Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/485

 supernatural avengers were always gods or demons; that they were often so conceived I do not doubt; but, as a matter of fact, I have discovered no single passage of classical literature which can be said finally and absolutely in itself to demand that interpretation. In many instances the probabilities are in favour of the Alastores being regarded as a class of avenging demons; in many others it is equally good or even better to suppose that they are the dead men themselves in person.

What then are the foundations upon which the received notion, that the Alastores were always gods, is based? It might perhaps be urged that the word Alastor found a place among the many epithets and titles conferred by worshippers upon Zeus in order to indicate the particular exercise of his all-reaching power which their hearts desired. It might also be urged that Clement of Alexandria names the Alastores among those classes of gods whom the pagan Greeks had evolved from the naughtiness of their own imagination as types and personifications of the baser human passions. But neither of these facts can serve to substantiate the contention that the Alastores were primarily and necessarily gods. The occasional use of a word as an epithet of Zeus cannot be held to prove the general appropriation of that word to a class of lesser gods; while the statement of Clement is the statement of a man designedly vilifying the whole Greek religion, neither appreciating nor desirous to appreciate its refinements, but willing rather to overwhelm it utterly, its better and its worse elements alike, with the torrent of his invective and reprobation. To him the Alastores appeared as supernatural beings instinct with the pagan passion of revenge, false gods therefore or devils, fit objects whereon to pour out the vials of righteous wrath and Christian scorn. He was not concerned to be wholly just or wholly accurate. Indeed the very sources from which he drew the idea that the Alastores were gods are still open to us; it is the Greek Tragedians whom he holds guilty of this naughty invention; it is the Greek Tragedians who remain for us the fountain-head of information concerning these Avengers, and who will on examination make it clear that they were not primarily or necessarily gods.

The single passage in Greek Tragedy which has been often