luminous stone.'1 These stones, like the thunder-axes' of Dionysos Pelekys, were generally supposed to be ouranopipt,2 or heaven-fallen; and so the inhabitants of the Hauran worshipped Katsiu, the Aerolite.* To these instances may be added the prehistoric, megalithic, and other stone structures and erections, into the design of which it is unnecessary to enter further here. That many of them are connected with religious uses I do not doubt, for the fact that human remains have been found interred within stone circles in no way proves that these places were only used as burying grounds. We might as well contend, from the existence. of graves in a ruined abbey, that the only services ever held in the building had been of a funereal character. Let us examine some part of the symbolism and ideas connected with this Ebenezer or Stone-of-Strength. Amongst ourselves the letter I, the upright pillar, denotes the Ego, and also One, the first of numbers, the number sacred in monotheistic symbolism to the Deity. Now, as it is given to man alone 'to walk upright and to behold the heaven,' and as man can never practically conceive of God, except anthropomorphically, so the pillar and pillarstone, on account (1) of its uprightness, a word of suggestive double meaning; (2) strength, both in substance and phallically considered; (3) as connected with the serpentine and aspiring flame; and (4) among lower races, through the principles of Fetishism, became even a divinity, or the supposed seat of supernatural influence.5 In addition to these considerations, there is also to be taken into account (1) the curious and suggestive natural 1 Lenormant, Anct. Hist. of the East, ii. 221. 2 Cf. Rabelais, iv. 49. 3 Cf. Acts xix. 35. Lenormant, Anct. Hist. of the East, ii. 221. A A 5 The Dacotas would pick up a round boulder, paint it, and then, addressing it as grandfather, make offerings to it and pray to it to deliver them from danger.' (Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 147). shapes of many stones and of specific stones. Thus Mr. Phené considers that the Sphinx before being sculptured into its present form had a human similitude, a circumstance which suggested the artistic effort.1 (2) The value of certain kinds of stones, more especially of those called precious, and the medicinal and other virtues attributed to them; and (3) the belief in the aërolitic nature of many ancient stones and kinds of stones. In our own Sacred Books the similitude of the Deity to a stone is equally familiar to both Testaments. Thus He is 'the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel,' the heavenly aërolite whose descent is to destroy the kingdoms of this world, the Chief Corner Stone' in the mystic temple. The sacred stone belonged in idea to the three worlds; it fell from heaven, was on earth, and, as in the case of the celts, was found under the earth. It was equally connected with life and the Upper-world, and death and the Under-world; being the symbol of life-vigour, and yet marking the place of the dead. In its character as a god, Terminus, its site was a place for treaty and agreement, for covenant and invocation of divinity. As man civilised makes his statue of Zeus after the fashion of a man and of a magnificent specimen of a man, for he can do no more; so man, barbarous, having similar wants and feelings, gets him a statue of his Zeus, if statue it may be called, on which nature alone has worked,5 for he can do no less, and by slow degrees makes it more like a god by making it more like a man. These being some of the root-ideas connected with the sacred stone and the pillar, let us next notice the from heaven' (Paus. ix. 38). Vide Paper read before the British Association at Belfast, 1874. 2 Gen. xlix. 24. 3 Dan. ii. 34; S. Matt. xxi. 44. Thus near the temple of Dionysos at Orchomenos in Boiotia were certain revered stones said to have fallen 5 The primitive memorial erected to a god did not even pretend to be an image, but was often nothing more than a pillar, a board, a shapeless a post' (Grote, Hist. of Greece, iv. 132). stone or region whence the statuary's art emerged into Hellas; and this we find clearly indicated by a triple legendary myth in the stories of Hephaistos, Pygmalion, and Daidalos. It is the Semitic Hephaistos, who formed self-moving, golden maidens to aid him in his forge, and who made the wondrous dogs of Alkinoös. It is the Kypriot King, Pohem-Elyon, or Pygmalion, who made the ivory maiden into whom at his prayer Aphrodite-Astarte breathed the breath of life, and by whom he became the father of Paphos, one of the myriad creatures representing a personified locality. Lastly, it is Daidalos, the Cunning Worker, the personification of the statuary's craft, who in Phoenicia, Krete, and then subsequently westward, introduces a development of art hitherto unknown. He, according to tradition,5 first wrought his figures with separate feet, and so was credited with having, Hephaistoslike, made living statues.6 Some legends represent him as a Kretan, others as an Athenian; nor is the latter view unjust, for the glory of sculpture belongs to the Hellenes, who soon outstripped their teachers. Krete was a great centre of Semitic influence in the West; the labyrinth was Kamic in 1 I. xviii. 