Polytheism is the worship of many Gods without the worship of animals. It may be referred to two sources, worship of the Powers of material nature and of the Powers of spiritual nature. Its history is that of a conflict between the two.[1] In the earliest epoch of Greek Polytheism, the former prevails; the latter at a subsequent period. The early deities are children of the Earth, the Sky, the Ocean. These objects themselves are Gods.[2] In a word, the Saturnian Gods of the older mythology are deified powers of Nature: but in the mythology of the later philosophers, it is absolute spiritual power that rules the world from the top of Olympus, and the subordinate deities are the spiritual faculties of Man personified and embellished.[3] Matter, no longer worshipped, is passive, powerless, and dishonoured. The animals are driven off from Olympus. Man is idealized and worshipped. The Supreme wears the personality of men. Anthropomorphism takes the place of a deification of Nature. The popular Gods are of the same origin as their worshippers, born, nursed, bred, but immortal and not growing old.[4] They are married like men and women, and become parents. They preside over each department of Nature and each province of art.[5] Pluto rules over the abodes of the departed; Neptune
- ↑ In what relates to this subject, I shall consider Polytheism as it appeared to the great mass of its votaries. Its most obvious phenomena are the most valuable. Some, as Bryant, take the speculations of naturalists and make it only a system of Physics: others, as Cudworth, following the refinements of later philosophers, would prove it to be a system of Monotheism in disguise. But to the mass Apollo was not the Sun nor the beautiful influence of God, whatsoever he might appear to the mystic sage.
- ↑ Julius Firmicus maintains that the heathen deities were simply deified natural objects. De Errore prof. Religionum, Ch. I.–V. But Clement of Alexandria more wisely refers them to seven distinct sources. Cohortatio ad Gentes, Opp. I., ed. Potter, p. 21, 22. Earth and Heaven are the oldest Gods of Greece.
- ↑ See for example the contest of Eros and Anacreon, Carm. XIV. p. 18, 19, ed. Möbius.
- ↑ See Heyne, Excursus VIII., in Iliad, I. 494, p. 189; Hegel, Philosophie der Rel., Vol. II. p. 96—141; Werke, Vol. XII.; Pindar, Nem. VI. 1, et seq., Olymp. XII. et seq., &c.
- ↑ See Aristotle, Metaphysica, Opp., ed. Baker, Oxford, 1837, VIII. Lib. XI. § 8, p. 233, et seq. In the old Pelasgic Polytheism, it seems there were no proper names for the individual Gods. The general term Gods was all. Herodotus, Lib. II. ch. 52, Opp., ed. Baehr., I. p. 606, et seq. Plato mentions the two classes of Gods, one derived from the worship of Nature, the other from that of man. Legg. Lib. XI., Opp. ed. Ast. VII. p. 344. See Plutarch cited in Eusebius, P. E. III. 1, p. 57, Vers. Lat., ed. 1579.
