Note 86 — Chapter IX · DIONYSIAC RELIGION IN GREECE ITS AMALGAMATION WITH APOLLINE RELIGION. ECSTATIC PROPHECY. RITUAL PURIFICATION AND EXORCISM. ASCETICISM

The “purification” of the stain of blood in these and similar cases really consisted in a “substitution” sacrifice whereby the anger of the daimones was appeased: so much was, on the whole correctly, observed long ago by Meiners, Allg. Gesch. der relig. ii, 137. The μίασμα that clings to the murderer is in fact just the indignation of the murdered man or of the underworld spirits: this is plain in Antiph., Tet. 3α, 3 (see above, chap. v, n. 176). The thing that makes the son who has not avenged his father’s murder “unclean” and keeps him away from the altars of the gods is οὐχ ὁρωμένη πατρὸς μῆνις A., Ch. 293.—In the case of murder or homicide there is not only the contact with the sinister other-world that makes men unclean (this applies to all cases of “pollution”), but, besides this, there is also the anger of the murdered soul itself (and of its protecting spirits). Hence in this case, besides καθαρμός, ἱλασμός as well is necessary (see above, chap. v). It is evident, however, that it would be difficult to keep the two processes distinct and that they would easily merge into each other.