The human family reflected into the heavens naturally suggests the
divine trio of Father, Mother, Child. And this may be found on the
Asia-Minor shore and in Hellas. It would be more important if we could
discover the worship of this triad in an indissoluble union from which
the mystic idea of a triune godhead might arise. This is not
discernible clearly in the older period on either side of the Aegean.
The cult-complex of Zeus, Semele, and Dionysos does not belong to
ancient Hellas and is rare at any period; that of Hades Demeter Kore
is occasionally found in cults of doubtful antiquity, but usually the
mother and daughter were worshipped without the male deity. The
Homeric triad so often invoked in adjurations of Zeus, Athena, and
Apollo, which misled Mr. Gladstone, is due probably to the exigencies
of hexameter verse, and is not guaranteed by genuine cult. No divine
triad in Hellas can be proved to have descended from the earliest
period of {187} Greek religion, except probably that of the Charites
at Orchomenos.[187.1] We have later evidence of a trinity of Zeus,
Poseidon, and Hades, expressing the triad that Nature presents to us
of sky, sea, and earth. But probably one of these figures is an
emanation of Zeus himself; the sky-god having become “chthonian” in a
very early period.[187.2] We cannot say, then, that the earliest
period of Hellenic religion shows a trinitarian tendency; and if it
were so, we could not impute it to early Mesopotamian influence, for
the idea of a trinity does not appear in the Eastern religion with
such force and strength as to be likely to travel far.
As for the artificial group of the twelve Olympians, we should
certainly have been tempted to connect this with Babylonian lore, the
number twelve being of importance in astronomical numeration; only
that the divine group of twelve does not happen to occur in Babylonian
religious records at all. Nor does the complex cult of the Δώδεκα θεοί
appear to belong to the earliest period of Greek religion.[187.3] And
so far I have been able to discern nothing that justifies the
suggestion[187.4] that the principle of unification or divine
grouping in early Mediterranean polytheism came from Babylon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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