rf' aatur%. and intimations of ^^^Sm^M^^b^SM^m^ M divine, whiQb cold reason and duUsense had not

54 Dionysos and Immortality

availed to give, it was still dim, groping vision; l)ut yet the face was set thither, wEiere, in a later day, — a day for which Greece and Dionysos _ prepared. — men learned through the Convincing Love to know and live the Jjsmiyjjjjjtjhjn them.

NOTES

Note i, page 8. J. Lippert: Die Religionen der europdischen Culturvolker in ihrem geschichtlichen Ursprungey Berlin, 1881 ; E. Rohde : Psyche; Seelencult und Unsterblichkeitsglaube unter den Griechen^iAtA,^ Freiburg, 1898, pp. i ff ; De Coulanges: The An* cient City^ Eng. transl. pp. 28 fif.

Note 2, page 8. It certainly is unsafe to speak of an Indo-Euro- pean religion without making some explanation of what may be meant by such a term, and what may be supposed to be known or knowable concerning such a subject. It is no longer to be assumed that all the peoples who appear in history, possessed of an Indo-European tongue, are necessarily in all their make-up descendants of what is called the Indo-European race. The presumption is against it, and so is the ethnological evidence. There was certainly an Indo-European language ; therefore there was once a people who spoke it. The exten- sion of the language through conquest — the con-

5^ Notes

quered peoples gradually accepting the language of the conquerors — is doubtless a more important point of view than that of its extension by migra- tion and increase of the racial stock. The breaking up into distinct languages must, it seems likely, be accounted for in large measure through the influence of the alien tongues of the elements ab- sorbed. The Greeks, for instance, were evidently not of one race ; /. e., those who at the beginning of history were speakers of Greek, were to a large extent representatives of the primitive populations inhabiting Greece before the Indo-European north- men entered the land. The fair-haired, blue-eyed people were, in the earliest times, a superior class, distinguished from the dark-complexioned peoples who gradually absorbed the former, so far as phy- siological type was concerned.

The early hopes of the science of comparative religion, as represented by Kuhn and Max Miiller, were based on a false confidence in the methods of comparative philology. It was expected that com- parison of the various cults of the different Indo- European peoples would yield a restoration of the primitive proethnic cults, just as the comparison of word-forms yielded a possible restoration of the primitive Indo-European vocabulary. The result has defeated these hopes. Comparison fails to dis- cover any considerable number either of names of

Notes ^7

deities, or of fixed outlines of divine personalities, or of systematic forms of belief. The organization of the difEerent religions of the so-called Indo- European peoples is evidently in the main their own separate achievement. Whether this has been brought about through the influence of the local beliefs and cults of the absorbed populations, or developed directly out of the materials of a primi- tive Indo-European religion, has not yet proved determinable, but many facts point in the direction of the former view. When we speak, therefore, of a proethnic Indo-European religion, we cannot refer to a definite system of personified powers, but only to a general attitude in character of belief which the broadest comparison of the different re- ligions shows to be present as a basis in all of them.

Note 3, page 12. When we venture to refer to a prae-Homeric religion, it must be understood that we are here beyond the range of documentary evidence. In- ferences from the known facts of later Greek re- ligion, from the facts of other Indo-European religions, and from the scanty and as yet imper- fectly interpreted remains of Mycenaean civiliza- tion constitute our only guidance. The altar-pit in the courtyard at Tiryns, and the evidence that the

5^ Notes

Mycenaean tombs were virtually houses of the dead, to which the altar-pits above them brought the blood-offering and food for the departed, join with the prior facts of Indo-European religion and the later facts of historic Greek religion to confirm a tolerably certain line of historical development.

Note 4, page 12. " Wir haben hinreichenden Grund, einen Seelen- cult, eine Verehrung des im Menschen selbst ver- borgen lebenden, nach dessen Tode zu selbstan- digem Dasein ausscheidenden Geisterwesens auch in Griechenland, wie wohl iiberall auf Erden, unter den altesten Bethatigungen der Religion zu ver- muthen. Lange vor Homer hat der Seelencult in den Grabgewolben zu Mykene und an anderen Statten altester Cultur sich seine Heiligthiimer erbaut." E. Rohde : Die Religion der Griechen, Rectoratsrede, Heidelberg, 1894. Except as this fundamental point, established by the brilliant ar- gument of Rohde in his Psyche^ is accepted, no in- telligible connection between the Greek faiths of different times and places is possible, — and what is more, no connection of the Greek faith with the Indo-European that lay behind it.

