Note 32.1 — Chapter II · THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD

With the multiplication of temples special priesthoods must also have multiplied. But the professional priest had already arisen in pre-Homeric times; Homer knows of the brotherhood called the Selloi,32.1 who tended the oracular oak of Zeus at Dodona, “who slept on the ground and never washed their feet,” and he mentions others who were attached to special deities, and two of these at least administered cults without a temple, the priest of Zeus of Mount Ida,32.2 and the priest of the river Skamandros,32.3 of each of whom he says, “he was honoured like a god among the people.” These words suggest a high and sacrosanct position; yet these two priests are also warriors fighting in the ranks, which is the mark of a secular priesthood; and there is no legend nor any hint of evidence suggesting that a professional priesthood enjoyed a political and social power in the prehistoric that we know was never achieved by them in the historic period of Greece. For the evolution of many of the earliest Hellenic institutions evidence is almost wholly lacking. But on general comparative grounds we can surmise that the religious character of the monarchy was most prominent in the earliest times and that as its secular power and functions developed, the priest-expert was attached to him to assist in the national cults, over which the Basileus retained a general supervision. We have scarcely a hint, either in the earliest or later days of Greece, of any conflict between Church and State; we know that, at least, historic Greece escaped sacerdotalism; and its earliest societies, whatever their danger or their struggles may have been, had escaped it by the days of Homer.33.1 Bearing on this point is the other negative fact, that for this earliest age we have little or no evidence of the prevalence of what is called ‘Shamanism,’ divine seizures, ecstatic outbursts of wild prophesying, by which a society can be terrified and captured. The professional ‘Mantis,’ the prophet or soothsayer, existed as distinct from the priest; but his methods generally—so far as our earliest witness informs us—were cool and quasi-scientific.33.2