Part 12

"Oh! Thou most glorious of immortals, whose names are many, for ever Almighty, Zeus, Thou who rulest nature, directing all things according to a law, hail! To Thee all this universe moving round the earth yields obedience, following whither thou leadest, and submits itself to Thy rule.... So great in Thy nature, King Supreme above all things, no work is achieved without Thee, neither on the earth, nor in the celestial regions of ether, nor on the sea, but those which the wicked accomplish in their folly."

This is the Zeus of the philosophers, of the Stoics, of Cleanthes: but he was already the Zeus of the ancient poets. Powerful, omniscient, and just is the god of Æschylus, as that of Cleanthes: he is the king of kings, the blessed of the blessed, the sovereign power among all powers, the only one who is free among the gods, who is the master of the mightiest, who is subservient to no one's rule; above whom no one sits, no one to whom from below he looks with awe; every word of his is absolute; he is the God of deep thoughts, whose heart has dark and hidden ways, impenetrable to the eye, and no scheme formed within his mind has ever miscarried. Finally, he is the Father of Justice, Dike, "the terrible virgin who breathes out on crime anger and death," it is he who from hell raises vengeance with its slow chastisement against the bold wayward mortal. Terpander proclaims in Zeus the essence of all things, the god who rules over everything. Archilochus sings Zeus father, as the God who rules the heavens, who watches the guilty and unjust actions of men, who administers chastisements to monsters, the God who created heaven and earth. The old man of Ascra knows that Zeus is the father of gods and of men, that his eye sees and comprehends all things and reaches all that he wishes. In short, as far back as the Greek Pantheon appears in the light of history, even from Homer, Zeus towers above the nation of gods which surrounds him. He himself proclaims, and the other gods proclaim after him, that, unrivalled in power and strength, he is the greatest of all; the gods, at his behest, silently bow down before him; he would hurl into the gloomy depths of Tartarus whomsoever should dare to disobey him: he would hurl him down into the uttermost depths of the subterranean abyss: alone against them all, he would master them. Should they let fall from the sky a golden chain on which all the gods and goddesses might be suspended, they still would be powerless, however hard they might strain to drag him from the heavens to the earth; and if it pleased him, he could draw them up even with the earth, even with the sea, and he would then fix the chain on the ridge of Olympus, and suspend on it the whole universe; so much is he above mankind, above the gods. Not only is he the most powerful, but also he is the wisest--the =mêtietês=; he is all wisdom and he is likewise all justice. It is from him that the judges of the sons of the Achæans have received their laws: very good, very great, he holds learned conversations with Themis (the law) who sits at his side; prayers are his daughters, whom he avenges for all the insults of the wicked.

Thus, power, wisdom, justice, belonged from all time to Zeus, to the Zeus of Homer as well as to the Zeus of Cleanthes; to the Zeus of the poets as to him of the philosophers, in the remotest period of paganism as at the approach of the religion of Christ. A providential god rules the Pantheon of the Hellenes.

What Zeus is in Greece, Jupiter is in Italy: the God who is above all the gods. The identity of the two deities is so striking that the ancients themselves, forestalling comparative mythology, recognized it from the very first. He is the God, great and good amongst them all: _Jupiter, optimus, maximus_.

_Varuna._--The most ancient of the religions of India, which the Vedas have made known to us, has also a Zeus, whose name is Varuna.[40]

"Truly admirable for grandeur are the works of Him who has separated the two worlds and fixed their vast extent: of Him who has set in motion the high and sublime firmament, who has spread out the heavens above and the earth beneath.

"These heavens and this earth which reach so far, flowing with milk, so beautiful in form, it is by the law of Varuna that they remain fixed, facing each other, immortal beings with fertile seed.

"This Asura,[41] who is acquainted with all things, has propped up these heavens, he has fixed the boundaries of the earth. He is enthroned above all the worlds, universal king; all the laws of the world are the laws of Varuna.

"In the bottomless abyss the king Varuna has lifted up the summit of the celestial tree.[42] It is the king Varuna who has traced out to the sun the broad path he is to follow: to footless creatures he has given feet so that they may run.

