fact that Homer’s knowledge of Egyptian geography was very imperfect.[215] But religious influences and geographical knowledge are very different things.  Because the mediaeval Christian writers had an imperfect knowledge of Palestine, it does not follow that their Christianity was not influenced in its source by Judaism.  The objection to the derivation of the Greek gods from Egypt, on account of the names on the monuments being different from those of the Hellenic deities, is sufficiently answered by Creuzer, who shows that the Greeks translated the Egyptian word into an equivalent in their own language.  Orphic ideas came from Egypt into Greece, through the colonies in Thrace and Samothrace.[216] The story of the Argive colony from Egypt, with their leader Danaus, connects some Egyptian immigration with the old Pelasgic ruler of that city, the walls of which contained Pelasgic masonry.  The legends concerning Cecrops, Io, and Lelex, as leading colonies from Egypt to Athens and Megara, are too doubtful to add much to our argument.  The influence of Egypt on Greek religion in later times is universally admitted.[217]

Sec. 2.  Idea and General Character of Greek Religion.

The idea of Greek religion, which specially distinguishes it from all others, is the human character of its gods.  The gods of Greece are men and women, idealized men and women, men and women on a larger scale, but still intensely human.  The gods of India, as they appear in the Sacred Books, are vast abstractions; and as they appear in sculpture, hideous and grotesque idols.  The gods of Egypt seem to pass away into mere symbols and intellectual generalizations.  But the gods of Greece are persons, warm with life, radiant with beauty, having their human adventures, wars, loves.  The symbolical meaning of each god disappears in his personal character.

These beings do not keep to their own particular sphere nor confine themselves to their special parts, but, like men and women, have many different interests and occupations.  If we suppose a number of human beings, young and healthy and perfectly organized, to be gifted with an immortal life and miraculous endowments of strength, wisdom, and beauty, we shall have the gods of Olympus.

Greek religion differs from Brahmanism in this, that its gods are not abstract spirit, but human beings.  It differs also from Buddhism, the god in which is also a man, in this, that the gods of Greece are far less moral than Buddha, but far more interesting.  They are not trying to save their souls, they are by no means ascetic, they have no intention of making progress through the universe by obeying the laws of nature, but they are bent on having a good time.  Fighting, feasting, and making love are their usual occupations.  If they can be considered as governing the world, it is in a very loose way and on a very irregular system.  They interfere with human affairs from time to time, but merely from whim or from passion.  With the common relations of life they have little to do.  They announce no moral law, and neither by precept nor example undertake to guide men’s consciences.