Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/665

 STUDY OF HOMERIC RELIGION 651

However, granted the general character of the Homeric re- ligious system, and passing over such points of dispute in its interpretation, there appear in it elements as seemingly out of place, and as strikingly modern as is the romantic and touching story of Hector and Andromache, occurring as the latter does amidst conditions not elsewhere co-existent with the development of romantic love. It is these touches which somewhat justify the partisans of Homer in their wish to raise the Homeric Age into a sort of modern semi-Christian status. But we proceed to our cases illustrative of the divergence of the Homeric relig- ious system from the type to be expected. It has been said in the above that Homer shows the primitive stock idea of the nature of the soul; it is speeded to its rest in truly primitive form, and not without reminiscences of a grosser age of human sacrifice. But at this point a sharp departure from general usage takes place; there is no ghost-cult of any kind. The mortuary cere- monies once duly completed, the ghosts are seen no more; the attitude of the living to the undeified dead is one of affectionate memory merely, as it might be, in the absence of belief in a future reunion, in the present age. There was really no ghost-fear at all. A series of departures from cruder usages, of which this one might stand as a type, lend to Homeric religion a character of cheeriness and freedom which is almost unparalleled, rela- tively to the stage attained by Homeric societal development in general.

There are, further, no bad spirits in Homer — spirits with a general malevolent power. Hence there is no dualism of any importance, and the religion is free from many horrors. Even the journey to the spirit-world is no such menacing nightmare as many primitive systems — among them those from which the Homeric Greeks would in all likelihood have borrowed, if they had borrowed at all — give their adherents to believe. Sin is infringement of the rights of the gods and is punishable as such, but the gods are kindly disposed and are easily appeased, even if angered; the process is perfectly simple, consisting in propitiation in the form of sacrifice. The only difficulty was the identification of the offended deity, and that was speedily accomplished through