The relation of Christianity to other world religions was an extremely controversial issue in Schelling's day. A corollary issue concerned the ultimate source and historical development of those other religions. It was a general assumption that they could not have derived directly from God. On the other hand, their resemblance in many significant respects to the "one true religion" posed a puzzle with potentially troubling implications. For how could the sublime worship of God appear even remotely similar to the pagan idolatries?
It is worthwhile to consider briefly what some of the alternative positions were. The often heated polemics accompanying the disagreements are especially revealing of the operative pre-understandings as to what would constitute religious truth. There were at least five clearly distinguishable views.
The nonreligious hypothesis. Perhaps the most widely held view denied that the original impulse of pagan myths was of a religious nature at all. In the course of time, it was conceded, the gradual accumulation of popular superstitions might have assumed a religious or quasi-religious character. But in order to determine the root meanings of myths, one would have to penetrate beyond these later interpolations.
What, then were the "root meanings" of myths supposed to be? According to this view, they originated in the observation either of seasonal variations, historical events, geographical features, linguistic peculiarities, or numerous other empirical phenomena. Noticing these things, the early peoples allegedly looked for patterns and principles of order that could help to make the diversity of phenomena more readily comprehensible. Myths, then, originated as primitive "theories" about the natural or social worlds. They were attempts to codify and organize what the senses perceived. The other typical characteristics of myths -- including their anthropomorphism, the liberal use of fantasy, symbolism, exaggerations, dreamlike associations, otherworldly speculations, etc. -- resulted simply from the undisciplined and immature quality of the mythmakers' minds. They were not, however, essential or necessary features of myths, and could safely be eliminated from consideration.
The task of the scholar, therefore, was to get to the core of myths by paring away all such peripheral details. In the following chapter, I shall return to some of the proposed interpretations that emerged out of this approach. But for now let us turn to those other thinkers who insisted on seeing myths as fundamentally religious in character.
The corrupted truth hypothesis. A second, very prevalent position maintained that myths represented confused and corrupted relics of the divine revelation bestowed by God on humankind at the beginning of time, a faithful preservation of which was recorded in the Pentateuch. But the pagan remnants, preserved in garbled form by the descendants of Ham (the disrespectful son of Noah whose offspring, as recounted in Genesis 9, were accursed and base), had lost the original monotheistic teaching and fallen prey to false beliefs and idolatry.
The interpretation of myths as deriving from an original monotheism goes back to St. Martin of Braga (c. 560).(1) This theory has the advantage of recognizing the religious significance of myths, but at the cost of radically misconstruing their import. Martin, for example, insisted that the deities of ancient Greece and Rome were actually apostate angels who had fallen from Heaven along with Lucifer and the other demons. In the seventeenth century, John Milton included a dramatic representation of the same theory in his Paradise Lost. Among the angels cast with Satan into perdition, according to Milton,
The chief were those who, from the pit of Hell
Roaming to seek their prey on Earth, durst fix
Their seats, long after, next the seat of God,
Their altars by his altar, gods adored
Among the nations round, . . . (2)
Other variants of the same basic idea can be found in the writings of Gerhard Voss and Hugo Grotius, who derived pagan mythologies from perverse distortions of the primal revelation.(3)
Schelling was scornful of such theories. He pointed out that they resorted to the notion of "revelation" (Offenbarung) in an entirely arbitrary manner. Not only did the word by itself explain nothing, but it also presupposed an original receptivity to divine influences on the part of the ancestors of the human race. The possibility of this receptivity, by Schelling's time presumed lost, was uncritically assumed and surely no less in need of explanation than the revelation itself. Indeed, inasmuch as the only evidence in support of this original receptivity was the existence of mythology itself, one might with as much justice use mythology to explain the possibility of revelation, as the other way around.(4)
The developed superstition hypothesis. Stimulated by the recent discoveries in Africa and America of tribal societies that were rife with animism and fetishism, some observers proposed that the classical forms of paganism in ancient Greece and Rome might have descended from similarly "primitive" antecedents. Charles de Brosses was among the first to put this view forward in his Du culte des dieux fetiches (1760).(5)
Since this interpretation of myths anticipates the general outlook that still prevails today, it may seem especially attractive to us. Yet Schelling voiced a number of reservations. Observing that many "primitive" peoples throughout history have entertained superstitious beliefs concerning the nature and properties of physical objects in their environment, he asked whether such false beliefs also qualify as being "religious." Does the presumption, for example, that dryads or fairies exist really suffice to make one religious, or would this belief not be more aptly classified as a crude misconception about the nature of reality?(6)
These are indeed penetrating questions. If the concept of "religion" entails the notion of an actual encounter with the divine even if only a misguided or inadequate encounter -- then this definition does appear to involve two presuppositions: (a) that there does exist something divine to be encountered; and (b), that this something can be encountered in and through a human, cultural phenomenon. The real issue with which Schelling grappled concerned the question: When does a human belief or activity qualify as genuinely religious? Even if supernatural beings or paranormal powers were real, would belief in them necessarily suffice to constitute a religious faith? If not, then what would? On the other hand, if fetishism, etc., are not religious phenomena, then what are they? Clearly, the answers to these questions depend upon one's prior set of ontological commitments as to the true nature of religion and its objects. Schelling's decision to treat as fundamentally irreligious those theories of pagan religions which attempt to derive them from animism or fetishism must be understood on his own terms.