"Those stars, which illumine the night, where were they during the day? Infallible are the laws of Varuna: the moon kindles itself and walks through the night.

"Varuna has traced out paths for the sun: he has thrown forwards the fluctuating torrent of rivers. He has dug out the wide and rapid beds where the waves of the days, let loose, unroll themselves in their order.

"He has put strength into the horse, milk into the cow, intellect into the heart, Agni[43] into the waters, the sun in the sky, soma[44] into the stone.

"The wind is thy breath, O Varuna! which roars in the atmosphere, like the ox in the meadow. Between this earth and the sublime heaven above, all things, O Varuna, are of thy creation."

There is an order in nature, there is a law, a habit, a rule, _a Rita_. This law, this _Rita_, it is Varuna who has established it. He is the god of the Rita, the god of Order, the guardian of the Rita; he is the god of efficient and stable laws; in him rest as in a rock the fixed immovable laws.

Organizer of the world, he is its master. He is the first of the Asuras, "of the lords;" he is _the Asura_, "the Lord;" he is the sovereign of the whole world, the king of all beings, the universal king, the independent king; no one amongst the gods dares to infringe his laws; "it is thou, Varuna, who art the king of all."

As he has omnipotence, he has omniscience too, he is "the Lord who knows all things," the _Asura viçva-vedas_. He is the sage who has supreme wisdom, in whom all sciences have their centre; when the poet wishes to praise the learning of a god, he compares it to that of Varuna. "He knows the place of the birds which fly in the air, he knows the ships which are sailing on the ocean, he knows the twelve months and what they will bring forth, he knows every creature that is born. He knows the path of the sublime wind in the heights, he knows who sits at the sacrifice. The God of stable laws, Varuna, has taken his place in his palace to be the universal king, the god with the wondrous intellect. Hence, following in his mind all these marvels, he looks around him at what has happened and what will happen."

As he is the universal witness, he is also the universal judge, the infallible judge whom nothing escapes: none can deceive him, and from above he sees the evil done below and strikes it: he has sevenfold bands to clasp thrice round the liar by the upper, by the middle, and by the lower part of the body. The man, smitten by misfortune, implores his pity, and feels that he has sinned, and that the hand which strikes is also the hand that punishes:

"I ask Thee, O Varuna, because I wish to know my fault:

"I come to Thee, to question Thee who knowest all things. All the sages, with one voice, said to me, Varuna is angry with thee.

"What great crime have I committed, O Varuna, that thou shouldst want to kill thy friend, thy bard. Tell me, O Lord, O infallible one, and I will then lay my homage at thy feet.

"Free me from the bonds of my crime, do not sever the thread of the prayer that I am weaving, do not deliver me over to the deaths that, at thy dictate, O Asura, strike him who has committed a crime: send me not into the gloomy regions far from the light.

"Let me pay the penalty of my faults; but let me not suffer, O King, for the crime of others; there are so many days that have not dawned yet! Let them dawn for us also, O Varuna!"

Such is the supreme God of the Vedic religion, an organizing God, almighty, omniscient, and moral. The following is a Vedic hymn which sums up with singular force the essential attributes of the God:--

"He who from on high rules this world sees every thing as if it were before him. That which two men, seated side by side are plotting, is heard by king Varuna, himself the third.

"This earth belongs to the king Varuna, and this sky, these two sublime worlds with their remote limits; the two seas[45] are the belly of Varuna, and he rests also even in this small pool of water.

"He who should leap over the sky and beyond it, would not escape the king Varuna: he has his spies, the spies of the heavens, who go through the world; he has his thousand eyes which look on the earth.

"The king Varuna sees everything, all that which is between the two worlds and beyond them: he reckons the winking of the eye of all creatures:

"The world is in his hand like the dice in the hand of the gamester.

"Let thy sevenfold bands, O Varuna, let thy bands of wrath which are thrice linked together, let them enfold the man with a lying tongue, let them leave free the man with a truthful tongue!"

