YEAR-GODS AND OLYMPIANS.* [Cobur's; tO/i..TED.] THE two books before us

have been written in complete inde- pendence and by authors of markedly different outlook and • (1) 0:411.3 and the Egyptian Restyryesuon,- By B. A. Wallis Budge, lase 'haled after Drawings from Egyptian Papyri and Monuments. 2 Vols. Loodont Philip Lee Warner. 140s. net.1—(2) A41.1; toad Bataan. Eine Uutertmehung sur tmaellichte des otaateas an Auferatelms'egiftter and an BtilgOt ter von Wolf Wilhelm Orden Baudiasim ]Slit 10 Tafehx. Leipzig; J. 0. iiieriehealche lieehhaudiune.

mental temperament. Yet they have this in common: they both express, though it would seem unconsciously, a tendency only just become articulate, but which must, we believe, shortly revolutibnize current views as to the origin and development of ancient religions.

The Classical Association was startled last January by

Professor Murray's pronouncement as to the origin of the forms of Gseek tragedy. Tragedy was in origin, he said, a

ritual dance. The thrice familiar forms, such as prologue, threnos, peripeteia, anagnorosis, messenger's speech, dens ex ntachinsi, and the like, are survivals of ritual acts in the cult of a year-daimon, a being who represents the cyclic death and rebirth of the world. Another scholar, Mr. F. M. Cornford, has recently shown at Cambridge that the Olympia games, ostensibly in honour of the Olympian Zeus. arose from a similar primitive seasonal ritual. Everywhere, it would

seem, the focus of attention has shifted from the canonical itnmortals, of whom the Olympians are typical, to those vaguer, more shifting divinities, or dainumes, who preside over the cycle of the seasons. The salient characteristic of such daimons is that they are not immortal, but perennial ; they die to rise again. Such is the life-history of Tammuz, Adonis, Attie, Dionysos, and perhaps, first and foremost, Osiris.

From Herodotus and Plutarch onwards many have been the attempts made to describe and elucidate the mythology or ritual of Osiris. Yet the tale, as Dr. Budge points out, has never yet been told in full. Herodotus could not read the native literature of Egypt. The priests, who were his infor- mants, had practically no knowledge of the religious texts of the sixth dynasty, now an open book to Egyptologists. A re- examination of the familiar later texts in the light of these earlier documents was imperatively needed, and to this task

Dr. Budge has addressed himself. His main conclusion, if somewhat startling, commends itself to common sense. We are to seek for the origin of Egyptian religion, and especially of its central figure, Osiris, with his ritual of death and resurrection, not in Asia, but in Africa,

"It is wrong to class' the religion of ancient Egypt with the elaborate theological systems of peoples of Asiatic or European origin, and worse than useless to attempt to find in it the systoles of theological thought which resemble the religions of peoples who live on a higher level of civilization than the primitive Egyptians."

This prepares us for the final pronouncement:-

" I became convinced that a satisfactory explanation of the ancient Egyptian religion could only be obtained from the religions of the . . . Modern Sudani beliefs are identical with those of ancient Egypt, because the Egyptians were Africans and the modern peoples of the Sfidin are Africans. And, after making allowance for differences in natural circum- stances and geographical position, ancient and modern Nilotic peoples give outward expression to their beliefs in the same way."

We may say at once that we believe Dr. Budge triumphantly establishes his main thesis. Osiris is an African, though not necessarily a Nilotic, god. Egyptian religion, in its cruelty, its cannibalism, its bloodthirstiness, its burial customs, its eschatology, its general negroid colouring, is African through and through.

Small details of analogy or rather of identity are here per- haps more convincing than any large general comparison. Take the scarabmus. It is so familiar as an Egyptian amulet that we scarcely ask what was the origin of its sanc- tity. It was buried with the dead in order to promote the "restoration of their hearts." It had the power of renewing life, or, as the Egyptian would put it, causing the dead to "open his mouth." A strange function for a beetle ! but paralleled among the modern Sudanese. The Sudanese women eat beetles that they may bear children. Livingstone saw a large beetle hung up before a figure in a spirit-house. The body of a Goliath beetle plays a prominent part in native magic.

