Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/356

 scene of the calamity and cries to them with an Homeric simplicity, 'Eat ye the little cakes, good queens, and heal my child .' Even the malice of Callicantzari may sometimes be averted by a present of pork.

Thus with or without the ratification of the Church the old offerings still continue to be made in the self-same form; and even where other substitutes have been devised, the spirit which animates the dedication of them is unchanged—a spirit essentially commercial; it matters little whether the suppliant is trying to buy blessings or to get the punishment which he has deserved commuted for a fine, or again whether he is speculating in future favours or settling in accordance with a vow for favours received; in each case there is the quid pro quo, the bargaining that the Greek has never been able to forego, not even in his religion.

But while the spirit thus manifested is not wholly admirable and perhaps deserved the ridicule of Lucian, it is highly instructive. The sacrifices or offerings are the means by which the worshipper gets into touch with the worshipped, the vehicle for his thanks or petitions; the possibility of bargaining implies intercourse; commerce is a form, even though it be the lowest form, of communion.

But that there were other kinds of sacrifice which represented higher aspects of the communion between men and gods in ancient Greece is certain. The commonly accepted classification of ancient sacrifices recognises three main groups—the sacramental, the honorific, and the piacular. Of the sacramental class, in which—by a development, it appears, of totemism—some sacred animal, representing the anthropomorphic god who has superseded it in men's worship, is consumed by the worshippers in order that by eating the flesh and drinking the blood they may partake of the god's own life and self, no trace, so far as I know, can now be found in the popular religion. The honorific class comprises the majority of those offerings which might with less euphemism be called commercial; those however which are prompted by the desire to expiate sin, or rather to buy off the punishment which sin has merited, would, I suppose, fall under the head of piacular. But the line drawn between the honorific and the piacular seems to