The progressive revelation hypothesis. With the Enlightenment came a number of new theories seeking to mediate between the presumptive truth of Christianity and the alien contents of paganism. Since the Renaissance, it had become increasingly agreed upon that even these religions possessed much wisdom and spiritual insight. Further complicating matters was the discovery of evidently "mythical" elements within the Bible itself.(7) This discovery threatened to undermine the comfortable distinction between "natural" and "revealed" religions. If pagan religions were as capable of containing spiritual truths as the Christian faith was of containing myths -- if there were demonstrable historical and cultural connections between them -- then how was one to maintain the conviction that the latter was indubitably superior to the former?
In 1780 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing published Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts (The Education of the Human Race), a daring and remarkable proposal for the reconciliation of Christian with pre-Christian religions.(8) In essence, his idea was to interpret God as standing in the role of a religious educator (Erzieher) vis-à-vis the human race. Because early humanity lacked the requisite maturity and moral sophistication to comprehend a fully developed monotheism, God revealed his nature and principles in a step-wise fashion: Divinely inspired prophets began with the notion of a stern national deity, then progressively imparted the loftier values of forgiveness, love, the brotherhood of all peoples, the immortality of the soul, as well as the singularity and universality of God. Lessing affirmed, moreover, that all religious truths originally communicated by God via special acts of revelation would ultimately be recognized as truths of reason, accessible to the unaided power of rational reflection.(9) In this way, Lessing sought to establish a continuous line of development running through all the world religions and, at the same time, to bridge the gap between "revealed" and "natural" theology.
Schelling greatly esteemed Lessing's work, acknowledging that this "wonderful man" had had a considerable influence on his thought.(10) His primary criticism was that the Erziehung essay remained a preliminary sketch, leaving unsolved major difficulties concerning the nature of religious truth and the content of mythology.(11) In particular, Schelling objected to Lessing's typically rationalistic assumption that the essence of religion consists in a doctrine, be it moral or theoretical. But, as Schelling was at pains to demonstrate, the religion of our prehistoric ancestors was not of a doctrinal nature at all; whereas that of more developed cultures always consists of an inseparable synthesis between doctrine and actuality (Eigentlichkeit).(12) What sort of "actuality" was Schelling thinking of here? This is a question to which we shall frequently have occasion to return, because it goes to the very heart of Schelling's entire philosophical program.
The primordial revelation hypothesis. A final development of great importance for Schelling's thought regarding the origins and nature of pagan religions was the translation, at the close of the eighteenth century, of Vedic texts from India. These ancient scriptures had mythical elements often strikingly reminiscent of the Greco-Roman as well as Hebrew traditions. At the same time, they also contained passages of deep mystical speculations, tending toward either a monistic or, alternatively, a monotheistic worldview. Because the sudden appearance of these texts was so important for setting the basic tone of the discussion and establishing the problematic that Schelling and his contemporaries faced, it is worth mentioning their early publication history.
As early as 1784, William Jones, founder and first president of the Asian Society of Calcutta, had published some of the Vedic myths and pointed to their affinities with familiar Western motifs.(13) Jones also translated the Isha Upanishad, which features meditations on the nondual "Atman" believed to pervade all finite beings.(14) Then, at the turn of the century, Anquetil-Duperron released a stilted Latin translation, which in turn was based on a Persian translation, of the original Sanskrit versions of principal Upanishads.(15) (It was this edition, incidentally, that was to have such a decisive impact on the thought of Arthur Schopenhauer.) In 1808, Friedrich Schlegel issued a ground-breaking philological and philosophical study, including translations of excerpts from the Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita, both strongly monotheistic in flavor.(16) One year later, M. E. de Polier brought out a work entitled Mythologie des Indous, based on Sanskrit texts obtained by her uncle, A. de Polier, during his tour of duty in India. This book, which called attention to similarities between the Hindu and biblical traditions, exercised a great influence on many scholars in the early part of the nineteenth century.(17) Still further translations from the Upanishads were provided by the Indian scholar Rammohun Roy(18) and by the famed British philologist, Henry Thomas Colebrooke.(19)
The sudden infusion of all these religious documents from the East, happening as it did during the height of the Romantic period, brought about a virtual revolution in the attitudes and theories of numerous thinkers. According to Schelling, William Jones was the first to elaborate the idea that all the ancient mythologies, including the Hebraic, were merely fragments of an originally far more inspiring and complete religious system: the primordial revelation (Uroffenbarung) of God. The primary content of this religion was supposed to consist in the affirmation of the Supreme Being's absolute unity and in the repudiation of any doctrines or tendencies that conceivably could lead to polytheism. Jones's theory bore obvious affinities to the corrupted truth hypothesis described earlier on pages 18-19, but with the essential difference, according to Schelling, that even the books of Moses were treated as neither more nor less privileged than were other sacred scriptures as witnesses to a lost golden age.(20) The human beings of those times, ancestors of all the diverse peoples and nations that came after (following the "Fall" from Paradise), were originally divided by neither linguistic nor cultural differences. In his enthusiasm for the Indian religions, Jones was inclined to locate the ancestral home of all humanity somewhere between the Ganges and Indus rivers.