Why P Probably because huge beetles appear about the beginning of the wet season, and when the rain ceases they go away; they are the vehicles of fertility.

Again, take the frog. An Egyptian Christian decorated a lamp with the figure of a frog and inscribed round it "I am

the Resurrection" ('Ess4 dui 'ArniTyaols)—barely reverent to our minds till we remember the Frog-goddess Herpst at Abydos, where cult dates from the earliest dynasties. She is seated at

the foot of the bier of Osiris, and the frog is elsewhere a frequent and favourite amulet in connexion with new life and new birth. Why!' For reasons purely local, and hence permanent. The " matlametlo," a great frog over five inches long, hides in a root of a bush as long as there is a drought, and when rain falls it rushes out. It comes with the rain as the beetle with the rising of the Nile ; both are symbolic of new life and growth. The women of some African tribes eat frogs, as they eat beetles, to bring them children. Women of other tribes more prudently reject frogs as food, fearing lest their children might have bulging eyes.

We come to the main point, Osiris. Wo are told in the myth that Horns destroyed the jaw-bones of his father's enemies. Why the jaw-bones P Because the jaw-bone was in some special way the seat of the soul; it may be because of the indestructibility of the teeth. The Baganda to this day cut out the jaw-bones of their dead kings and preserve them. With the jaw-bone is kept the umbilical cord. The seat on which Osiris sits is a sepulchral coffer : it is closely paralleled by the stool on which the modern god Kibuka sits, which contained the lower jaw-bone of the god stitched into a leather case. Now many etymologies of the name "Osiris " have been attempted, but Dr. Budge points out the two hieroglyphs of the old form of the name mean simply "he who takes his seat or throne." Osiris "made his seat" upon the body of the defeated Seth. That is, we would suggest, the new king succeeded to the old dead king. "Le Roi est wort. Vive le Roil" The regalia, charged with power, with sanctity, pass from the old to the new monarch; the very seat on which the new king or god sits has within it the relics of the old royalty.

The intense physicalness of the Osiris religion is seen in the earliest image of the god, the Tat. This much-discussed object is nothing but the swims of the god wherein resided all his life and force. Like the jaw-bone it was essential to complete bodily resurrection. With the Tet in our minds the whole gist of the Osiris ritual becomes clear.

The essential features of it are the tearing to pieces (a/repay/Ads) of the body of the god and its reconstitution and revivifica- tion. We have, in fact, a myth and a ritual which reflects, and in its mystery-play actually represents, two forms of burial custom. First, the mutilation and dismemberment of the body, often combined with the sacramental eating of particular portions and the preservation, e.g., of the jaw-bone (customs still practised by remote African tribes); second, the form familiar to us in mummification, the elaborate conserva- tion of the body with a view to its ultimate resurrection.

The religion of Osiris, then, combines and reflects or repre- sents variant social customs, and customs, as Dr. Budge shows, that still in part survive in the Sudan to-day. Once pointed out, pa saute aux yeux. But here a caution is needed. Dr. Budge's psychology is oddly belated ; it has not advanced since the days of Diodorns.

"Osiris," says Diodorus (I. 14), "made men stop eating each other," "Before the coming of the cult of Osiris," says Dr. Budge (p. xix), "the Nilotic tribes must have eaten their own dead, as many modern tribes do ; and there is reason to think that after they had learned to know Osiris the natural liking for human flesh, which is common to most African peoples, asserted itself in times when food was scarce."

Some of these sickening horrors of modern cannibalism might certainly have been spared us. Savage horrors should only be stated just to the amount necessary for demonstration. This, however, is by parenthesis. Our point is that Dr. Budge persistently puts the cart before the horse. He treats the religion of Osiris as the cause, not the effect, of developments in tribal custom. Osiris is to him an objective reality, some- thing like a missionary coming with a forecast of the true religion to "souls in heathen darkness lying." He fails to see that both myth and ritual are but projections, representa- tions of tribal custom. It is, however, perhaps ungracious as well as useless to ask that a great specialist immersed in heavy official work should keep himself in touch with modern developments in social psychology.

