Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

462 The Olympians [ch.
philosophy ' Naturism ' received a fresh impulse from Persia 1 and
both had a common source, Persian religion ? The Olympians are,
as will presently be shown 2 , essentially objets d'art.
We shall find confirmation of this view if we look at another
movement of the sixth century B.C., the movement known as
Orphic 3 . Orphic
religion contains within itself much that is indi-
genous. Its main fond is primitive /Egean religion, with all those
factors of naturism and magic already described in detail. But
what differentiates it out from the rest of the popular religion
of Greece is, I have long believed, certain imported elements of
Oriental and mainly Iranian naturerworship and formal mysticism 4 .
The Greek spirit always tended to humanize and individualize
its daimones into personal gods, Iranian mysticism kept them
disintegrated and dispersed in the medium of nature from which
they sprang. Divinities so dispersed are the natural medium
and vehicle of magic, of sacramentalism, of each and every form
of mysticism.
Orphism did just what the Olympian religion failed or refused
to do. It reformed the religion of Earth, but by strengthening
the powers of Heaven, not by disallowing them ; it fought the
Giants but joined forces with the Titans 5 . This it was, I think,
enabled to do through its reinforcement by Iranian naturism and
mysticism. To confirm this view the main position of Orphic
1 This is not the place to discuss the character of Persian art. Its characteristic
naturalism may be well studied in the sculptures from Persepolis, excavated by
M. and Mme Dieulafoy, and now in the Louvre. The possible influence of Persia
in producing Pheidian and post-Pheidian naturalism in art was first suggested to
me « propos of his discoveries at Memphis by Prof. Flinders Petrie. It was a
conversation with him that first led me to the idea that Persian nature-worship
might underlie Ionian philosophy.
2 Infra, p. 478.
3 Orphism as a whole is advisedly excluded from the present book, which aims
only at an examination of certain social origins of Greek religion.
4 For these foreign elements in Orphism see especially Dr Eisler, Weltenmantel
und Himmelszelt, 1910. For Persian influence in Egypt in the sixth and
fifth centuries b.c. see W. Flinders Petrie, Personal Religion in Egypt, p. 40 ff.
For prehistoric relations between Iran and Asia Minor as evidenced by the Boghazkoi
excavations see Winckler in Mitteilungen d. deut. Orient. -Gesellschaft, 1907,
No. 35, pp. 1—71, and Garstang, Land of the Hittites, 1910. For a good resume
of the Persian elements in Orphism see Dr Wiinsch's review of Dr Eisler's book in
Archivf. Iieligionsu-iss. 1911, p. 536.
5 Persian religion laid, as is well known, special stress on Fire-worship, and
along with this went a minute attention to ritual purity, and a sharp distinction
drawn between light and darkness, good and evil—a distinction foreign to the
primitive Greek mind. We owe our devil to the Persians.