_Ahura Mazda._[46]--Ancient Persia opposes to Zeus, to Jupiter, to Varuna, her Ormazd or Ahura Mazda.[47] "It is through me," he said to his prophet, Zoroaster, "that the firmament, with its distant boundaries, hewn from the sparkling ruby, subsists without pillars to rest upon; it is through me that the earth, through me that the sun, the moon, and the stars take their radiant course through the atmosphere; it was I who formed the seeds in such a manner that, when sown in the earth, they should grow, spring up, and appear on the surface; it was I who traced their veins in every species of plants, who in all beings put the fire of life which does not consume them; it is I who in the maternal womb produce the new-born child, who form the limbs, the skin, the nails, the blood, the feet, the ears; it was I who gave the water feet to run; it was I who made the clouds, which carry the water to the world," &c. This development, taken from a recent book of the Ghebers, the Bundahish, is to be found entire, in the very first words of their oldest and holiest book, the Avesta: "I proclaim and worship Ahura Mazda, the _Creator_." As far as history can be traced, he was already what he is now. Near the ruins of the ancient Ecbatana, the traveller may read, on the red granite of the mountain of Alvand, these words, which were engraved by the hand of Darius, the king of kings, nearly five centuries before the birth of Christ:--

"A powerful God is Aurâmazda! 'Twas he who made this earth here below! 'Twas he who made that heaven above! 'Twas he who made man!"

This God, who made the world, rules it. He is the sovereign of the universe, the _Ahura_,[48] "the Lord." "He is a powerful god," exclaims Xerxes; "he is the greatest of all the gods." It is to his favour that Darius, inscribing upon the rock of Behistun the narrative of his nineteen victories, ascribes both his elevation and his triumphs. It is to his supreme care that he confides Persia: "This country of Persia, which Aurâmazda has given me, this beautiful country, beautiful in horses, beautiful in men, by the grace of Aurâmazda, and through me, king Darayavus, has nothing to fear from any enemy. May Aurâmazda and the gods of the nation bring me their help! May Aurâmazda protect this country from hostile armies, from barrenness and evil! May this country never be invaded by the stranger, nor by hostile armies, nor by barrenness, nor by evil! This is the favour which I implore from Aurâmazda and the gods of the nation!"

This world which he has organized is a work of intelligence; by his wisdom it began, and by his wisdom it will end. He is the mind which knows all things, and it is to him that the sage appeals in order to penetrate the mysteries of the world.

"Reveal to me the truth, O Ahura! What was the beginning of the good creation?

"Who is the father, who, at the beginning of time, begat Order?

"Who has traced for the sun and the stars the paths that they must follow?

"Who makes the moon increase and decrease?

"O Ahura! I would learn those mysteries and many more!

"Who has fixed the earth and the immovable stars to establish them firmly, so that they might not fall? Who has fixed the waters and the trees?

"Who has directed the rapid course of the wind and of the clouds? What skilful artist has made the light and the darkness?

"What skilful workman has made sleep and wakefulness? Through whom have we dawn, noon, and night? From whom do they learn the law which is traced out for them? Who endeared the son to his father so that he should train him? Those are the things that I wish to ask Thee, O Mazda, O beneficent Spirit, O Creator of all things!"

In his omniscience are embraced all human actions. He watches over all things, and is far-seeing, and never sleeping. He is the infallible one; "it is impossible to deceive him, the Ahura, who knows all things." He sees man, and judges and chastises him, if he has not followed his law, for from him comes the law of man, as well as the law of the world; from him comes the science supreme among all other sciences, that of duty, the knowledge of those things we ought to think, say, and do, and of those things we ought neither to think, nor say, nor do. To the man who has prayed well, thought, spoken, and acted well, he opens his resplendent paradise; he opens hell to him who has not prayed and who has thought, spoken, and done evil.

The Supreme God, the God of Heaven.

Thus the Aryans of Greece, of Italy, of India, and of Persia agree in giving the highest place in their Pantheon to a supreme God who rules the world and who has founded order, a God sovereign, omniscient, and moral. Has this identical conception been formed in each of these cases by four independent creations, or is it a common inheritance from the Indo-European religion, and did the Aryan ancestors of the Greeks, of the Latins, of the Hindoos, and of the Persians already know a supreme God, an organizing, a sovereign, an omniscient, a moral God?

