Note 7 — Chapter IV · HEROES

In the first edition of this book I could not refer to the copiously documented article by Deneken on “Heros” in Roscher’s Myth. Lex. Even now I must be content to refer the reader generally to the rich collections of material there supplied. The view taken of the nature and origin of the Hero is, however, one which I can only reject. According to that account (which in this follows the current view) the belief in Heroes arose from a weakened belief in gods, and the race of Heroes was composed of formerly divine figures who had come to be regarded in the course of time with diminished awe. But the cult of Heroes was by no means an attenuated worship of the gods: on the contrary it was fundamentally contrasted in its essence to the cult of the gods above: ἐναγίζειν can never have been derived from θύειν in however attenuated a form. Equally little can the Heroes of cult have been ever (much less frequently) derived from gods directly. The “Heroes” (as objects of a cult) are invariably elevated souls of men, not reduced divinities. This rule holds good even though a considerable number of once divine figures after they had been deprived of their godhead and made into great men, were when they died exalted, as outstanding human beings, to the rank of Hero. In this respect they did not differ from the innumerable cases before and beside them of simple mortals who had never been gods. Only when and because they had become men and been mortal could such ex-divine personages become Heroes: no one stepped straight from godhood to Herohood. The Hero is regularly a promoted human spirit and nothing else.—I intend here and generally in this book to avoid further polemic against the currently accepted view of the origin of the Hero out of degraded godhead and to content myself instead with the statement of my own positive attitude in these matters.