Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

166 Zeus superseded by Saint Elias

second was a revolution from beneath—the spiritual unrest and
upheaval of the lower orders, which found expression in many an
upward effort, the passionate cult of Dionysos with its rites of death
and rebirth, the pure precepts of Orpheus bringing hopes of a
bright hereafter, the Pythagorean propaganda eager to explain the
true course of human life, the sacramental mysteries claiming to
guard men's souls through the grave itself. Thirdly there was a
revolution from without—the influx of foreign faiths from Egypt
Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, which in bewildering succession poured
into the Mediterranean area till Mithraism, modified into the solar
monotheism of Aurelian, seemed like to merge all other creeds in
that of Sol Invictus, 'the Unconquered Sun.' These were indeed
Titanic forces. But Zeus, who had vanquished the Titans, some-
how still held his own. Philosophers, elaborating the presupposi-
tions of popular belief, found it convenient to give the name of
Zeus to their ultimate principle or at least to one of their cosmic
elements1. Again, points of contact between the Orpheo-Dionysiac
rites and the religion of Zeus were not wanting. If Orpheus was
priest of Dionysos, and if Dionysos was son of Zeus, a modus
Vivendi was after all not impossible2. Further, the importers of
strange cults from the east inevitably began by identifying their
unfamiliar sanctities with the familiar gods and goddesses of
Greece, and in an age of syncretism soon obtained recognition for
various types of solar Zeus3. In short, the Hellenic sky-god, thanks
to his own all-embracing character, was not readily submerged by
the rising waters of rationalism, mysticism, and orientalism.

The revolution from above, the revolution from beneath, the
revolution from without, had alike ended in something of a com-
promise. Then for the first time—and here I desert the lead of
Dieterich4—came a revolution from within. It was in its essence
a movement of great simplicity, nothing more than the response
of human hearts to the call of Jesus Christ. Nothing more, but
also nothing less. And that call, once heard, left no room for
compromise. ' They forsook all,'—we read—' and followed him.'

Had they but continued as they began, the victory was already
assured. There is a sound of coming triumph in the words

1 Supra p. 27 ff. 2 Supra pp. 104 ff., 153, alib. 3 Infra p. 186 ff.

4 Dieterich op. cit. p. 480 says ' Die Revolution von unten ist zugleich aber auch eine
Revolution von inneriS That is in a sense true; and accordingly we find the nearest
approaches to Christianity neither in the rationalism of Greece nor in the orientalism of
Rome, but in the heart-felt aspirations of Orphic and Dionysiac devotees. It was by no
accident that the art of the Catacombs repeated again and again the figure of Orpheus, or
that the literature of the dark ages described the tragedy of Calvary in language borrowed
from the Bacchants of Euripides. .