Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

Dios and Dfos Nysos 291
hand with the thumb and two fingers extended in the attitude
pecuhar to the Phrygian Zeus'—an attitude known to later ages as
the benedictio LatinaK
Qiq. 'OTrXocr/xlqi to Hera AaKivia. Hera '
I
OirXoa fiia was worshipped in Elis and Triphylia
(Tzetz. in Lyk. A/. 858, cp. Zonar. kjc. s.v. 'QirXoaixiva- -//"Hpa, where J. A. H. Tittiiiann
corr. '07r\ocr/;ii'a) ; and there is said to have been a Tt5/u/3oj { = ji(>]ij.6%) of Athena OirXoafxia.
in Elis (Tzetz. in Lyk. Al. 614). As to the origin of the appellative, 'OirXo a /j.ioi < 'OnX6-
SfjLios < *' OwXodd/ji.ioi (P. Kretschmer Die Griechischen Vaseninschriften Giitersloh 1894
p. 149 'also ein Compositum von SttXoi' und der reducirten Form von 5a/i- in dd/xvriixi'),
cp. OTrXddafMos (P. Foucart cj. ' OirXodafxos) , the giant of Methydrion who, when Rhea was
pregnant with Zeus, was prepared to defend her against Kronos (Pans. 8. 32. 5, 8. 36. 2).
See further Immerwahr A'u/i. Myth. Arkad. p. 26 f., O. Jessen in Pauly—Wissowa Keal-
Enc. viii. 2299). Possibly the same belief in the sanctity of the decorporated head
accounts for the Chiesa delle Anitne de Corpi Decollati at Palermo (see E. S. Hartland in
Folk-Lore i9ioxxi. 168 fif. pis. 8—10).
^ Supra i. 391 n. 3.
^ On the benedictio Graeca and the bencdictio Latitia see R. Sinker in Smith—Cheetham
DicL Chr. Ant. i. 199 figs, and E. Fehrenbach in the Dictionnaire d^ ArclUologie ChrJ-
tienne et de Liturgie publ. par Le R. P. dom Y. Cabrnl Paris 1910 ii. 749 ff. figs. 1489
1492. Various attempts have been made to read a symbolic meaning into these gestures, as
may be seen in tJie articles here cited. A new, but not very probable, notion w as started at
Oxford in 1908 by my friend Dr J. Rendel Harris, who concluded an important address on
' Some points in the Cult of the Heavenly Twins' by suggesting—to the manifest alarm
of a French ecclesiastic in the front row— ' that the episcopal benediction with two fingers
wns originally a prayer that those blessed might have twin children ' {Transactions of the
Third International Congress for the History of Religions 0\^o\A 1908 ii. 176). Possibly
both the Greek and the Latin forms of benediction may prove to have been but variants of
the prophylactic gesture known-all round the northern shores of the Mediterranean as 'the
fig '
: if so, it was once sexual in character, the thumb perhaps representing the phallos and
' ' the fingers the ktels {vide my paper on CYKO0ANTHC in the Class. Rev. 1907 xxi.
133— 136. The view there taken had been in part at least anticipated by C. Sittl Die
Gcbdrden der Griechen nnd Roiner Leipzig 1890 p. 103 n. i (S. Reinach in the Rev. £t.
Gr. 1906 xix. 342 n. 2 {id. Cidtes, Mythes et Religions Paris 1908 iii. 98 n. 4) objects :
' Je ne crois pas qu'un Grec eiit employe ali'eii' dans le sens d' "exhiber" une partie du
corps.' But cp. the words (paivofiripis and Trapaaiveiv, viro(paive(.v as used in the passages
collected supra p. 223 n. 6). Similar conclusions were reached independently by V. Rififer
' Si/Koc^diT j)s ' in the hidogermanische Forschuugen 1912 xxx. 388—390: ' Diese Gebarde
stellt bekanntlich die weibliche Scham dar, und soil urspriinglich in den Damonen das sie
abschreckende Gefiihl des Abscheus hervorrufen, um sie auf diese Weise von den Menschen
abzuwehren.' Cp. also S. Seligmann Der bose Blick und Verwandtes Berlin 1910 ii. 184 ff.,
Boisacq Diet. Hym. de la Langue Gr. p. 924. For rival hypotheses see M. Breal in the
Comples rendus de rAcad, des iiiscr. et belles-lettres 1906 p. 7^o {(TVK0