Closely analogous ideas were held by Friedrich Creuzer, whose massive study, Symbolik and Mythologie der alten Völker, besonders der Griechen (1st ed., 1810-12), was to exercise a profound influence on Schelling, as well as on Hegel.(21) Indeed, no writer would be cited with anywhere near the same frequency in Schelling's lectures on the Philosophie der Mythologie, and it is clear that Creuzer provided the major foundation of empirical data on which Schelling later drew to support his own theories.(22) Creuzer's basic thesis about the origins of Greek mythology was that their deities and sacred myths had been transmitted from the Orient to the (proto-Greek) Pelasgians via missionizing priests from Egypt and the Orient. All of this supposedly happened in prehistoric times. In order to make their esoteric doctrines assimilable by the primitive Pelasgians, moreover, the priests from the East had veiled their doctrines in a rich but obscure symbolism.(23) Myths were told in order to represent on an esoteric level the symbols' deeper meanings.
Creuzer theorized that the original revelation of God must have presented him in his sublime unity. However, our prehistoric ancestors had understood this doctrine in a vaguely pantheistic manner, identifying God as the organic unity pervading the cosmos as a whole. Although very near to the truth, thought Creuzer, this doctrine was subject to a progressive erosion and loss of meaning, as the subordinate aspects and powers of God's order gradually came to be seen as separate deities in their own right. In this way, the primordial monotheism was lost, the popular myths diverged increasingly from their original symbolic meanings, polytheism was born, and in the process diluted traces of the ancient wisdom spread in numerous versions across the face of the earth. Hence, although no single historical culture possessed the whole truth of God, and although the different cultures' myths had all but lost their once-profound purport, scholarship could retrieve the meanings of the symbolism now lost in these myths and thereby reconstruct the originally revealed monotheistic faith.(24) Other notable figures who espoused similar or indirectly supportive positions were Henry Thomas Colebrooke(25) and especially Johann Joseph von Görres.(26)
Collectively, all of these theories contributed to a rising interest in, and enthusiasm for, ancient Eastern religions. The notion that these religions pointed back to the original revelation of God, as transmitted to the ancestors of the human race, had gained much currency in Schelling's time and decisively shaped the intellectual environment in which his study of mythology developed.(27) Nevertheless, the other, rival ideas about the origins of pagan religions remained popular among nineteenth-century scholars. Particularly strong contenders were theories that attempted to derive the pagan religions from nonreligious sources, such as fear of the unknown, confused attempts at explaining natural phenomena, or hero-worship. These will be explored in the next chapter. Schelling considered them all to be important alternatives and he devoted much effort to resolving the controversies of his day.(28)
Moreover, he saw and drew attention to an underlying issue that most of his contemporaries either ignored or took for granted. Each of the presented options presupposed a Christocentric set of assumptions concerning the essential nature of religions in general -- that is, concerning what the other faiths could teach and by what methods they typically inspired belief. Thus, for example, it was the unquestioned assumption of Christianity's preeminence as alone being true that led to easy speculations about paganism as deriving from brute ignorance and superstition or, worse, from the corrupting influence of the devil and his cohorts. Similarly, the speculations about a primordial monotheism or pantheism were rooted in seemingly axiomatic ideas about both the essence of religion and the nature of early humanity. But how, Schelling asked, could any of these theories be upheld except on the prior basis of a definitive understanding of religious meaning as such?
Schelling early recognized that questions concerning the origins and nature of pagan religions and their relations to Christianity could not be resolved satisfactorily through mere reliance on scriptural or institutional authorities. For, as the rationalists had long been at pains to point out, the possible validity even of suprarational authorities could only be established and upheld, if at all, by appeals to the bar of reason. This entailed that a sound theory of knowledge was necessary. Furthermore, inseparable from epistemology and equally necessary was a fundamental ontology. Schelling was fully cognizant of this. For only in terms of an established conception of being as such was it feasible to think of erecting any theory purporting to deal with that special kind of being (or privileged way of apprehending being) which would belong to the objects of religion. In order to deal with mythology in a systematic manner, therefore, it was incumbent on thinkers first of all to work out and defend a comprehensive philosophical basis.
Is mythical narrative to be understood essentially as allegory -- that is, as an encoded system of representational signs whose true meaning is radically different from its ostensible sense? If so, then what other level of discourse or what realm of objects were myths intended to stand for? And why had the original mythmakers chosen to veil their actual intentions in the first place? These and related issues were some of the most hotly debated topics among historians, philologists, and other students of religion in the early nineteenth century. The various positions taken up in this debate did much to define the theoretical dimensions within which Schelling's problematic developed.
As indicated in the previous chapter, one prominent group of theories concerning pagan mythologies sought to explain their genesis out of nonreligious origins. Many of these theories interpreted myths as elaborate allegories, of which the two primary subcategories were the naturalistic and the Euhemeristic.
