Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the GreeksRohde, Erwin
Religion
Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks
Rohde, Erwin
Greece -- Religion
[56\1: Even the river-gods and Nymphs who are usually confined to
their own homes are called to the ~agora/~ of all the gods in
Olympos, ~U~ 4 ff. These deities who remain fixed in the locality of
their worship are weaker than the Olympians just because they are
not elevated with the rest to the ideal summit of Olympos. Kalypso
resignedly admits this, ~e~ 169 f., ~ei/ ke theoi/ g' ethe/lôsi,
toi\ ourano\n euru\n e/chousin, hoi/ meu phe/rteroi/ eisi noê=sai/
te krê=nai/ te~. They have sunk to the second rank of deities. They
are, however, never thought of as free and independent, but as a
mere addition to the kingdom of Zeus and the other Olympians.]
[57\1: Exx. in Nägelsbach, _Hom. Theol._^2, 387 f. (~phre/nes~), W.
Schrader, _Jb. f. Philol._ 1885, p. 163 f. (~ê=tor~).]
[58\1: The belief in the existence of more than one soul in the same
person is very wide-spread. See J. G. Müller, _Americ. Urrelig._, p.
66, 207 f., Tylor, i, 432 f. The distinction between the five
spiritual powers dwelling within man given by the Avesta rests upon
similar grounds (Geiger, _Civ. of East. Iran_, 1, 124 ff.). Even in
Homer Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_, i, 249, finds a "two-soul" theory
fully developed. According to him Homer recognizes in the
~thumo/s~--a word supposed to be derived from the steam rising from
freshly shed and still warm blood--a second soul in addition to the
~psuchê/~: a "smoke-soul" side by side with the "breath-soul". But
if by soul a "something" is meant--as it must be in popular
psychology--which is added independently to the body and its
faculties, something which lives separately in the body and after
the death of the body (with which it is not indissolubly united)
dissociates itself and goes off independently--then the ~thumo/s~ of
Homer cannot be called a "soul" or a double of the ~psuchê/~. Again
and again the ~thumo/s~ is clearly referred to as a mental faculty
of the living body; either thinking or willing or merely feeling
(~thumô=| noe/ô, thumô=| dei=sai, gêthê/sei thumô=|, echolô/sato
thumô=|, ê/rare thumo\n edôdê=|~, etc.) is conducted by its means.
It is the seat of the emotions (~me/nos e/llabe thumo/n~) and
belongs to the body of the living man, and is especially enclosed in
the ~phre/nes~. In the face of {51} this it is impossible to regard
it as something independent of the body or as anything else than a
special faculty of the same living body. Once, indeed, ~Ê~ 131, the
~thumo/s~ is spoken of, instead of ~psuchê/ as that which goes down
to Haides, but this can only be an error or an oversight (see also
below, ch. xi, n. 2). According to Homeric ideas--and this is a
conception repeated over and over again in Greek literature and even
in Greek philosophy--the body has all its vital powers in itself,
not merely ~thumo/s~ but ~me/nos, no/os, mê=tis, boulê/~. Yet it
only acquires life when supplemented by the ~psuchê/~, which is
something different from all these bodily powers--something with an
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