is, something entirely different from the philosophical ideas of Platon and the Hellenes of the great ages. The diffusion of the divine truths and doctrines of Christianity throughout the ancient world naturally stimulated the learned who remained constant to heathenism to attempt to discover a corresponding grandeur, and sublimity, and depth of mystery, in the writings, traditions, and practices of their own religion. Before the Christian era the speculations and belief of the wiser heathen, in their feeling after God and divine realities, are sufficiently intelligible, and their discoveries and errors can alike be understood and appreciated. But the vain endeavour to bring to light, from the confused mass of heathen belief, knowledge, and tradition, a depth of splendour and of truth corresponding to the revelation of the Deity and his principles in the sacred books of the Hebrew and the Christian, only produced a system of the most uncertain belief and midnight obscurity, mainly founded on unsupported fancy and arbitrary assertion. The chiefs of the Neo-Platonists were Ammonios, the founder of the School, who died A.D. 243, and who was the son of Christian parents; Longinos, the friend of Zenobia, put to death by Aurelian; Plotinos, often considered as the originator of the system; Porphyrios, the great anti-Christian controversialist; the Emperor Julianus; Saloustios, his friend, author of an occult treatise About the Gods and the Kosmos; Proklos, the chief luminary of the School, surnamed Diadochos, the Successor, as being the true representative of Platon; Marinos, his pupil, and who wrote his life; Olympiodoros the elder; and Olympiodoros the younger, a contemporary of the Emperor Justinianus; and Simplikios, who, persecuted by the Christians, took refuge with six other philosophers at the Court of Kosru of Persia, and through his assistance obtained from the Christian Emperor license for the fugitives to return and

practise their religion undisturbed. The last, and possibly not the least of the School, was the late Thomas Taylor, translator and commentator on the Orphik Hymns, Platon, Iamblichos, Pausanias, Plotinos, Proklos, Julianus, and others, and Author of a Dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries.1 He speaks of Proklos as being 'incomparable,' which he probably was, and as 'the man that unfolded the theology and philosophy of the Greeks in the most consummate perfection.' The ancient fables,' he tells us, are replete with the most philosophical and mystic information,' and at once scientific and sublime;' and that, thanks to Proklos and the younger Olympiodoros, we can have them explained at our pleasure. He then proceeds to pass a severe censure on Euemerism, and praises the Baconian method of dealing with the myths,2 remarking that Bacon 'has done all in attempting to unfold them that great genius without the assistance of genuine philosophy is able to effect.' The anxious enquirer may now perhaps congratulate himself on having met with a sage who, apparently, has thoroughly fathomed the whole subject, and sounded all its depths and shoals. A few illustrations of what NeoPlatonism can bring up de profundis will suffice. Bakchos is, that is, represents, 'the mundane intellect.' What is that? and why does he represent it ?-may perhaps be asked. The first question I am altogether unable to answer, but the reply to the second is, Because Proklos says so. Similarly the talons of the Sphinx, according to Lord Bacon, represent the axioms and arguments of science.' This, again, is of course quite arbitrary and unphilosophical, although perhaps more intelligible; and, as Dr. Tylor well observes, 'any of us may practise this simple art, each according to his own fancy. If, for Cf. Mythol. of the Aryan Nations,

1 Recently edited by Dr. Wilder. New York Bouton. 1875.

28.

instance, political economy happens for the moment to lie uppermost in our mind, we may with due gravity expound the story of Perseus as an allegory of trade: Perseus himself is Labour, and he finds Andromeda, who is Profit, chained and ready to be devoured by the monster Capital. But when it comes to sober investigation of the processes of mythology, the attempt to penetrate to the foundation of an old fancy will scarcely be helped by burying it yet deeper underneath the new one.'1 For further information about Neo-Platonism I would respectfully refer enquirers to the great originals, and conclude this notice with the wise remark of a living sage: 'Simple and credulous persons are, perhaps fortunately, more common than philosophers; and it is of the highest importance that you should take innocent testimony as it was meant, and not efface, under the graceful explanation which your cultivated ingenuity may suggest, the evidence their story may contain of an event having really taken place.'2

Subsection VII.-Eikon of the Orphik Dionysos.

The Homerik portrait of Dionysos chiefly consists of detail, the Orphik of general features, amongst which the primary and leading characteristic is a kosmogonico-solar phase. Dionysos the Demiurge fills and sustains the universe of matter; he is Phanes the Apparent, and Erikepaios the Growth-Power of the world, not yet

3

degraded into a Priapos, he is also a solar divinity, Pyropos the Fiery-eyed, and Antauges the Sparkler; and so becomes, on the one hand, naturally but erroneously connected with Aryan sun-gods, and, on the other, is properly linked with such Semitic personages as Sabazios, Iao, and Adon. So, again, he is Eubouleous the Wisecounselling, like Helios who sees and hears all things,' and thus becomes the possessor of mystic wisdom. Again, he is a chthonian divinity, or connected with the Under-world, in his kosmogonic phase, as being the concealed earth-power; and in his solar, as sinking at close of day into the chambers of Persephone,1 from which he rises as her son in renewed splendour. Unanthropomorphic in shape, horned and bovine, and nursed by the Ocean Nymphs, he is the tauriform god from the lands of the morning. Like the great earth-goddess Demeter, he is Thesmophoros, the Law-giver, who regulates religious ritual, civil relationship, and the general order of things. He is connected locally with Krete, Kypros, Phrygia, Syria, and the Semitic East generally, and with the Kypros-born Aphrodite. He is a Kadmeion, and son of Semele. His vast and vaguely defined power and sway place him almost, if not quite, on a level with the highest of gods. By the side of Zeus and Iao he stands as a brother deity, 'every inch a king.' His stern and savage aspect is not prominent here, as in the case of the Homerik Dionysos, for the Poems are the productions of his humble worshippers, to whom he is ever graceful and kindly, written in his honour, and not to record his early struggles in Aryan regions. Lord of the vine is he, but this phase is not a very prominent one. All these concepts and connections of the god are separate and distinct from the Neo-Platonik mysticism which has twined itself around them, and are also in perfect harmony with the

1 Cf. Od. x. 509 with Hymn liii.

Dionysos of Homeros and of Hesiodos. Each new detail adds a fresh touch to the portrait, and, while explaining or expanding, is in uniformity with previous outlines, and assists us in obtaining a juster concept of this gigantic and mysterious divinity. The choric voices of the three Theologers, in different tones, raise a harmonious song in honour of the Zeus of Nysa. Homeros shows him as in youth, at once strong and weak, he leaped Protesilaos-like upon the hostile shore. Hesiodos, while preserving the traditions of his birth, shows him as he became when established on the banks of the Asopos and Ilisos; the Orphik Poet reveals his solar and kosmogonic character, which previously had been but indirectly apparent, and displays the towering stature to which he attained in an earlier home.