dered at that the religious forms and ceremonies of these early ages should have been gradually transplanted from one country to another? It is true that there is no recognized historical movement which indicates the growth of Christianity out of Buddhism; but is not the intercourse which is known to have existed between the ancient nations sufficient to account for the resemblance between their religions?

CHAPTER XX.

THE RELIGIONS OF GREECE, ROME, SCANDINAVIA, AND ISLAM.

Widely Contrasted Types of Religious Belief Showing Constant Principles of Development.

THE religions of ancient Greece and Rome are extinct. No living representative remains of the worshippers at the Acropolis and the Pantheon. The gods of these places are still an inspiration in art and poetry, but they have long since ceased to be regarded as divine. A just comprehension of the ancient mythologies, strange as it may seem, has been gained but recently. The difficulty in reaching the true significance of myths arises from the fact that the truths which they contain are so evanescent that they are injured by any thing short of the most delicate and sympathetic analysis. In mythology, analogy is strained to the uttermost, poetry is abused, symbolism overwrought, fiction overwhelms fact, and yet truth survives in the form of real thought and feeling throughout. To discover these truths, to discern the workings of the social heart and mind under these dense accretions of imagery, is the task of the student of mythology.

The Greeks had a wonderfully poetic cosmogony. Their intellectual vigor is declared by the endless details with which they worked out their imaginary surroundings. Where other nations were content with a few abstractions, concerning the origin of things beyond the reach of ordinary perception, the Greeks originated fable after fable to satisfy their inquiring minds, until they were surrounded with a world of semi-supernatural beings to which all phenomena were traced and by which every conceivable

experience was explained. "Love issued from the egg of Night, which floated in Chaos. By his arrows and torch he pierced and vivified all things, producing life and joy."

Ophion and Eurynome ruled over Olympus until they were dethroned by Saturn and Rhea. Then the rebellion of Jupiter against his father Saturn and his brothers the Titans was successful. The penalties inflicted upon the vanquished Titans involved the imprisonment of some of their number in Tartarus. Atlas was condemned to bear up the world upon his shoulders, and Prometheus, the divine sufferer, is chained to the rocks and at length delivered by the self-sacrifice of Cheiron. Jupiter divided with his brothers his newly acquired dominions, retaining the heavens, giving Neptune the ocean, and Pluto the realms of the dead. Jupiter was king of gods and men, and the earth and Olympus were regarded as common property. Juno (Hera), the wife of Jupiter, was queen of the gods, the stately peacock was her favorite bird, and Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, attended upon her. Jupiter bore the shield called Ægis, which was the workmanship of Vulcan, and the eagle attended, carrying his thunderbolts.

Vulcan (Hephæstos), the son of Jupiter, was born lame. Juno, displeased at his deformity, flung him out of heaven. A whole day in falling, he at last alighted upon the island of Lemnos, where, in the interior of his volcano, he commanded the Cyclopes workmen at the forge.

Aphrodite, the frail wife of Vulcan; Mars, the god of war; Phoebus Apollo, the god of archery, prophecy, and music; Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, and Cupid, her son; Minerva (Pallas Athênê), the goddess of wisdom, who sprang in full armor from the head of Jupiter, Mercury, the god of eloquence, science, commerce, and theft;-these usher in the long list of Grecian deities, a marvellous imaginative creation thronging with heroic personages the world of fancy in which this nation dwelt. Such explanations of the questions of existence are, no doubt, childlike; but none but the most intelligent children have such imaginations.

The active life of the ancient Greeks was insensibly blended with this vast mythology, giving it a freshness and warmth which, owing to the unreality of our religious conceptions, it is difficult for us to understand.

The joyous Greek civilization, rich in art, poetry, and thought, formulated its theory of life, or its religion, under the inspiration of its artists, its poets, and its philosophers.

Homer and Hesiod were the first Greek theologians; they named the gods and assigned to them arts and honors. The great sculptors gave form to the gods and taught morality and humanity by idealizing human grandeur and beauty.

The Jupiter of Phidias, occupying the Doric temple at Olympia, was an object of veneration to the whole nation. The games over which it presided "were a chronology, a constitution, and a church to the Pan-Hellenic race. *: Here at Olympia, while the games continued, all Greece came together; the poets and historians declaimed their compositions to the grand audience; opinions were interchanged, knowledge communicated, and the national life received both stimulus and unity. And here, over all, presided the great Jupiter of Phidias, within a Doric temple, ✶✶✶ covered with sculptures of Pentelic marble. The god was seated on his throne, made of gold, ebony, and ivory, studded with precious stones. He was so colossal that, though seated, his head nearly reached the roof, and it seemed as if he would bear it away if he rose. There sat the monarch, his head, neck, breast, and arms in massive proportions; the lower part of the body veiled in a flowing mantle; bearing in his hand a statue of Victory, ✩ ✩ ✩ and on his face that marvellous expression of blended majesty and sweetness." Speaking of the great difficulty of forming a true idea of this wonderful statue, L. M. Mitchell writes in her admirable work on Greek art: "Gladly would we search the galleries of existing sculptures or ponder over coins to find a clearer reflex of this great Zeus. One beautiful Elis coin from Hadrian's time is thought to give the most

"Ten Great Religions," vol. I., p. 288.

faithful hint of the benignant head. * * * In the broad serene brow, strong eyebrows, firm but gentle mouth, power seems coupled with unspeakable mildness."1 An ancient writer

says: "Phidias alone has seen likenesses of the gods, or he alone has made them visible."

All Greece was filled with statues of the gods; and each of these inspirations was an expression of the best sentiments of the best men. Chastity was taught by the attitude, expression, and very nakedness of the human form. Thus Milman describes the Belvedere Apollo:

"For mild he seemed, as in Elysian bowers,
Wasting, in careless ease, the joyous hours;
Haughty, as bards have sung, with princely sway
Curbing the fierce flame-breathing steeds of day;
Beauteous as vision seen in dreamy sleep
By holy maid, on Delphi's haunted steep,
Mid the dim twilight of the laurel grove,

Too fair to worship, too divine to love.

*

All, all divine: no struggling muscle glows,

Through heaving vein no mantling life-blood flows,
But, animate with Deity alone,

In deathless glory lives the breathing stone.

Another beautiful conception of Greek art is Diana the twin-sister of Apollo, otherwise known as Artemis, the untouched one. In the celebrated statue of this goddess at Versailles we see a huntress in swift motion accompanied by a hind. She carries bow and quiver and reaches for an arrow as she runs. A short tunic gives freedom to the limbs. In this lovely guardian of the chase we have no difficulty in recognizing the goddess of chastity and marriage, the Greek ideal of womanhood. Of all the conceptions of Diana this seems to be the noblest and purest.'

Plato, the greatest theologian of Greece, reduced the

1 "History of Greek Sculpture." 1883.

Milman, vol. II., pp. 297-298.

'Diana of Ephesus was only in rare instances accepted by the Greeks outside of Asia Minor. The Greek Artemis was usually represented as a huntress, with face like Apollo.