Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

54
The Irminsul
divinities with due rites according to the error of their fathers. In
name they copied Mars, in effigy of columns Hercules, in site Sol
whom the Greeks term Apollo. This renders highly probable the
view of those who hold that the Saxons originated from the Greeks,
because Mars is called Hirmin, or in Greek Hermis,—a name still
used by us, though we know it not, for praise or blame.' The
chronicler is a would-be classic, and fond of a rhetorical flourish ; but
there is little doubt that he means to describe the erection and wor-
ship of an li'viiiisiU. Indeed, such pillars were probably of frequent
occurrence among the tribes that worshipped Ziu.
It would seem, then, that Er and Innin were appellatives of the
Germanic sky-god, who was connected in legend with the Milky Way
and in cult with a high column viewed as a world-pillar or universal
support. In face of these facts I surmise that the myth in Platon's
Repub/ic, which combined the curved light of the Galaxy and the
'straight light like a pillar,' is not altogether independent of early
Germanic belief. I would even risk the conjecture that in the hero
of the Platonic myth, Er son of Arvietnos, we have the Grecised
equivalent of both Er and Irmin^.
To this it may be objected that alike in time and in place the
Germanic world was too remote from the Hellenic to have influenced
Platon. But in both respects, as we shall see later^, a half-way house
can be found, thanks to Orpheus, that marvellous mediator between
barbarian and Greek.
Meantime I would point out that the IrminsiM or universe-prop
implies the primitive notion that the sky stands in need of a visible
support. Early man was in fact haunted by a very definite dread
that it might collapse on the top of him I The classical authors bear
^
J. Adam in his note on Plat. rep. 6(48 'Hpos toxj 'kpix^vlov, to y^vos Uafi(pv\ov
' The names point to the East,' but, Hke other commentators, fails to make
thinks that
out any convincing connexion. No doubt Er was a Hebrew name (Souid. s-v/'Up), borne
e.^. by one of the ancestors of Joseph the husband of the Virgin Mary (Luke 3. 28)
some of the ancients certainly understood 'HpAs of Zoroastres (Clem. AI. sirom. 5. 14
; and
P- 395. i7ff- Stahlin, Prokl. m Plat. rem/>. ii. 109, 8 ff. Kroll, cp. Arnob. adv. nat.
I. s^), rendering toxj 'Ap^evLov either 'the son of Armenios ' (Clem. Al. sirom. 5. 14
p. 395, 20, Prokl. in Plat, re/np. ii. 109, 14, no, 11 and 20 f. Kroll) or 'the Armenian'
(Prokl. i>t Plat. rem/>. ii. no, 15 ff. Kroll, cp. Arnob. adv. nat. i. 52), or else altering
it into To\> 'Apfiouiov (cp. Prokl. i/i Plat. rewp. ii. no, iiff. Kroll) or tov 'Apfioviov
(cp. Plout. sjwp. 9. 5. 2). But, so far as I know, neither the Milky Way nor the
' straight light like a pillar ' figured in the teaching of Zoroastres (see, however, si/pra
P- 33 ff-)-
2 /H/r'h § 3 (a) iii (0.
=* I am indebted to my daughter for a reference to the folk-tale of Henny-Peiiny
(J. Jacobs English Fairy Tales London 1898 pp. 113 ff., 243 f.), which begins: 'One
day Henny-penny was picking up corn in the cornyard when—whack !—something hit
her upon the head. "Goodness gracious me!" said Henny-penny; "the sky's a-going