A COMPARATIVE SKETCH OF
MESOPOTAMIAN, ANATOLIAN
AND HELLENIC RELIGIONS
BY
LEWIS R. FARNELL, D.Litt., M.A.
FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD
AUTHOR OF
“CULTS OF THE GREEK STATES,” “EVOLUTION OF RELIGION,”
“HIGHER ASPECTS OF GREEK RELIGION” (HIBBERT LECTURES)
Edinburgh: T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street
1911
Printed by
Morrison & Gibb Limited,
FOR
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH.
LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
TO
Dr. HENRY WILDE
THE FOUNDER OF THE WILDE LECTURESHIP
IN NATURAL AND COMPARATIVE RELIGION
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
THESE FIRST-FRUITS OF HIS ENDOWMENT
ARE DEDICATED
BY
THE FIRST WILDE LECTURER
Exeter College, Oxford,
November 1911.
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CHAPTER I.
Inaugural Lecture
CHAPTER II.
Statement of the Problem and the Evidence.
Indebtedness of primitive Greek religion to Mesopotamianinfluences—Various kinds of evidence to be considered: Texts andMonuments of Mesopotamia, Syria, Canaan, Hittite Kingdom, Asia-Minorcoast, Minoan-Mycenaean area—Necessity of determining when theNorth-Aryan tribes entered Greece, and what they brought withthem—Influences from Mesopotamia on Greece of the second millenniumat least not direct—Precariousness of theory of religiousborrowing—Special lines that the inquiry will pursue
CHAPTER III.
Morphology of the Compared Religions.
Distinction between nature religions and ethical religionsunsound—The degree of personality in the cult-objects a bettercriterion—The earliest system known in Mesopotamia a polytheism withpersonal deities, but containing certain products of animism andpolydaimonism—Other Semitic and non-Semitic peoples of Asia Minor,the Minoan-Mycenaean races, the earliest Greek tribes, already on theplane of personal theism in the second millennium B.C.
CHAPTER IV.
Anthropomorphism and Theriomorphism in Anatolia and the Mediterranean.
Mesopotamian religious conception generally anthropomorphic, but theanthropomorphism “unstable”—Theriomorphic {viii} features, especiallyof daimoniac powers—Mystic imagination oftentheriomorphic—Individuality of deities sometimes indistinct—Femaleand male sometimes fused—The person becomes the Word—Similarphenomena in other Semitic peoples—Theriolatry more prominent inHittite religion, though anthropomorphism the prevalent idea—TheMinoan-Mycenaean religion also mainly anthropomorphic—The evidence oftheriolatry often misinterpreted—The proto-Hellenic religion partlytheriomorphic—Some traces of theriolatry even in later period, inspite of strong bias towards anthropomorphism
CHAPTER V.
Predominance of the Goddess.
Importance of the phenomenon in the history of religions—InMesopotamia and other Semitic regions the chief deity male, exceptAstarte at Sidon—E