Naturalism, when carried to its furthest development, has sometimes even claimed to discern a primitive natural science in such representations. In the twentieth century, scholars like Frank Byron Jevons, Paul Ehrenreich, and Robin Horton have continued to espouse variations on this sort of theory.(6) According to their principles, the proper method for interpreting a myth would be to seek out the physical phenomena to which the fanciful and admittedly spiritualistic language refers, and then to eliminate such language, reducing the terms down to their mundane meanings. It would be a mistake, on this model, to suppose that the primary significance of any myth could be aimed at metaphysical or transcendental issues (though these might have been superimposed by later generations); for such interpretation would be to miss the exclusive concern of the early mythmakers: to describe and explain the course of natural phenomena.
Another allegoristic perspective on mythology that had many adherents was Euhemerism, the claim that myths recounted in exaggerated terms the exploits of former heroes, geniuses, or chieftains. For example, it has often been suggested that the Egyptian god Osiris was originally an ancient pharaoh, murdered by his enemies and subsequently divinized by the people. Similarly, Herakles and Achilles can be viewed as actual heroes, idolized for their physical prowess by the people and ultimately attributed with superhuman powers. In the same way, Hermes can be seen as a gifted individual who once really existed, made some remarkable inventions and later came to be worshipped as the god of intellectual creativity.
Euhemerism has been extremely popular from ancient times until the present day. Euhemerus of Messene (c. 340-260 B.C.) wrote a Sacred History, purporting to show that the gods were, in fact, simply idealized historical individuals. He drew evidence for this claim from his travels to the East and the mysterious "Islands of Panchaea" (identity unknown), where he found magnificent temples dedicated to three conquering heroes of the past. Linking these with Zeus, Cronus, and Uranus, and perhaps thinking also of the recently instituted cult of Alexander the Great, Euhemerus drew the sweeping conclusion that all deities must have originated in a like manner. Thus, a rationalistic and completely atheistic explanation of religion was born.(7)
In the Middle Ages, Snorri Sturlason made use of the same theory in order to establish facile, pseudohistorical connections between the classical and Norse divinities.(8) Closer to Schelling's own time, Samuel Bochart attempted in his Geographiae sacra (1646) to prove by means of learned but farfetched etymologies that the Greek gods were actually ancient Jewish chieftains, whose names and reputations had been transmitted in garbled form by Phoenician emigrants.(9) Bochart anticipated Max Müller by two centuries in suggesting that the flights of fantasy embodied in myths arose from simple linguistic confusions. Thus, for example, the soldier-spawning dragon's teeth in the myth of Kadmos originated, according to Bochart, with the similarly sounding Phoenician word for "iron spear." It followed that, by means of resolving these verbal confusions one should, in principle, be able to reconstruct the straightforward historical occurrences (e.g., arming with iron weapons) that came to be mistaken for supernatural events.
Another seventeenth-century scholar, Pierre Daniel Huet, proposed an ingenious, if also rather eccentric, blend of both naturalistic and Euhemeristic allegorism. In his Demonstratio evangelica (1679), Huet argued that the same pagan divinity could alternately stand for a natural object, such as the sun or moon, or for a historical personage, depending on the momentary whims of the mythmakers. These fanciful associations, thought Huet, eventually fused in order to produce deities combining cosmic as well as personal attributes.(10) Euhemerism, however, always remained foremost in Huet's interpretations. He even made use of wildly arbitrary etymological "derivations" in order to demonstrate that the Phoenician deity Taaut, the Syrian Adonis, the Egyptian gods Osiris, Anubis, Set, and Apis, the Persian prophet Zoroaster, the Greek heroes Kadmos and Danaus, as well as the god Hermes -- all these were but reflections of one and the same historical figure: Moses.(11)
Of course it need not follow, from the mere fact that both natural and historical models have often been overused or abused as explanatory principles in the past, that in themselves they are totally mistaken or absurd. One could well imagine, for example, that in a religion's formative period certain allusions to physical nature or social motifs might have crept in from time to time and been assimilated into a broader mythological
framework. Yet the point is to find exactly what, if anything, is the basic thematic framework or tonic key around which tangential subthemes could be and were assimilated. That fundamental vision is precisely what naturalism and Euhemerism have claimed to supply. It is not a matter just of acknowledging possible natural or historical subplots in myths. Peripheral observations do not define a unique domain of phenomena, but that is just what naturalism and Euhemerism purport to do. What stands in debate in these theories is whether the reduction of myths to descriptions of nature, or alternatively to descriptions of events in social history, should be treated as paradigmatic.
The basic hermeneutical strategy linking Greeks from the time of Theagenes and Anaxagoras to late-Enlightenment figures like Hermann was their commitment to seeing the description and celebration of nature as the root impulse of religions. For just this reason they felt justified in applying the naturalistic model in all contexts and circumstances. Similarly, what distinguished the approach shared by Euhemerus, Bochart, et. al., was their universally historicizing slant, i.e., their taking the adulation of historical heroes as the central motif of myths. The general legitimacy of such interpretive reductions is the question at issue.
