Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/85

 terms indeed no longer appreciate their significance; for all sense of antagonism between the pagan and Christian elements in the popular religion has, as we have seen, long been lost. But the words themselves are a relic of the early days in which the combat of Christianity with the heathen world was still stern. Among the most widespread of these terms is the word [Greek: xôtika] (i.e. [Greek: exôtika]), the 'extraneous' powers, clearly an invention of the early Christians. The phrase 'those that are without' ([Greek: hoi exô] or [Greek: hoi exôthen]) was used by S. Paul first and afterwards generally by the Fathers of the Church to denote men of all other persuasions. In the fourth century Basil of Caesarea employed the adjective [Greek: exôtikos] also in a corresponding sense. This word no doubt became popular, and hence [Greek: ta exôtika], 'the extraneous ones,' became a convenient term by which to denote comprehensively all those old divinities whose worship the Church disallowed but even among her own adherents could not wholly suppress. Another comprehensive term equally significant, if not so commonly used, is [Greek: ta pagana], 'the pagan ones.' This is in use in the Ionian islands and some parts of the mainland, but I have not met with it nor found it understood in the Peloponnese or in the islands of the Aegean Sea. In Cephalonia it is chiefly, though not exclusively, applied to a species of supernatural beings usually called callicántzari ([Greek: kallikantzaroi]) of whom more anon: the reason of this restriction may be either the fact that these monsters—to judge from the folk-stories of the island—so far outnumber there all other kinds of 'pagan' beings that this one species has almost appropriated to itself the generic name, or that in old time, when the word [Greek: pagana], 'pagan,' was still understood in the sense which we attribute to it, these monsters were deemed specially 'pagan' because, as we shall see later, they delight in disturbing a season of Christian gladness. But elsewhere the term, still employed in what must have been its original meaning, comprises all kinds of non-Christian deities; and in earlier times) to denote an unbaptised child. Cf. [Greek: Ant. Mêliarakês, Hypomnêmata perigraphika tôn Kykladôn nêsôn,—Andros, Keôs], p. 45.]