DAWI^ OF CREATION AND OF WORSHIP. 



^77 



bility say the Phoihos of tbe poet is the 

 Sun ; but we are landed at once in the ab- 

 surd consequence that we have got a Sun 

 ah-eady,* and that the two are joint actors 

 in a scene of the eighth Odyssey.\ Strange, 

 indeed, will be the effect of such a system 

 if applied to our own case at some date in 

 the far-off future ; for it will be shown, 

 inter alia, that there were no priests, but 

 only presbyters, in any portion of Western 

 Christendom ; that our dukes were simply 

 generals leading us in war ; that we broke 

 our fast at eight in the evening {tor diner is 

 but a compression of dejeuner) ; and even, 

 possibly, that one of the noblest and most 

 famous of English houses pursued habitu- 

 ally the humble occupation of a pig-driver. 

 The character of Uera, or Here, has 

 received from Homer a full and elaborate 

 development. There is in it absolutely no 

 trace whatever of "the queen of the shin- 

 ing heaven." In the action of the " Odys- 

 sey " she has no share at all — a fact abso- 

 lutely unaccountable if her function was 

 one for which the voyages of that poem give 

 much more scope than is supplied by the 

 " Iliad." The fact is, that there is no queen 

 of heaven in the Achaian system ; nor 

 could there be without altering its whole 

 genius. It is a curious incidental fact that, 

 although Homer recognizes to some extent 

 humanity in the stars (I refer to Orion and 

 Leucothee, both of them foreign person- 

 ages of the Outer Geography), he never 

 even approximates to a personification of 

 the real queen of heaven, namely, the 

 moon. There happens to be one marked 

 incident of the action of Hera, which 

 stands in rather ludicrous contrast with 

 this lucent queenship. On one of the 

 occasions when, in virtue of her birth and 

 station, she exercises some supreme pre- 

 rogative, she directs the sun (surely not so 

 to her lord and master) to set, and he re- 

 luctantly obeys. I Her character has not 

 any pronounced moral elements ; it exhibits 

 pride and passion ; it is pervaded intensely 

 with policy and nationalism ; she is beyond 

 all others the Achaian goddess, and it is 

 sarcastically imputed to her by Zeus that 

 she would cut the Trojans if she could, and 

 eat them without requiring in the first in- 



* Bee " Infra." t " Od.," vlii, 302, 334. 



J"Il.,"xriii,239, 240. 



Stance any culinary process.* I humbly 

 protest against mauling and disfiguring this 

 work ; against what great Walter Scott 

 would, I think, have called " raashackering 

 and misguggling " it, after the manner of 

 Xicol Muschat, when he put an end to his 

 wife Ailie f at the spot afterward marked 

 by his name. Why blur the picture so 

 charged alike with imaginative power and 

 historic meaning, by the violent obtrusion 

 of ideas, which, whatever force they may 

 have had among other peoples or in other 

 systems, it was one of the main purposes 

 of Homer, in his marvelous theurgic work, 

 to expel from all high place in the order of 

 ideas, and from every corner, every loft and 

 every cellar, so to speak, of his Olympian 

 palaces ? 



If the Hera of Homer is to own a rela- 

 tionship outside the Achaian system, like 

 that of Apollo to the sun, it is undoubtedly 

 with Gaia, the earth, that "it can be most 

 easily established. The all-producing func- 

 tion of Gaia in the Theogony of Hesiod \ 

 and her mapriage with Ouranos, the heav- 

 en, who has a partial relation to Zeus, points 

 to Hera as the majestic successor who in 

 the Olympian scheme, as the great mother 

 and guardian of maternity, bore an analogi- 

 cal resemblance to the female head of one 

 or more of the Pelasgian or archaic theogo- 

 nies that it had deposed. 



I have now done with the treatment of 

 details, and I must not quit them without 

 saying that th6re are some of the chapters, 

 and many of the sentences, of Dr. Reville 

 which appear to me to deserve our thanks. 

 And, much as I differ from him concerning 

 an essential part of the historic basis of 

 religion, I trust that nothing which I have 

 said can appear to impute to him any hos- 

 tility or indifference to the substance of 

 religion itself. 



I make, indeed, no question that the 

 solar theory has a most important place in 

 solving the problems presented by many or 

 some of the Aryan religions ; but whether 

 it explains their first inception is a totally 

 different matter. 'WTien it is ruthlessly ap- 

 plied, in the teeth of evidence, to them 

 all, in the last resort it stifles facts, and re- 

 duces observation and reasoning to a mock- 



* " II.," iv, 35. + " Heart of Midlothian." 



% " Theog.," 116-136. 



