Note 980 — Chapter XVI · GRECIAN MYTHES, AS UNDERSTOOD, FELT AND INTERPRETED BY THE GREEKS THEMSELVES. (continued 2)

“Sanctiusque et reverentius visum, de actis Deorum credere quam scire.” (Tacit. German. c. 34.)

Aristidês, however, represents the Homeric theology (whether he would have included the Hesiodic we do not know) as believed quite literally among the multitude in his time, the second century after Christianity (Aristid. Orat. iii. p. 25). Ἀπορῶ, ὅπη πότε χρή με διαθέσθαι μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν, πότερα ὡς τοῖς πολλοῖς δοκεῖ καὶ Ὁμήρῳ δὲ συνδοκεῖ, θεῶν παθήματα συμπεισθῆναι καὶ ἡμᾶς, οἷον Ἀρέος δέσμα καὶ Ἀπόλλωνος θητείας καὶ Ἡφαίστου ῥίψεις εἰς θάλασσαν, οὕτω δὲ καὶ Ἰνοῦς ἄχη καὶ φυγάς τινας. Compare Lucian, Ζεὺς Τραγῶδος, c. 20, and De Luctu, c. 2; Dionys. Halicar. A. R. ii. p. 90, Sylb.

Kallimachus (Hymn. ad Jov. 9) distinctly denied the statement of the Kretans that they possessed in Krête the tomb of Zeus, and treated it as an instance of Kretan mendacity; while Celsus did not deny it, but explained it in some figurative manner—αἰνιττόμενος τροπικὰς ὑπονοίας (Origen. cont. Celsum, iii. p. 137).