417. 2 Od. vii. 92. 8 Cf. the statement of Pausanias, that Daidalos received his name from the statues, not they from him (Paus. ix. 3). Clemens asserts that anciently the Skythians worshipped their swords, the Arabs stones, and the Persians rivers; and that some still more ancient races set up blocks of wood in conspicuous situations, and erected pillars of stone, which were called Xoana, from the carving of the material.' He mentions an Artemis of unwrought wood,' a Here 'merely a tree trunk;' another Here' at first a plank;' and quotes Varro that Mars was first worshipped as a spear (Protrept. iv. 1). 5 Themistios, Orat. xv. 6 Palaiphatos, Peri Apiston. The Delians had a wooden statue of Aphrodite, which marks exactly the transition between the conical stone of Paphos and the finished work of later times. It was small, and terminated in a square block, instead of feet (Paus. ix. 40). There was a similar Hermes at Phigaleia (Ibid. viii. 39), and there is also a similar Aphrodite in the British Museum. 7 As to early sculpture among the Kretans, vide Müller, Doric Race, i. 377. 8 Vide Poseidon, xxx-xxxi. design as in name, and the monster it contained Phoenician. In the time of Pausanias there were still four statues existing which were traditionally ascribed to Daidalos, a Britomartis, the Kretan Artemis, in Olos; and an Athene at Knosos in Krete; a statue of Herakles at Thebai; and another of Trophonios at Lebadeia in Boiotia. He was an assistant of the fair-haired Ariadne,* and by degrees, i.e., as the arts he typified extended, his fame was widely spread throughout all Sikelia and Italia.5 The ancient wooden statues of Hellas, and at one time probably all carved statues, were wooden, coloured, and covered with real drapery, were called after him Daidala ;7 and there were also in Boiotia two Festivals of this name, the ritual of which aptly illustrates the legends of Daidalos and the introduction of the art of statue-making. Ploutarchos composed a treatise, fragments of which are preserved in Eusebios, on the greater Festival. The Lesser was held in the great oak-grove of Alalkomenai, where was a very ancient shrine of Athene, in ruins in the time of Pausanias.10 This goddess is not the Aryan daughter of Zeus, but the Phoenician divinity Athene-Onka, who dwelt in the suburbs of Thebai; 11 and the ancient Kretan statue of Athene attributed to Daidalos was probably a representation of this goddess. Pausanias remarks that the works of Daidalos, though rude and inelegant, yet appeared to have something divine about them.12 Ancient statues were sometimes partly of wood and partly of stone. Thus at Megalopolis was a wooden Aphrodite, the hands, face, and extremities of the feet of which were of stone; also a Persephone, partly wooden and partly 1 Bunsen, Egypt's Place, ii. 306. 2 Vide inf. ix, iii. Paus. ix. 40. 4 Il. xviii. 592. 5 Paus. vii. 4. • Ibid. ii. 19. The name of Daedalus denotes the activity of the Attic and Cretan artists' (K. O. Müller, Anct. Art. 39). • Vide Paus. ix. 3. 9 Cf. Il. iv. 8. 10 Paus. ix. 33. 11 Sup. V. v. 3, 5; inf. ix. iii. stone.1 We are not now dependent on statue-myths for our knowledge of the regions where the art flourished and whence it was introduced into Hellas. The statuary powers of Kam, Assur, and Kaldea, are revealed to us; and although the arts of the early inhabitants of Syria, Phoenicia and Asia Minor, are even at present more concealed, yet ample materials exist to confirm the significance of the legendary traditions. History when really known almost invariably corroborates all truly ancient myths, and the Natural Phenomena Theory is no exception to this rule, for its teachings are history in the highest sense. Descending to the particular, we have next to notice the statues of Dionysos, and first those of the archaic period. The eldest Grecian world was satisfied in the repetition of this god of nature with a phallic herma,'2' a mere piece of wood, a pillar turned with the narrowest end down, occasionally surmounted by a mark or head,'3 a circumstance which brings us to the consideration of the apparent connection of the Aryan divinities Hermes, and Apollon with Dionysos Stylos. The worship of Apollon as Agyieus was peculiar to the Dorians, and of great antiquity at Delphoi, a locality where, as has been noticed, the Dionysiak element was introduced in archaic times, from which place it was brought to Athenai at a very early period,5 partly at the command of an oracle. His statue was erected in courtyards and before the doors of houses, as a tutelary deity, and to avert evil. The symbol or image of the god was most simple, being a conical block of stone, a form manifestly Phoenician. 'The ancients knew not whether to consider it as an altar 1 Paus. viii. 31. 2 Müller, Anct. Art. 488. 3 Murray, Manual of Mythol. 145. Vide Prof. Max Müller, Lects, on the Science of Language, ij. 521, 5 The Athenians first worshipped mutilated Hermai' (Paus. i. 24). They worship Hermes as a god, and place Aguicus as a doorkeeper (Clem. Alex. Protrept. iv. 5). 1 |