,
reincarnation and the final purification of the soul. Even the early
Christians, who hated so bitterly many of the myths of paganism, and
found in them nothing but doctrines of devils, treated this story
tenderly, blended the picture of Orpheus with that of their own Good
Shepherd, and found it edifying to Christian faith.

One more instance may be given in the story of Apollo, in which, more
perhaps than in any other, there is an amazing combination of bad and
good elements. On the one hand there are the innumerable immoralities
and savageries that are found in all the records of mythology. On the
other hand, he who flays Marsias alive and visits the earth with plagues
is also the healer of men. He is the cosmopolitan god of the brotherhood
of mankind, the spirit of wisdom whose oracle acknowledged and inspired
Socrates, and, generally, the incarnation of the "glory of the Lord."

We cannot here touch upon the marvellous tales of Delos and of Delphi,
nor repeat the strains that Pindar sang, sitting in his iron chair
beside the shrine. This much at least we may say, that both the Apollo
of Delos and the Apollo of Delphi are foreign gods, each of whom
appropriated to his own use a sacred place where the ancient earth-bound
religion had already established its rites. The Greeks brought with them
a splendid god from their former home, but in his new shrine he was
identified with a local god, very far from splendid; and this seems to
be the most reasonable explanation of the inconsistency between the
revolting and the beautiful elements in his worship. Pindar at least
repudiated the relics of the poorer cult, and cried concerning such
stories as were current then, "Oh, my tongue, fling this tale from thee;
it is a hateful cleverness that slanders gods." No one who has realised
the power and glory of the Eastern sun, can wonder at the identification
both of the good and bad symbolism with the orb of day. Sun-worship is
indeed a form of nature-worship, and there are physical reasons obvious
enough for its being able to incorporate both the clean and unclean,
both the deadly and the benign legends. Yet there is a splendour in it
which is seen in its attraction for such minds as those of Aurelian and
Julian, and which is capable of refinement in the delicate spirituality
of Mithra, that worship of the essential principle of light, the soul of
sunshine. In the worship of Apollo we have a combination, than which
none on record