[20] The distinction here made between "religion" and "mythology" is made merely for the sake of convenience. We may readily be told that the belief in a good God is as mythical as the tales about bad gods. But the belief in a just, wise, and loving heavenly Father, the source and sanction of ethics, represents one mood, and leads to one set of results in conduct; while the belief in wicked and buffooning gods represents another aspect of human thought, and leads to very different results, mainly to the bewilderment of late historic Greek thinkers. [21] _Iliad_, iii. 279, 280. [22] xix. 259, 260. [23] _Iliad_, ix. 502-512. [24] For a variety of theories, see Leaf, Notes to _Iliad_, iii. 278, xix. 262. Quite possibly the formula of the oath is a survival from a stage of belief more archaic than the ordinary Homeric conception of Hades. [25] _Odyssey_, i. 263. [26] iii. 48. [27] vi. 180-185. [28] vii. 165. [29] xiii. 202. [30] _Odyssey_, xiv. 82-84. [31] _Iliad_, xvi. 516. Prayer of Glaucus to Apollo. [32] Cf. _Miracles de Madame de Sainte Catherine de Fierbois_, a chapel register of miracles in the Hundred Years' War. [33] Hdt. i. 66. [34] i. 67. [35] v. 67. [36] See _R. G. E_. p. 128, note 3; and, for other instances, pp. 180-190. [37] v. 333-335. CHAPTER XIII TEMPLES. ALTARS. RITUAL. PURIFICATION Homeric religion is so advanced that we cannot expect to learn from it anything about the earliest origins, or to illustrate it from what we know of the most primitive forms of belief (it would be absurd to look in Homer for any trace of totemism or exogamy). Yet Homeric religion is so far _naïf_ and fresh, in that it is not the work of a priestly caste; its services have not been elaborated by the mummeries of interested medicine-men. As for sacrifice itself, it were superfluous to quote passages in which sacrifice pleases the gods, and is counted to men for righteousness. But it appears that the Olympians valued sacrifice rather as a proof that men were mindful of them, and wished to stand well in their eyes, than for any good they got from the smoke and savour. They had their own nectar and ambrosia.