Excerpt from The Open Court, Vol. 40: A Monthly Magazine; November, 1926
Homer's reason for picturing the goddess of Love like this was doubtless political as well as moral' and religious, for the Greeks like the Israelites, must have been always in fear of military invasion from the East, with defeat of the gods of their fathers, along with loss of their personal freedom and possessions. On the gods of their fathers would depend their freedom and possessions, and they knew, better than we know from ancient monuments, what would be the fate of the peoples whose gods were conquered by the East. Were Ashtaroth and Baal, the gods of Love and War in the East, to displace Jehovah, the God or Righteousness of the Patriarchs, reducing the children of Israel to slaves? Were Aphrodite and Ares, also the gods of Love and War, to supplant in Greece as they had in Troy, the gods of the Grecian fathers, Athena, Apollo, and Zeus? Homer showed these two groups of gods at war, in which Aphro'dite and Ares were defeated, fortunately, both in the war as a whole and in all separate encounters and combats. He showed this so very ef fectively that in all of Grecian history there was never a temple to Ares built on Grecian soil, and no temple to Aphrodite was built by the Greeks themselves, though there were temples in Greece to the Eastern Love Goddess built by and for Eastern people residing there. U'ntil danger of attack by the East was past, and until the East had been conquered by Greeks, it would be im possible that Eastern influence should become strong in Greece; and when such an. Influence entered the West later, by infiltration or by deliberate adoption, it was not likelv that the Eastern God dess would be adopted and honored among the elect in Greece, but that they would continue to worship their Homeric gods. With the old Apollonian moderation.
The difference in religious spirit and practices between the East and the West is well illustrated in the incident when the worship of the Eastern Love Goddess, the Mother, was intro duced into Rome, directly and formally, and by decree' of the Senate. Roman fathers had worshipped the gods of their nation.
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