Dionysos and immortality : the Greek faith in immortality as affected by the rise of individualism

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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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