Although the latter hypothesis is more simple and more probable than the former, it cannot, however, be taken at once as certain; because an abstract and logical conception of this kind may very well have developed itself at the same time among several nations, in an identical and independent manner. To whomsoever looks upon it at any time and in any place, the world can reveal the existence of a Supreme maker: Socrates is not the disciple of the psalmist; yet the heavens reveal to him, as to the Hebrew poet, the glory of the Lord. But if it be found that the abstract conception is closely connected with a naturalistic and material conception, and that the latter is identical in the four religions, as it is known, on the other hand, that these four religions have a common past, the hypothesis that this abstract conception is a heritage of this past, and not a creation of the present, may rise to a certainty.

Now, these Gods who organize the world, rule it and watch over it; this Zeus, this Jupiter, this Varuna, this Ahura Mazda are not the personifications of a simple abstract conception; they emerge from a former naturalism, from which they are not yet quite detached; they commenced by being gods of the heavens.

Zeus and Jupiter have never ceased to be gods of the heavens, and to be conscious of it. When the world was shared among the gods, "Zeus received the boundless sky in the ether and the clouds for his share." It is as the God of heaven that sometimes he shines luminous, calm, and pure, enthroned in the ethereal splendour, and that sometimes he becomes gloomy and gathers clouds (=nephelêgeretês=), causing the rain to fall from heaven (=ombrios=, =hyetios=), hurling upon the earth the eddy of fierce winds, drawing forth the hurricane from the summit of the ether, brandishing the lightning and the thunderbolt (=keraunios=, =astrapaios=). This is why the thunderbolt is his weapon, his attribute, "the thunderbolt with its never-tiring foot," which he hurls in the heights; why he rolls on a resounding chariot, brandishing in his hand the fiery trident, or dashing it on the wings of the eagle, or on Pegasus, the aërial steed of the lightning. This is why he is the husband of Dêmêter, "the mother Earth," whom he impregnates with his torrents of rain; this is why he sent forth, from his brow according to some, from his belly according to others, from the clouds according to the Cretan legend, Athênê, the resplendent goddess with the penetrating glance, who came forth, shaking golden weapons, with a cry which made heaven and earth resound, as she is the incarnation of the stormy light which breaks forth from the brow of heaven, from the belly of heaven, from the bosom of the cloud, filling space with its splendour and with the crash of its stormy birth. Lastly, the very name of Zeus (genitive _Dios_, formerly _Divos_) is, in conformity with the laws of Greek phonetics, the literal representative of the Sanscrit Dyaus, heaven (genitive _Divas_), and the union of =Zeus patêr= with =Dêmêtêr= is the exact counterpart of the Vedic union of _Dyaus pitar_ with _Prithivî mâtar_, of the Heaven-Father with Earth-Mother. The word =Zeus= is an ancient synonym of =Ouranos=, which became obsolete as a common noun; still, in a certain number of expressions, it retains something of its former meaning. Thus it is, when the Earth prays Zeus to let rain fall upon her; when the Athenian in praying exclaims: "O dear Zeus, rain thou on the field of the Athenians and on the plains"--"Zeus has rained the whole night," says Homer: =hye Zeus pannychos=. In all these expressions Zeus may be literally translated as a common noun, _sky_.

Jupiter, identical with Zeus in his functions, is identical with him in his material attributes.

The word Jûpiter, or better Jup-piter, is for Jus-piter, composed of _pater_ and of _Jus_, the Latin contraction of the Sanscrit _Dyaus_, of the Greek =Zeus=: Juppiter is then the exact equivalent of =Zeus patêr=, and the word has even preserved more strongly than Zeus the sense of its early meaning; _sub Jove_ signifies "under the heavens;" the hunter awaits the marsian boar, heedless of the cold or snow, _sub Jove frigido_, "under the cold Jupiter, under the cold sky." Dyaus is also in Latin, as it is in Sanscrit, the name of the brilliant sky: "Behold," exclaims old Ennius, "above thy head this luminous space which all invoke under the name of Jupiter:"

"Aspice hoc sublime candens quem invocant omnes Jovem."

