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

28 The Hymn of the Kouretes [ch.
called religious. We are face to face with the fact, startling
enough, that these religious figures arise, not from any ' religious
instinct,' not from any innate tendency to prayer and praise, but
straight out of a social custom. Themis and Dike, invoked
by the Kouretes, lie at the undifferentiated beginnings of things
when social spelt religious. They are not late abstractions, but
primitive realities and sanctities 1 .
This contradicts, it is clear, many preconceived notions. We
accustomed to regard religion as a matter intensely spirited
' are
^ and*H*dividna,l. Such undoubtedly it tends to become, but in its
origin, in the case under inv estigation, it is not spip't.na.l an d
individual, but social and colle ctive.,^ But for the existence of a
tribe or group of some kind, a ceremony of initiation would be
impossible. The surprise is all the greater because the particular
doctrine in question, that of the New Birth, is usually held to be
late and due to ' Orphic,' i.e. quasi Oriental influence. It is held
to have affinities with Christianity, and is a doctrine passionately
adhered to by many sects and establishments in the present day.
It may indeed—in some form or another—as Conversion or as
Regeneration—be said to be the religious doctrine par excellence.
Now it has of late been frequently pointed out that the god
in some sense always ' reflects ' the worshipper, takes on the
colour of his habits and his thoughts. The morality of a god is
not often much in advance of that of his worshippers, and some-
times it lags considerably behind. The social structure is also, it
is allowed, in some sense reflected in the god :
a
matriarchal
society will worship a Mother and a Son, a patriarchal society will
tend to have a cult of the Father. All this is true, but the truth
lies much deeper. Not only does the god reflect the thoughts,
social conditions, morality and the like, but in its origin his
substance when analysed turns out to be just nothing but the
representation, the utterance, the emphasis of these imaginations,
these emotions, arising out of particular social conditions.
Long ago Robertson Smith 2 noted that among the ancient
Semites or indeed everywhere antique religion ' was essentially an
affair of the community rather than of individuals ;
'
the benefits
expected from the gods were of a public character, affecting the
1 For fuller discussion of this point see chapter x.
2 Religion of the Semites, 1889, pp. 211, 240.