Another defect in the book has probably the like cause. Dr. Budge's method is derivative rather than comparative. It is strange to read so able a treatise on the cult of Osiris which takes no account of, borrows no light from, the kindred cults of Attis a•nd Adonis. But Dr. Budge stands solid for Africa and will have none of Asia. So, though in one place, with reference to the moon aspect of Osiris, he refers to Dr. Frazer's book Adonis, Allis, Osiris, for any use he makes of it, it might have been unwritten. W hat Dr. Budge never sees, and from his standpoint necessarily Gould not see, is that in examining any ancient religious figure we have always to ask two questions : First, what in this figure is part, so to speak, of a common human experience P Second, what variations in it are due to particular social structure P Attis, Adonis, Osiris, Dionysos, and a host of other figures are all year or seasonal gods, representations in human form of human and natural facts: they are vegetation and fertility spirits, they are also spirits of periodic growth, and hence apt to take on elements front the time-measurers, moon and sun. But each analogous figure has its own diferentiae, due to local circumstances, and especially to tribal structure and tribal custom. These cannot fully be understood and appreciated unless the common factors are first cancelled out. It is fair to add that of late we have been treated to so much that is vaguely comparative that a study purely local and derivative, though inadequate, comes as something of a refreshment.

Graf Baudissin's Adonis and Esmun is frankly comparative. The writer is a Semitic scholar, and his outlook is largely Asiatic. He deals mainly with the Beals of Canaan, the Hebrew Jahweh, and the Babylonian Tammuz, as well as with the two special subjects of his monograph ; but he is fully aware of the analogies with, e.g., Osiris and Dionysus. His second title explains his main contention. His book is "an inquiry into the history of the belief in Resurrection Gods and Gods of Healing." Both ideas—and this is the interesting point—go back to the common notion of a perennial life. The Baal of the Canaanite, like Adonis, was the god of the green fertile place, where the moisture of rain, or spring, or river brought fertility. The god who is life gives life, restores it after sickness, renews it after death. The Jahweh of a barren Kenite Sinai had to come to Canaan to win his new attribute of life-giver and healer. Life-giving, healing, resurrecting, to the primitive mind, are but one function. Asklepios, the healer, had power to raise men from the dead.

Another point of great interest emerges, though Graf Ban. dissin seems scarcely to see its full significance. In religious conceptions we are familiar with the two forms of godhead, the father and the son. In Semitic religions, based largely on the patriarchal structure of nomad clans, this form prevails. In Asia Minor cults we have mother and son, reflecting matri- archal structure. In Greece a blend of both. This has long been recognized, but Graf Baudissin is the first, wo think, to point out that the life-god who develops or bifurcates into the healing god and resurrection god is usually of the son type. He is the expression, the vehicle of the life of either father or mother, the physical vehicle and expression as it was at first, later the spiritual utterance. Space forbids our developing this most interesting suggestion, but wo may note that it has had, unknown to Graf Baudissin, singular confirmation on Cretan ground. In the recently discovered hymn of the Kouretes, the worshippers summon Zeus by the title "Young Man," Kouros, to bring life and increase to fields and herds and flocks " for the year."

The attention, then, of scholars all over Europe is now fully focussed on the year-gods who die and live again; who are, in fact, but the utterance and emphasis of cyclic change, of life and growth. This focus of attention is but one phase, we think, of a wider movement—that known in popular parlance as " vitalism," the most brilliant scientific exponent of which is Professor Henri Bergson. The eternal and immutable gods such as the Olympians in their "brazen" heaven have stood for a. now somewhat discredited conceptualism. Their supremacy—it may be only for a time—seems threatened. It is, however, an open secret that we may expect shortly, from the pen of our most learned Greek mythologist, a monograph on the Father of Gods and Men, the Olympian Zeus himself. We shall look eagerly to see whether behind the figure even of Zeus is found to lurk the shifting shape of a year-daimon, a god who does not "live at ease," but dies each year that he and his worshippers may live anew.