Page:Destruction of the Greek Empire.djvu/495

 APPENDIX IV 449 had fittingly been crowned with a temple dedicated to the God of Day. The great dragon, Night, had been overcome by Helios. To this day it is almost universally true that all the peaks in question have an Orthodox church which has taken the place of the temple of Apollo and is dedicated to his successor, St. George. 1 In like manner the temples built in fishing villages to Poseidon have almost invariably been dedicated to St. Nicholas. The episcopal staff of a Greek bishop has the two serpents' heads associated with Aesculapius. The distribution of holy bread at funerals, the processions to shrines, to sacred groves, to Hagiasmas or holy wells, and numerous other customs of the Orthodox Church, are survivals or rudimentary forms of paganism. 2 Asiatic influence was more powerful in Constantinople than in Greece. The explanation of this fact is to be found in the remote- ness of Athens from the capital ; in the greater intellectual life of Constantinople ; in the presence of many leaders of thought from the cities in Asia Minor under Asiatic influence, and in the traditional Eoman sentiment derived from the influence of Latin rulers, literature, and tradition. The iconoclastic movement towards the end of the eighth century was a genuine attempt to get rid of pagan practices. It failed because of the base character of some of its imperial supporters, because of the opposition of the less cultured western church, and because the Empress Irene, a native of Athens and brought up among the traditions of paganism which still lived on in what was then a remote part of the empire, placed herself at the head of the Hellenic party and with her strong will was able to prevent any reformation being accomplished. But paganism in Greece and Asia Minor lived on long after the 1 Mr. Theodore Bent, who had paid greater attention to the archaeology of the Greek Islands and to their present condition than any other Englishman, called my attention to the fact that the churches on the highest peaks not dedicated to St. George were usually dedicated to St. Elias, or to the Trans- figuration, and suggested that there may have been a confusion in the minds of the islanders between Elias and Helios, the aspirate in the latter word being silent in modern Greek. 2 Valuable suggestions and information are given by Mr. Sathas in refer- ence to the survival of paganism in Documents inidits, Athens, vol. i. Lord Beaconsfield in Lothair shows a true insight into the actual condition of Greek Christianity when he represents Mr. Phoebus as describing what he pro- poses to do with an island which he has leased in the Aegean. He will restore paganism, will set up the statue which he has sculptured of the American Theodora in a grove of laurel still much resorted to, and will have processions in the beautiful pagan fashion. The people are still ' performing uncon- sciously the religious ceremonies of their ancestors.' Lothair, ch. xxvii. and xxviii. G G