There is still another angle that should be considered in this context: namely, the possibility that the original religious impulse took the realms of nature or social history as being miraculous zones in which divinities characteristically revealed themselves. Perhaps the creators of myths evaluated natural wonders and/or human heroes as being inherently marvelous, and therefore as potential revelators of divine powers. In that eventuality, there would arguably be no reductionism involved in, for example, interpreting myths "Euhemeristically."
A religious theory of Thomas Carlyle's comes to mind here as a case in point, even though he postdated Schelling by several decades. Carlyle proposed two related hypotheses: first, that both nature and humanity are in fact essentially numinous existences, that their being can be regarded as an epiphany of the divine; and second, that the artless minds of our ancestors possessed a far more vivid sense of wonder in the face of this universe than we moderns do. It was therefore entirely to be expected that myths and cults would have sprung up that were inspired by the sublimities of nature, and awestruck as well by certain world-historical individuals, i.e., "heroes." Moreover, Carlyle made the very telling observation that Christianity itself is "the highest instance of Hero-worship."(12) It would be difficult to deny that at least some other peoples in the distant past might likewise have taken the lives of actual human beings as the material for religious narratives. And then of course the same argument could also be made, mutatis mutandis, for enraptured contemplation of natural phenomena.
However, it is significant that in Carlyle's hands nature and history were no longer treated reductionistically -- i.e., as showing that myths were at base "nothing more" than allegorical descriptions of common human experiences. The whole thrust of Theagenes' and Euhemerus's interpretations had been to explain away religious phenomena, to show that they resulted from superstitious confusions or misapprehensions of ordinary facts. From this, existence of anything "divine" was thereby called into question. Quite otherwise with Carlyle's arguments. They rest, rather, on the premise that the divine is truly immanent in nature and especially in history's "great heroes." But at just this juncture the old dilemma returns. In what, exactly, would such immanence consist? That is the basic problem we set out to solve, after all. As soon as one goes so far as Carlyle did, as soon as one posits human history as the zone of a divine epiphany, the original questions reassert themselves: namely, what is the nature of the "divinity" that reveals itself? And what is it that makes a myth or ritual specifically religious in character?
In the twentieth century, some of the most penetrating students of mythology have argued vigorously against reductionistic styles of interpretation. Even granting that natural phenomena or dramatic human events might occasionally have provided the raw materials for certain aspects of myth to be taken up into, and reconstituted by, the religious consciousness, these scholars point out that this is still far from proving that these phenomena exhaust the meanings of myths. Ernst Cassirer, for example, as well as Paul Ricoeur and Jan de Vries, have taken this position in strongly repudiating Euhemerism, naturalism, and indeed any form of allegorism as a general hermeneutical principle in the study of mythologies.(13) What then is the problem with allegorism? What are the major objections that can be made to it? Most importantly for our purposes, what specific objections did Schelling make?
In pursuing answers to these questions, it will be useful first to consider briefly the development of Schelling's thinking about the significance of mythology, the first phase of which was represented by an adolescent essay written while he was still a student at the Tübingen Seminary. A second phase followed a decade later in Jena, where the now-famous twenty-eight-year-old sought to apply the principles of his philosophy of identity to the interpretation of myths. The passage of still another dozen years would find him in Stuttgart, engaged in a study of the mystery cult of Samothrace with a very different approach, marking a transition to his final views on the meaning of mythology....
There was a common thread of error, he contended, in all the attempts to treat mythical narratives as ciphers or signs for other things, whether for natural phenomena, for great historical events, for moral principles, for esoteric metaphysical doctrines, or whatever else.(37) All these interpretive strategies, he thought, mistakenly presupposed that the contents of myths, once properly "deciphered" and translated into straightforward concepts, could thenceforward be dispensed with as mythology. Yet this notion of "translatability" amounted to a flattening and trivialization of the infinite richness of myths, overlooking their emotional intensity, their compelling realism, and the necessary laws of their development. Borrowing a term from Coleridge, Schelling insisted that "mythology is not allegorical, it is tautegorical."(38) In other words, the content of mythology is identical to its form.
Schelling argued that it was implausible to suppose the primitive tellers of myths could ever have intended complex and abstract metaphysical ideas to be the hidden contents of their narrations. Such ideas might have sprung up later and been grafted onto the myths, he contended, but they could not account for the myths' origins.(39) Secondly, Schelling criticized reductionistic interpretations of myths that brought in farfetched "historical" or pseudoscientific explanations to account for religious practices and beliefs. He noted, ironically, that in that case the creators of the myths must have stood on a far higher level of intellectual development and culture than the great mass of believers. Not only was there no empirical evidence to support such an elitist hypothesis, but it was also a mystery how the supposed geniuses of mythology could ever have prevailed on the ordinary people to accept their representations.(40) Thirdly, Schelling argued that the tremendous power exercised by myths on the popular mind, and the absolute conviction they elicited, was only understandable if one assumed a kind of objective necessity to be operative in them.(41) Hence one must reject the notion that myths could have arisen as the products of invention (Erfindung) or fantasy, whether of individuals or groups. For no function of human conscious life which was subject to the free decisions of intelligence and will could ever have produced the irresistible hold myths have exercised on whole peoples and cultures.(42)
It is important also to notice the strategies of argument that Schelling directed specifically against naturalism and Euhemerism, for these strategies shed much light both on the central reasons for his rejection of allegorism and on his conception of how genuine symbols function.
