philosophers
from Xenophanes downwards) is much more mild, pure and humane than the
mythology either of Hesiod or of our other Greek authorities. Some may
imagine that Homer retains a clearer and less corrupted memory than
Hesiod possessed of an original and authentic "divine tradition". Others
may find in Homer's comparative purity a proof of the later date of his
epics in their present form, or may even proclaim that Homer was a kind
of Cervantes, who wished to laugh the gods away. There is no conceivable
or inconceivable theory about Homer that has not its advocates. For
ourselves, we hold that the divine genius of Homer, though working in
an age distant rather than "early," selected instinctively the purer
mythical materials, and burned away the coarser dross of antique legend,
leaving little but the gold which is comparatively refined.

We must remember that it does not follow that any mythical ideas are
later than the age of Homer because we first meet them in poems of a
later date. We have already seen that though the Brahmanas are much
later in date of compilation than the Veda, yet a tradition which we
first find in the Brahmanas may be older than the time at which the Veda
was compiled. In the same way, as Mr. Max Muller observes, "we know that
certain ideas which we find in later writers do not occur in Homer. But
it does not follow at all that such ideas are all of later growth or
possess a secondary character. One myth may have belonged to one tribe;
one god may have had his chief worship in one locality; and our becoming
acquainted with these through a later poet does not in the least prove
their later origin."(1)

(1) Hibbert Lectures, pp. 130, 131.

After Homer and Hesiod, our most ancient authorities for Greek
cosmogonic myths are probably the so-called Orphic fragments. Concerning
the dates and the manner of growth of these poems volumes of erudition
have been compiled. As Homer is silent about Orpheus (in spite of the
position which the mythical Thracian bard acquired as the inventor of
letters and magic and the father of the mysteries), it has been usual to
regard the Orphic ideas as of late introduction. We may agree with Grote
and Lobeck that these ideas and the ascetic "Orphic mode of life" first
acquired importance in Greece about the time of Epimenides, or, roughly
speaking, between 620 and 500 B.C.(1) That age certainly witnessed a
curious growth of superstitious fears and of mystic cerem