Note 5, page 12. H. Oldenberg : Die Religion des Veda^ pp. 543 £E.

Notes 5P

Note 6, page 13. See Odyssey XL 220 fiE.

Note 7, page 14.

Rohde (Psyche, pp. 27 ff.) connects the Ho- meric freedom from dreamed-of ghosts with the practice of cremation. He even attributes the introduction of the practice ;o a desire to be rid of the spirits through help of the "cleans- ing force of fire." The primitive notion that the spirits haunted the place where the body remained, and hung about the body itself, would naturally lead to the belief that the total destruc- tion of the body would remove this lure to the spirits and take from them the way of approach to the homes of the living. The difficulty with Rohde's suggestion is, however, that it takes no account of the fact that cremation appears as an institution so widespread among Indo-European peoples as to demand almost certainly a place among primitive Indo-European usages.

It may have been in vogue only among certain tribes, or have been employed at certain times, as in war or during absence from home, or for certain classes, as the kings and chieftains ; no solution of the strange problem has yet been found, but surely we are not justified in connecting a new de- parture in faith, such as Rohde thinks the Homeric

6o Notes

liberation from the soul-cults represents, with a practice which is old and not new. The history of cremation in its connection with the primitive be- liefs concerning immortality is a subject demanding a much more careful and comprehensive investi- gation than has yet been accorded it. Facts in abundance are known concerning the usages of various times and peoples, but no principle yet dis- covered has served to give these facts an intelli- gent connection.

Note 8, page 1 5. See ///^^ XXIII. 66 ff.

Note 9, page 15. Teiresias the seer alone an exception.

Note 10, page 17. See Odyssey XXIV. i ff.

Note ii, page 17. See Odyssey XI. 24 ff.

Note 12, page 18. E. Rohde: Psyche j Seelencult und Unsterhlich- keitsglaube unter den Griechen^ 2d ed., Freiburg, 1898.

Note 13, page 20.

See Odyssey XI. 92 ff (Teiresias to Odysseus).

Notes 6i

Note 14, page 20. See Homerische Untersuchungen^ i99fE.

Note 15, page 22. The fundamental materials of the Homeric epic are undoubtedly iEolic or North Greek in their source. The language alone is enough to betray this, ^olic forms of the language have been pre- served in the midst of the prevailing Ionic where- ever the Ionic equivalents would not suit the metri- cal necessities. This concerns, however, only the formation of the peculiar, half -artificial idiom which finally became the rhapsodic fashion of speech. The civilization to which the songs as we have them were addressed was that of the old Ionic life of the central coast of Asia Minor, and in the current ideas of this civilization we must believe the setting of the stories was moulded. Homer therefore repre- sents preeminently the life and atmosphere of the early Ionia in the period which antedates the rise of extensive commerce and the sending out of the commercial colonies. That which gave Homer so soon in the ears of the succeeding generations the ring of the remote and the heroic was the rapid shifting in scene and conditions introduced by the ninth and the eighth centuries. Life changed from the tribal-patriarchal to the urban-commercial basis. Coupled with this was the circumstance that the

62 Notes

memories of the old Achaean civilization which had yielded the first materials of the stories were rapidly dulled into remote traditions by the disappearance of the states and the peoples that had carried the burden of this civilization. This disappearance is in some way connected with the emergence of the Dorians in eastern Greece. Here we confront the problem of the " Dorian Migrations."

Note i6, page 31. Pindar : Bergk, Poet. Lyr, Fragm,, 137.

Note 17, page 31. Sophocles : Fragm,, yig (Dind.).

Note 18, page 32. Plato : PhcBdo^ p. 69 (transl. Jowett).

Note 19, page 32. " Let us hasten — let us fly — Where the lovely meadows lie ; Where the living waters flow ; Where the roses bloom and blow. Heirs of immortality. Segregated, safe and pure, Easy, sorrowless, secure ; Since our earthly course is run, We behold a brighter sun.

Notes 6s

Holy lives — a holy vow — Such rewards await them now." Frere's transl. of Aristophanes, Frogs^ 448-459.

Note 20, page 33. For a most illumining view of the influence of the mysteries upon the early Christian ritual, see E. Hatch : The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, Hibbert Lectures, 1888. Lect. X. pp. 281 ff.

Note 21, page 41. Sophocles : Antigone^ 1143-45.

