DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0141
SURVIVALS OF MINOAN RELIGION 115
their Aryan faith, there was borrowing and harmonising
between old and new. The supremacy of the woman
still survived where the old population was the stronger,
or where its cult was rooted in the traditions of some local
sanctuary. The Goddess of Production, Mother and yet
Virgin, has her softer, and sometimes her grosser side,
preserved in Aphrodite, the Dove Goddess of Paphos in
Cyprus and the Sicilian Eryx.1 In Attica she is intel-
lectualiscd into Athene, and in the Heramm of Argos she
is the Goddess of Power. At Knossos she lives on, more
like her old self than in other places, as Rhea, the Mother
of Zeus.8 All over the Greek world the divine pairs, such
as Apollo and Artemis, bear witness to the old cult, and
it is probable that we must partly attribute to the same
cause the emphasis that has been laid on particular
aspects of Christianity by the Mediterranean, as opposed
to the Northern world. The square equal-limbed marble-
cross that we find in the snake-goddess sanctuary at
Knossos, suggests the reason why the Greek world has
always preferred that shape for the Christian symbol, as
opposed to the Western " Latin " cross, with its longer
upright.' The pilgrimages that the Roman Catholic
Church is organising to the glen above Ephesus, sacred to
the Blessed Virgin and St. John, are appealing to a wor-
ship of the Panaghia that is deep-rooted among the
peasants of the Eastern Church, and traces its pedigree
back, through Diana of the Ephesians, to the Nature
Mother of pre-Hellenic days.4
1 B.S.A. ix. p. 87. 2 Diod. v. 66, 1.
3 B.S.A. ix. figs. 62, 63, pp. 91, 92, 94, and S. Reinach in G.B.A.
1904, pp. 13-23. R. Dussaud, Q-M. p. 29, holds that the marble
cross was only a " jouet " that decorated a wooden box of which
the nails only remain.
4 W. M. Ramsay in H.D.B. extra vol. 1904, p. 120 ; D. G.
Hogarth, C.A. 1906, p. 18. For other survivals see L. R. Farncll,
E.R. 1905, pp. 34, 35 ; W. M. Ramsay, E.P.R.E. 1906, p. 284 ;
and Miss Jane Harrison, P.S.G.L. 1903 passim, and R.A.G. 1905,
pp. 20-1, 36. See also below, pp. 138, 198.
their Aryan faith, there was borrowing and harmonising
between old and new. The supremacy of the woman
still survived where the old population was the stronger,
or where its cult was rooted in the traditions of some local
sanctuary. The Goddess of Production, Mother and yet
Virgin, has her softer, and sometimes her grosser side,
preserved in Aphrodite, the Dove Goddess of Paphos in
Cyprus and the Sicilian Eryx.1 In Attica she is intel-
lectualiscd into Athene, and in the Heramm of Argos she
is the Goddess of Power. At Knossos she lives on, more
like her old self than in other places, as Rhea, the Mother
of Zeus.8 All over the Greek world the divine pairs, such
as Apollo and Artemis, bear witness to the old cult, and
it is probable that we must partly attribute to the same
cause the emphasis that has been laid on particular
aspects of Christianity by the Mediterranean, as opposed
to the Northern world. The square equal-limbed marble-
cross that we find in the snake-goddess sanctuary at
Knossos, suggests the reason why the Greek world has
always preferred that shape for the Christian symbol, as
opposed to the Western " Latin " cross, with its longer
upright.' The pilgrimages that the Roman Catholic
Church is organising to the glen above Ephesus, sacred to
the Blessed Virgin and St. John, are appealing to a wor-
ship of the Panaghia that is deep-rooted among the
peasants of the Eastern Church, and traces its pedigree
back, through Diana of the Ephesians, to the Nature
Mother of pre-Hellenic days.4
1 B.S.A. ix. p. 87. 2 Diod. v. 66, 1.
3 B.S.A. ix. figs. 62, 63, pp. 91, 92, 94, and S. Reinach in G.B.A.
1904, pp. 13-23. R. Dussaud, Q-M. p. 29, holds that the marble
cross was only a " jouet " that decorated a wooden box of which
the nails only remain.
4 W. M. Ramsay in H.D.B. extra vol. 1904, p. 120 ; D. G.
Hogarth, C.A. 1906, p. 18. For other survivals see L. R. Farncll,
E.R. 1905, pp. 34, 35 ; W. M. Ramsay, E.P.R.E. 1906, p. 284 ;
and Miss Jane Harrison, P.S.G.L. 1903 passim, and R.A.G. 1905,
pp. 20-1, 36. See also below, pp. 138, 198.