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all feeling of pride in their common blood and nationality, tended to foster it throughout the country, but, of course, in unequal degree accord- ing to the unequal strength of these influences in different parts of the country. Hence the Hellenic type was not equally apparent everywhere, just as it was not equally realized by all men. Some tribes went more rapidly, others very slowly, but all were tending in one direction. Various lines of argument lead to the conclusion that this Hellenic religion assumed a definite form by the middle of the 8th cent. B.c. Changes continued to take place, new ideas were added, new gods and new rites were popularized after that date, and indeed down to the latest time when Greek gave place to a new religion, which was thoroughly non-Hellenic and even anti-Hellenic, though to some considerable extent it has been influenced by Greek ideas. But at that period the religion of Hellas seems to have assimilated all its essential elements and to have established itself as a power over all the Greek tribes, which acted chiefly from a religious centre recognized by all the Hellenes —viz. the Delphic Oracle.
In fact, from that time onwards it was not so much blood or locality that determined the right of different tribes to the common name of Hellenes, as recognition of this Hellenic religion and par- ticipation in the Hellenic rites.
The history of the Greeks in modern times presents a remarkable parallel. For centuries the Greek religion was the only bond that held to- gether the Greeks in different regions. Every other bond was gone. No Greek government, education, or literature existed. The national name had perished, and the people were serfs to a barbarous race. The tie of language had in many cases disappeared, and even at the present day there are Greeks in Asia Minor who do not know a word of the Greek tongtie. Community of blood was confined to a small part of the Greek world, so called. But the religion remained to unite the people, and it proved a stronger tie than any other. Cretans of the Greek Church are Greeks, Cretans whose fathers became Moham- medans are non-Greek. This common religion was enough to preserve all the old feeling; and when the country was awakened from the sleep of centuries, when education and literature came in to help, as strong « national feeling and as complete a severance in the national mind between Greek and the rest of the world have been made manifest as ever existed in olden times. In the western parts of Asia Minor the movement can still be watched in progress. The schools have not yet been universally established, but, wherever they have been planted, a single genera- tion develops the religious feeling into a strongly national one.
(6) Theory of the Hellenic Pantheon.—Further, there was a polytheistic element in the primi- tive Greek religion; and there grew up very early an idea that around the chief deity there were other great deities, in whom the Divine power existed in more narrowly circumscribed fashion: thus a system of higher and lower divinities was formed in such an ancient cultus as that of Eleusis. In the growth of a unified Hellenic religion this idea was developed. Accord- ing to this system Zeus is the supreme god, father of gods and men, protector of right and punisher of evil: as ‘Epxeios and Krijows he is the patron of family and household, as Zévos and ‘Ixéovos he is the guardian of hospitality and of friendly inter- course between different countries ; finally, he is the protector of cities and public life, and the fountain of law and of morality: from him originates all revelation of the will of heaven
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(Ilavougatos). His will is fate; and the course of events is the gradual consummation of his pur- poses. In the whole Jliad the will of Zeus was wrought out (Acds 6’ éredelero Bovd}). In the tale of Melampus and Iphiclus, as it is narrated in the Odyssey, xi. 290 ff., the fate from the god fettered the prophet, but, when the full time came, he was released and the purpose of Zeus was perfected. The other gods and goddesses are the ministers of the will of Zeus. Each has his special province : Apollo speaks to mankind in oracles what Zeus wishes to reveal; Hestia is the goddess of family life ; Poseidon rules the sea ; and so on.
The province or sphere of action assigned to each deity * in this Hellenic idea had not much influence on the local cultus. When we take the Hermes of Imbros we find, not the Hellenic idea of the messenger of Zeus, but the Imbrian idea of the Divine power. But the Hermes who was adopted in many Greek cities under the Hellenic impulse was the Hellenic idea; and the popular view approximated to the Hellenic view. The average Greek thought of Aphrodite as the deity of love and beauty, Hermes as the god of heralds, and so on, irrespective of the cultus; and their names passed often into proverbial popular usage in this connexion.
This religion as we find it in Homer was prac- tically the general religion of Greece. While in
each district the same gods as of old were wor- shipped with special care, and the regular caltus at their sanctuaries was traditionally fixed among the priests, the other Pan-Hellenic gods were recognized beside them, and occasionally a Pan- Hellenic cultus even eclipsed the native worship. Thus at Olympia, Hera (perhaps associated in the Holy Marriage, iepds duos, with Zeus KaraBarns, the naturalistic deity) was the native goddess ; but the festival of Zeus Olympius, a later institu- tion, far surpassed the older worship in magnifi- cence. In general, however, the native worship remained the chief one, and the ‘orthodox’ Hel- lenic system was recognized either by altars and worship of other gods separately, or by an altar of all the gods or of the Twelve Gods. See (14).