Against Naturalism
Schelling never denied that natural objects, heavenly bodies, seasonal cycles, etc., assumed a religious significance in many ancient and modern cultures. What he did deny was that these physical objects or qualities had furnished the original and continuing motives that inspired worship and the telling of myths. The naturalistic mode of explanation effectively put the cart before the horse. In fact, Schelling maintained, it was the religious impulse already present in the human mind that caused people to take these external objects as indicators of, or references to, higher spiritual realities. For example, in the case of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Schelling disputed the familiar naturalistic contention that the descent and subsequent return of Persephone from Hades symbolized the planting of grain. For it was not that Persephone symbolized grain, but rather the reverse, that grain symbolized Persephone, which endowed the Mysteries with such pronounced religious intensity.(43) In just the same way, Schelling added, St. Paul himself frequently used agricultural images to symbolize spiritual things. And yet no one supposed that Christianity was for that reason a nature religion.
Against Euhemerism
A parallel argument could also be made with respect to the presence of historical (or quasi-historical) figures in some religious stories and m) thy The point was not so much whether such figures were or were not "historical," but whether their alleged historicity had provided the original impulse of spiritual awe that led to the development of religious ideas around them. was it not at least as plausible, Schelling suggested, that the people of those times already possessed certain compelling spiritual archetypes, fundamental values and motifs which they then might have superimposed onto the stage of human history? Schelling interpreted the Roman legend of Romulus, Remus, and Numa, for example, as instantiations of the three universal Potencies (of which more later) that appeared in all the great world religions. Once worshipped as deathless gods, the three could later have been assigned "historical" roles as founding fathers of Rome.(44) This, then, was Schelling's theory of "reverse Euhemerism": It was not the case that history had become mythologized, as Euhemerus had taught, but rather that mythology had become historicized.(45)
Schelling's criticisms of both naturalism and Euhemerism implicitly presupposed that the true essence of religious experience consists in the encounter with an actually divine being or beings. The premise is open to question. Is it not possible, for instance, that the reductionists are correct -- that the core of religion is illusion and self-deceit? Might it not be the case, after all, that the superstitious fancies of naive peoples invested
commonplace phenomena with a significance and value not truly theirs? We must take this possibility more seriously than Schelling did, reserving the right at the conclusion of this investigation to set aside his system of "positive philosophy" as untenable.
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, many scholars assumed that the reductionist camp had thoroughly routed the romantic "symbolist" camp (within which Schelling could loosely be numbered). Because the symbolists often indulged in speculations of dubious historical plausibility, the reductionists had a field day in debunking their theories. Any inclination to attribute a higher spiritual significance to ancient pagan myths and religious beliefs was immediately suspect.(46) This attitude is still prevalent in many quarters today.
Nevertheless, perhaps one should concede at least this much justice to Schelling's position: Naturalism, Euhemerism, and any other atheistic theories of religion should only be considered strong options if and when the religious interpretations have been exhausted. Prior to that determination, it would be question-begging to presuppose the validity of nonreligious hypotheses and reductive hermeneutics. Instead, a critical study of religion would do better to explore religious phenomenology without presuppositions one way or the other. Guided by this methodological precept, which is more limited than Schelling's outright rejection of the above hypotheses, one can appreciate his alternative treatment of mythology as a point of departure.
The basic objection to the atheistic methods of hermeneutics was that they misconceived the essence of religious symbolism Schelling observed that a symbol was always a sensible thing or sign that represented something else; but in the particular case of religion, the represented object was supersensible. A religious symbol therefore served to direct the mind from a lower reality to a higher one, never the other way around.(47) This assertion again presupposed a religious worldview, and Schelling was aware that its justification would require a systematic inquiry into ultimate ontology. That ontology will receive a fuller treatment later. For the time being, however, we shall merely note his central claim that the mistake of Euhemerism and naturalism lay in their failure to appreciate the super-sensible orientation of religious symbolism.
Against Moralistic or Doctrinal Readings
The above critique did not by any means exhaust the full extent of Schelling's objections to the allegorical treatment of myths. He also took issue with attempts to read into them moralistic or doctrinal allegories, neither of which committed the "fallacy" of materialism, and yet both of which managed to be reductionistic in other ways. Let us briefly consider these two alternatives.
