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Page 33
To all which, most worshipful, thou didst answer wisely: saying that Hera
could not be both night, and earth, and water, and air, and the love of sexes,
and the confusion of the elements; but that all these opinions were vain
dreams, and the guesses of the learned. And why--thou saidst--even if the Gods
were pure natural creatures, are such foul things told of them in the
Mysteries as it is not fitting for me to declare. 'These wanderings, and
drinkings, and loves, and corruptions, that would be shameful in men, why,'
thou saidst, 'were they attributed to the natural elements; and wherefore did
the Gods constantly show themselves, like the sorcerers called were-wolves, in
the shape of the perishable beasts?' But, mainly, thou didst argue that, till
the philosophers of the heathen were agreed among themselves, not all
contradicting each the other, they had no semblance of a sure foundation for
their doctrine.
To all this and more, most worshipful Father, I know not what the heathen
answered thee. But, in our time, the learned men who stand to it that the
heathen Gods were in the beginning the pure elements, and that the nations,
forgetting their first love and the significance of their own speech, became
confused and were betrayed into foul stories about the pure Gods--these
learned men, I say, agree no whit among themselves. Nay, they differ one from
another, not less than did Plutarch and Porphyry and Theagenes, and the rest
whom thou didst laugh to scorn. Bear with me, Father, while I tell thee how
the new Plutarchs and Porphyrys do contend among themselves; and yet these
differences of theirs they call 'Science'!
Consider the goddess Athene, who sprang armed from the head of Zeus, even
as--among the fables of the poor heathen folk of seas thou never knewest--
goddesses are fabled to leap out from the armpits or feet of their fathers.
Thou must know that what Plato, in the 'Cratylus,' made Socrates say in jest,
the learned among us practise in sad earnest. For, when they wish to explain
the nature of any God, they first examine his name, and torment the letters
thereof, arranging and altering them according to their will, and flying off
to the speech of the Indians and Medes and Chaldeans, and other Barbarians, if
Greek will not serve their turn. How saith Socrates? 'I bethink me of a very
new and ingenious idea that occurs to me; and, if I do not mind, I shall be
wiser than I should be by to-morrow's dawn. My notion is that we may put in
and pull out letters at pleasure and alter the accents.' Even so do our
learned--not at pleasure, maybe, but according to certain fixed laws (so they
declare); yet none the more do they agree among themselves. And I deny not
that they discover many things true and good to be known; but, as touching the
names of the Gods, their learning, as it standeth, is confusion. Look, then,
at the goddess Athene: taking one example out of hundreds. We have dwelling in
our coasts Muellerus, the most erudite of the doctors of the Alemanni, and the
most golden-mouthed. Concerning Athene, he saith that her name is none other
than, in the ancient tongue of the Brachmanae, _Ahana'_, which, being
interpreted, means the Dawn. 'And that the morning light,' saith he, 'offers
the best starting-point; for the later growth of Athene has been proved, I
believe, beyond the reach of doubt or even cavil.' (1)
(1) 'The Lesson of Jupiter.'--_Nineteenth Century_, October, 1885.
Yet this same doctor candidly lets us know that another of his nation, the
witty Benfeius, hath devised another sense and origin of Athene, taken from
the speech of the old Medes. But Muellerus declares to us that whosoever shall
examine the contention of Benfeius 'will be bound, in common honesty, to
confess that it is untenable.' This, Father, is one for Benfeius, as the
saying goes. And as Muellerus holds that these matters 'admit of almost
mathematical precision,' it would seem that Benfeius is but a _Dummkopf_, as
the Alemanni say, in their own language, when they would be pleasant among
themselves.
Now, wouldst thou credit it? despite the mathematical plainness of the facts,
other Alemanni agree neither with Muellerus, nor yet with Benfeius, and will
neither hear that Athene was the Dawn, nor yet that she is 'the feminine of
the Zend _Thra'eta'na athwya'na_.' Lo, you! how Prellerus goes about to show
that her name is drawn not from _Ahana'_ and the old Brachmanae, nor
_athwya'na_ and the old Medes, but from 'the root _aith_*, whence _aither_*,
the air, or _ath_*, whence _anthos_*, a flower.' Yea, and Prellerus will have
it that no man knows the verity of this matter. None the less he is very bold,
and will none of the Dawn; but holds to it that Athene was, from the first,
'the clear pure height of the Air, which is exceeding pure in Attica.'
Now, Father, as if all this were not enough, comes one Roscherus in, with a
mighty great volume on the Gods, and Furtwaenglerus, among others, for his
ally. And these doctors will neither with Rueckertus and Hermannus, take
Athene for 'wisdom in person;' nor with Welckerus and Prellerus, for 'the
goddess of air;' nor even, with Muellerus and mathematical certainty, for 'the
Morning-Red:' but they say that Athene is the 'black thunder-cloud, and the
lightning that leapeth therefrom'! I make no doubt that other Alemanni are of
other minds: _quot Alemanni tot sententiae_.
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