Note 22, page 41. For the most explicit statement and discussion of such views, see, e,g.^ Leopold von Schroeder: Pythagoras und die Inder, Leipzig, 1884; Richard Garbe : The Connection between Indian and Greek Philosophy, An address delivered before the Philol. Congress at Chicago, July, 1893 (JHonist, 1894, p. 176 and following).

Note 23, page 43.

The Orphic theology has often been pronounced

un-Hellenic in character and tone. Those who

would find for it an Eastern or Egyptian origin

emphasize its supposed discord with Greek ideas.

64 Notes

Surely it would be a stranger and interloper if it proposed to a Greek world an ethical reformation based upon a code of morals. Nothing could have been more un-Hellenic than that. But herein lies the core of the misunderstanding. Orphism con- tained no suggestion of moral reform, and its ec- stasies no more proposed an influence upon conduct or morab than the " blessed seasons " of a negro revival meeting. If Orphism is non-Greek, then is also the idealism of Plato, which in its religious bearings is its offspring. Both are, however, pro- foundly Greek, and only reflect the all-pervading y/ dualism of the popular psychology. What was new in Orphism and in its common basis Bacchism was the element of enthusiasm, the communion with the divine. It was the " evangelical " religion of Greece. It may be cause for wonder that a religious move- ment of such freshness and vigor should apparently have lost itself in the marshes, and have exercised no more definite influence upon the thought of the after-world. To this it can first of all be said that the real extent of its influence may easily have been underestimated. Orphism in its organized form passed quickly out of sight in the fifth century, but " its fundamental idea as expressed in Bacchism was al)sorbed into the common thought of Greece. It Boust furthermore be noticed that it came as an infusion into Greek religion at a time when this

Notes 6j

religion by reason of shifting historical conditions was moving toward inevitable decline. Greek re- ligion was a thing of thepolis, the city built of the amalgamated tribes and clans. With the poh's it stood, and with the fall of the jolt's as a unit of government it fell. Its gods were chief citizens of the poll's, members honorary of the associated guilds. When a greater world of commerce, inter- course, manners, and ideas arose, in which the cities came more and more, in spite of all theory to the contrary, to be no more than nuclei of population, the city gods and the city religions did not arise to meet its need. Not even Olympus raised Zeus high enough to oversee the land. The allegiance of men gradually transferred itself from ihefolis to the empire as the greater state, — even when they knew it not, and even when the empire was scarcely more than a vision dimly discerned through the warring fragments of Alexander's state. This they personified in the heroic form of Alexander, son of Ammon, — the new Zeus; his successors became the emperors of Rome. Through them the ideal of a Holy Empire was transmitted to the after- world. Through all this shifting of the scenes Bacchism in outward form of organization could not hold itself erect, but its spirit came ever more and more to be the thought of the world. The im- pulse it had awakened found to no slight extent its

66 Notes

satisfaction in Christianity ; and, on the other hand, Paganism in its last struggle against the propa- ganda of the Cross, when it chose its fittest armor, chose that most like the weapons of its foe, — Neo-Platonism, the last expression of the Dionysos faith.

Note 24, page 44.

The essential tone of Plato's writing is admir- ably set forth in the following statement, — a state- ment, it should, however, be said in justice to the author, not intended to support any such theory of Plato's connection with Orphism and Dionysos wor- ship as that presented in the text; "He transmits the final outcome of Greek culture to us in no quin- tessential distillation of abstract formulas, but in vivid dramatic pictures that make us actual partici- pants in the spiritual intoxication, the Bacchic re- velry of philosophy, as Alcibiades calls it, that accompanied the most intense, disinterested, and fruitful outburst of intellectual activity in the an- nals of mankind." Paul Shorey, Plato, in Libr. of World's Best Literature.

Note 25, page 45. Republic, pp. 609, 6ro, presents a form of argument which has often been said (cf. Grote: Plato, II. p. 190) to be entirely distinct from the other Platonic arguments.

Notes 6y

Note 26, page 46. Pindar: Ofymp. II. 95 ff. (transl. Myers).

Note 27, page 48. Pindar : Fragm. Thren,^ I. (transl. Myers).

Note 28, page 49. Pindar: Fragm. Thren., II. (transl. Myers).

Note 29, page 50. Pindar: Fragm, Thren.^ III. (transl. Myers).

Note 30, page 50. Sophocles: Antigone^ 454.

Note 31, page 50. Sophocles : Antigone, 456 ff.

Note 32, page 50. Sophocles : Antigone, "ji ff .

Note 33, page 51. Sophocles \ Antigone, 559 ff.

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