Notes on Milton's Nativity Ode. 337 



ce que sonimes, tout ce que vivons, tovit ce que avons, tout ce 

 que esperons est lu}', en luy, de lu}', par lu}'. C'est le bon Pan, le 

 grand pasteur, qui . . . non seulement a en amour et affection ses 

 brebis, mais aussi ses bergers [Virgil, Eel. 2. 33 ; cf. Ezek. 34. 2 ff. ; 

 John 21. 16, 17].' 



Spenser's stor}' is related by Plutarch in chap. 17 of the De 

 Defect. Orac., from which it was extracted by Eusebius of Caesarea, 

 Prcep. Evang.' 5. 17, who, however, makes Pan symbolize the 

 daemons whose power was overthrown at Christ's death. 



The notion of Rabelais, according to which Christ is Pan be- 

 cause he is our All, and all that we have and are is in, of, and by 

 him, is liased upon a false etymology, according to which the 

 name, no doubt containing the same sjllable, pa, which we have 

 in pasture, pabulum, was interpreted as zh nuy, the All or Universe 

 (Servius on Virgil, Eel. 2. 31; Schol. Theocr. 1. 3; Isidore, Etym. 

 8. 11. 82: Orphic Hymns U, 34; Orphic Fragments 36, 48; Cornut. 

 27); cf. Miltons 'universal Pan,' P.E. 4. 66. 



This view, originally perhaps Orphic, was adopted by Stoic 

 writers, and supported by a later identification of Pan with the 

 Egyptian god Mendes (Chnum, Chem). This Mendes was often 

 called ' the Great,' and this may have led to Plutarch's use of the 

 epithet (Roscher, Lex. der Gr. Myth. s. v. Pan, coll. 1373-6, 1405 ; 

 cf. his article in the Festschrift filr Overbeck, pp. 56 ff. ; Jahr- 

 Inich fiir Klass. Phil., 1892, p. 474 ; Usener, Gotternamen, p. 347). 

 Thus Pan, who in the Homeric Hymn is said to have been so 

 called ' because he had made glad the hearts of all of them,' is 

 still addressed in a similar sense in Politian's Greek Prayer to God 

 (Opera, ed. 1509, 1. xcix^*; ed. 1553, p. 626; the translation by 

 Symonds, Revival of Learning, chap. 1) : 



O King of all things, deathless God, Thou Pan supreme, celestial ! 

 Thou seest all, and movest all, and all with might sustainest. 



Thou givest life to all ; all these Thou with Th}- Spirit fillest. 



Pan was sometimes identified with the sun, which still further 

 approximates him to Milton's infant Christ. According to Macrobius 

 (Sat. 1. 22), his horns and beard would thus represent the rays 

 of the sun, and he is represented as in love with Echo, to signifj' 

 the harmony of the spheres, over which the sun may be regarded 

 as presiding, but which is not to be perceived hy our ears, any 

 more than Echo by our eyes. Servius, too (loc. cit.), who identifies 

 Pan with the universe, considers his horns to represent the sun- 



Trans. Conn. Acad., Vol. XV. 22 Joly, 1909. 



