iod use, or imply, the same highly human conceptions. We shall
find Parmenides telling us that God coincides with the universe, which
is a sphere and immovable;[12:1] Heraclitus, that God is 'day night,
summer winter, war peace, satiety hunger'. Xenophanes, that God is
all-seeing, all-hearing, and all mind;[12:2] and as for his supposed
human shape, why, if bulls and lions were to speak about God they would
doubtless tell us that he was a bull or a lion.[12:3] We must notice the
instinctive language of the poets, using the word +theos+ in many subtle
senses for which our word 'God' is too stiff, too personal, and too
anthropomorphic. +To eutychein+, 'the fact of success', is 'a god and
more than a god'; +to gignoskein philous+, 'the thrill of recognizing a
friend' after long absence, is a 'god'; wine is a 'god' whose body is
poured out in libation to gods; and in the unwritten law of the human
conscience 'a great god liveth and groweth not old'.[12:4] You will say
that is mere poetry or philosophy: it represents a particular theory or
a particular metaphor. I think not. Language of this sort is used widely
and without any explanation or apology. It was evidently understood and
felt to be natural by the audience. If it is metaphorical, all metaphors
have grown from the soil of current thought and normal experience. And
without going into the point at length I think we may safely conclude
that the soil from which such language as this grew was not any system
of clear-cut personal anthropomorphic theology. No doubt any of these
poets, if he had to make a picture of one of these utterly formless
Gods, would have given him a human form. That was the recognized symbol,
as a veiled woman is St. Gaudens's symbol for 'Grief'.

* * * * *

But we have other evidence too which shows abundantly that these
Olympian gods are not primary, but are imposed upon a background
strangely unlike themselves. For a long time their luminous figures
dazzled our eyes; we were not able to see the half-lit regions behind
them, the dark primeval tangle of desires and fears and dreams from
which they drew their vitality. The surest test to apply in this
question is the evidence of actual cult. Miss Harrison has here shown
us the right method, and following her we will begin with the three
great festivals of Athens, the Diasia, the Thesmophoria, and the
Anthesteria.[14:1]

The Diasia was said to be the chief festival of