Against the axiological approach, which interpreted pagan myths as illustrative lessons in moral behavior, Schelling had little to say. Presumably he did not think it necessary, inasmuch as the view had few defenders anyway. Besides, it appeared glaringly obvious that many ancient myths and associated rituals were positively immoral in their content and were experienced as such by the ancients no less than by moderns. (Recall the wild Maenads, for example, whose mad orgies and savage rites nobody, least of all the Greeks themselves, would have designated as moral.) Accordingly, much of Schelling's effort in interpreting such religious motifs would be spent in seeking to recover and explain the powerful emotional conflicts that could have led to such excesses. But even granting that it was possible to see in some myths the presence of ethical teachings or guides to moral behavior, it still did not follow that these uses were the primary raison d'être for such myths. Schelling observed that moralistic metaphors could easily have been superimposed upon the myths as later strata of meaning. In order to determine the root meanings of myths, however, it would be necessary to discover the principles of their morphological development from the very earliest times.(48)
1. Jan de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte der Mythologie (Freiburg/Munich: Karl Alber, 1961), pp. 54-55. Also by the same author, cf. Perspectives in the History of Religions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 17.
2. St. Martin of Braga, De correctione rusticorum, in The Fathers of the Church: Iberian Fathers, vol. 1, trans. by C.W. Barlow (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1969), pp. 71-85. See especially chs. 7-9, pp. 74-76.
3. John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I, ll. 381-385. The following hundred verses contain detailed descriptions of these "abominations" -- chiefly ancient deities of the Canaanite and Phoenician religions.
4. Cf. Gerhard Voß, De theologias Gentili, sive de origine ac progressu Idolatriae (Amsterdam: J. Blaev, 1668; c. 1641). Also see Hugo Grotius, De veritate religionis christianae (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1827, c. 1627). For a succinct summary of their views, see de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte, pp. 70-75 and 75-76, respectively. Schelling discusses Voß's ideas at XI, 86, 179, 214; XII, 181. Grotius is mentioned briefly at XII, 26.
6. Charles de Brosses, Du Culte des Dieux Fetisches (no place, no publ. given; 1760), see esp. pp. 10ff., 76f., 158ff. Cf. de Vries, Forschungsgesichte, pp. 91-95. See also the excerpts from de Brosses' work in the anthology compiled by Burton Feldman and Robert D. Richardson, The Rise of Modern Mythology, 1680-1860 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972), pp. 168-76. For Schelling's critique of de Brosses' hypothesis of fetishism, see XII, 294f. Other proponents of this hypothesis will be discussed in the pages dealing with "naturalism," pp. 31-42, below.
7. XI, 73-74. Even Hume, notes Schelling, admitted that the practices of simple animists and fetishists do not constitute genuine religions. Schelling quotes from Hume's The Natural History of Religion (1757): "To any one, who considers justly the matter, it will appear, that . . . these pretended religionists are really a kind of superstitious atheists, and acknowledge no being, that corresponds to our idea of a deity." (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1957; p. 33). Schelling's slightly different rendering comes from a French translation of the work.
8. Publication by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing between 1774 and 1778 of the so-called Wolfenbütteler Fragmente, written anonymously by Hermann Samuel Reimarus, raised troubling questions as to how much even of the Gospel narratives was mythological in character; English translation by R.S. Fraser, Reimarus: Fragments (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970).
9. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Gesammelte Werke in Zehn Bänden (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1956); vol. 8, pp. 590-615; English translation by H. Chadwick, The Education of the Human Race, in Lessing's Theological Writings (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1956), pp. 82-98.
10. ibid., #76, p. 610: "When these truths were first revealed, they were, to be sure, not yet truths of reason; but they were revealed in order to become truths of reason"; Eng. trans., p. 95.
12. ibid. In a footnote, Schelling suggests that Lessing's reluctance to identify himself as the work's author was proof that he himself was dissatisfied with its execution.
13. XI, 175,196-98. Without specifically mentioning Hegel in this connection, Schelling evidently intended the same critique to apply to him.
14. Sir William Jones, "On the Gods of Greece, Italy and India, written in 1784 and since revised by the President," in Asiatic Researches (London: Vernor and Hood, 1798), vol. 1, pp. 221-275. Cf. esp. pp. 221-22 and 271. For excerpts from Jones's work, cf. Feldman & Richardson, pp. 267-75. See also de Vries, Perspectives, p. 41.
15. Jones, The Works, in Six Volumes (London: G.G. and J. Robinson and R.H. Evans, 1799), vol. VI, pp. 423-26. Included are two short translations from the Yajur Veda: Isavasyam" (Isa Upanishad), followed by an additional page, "From the Yajur Veda." Schelling refers to these passages in XII, 475. For other references to Jones cf. XII, 465, 468, 508, 556.
16. Abraham Hyacinth Anquetil-Duperron, Oupnek'hat, id est, secretum tegendum: opus ipsa in India rarissimum, continens antiquam et arcanam, seu theologicam et philosophicam, doctrinam, . . . 2 vols. (Argentorati (Strasburg): 1801-02). Schelling refers to Anquetil's work at XII, 476-77.
17. Friedrich Schlegel, Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier. Ein Beitrag zur Begründung der Alterthumskunde. Nebst metrischen Übersetzungen indischer Gedichte. (Heidelberg: Mohr und Zimmer, 1808; reprinted in Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V., 1977). Schlegel emphasized and clearly preferred a dualistic, as opposed to pantheistic, interpretation of the Hindu scriptures (pp. 127-28ff.), a preference for which he later was criticized by Schelling (XII, 19).
