(7) Moralization of the Hellenic gods. —The most important element in the progress of Greek religion lay in the tendency to make its gods more and more into moral conceptions. In the case of the greater gods, the physical character that had once belonged to them almost entirely disappeared from the Hellenic mind. In this re- spect the view of Homer may be taken as identi- cal with that which prevailed generally during the 6th or 5th century. The gods are concerned with human life and human action; they influ- ence the course of nature solely as a means of aiding or hindering the works of men. While the gods had thus become almost purely moral con- ceptions, the tendency to see Divine lite in external nature remained as strong as ever.
(8) The Daimones and the Divine in the physical world. —When once the tendency to polytheism had been established, it increased rapidly. The physical world was filled with Divine beings. Every place, every natural object which impressed men with its beauty or solemnity, became to them the seat of a deity. The nymphs of the old Pelasgian religion formed a convenient expression for this pantheistic idea ; and nymphs were seen In every tree and every stream, every glen and every mountain.
In moral conceptions a Divine nature was equally conspicuous; and altars to Pity, Shame, Friend- ship, etc.,+ were erected in different places. Many
* rynies ord vénves dsedovees, Herod. ii. 53. | Ree So,
4 sos, cldds, Girla, open, Gan, Pohos, yerws, sipavn, Epyayn, wretldr, evvopelec, BUAEloe, OUTpice, OLLbvOI, rocIpOs, Viren, Opty HT.
| 140 RELIGION OF GREECE
RELIGION OF GREECE
of these names are known as actual epithets of different deities; Athena Hrgane and Athena Nike are well known; Artemis Eukleia was wor- shipped at Thebes. Ara or the Arai are some- times an independent conception, sometimes a name of the Erinnyes or Eumenides. In such deities as Eros or the Charites we have forms which were in some instances worshipped as the great embodiment of the Divine conception and chief gods of the places (so Eros at Thespiz, the Charites at Orchomenos) ; but generally they were only inferior figures attendant on the great gods, The Greeks themselves found it difficult to deter- mine how far a god as worshipped under two epithets continued to be one being. Socrates (Xen. Symp. c. 8, 9) knows not whether there is one Aphrodite or two, Ourania and Pandemos ; for Zeus himself, whom men count one, has many surnames. Xenophon was wont to sacrifice to Zeus Soter and Zeus Basileus; but a soothsayer of Lampsacos showed him that he had sinned in not sacrificing also to Zeus Meilichios. It cannot here be accidental that Xenophon’s first sacrifices acknowledged only the Olympian religion, whereas Zeus Meilichios is a Chthonian deity. Solon’s laws ordered that men should swear by three gods, ‘Ixéovos, Kaddpovos, Héaxeoripios ; but these, though expressly called three gods, are obviously epithets of Zeus. It is therefore not surprising to find that epithets gradually tend to acquire distinct personality and a separate worship.
This tendency is seen already in Homer, who personifies the Avral. The sea-monster Scylla he calls a goddess, and Chimera, Echidna, Sirens are godlike beings (@efory yévos). So pestilence and hunger are called gods by Sophocles (Ldip. Tyr. 28) and Simonides of Amorgos (vi. 102). These and all other striking instances of natural power, real or fabulous, were equally representative of the Divine nature. The term daimon (Satuwv) was often applied to such powers. In Homer the term daiuwv denotes a distinctly less personal conception than éeés: hardly anywhere except in JJ. iii. 420 is a special god called daluwy: the datuwy is bearer of the Divine power which works in nature and in human life: the daluwy has not been so formed, bounded and defined by mythology and cultus as Geds: daluwy is sometimes even used impersonally (especially in the Odyssey) in the sense of nuwmen. There is a certain tendency in Homer to attribute a bad influence to the datuwy, and the preponder- ance of evil is distinctly marked in the Odyssey.*
In the post-Homeric usage daluwy acquired a more definite meaning, and was applied to certain godlike beings intermediate between the great gods and mankind. In Hesiod the spirits of men of the Golden Age are appointed by Zeus to watch and guard men, and are called daimones, and the name is also applied to Phaethon, appointed by Aphrodite as guardian of her shrine. Hence it is generally applied to the train of inferior beings attendant on the chief gods, as Satyrs, Corybantes, Erotes, etc. (Plato, Legg. 848 D). “These daimones are often conceived as the executors of the will of Zeus in particular cases. The analogy with some phases of the Hebrew doctrine of angels is interest- ing. In Arcadia men sacrificed to Bronte and Astrape, evidently daimones of Zeus. Wind-gods + are worshipped in a similar fashion, though they are not expressly so named. Daimones as coni- panions and guardians of individual men are men-
* Krécher, Gebrrauch des Wortes deiumy, reckons that the word occurs there eighteen times in action unfriendly to men, four- teen times indifferent or friendly. Fick derives deiuov from the root das, ‘to teach,’ and identifies it with the Sanskrit das- mant, ‘wise.’
+ So in Plato (Legg. v. 730 A), 6 Efvuoe txtrrov Saiuoy 0} Osés, wai Eevin ovveromevos Au.