Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

Zeus as god of the Dark Sky 94.5

elevating and widening force. Inevitably so, for it tends to raise
the thoughts of men from earth to heaven. And the quick-witted
Greeks were prompt to seize the opportunity of such uplift and
expansion.

Almost every section of this treatise serves to illustrate the
process. Zeus Hypsistos1, for example, was ' the Highest,' not only
literally, but metaphorically too. He may have started, like Zeus
Hypatos*, as a Hellenic mountain-power. But he ended by becoming
identified with the supreme deity of more than one non-Hellenic
people, and not least of the Jews. This took place in the Hellenistic
age, which also saw the rise of Zeus the Sun3 and his fusion with a
variety of solar gods all round the eastern end of the Mediterranean—
Amen-Ra4 at Egyptian Thebes, Sarapis5 at Alexandreia, Ba'al-
fyanwidn* in north Africa, Ba'a/-samin7 in Syria, not to mention the
^Tithras8 of Chaldean magic. Moreover, it was as a pure sun-god
that at Tripoli's in Phoinike Zeus acquired the striking appellative
Hdgios*, and on the coinage of Gaza was actually equated with the
Hebrew Godhead and inscribed with the triliteral form of the name
Jehovah10. These and other such lines converged and ultimately
rnet in the solar monotheism of Aurelian11.

■ Again, the ram12 and the bull13, whose procreative powers were
connected by pastoral and cattle-breeding peoples with all the
utilising agencies of sun and storm, both alike served to facilitate
trie union of the Greek Zeus with similar gods in contiguous areas.
ine ram linked him to the Graeco-Libyan Amnion1*1 and the
Thraco-Phrygian Sabdzios15; the bull, to the Amorite Adad16, the
a°ylonian Ramman17, and the Hittite god who in Roman times
gures as Iupiter He Hop o lit aims18 or Iupiter Dolichenus™.

Of all the attributes ascribed to Zeus the most formidable was

"n&° "elle reliS'oni >"">">teistiche). The views of Foucart and Pettazzoni are summarised

Lon ,CnUcised by W- Schmidt The Origin ami Growth of Religion trans. H. J. Rose
0f t^0n '931 pp. 209—217. See also Frazer Worship of Nature i. 19—61 (The Worship
anio C Sky among the Aryan peoples of Antiquity), 62—73 (Tne Worship of the Sky
civil"2 non'Aryan peoples of Antiquity), 74—88 (The Worship of the Sky among the
peoples of the Far East), 89—315 (The Worship of the Sky in Africa).
4 **ra »• 876 n. 1. 2 Supra ii. 875 n. 1. 3 Supra i. 186 ff.

7 "?ra >• 347 ff. » Supra i. 188 ff. 0 Supra i. 353 ff.

b *upra l 8> I0I f « Supra i.ujo.

10

12

Sup

ra 1. 192, 400 n. 6, cp. ii. 1122 n. 9.

« ',pra »• 232 f. fig. 171, b and pi. xxi, iii. 558. 11 Supra i. 166.

u "/"'a '■ 428 ff. is Supra i. 633 ff, iii. 606, 615 ff.

16 'ipra 1 348 ff. W Supra i. 390 ff, cp. ii. 275, 287 n. 2, 1184.

w i- 549 ff. 581 f. 17 Supra i. 576 ff, 633 ff

Upra '■ 550 ff., 576 ff. la Supra i. 604 ff.

C m. 60