6 Rafael Karsten, [N:o 1 



their oldest literary monuments, the Homerics songs, a per- 

 fectly polytheistic religions system is met with, this, however, 

 is no proof that from the beginning thej'- knew of personal 

 divinities in human form entirely superior to the forces of na- 

 ture. That the Indo-Europeans before their dispersion did 

 not conceive of their gods as real persons, although they 

 may have had divine powers of higher and lower rank, is 

 an assumption supported by linguistic considerations ^) and 

 probable with regard to the low level of culture reached by 

 them at that time. Henoe we may take it for granted that 

 the Hellenes did not reach the polytheistic stage in religion 

 until after they had settled in their own land. An unde- 

 veloped mind is not capable of combining into a whole the indi- 

 vidual ideas which together constitute the notion of per- 

 sonality. Hence at the lowest stages of evolution the super- 

 natural beings, although vaguely endowed with human con- 

 sciousness, have in other respects no definite character and are 

 not distiuguished by individual uames. The well-known state- 

 ment in Herodotus II, 52, according to which „the Pelasgi in 

 early times offered sacrifices of all kinds and prayed to their 

 gods, but had no distinct names or apellations för them",''^) 

 no doubt points back to such a stage in the history of Greek 

 religion. 



The ancient Hellenes themselves even in låter times seem 

 to have been conscious that their earliest religion was nothing 

 but a simple worship of the most striking objects and pheno- 

 mena of nature. Plato whilst discussing the question in Cra- 

 tylus, says: „I suspect that the sun, the moon, earth, stars, 

 and heaven, which are still the gods of many barbarians, were 

 the only gods known to the aboriginal Hellenes" ^). Aristotle 

 says it is handed down in the myths „from the ancients 

 and very old" that the heavenly bodies are gods and that 



^) See Schrader, Eenllexikon der Indogerm. Alterthumskunde, p. 675. 



^) Herod. II, 52 : td^vov bk nåvra nQÖreQOv oi Ilekaayol d-eolai é^ev- 

 XÖfievoL . . . ETiovvfiujv be ovb' ovvoua ekouvvto ovösvl avx&v. 



*) Plato, Grät. 397 C. Ct' Legg. X 886: IIq&tov [lév yfj xal 7/AtOi,- åarQa 

 T£ fxalj ^vujiavta xal ra t<5v ågväv biaytEKon iimiéva xaXwg ovrog, éviavroZs re 

 xal [ii^al bLEiX-qiifiéva xal otl TtåvxES "Ekh]V£s re xal ^åQ^agoi vo[iiQov(riv 

 slvai d^eovg. 