Varuna, like his European brethren, has been, and is yet, a material god, and a material god of the same kind, a god of heaven. This is why the sun is his eye, why the sun, "the beautiful bird which flies in the firmament," is "his golden-winged messenger;"[49] why the celestial rivers flow in the hollow of his mouth, as in the hollow of a reed; why everywhere visible, by turns full of light and of darkness, by turns he infolds himself in the night, and irradiates the dawns, and by turns clothes himself in the white garments and in the black ones. Like Zeus, and from the same cause, he gathers together the clouds, he turns the sack that contains the rains, and lets it loose upside down on the two worlds; he inundates the heaven and the earth, he clothes the mountains with a watery garb, and his blood-red eyes unceasingly furrow the watery dwelling with their twinkling flashes. As Zeus is the father of Athênê, he is the father of Atharvan, "the Fire-God," of Bhrigu, "the Thunderer"--that is to say, of Agni, of the lightning. Agni himself is brought forth "from his belly in the waters," like a male Athênê. Finally, like Zeus, like Jupiter, he bears in his very name the expression of what he is; and the Sanscrit Varuna is the exact phonetic representative of =Ouranos=, sky.

In fine, the sovereign god of Persia, notwithstanding the character of profound abstraction which he has acquired and which is reflected in his name Ahura Mazda, "the omniscient Lord," can himself be recognized as a god of the heavens. The ancient formulæ of the litanies still show that he is luminous and corporeal; they invoke the creator Ahura Mazda, resplendent, very great, very beautiful, corporeally beautiful; white, luminous, seen from afar; they invoke the entire body of Ahura Mazda, the body of Ahura which is the greatest of bodies; they say that the sun is his eye, and that the sky is the garment embroidered with stars with which he arrays himself; lastly, the most abstract of the Aryan gods has preserved a trait which shows him more closely tied than the others to the material world from which they have freed themselves; he is called "the most solid of the gods," because "he has for clothing the very solid stone of the sky." Like Varuna, like Zeus, the lightning is in his hands, "the molten brass which he causes to flow down on the two worlds;" like them he is the father of the god of lightning, Atar. Lastly, the most ancient historical evidence confirms the inductions of mythology, as at the very time when the Achæmenian kings proclaim the sovereignty of Aurâmazda, Herodotus wrote: "The Persians offer up sacrifices to Zeus,[50] going up on the highest summit of the mountains, as they call _Zeus the entire orb of the sky_."

Thus the supreme gods of the four great religions of Greece, of Italy, of India, and of Persia, are at the same time, or have begun by being gods of the skies. By the side of these four, Svarogu, the god of the ancient pagan Slavs, should no doubt equally be placed. Like Zeus, like Jupiter, like Varuna, like Ahura Mazda, he is the master of the universe, the gods are his children, and it is from him that they have received their functions; like them he is the god of the heavens, he is the thunderer, and like them he is the father of the Fire, Svarojitchi, "the son of heaven."[51]

His Origin.[52]

How did the god of the heavens become the organizing god, the supreme God, the moral God? How was the abstract conception grafted on the naturalistic conception? What is the connection between his material attribute and his abstract function? The Vedas give the solution of this problem.

As far as the eye can reach, it can never reach beyond the sky; whatever is, is under the immense vault; all that which is born and dies, is born and dies within its bounds. Now, whatever takes place in it, takes place according to an immutable law. The dawn has never failed to appear at her appointed place in the morning, never forgotten where she is to appear again, nor the moment at which she is to reanimate the world. Darkness and light know their appointed hour, and always at the desired moment "the black One has given way to the white." Linked together by the same chain in the endless path open before them, they follow their way onwards, the two immortals, directed by a God, absorbing each other's tints. The two fertile sisters do not clash with one another; they never stop, dissimilar in form, but alike in spirit. Thus run the days with their suns, the nights with their stars, season following season. The sky has always in regular course ushered in by turn the day and the night. The moon has always lit up at the fixed hour. The stars have always known where they should go during the day. The rivers have always flowed into the one ocean without making it full.