Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative TheologyClarke, James Freeman
Islamic
Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology
Clarke, James Freeman
Christianity and other religions; Religions
This most ancient deity, god of storms, ruler of the atmosphere, favorite
divinity of the Aryan race in all its branches, became Indra when he
reached India, Jupiter when he arrived in Italy, Zeus when in Epirus he
became the chief god of the Pelasgi, and was worshipped at that most
ancient oracular temple of all Greece, Dodona. To him in the Iliad (XVI.
235) does Achilles pray, saying: "O King Jove, Dodonean, Pelasgian,
dwelling afar off, presiding over wintry Dodona." A reminiscence of this
old Pelasgian god long remained both in the Latin and Greek conversation,
when, speaking of the weather, they called it Zeus, or Jupiter. Horace
speaks of "cold Jupiter" and "bad Jupiter," as we should speak of a cold
or rainy day. We also find in Horace (Odes III. 2: 29) the archaic form of
the word "Jupiter," _Diespiter_, which, according to Lassen (I. 755),
means "Ruler of Heaven"; being derived from Djaus-piter. _Piter_, in
Sanskrit, originally meant, says Lassen, Ruler or Lord, as well as Father.
In Arcadia and Boeotia the Pelasgi declared that their old deities were
born. By this is no doubt conveyed the historic consciousness that these
deities were not brought to them from abroad, but developed gradually
among themselves out of nameless powers of nature into humanized and
personal deities. In the old days it was hardly more than a fetich
worship. Hêrê was worshipped as a plank at Samos; Athênê, as a beam at
Lindus; the Pallas of Attica, as a stake; Jupiter, in one place, as a
rock; Apollo, as a triangle.
Together with Jupiter or Zeus, the Pelasgi worshipped Gaia or Mother
Earth, in Athens, Sparta, Olympia, and other places. One of her names was
Diônê; another was Rhea. In Asia she was Cybele; but everywhere she
typified the great productive power of nature.
Another Pelasgic god was Hêlios, the Sun-God, worshipped with his sister
Sêlêne, the Moon. The Pelasgi also adored the darker divinities of the
lower world. At Pylos and Elis, the king of Hades was worshipped as the
awful Aïdoneus; and Persephonê, his wife, was not the fair Kora of
subsequent times, but the fearful Queen of Death, the murderess,
homologous to the savage wife of Çiva, in the Hindoo Pantheon. To this age
also belongs the worship of the Kabiri, nameless powers, perhaps of
Phoenician origin, connected with the worship of fire in Lemnos and
Samothrace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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