18. Marie Elisabeth de Polier, Mythologie des Indous, travaillee par mdme de la chnsse de Polier, sur des manuscrits authentiques apportes de l'Inde par feu mr. le colonel de Polier . . . (Roudostadt. La librairie de la cour: Paris: F. Schoell, 1809), 2 vols. De Vries characterizes the extensive influence of this book as in part harmful, because of its one- sided and often ill informed presentations. Yet for a time it provided one of the few sources of original materials, and Friedrich Creuzer, among others, relied heavily on it. See de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte, p. 150; cf. Perspectives, p. 41.
19. Cf. The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy (Allahabad: The Panini Office, 1906), pp. 19-77. Featured are translations from the Kena and Isa Upanishads (both 1816), as well as the Mundaka and Katha Upanishads (both 1819). Schelling himself never saw Roy's work, but based his somewhat negative judgment of it (XII, 475-76) on a review in the Journal Asiatique. Yet, that review to the contrary, Roy's translation is in fact fuller and more detailed than that of Jones. There is no truth to Schelling's inference that Roy must have suppressed polytheistic elements in order to support a bland, deistic interpretation.
20. Henry Thomas Colebrooke, "On the Vedas, or Sacred Writings of the Hindus," in Asiatic Researches (London: Vernor and Hood, 1798), vol. 8, pp. 369-476. This essay includes translations of selected passages from the Aitareya, Brihadaranyaka, and other Upanishads. See also Colebrooke's Essays on the religion and philosophy of the Hindus, New ed. (London and Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1858). Reprinted from Asiatic researches and from the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society. (Schelling refers to Colebrooke at XII, 467 as "the greatest expert on Indian literature.")
21. XI, 88. For more on Schelling's knowledge of, and attitudes toward, the recent blossoming of Indological studies in Europe, see Jean W. Sedlar, India in the Mind of Germany: Schelling, Schopenhauer and their times (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982).
22. (Georg) Friedrich Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, besonders der Griechen (New York: Arno Press, 1978; a facsimile reprint of the 2nd edition, Leipzig: Heyer & Leske, 1819-1823). Schelling also specifically recommends (XI, 89) an abridged version of this work, which "contains in one volume all that is essential": Symbolik und Mythologie . . . im Auszüge von Dr. Georg Heinrich Moser (Leipzig: Carl Wilhelm Leske, 1822). For a useful discussion of Creuzer's work, see Alfred Bäumler, Das mythische Weltalter (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1965, c. 1926), pp. 103-114. For Creuzer's inflence on Hegel, see Martin Donougho, "Hegel and Friedrich Creuzer: or, Did Hegel Believe in Myth?" a paper delivered at the 11th Biennial Meeting of the Hegel Society of America at McGill University, Montreal, in October, 1990.
23. Because of Creuzer's tremendous importance for Schelling, I provide here a virtually complete listing of Schelling's references to him in the Philosophie der Mythologie and in relevant parts of the Philosophie der Offenbarung: XI, 89f., 126, 137, 226; and XII, 146, 148, 157, 161, 207, 213, 214, 220, 245, 249, 251, 255, 277, 288f., 290, 334, 386, 391, 397, 409-10, 416-17, 442-43, 460, 465, 469, 558, 614, 622, 643, 651, 662, 667; and finally XIII, 433, 438, 444, 453, 460, 475, 488, 498, 499, 503, 509, 516. It is worth noting that Creuzer himself was also, in turn, considerably influenced by Schelling. See Symbolik, vol. I, p. x; vol. IV, p. vii; as well as Creuzer's review essay, Über einige mythologische und artistische Schriften Schellings, Ouwaroffs, Millins und Welckers (Heidelberg: Mohr & Winter, 1817). Cf. also de Vries, Perspectives, p. 51.
24. Symbolik, vol. I, pp. 6ff., 36, 57f. & passim. Compare Herodotus, Histories, Book II, chs. 49-57. Excerpts from Creuzer's work may be found in Burton Feldman and Robert D. Richardson, The Rise of Modern Mythology, 1680-1860 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972), pp. 387-96; also Károly Kerènyi, Die Eröffnung des Zugangs zum Mythos (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1967), pp. 35-58. See also de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte, pp. 150ff., and Perspectives, pp. 50f.
25. Symbolik, vol. 1, pp. xi f. An illustrative example of Creuzer's hermeneutical style occurs in vol. 2, pp. 484ff., where he compares the original "triadic form" of Zeus to the Trimurti concept of ancient Hinduism. Creuzer adds that this "intimation . . . of the one, almighty power which unites all that exists" disappeared as Greek civilization approached its zenith.
For Schelling's summary and assessment of Creuzer's theory of an original monotheism, see XI, 89-90, 137; also cf. XII, 220 (for Persian monotheism), 391 (Egyptian), 460 (Indian), and 643 (Greek).
26. Colebrooke concluded from his philological studies that the earliest Indian and Persian religions were closely related. ("On the Vedas," op. cit., p. 474.) He went still further, arguing for an original monotheism as taught in the Hindu scripture, and minimizing the elements of apparent polytheism: "The real doctrine of the whole Indian scripture is the unity of the deity, in whom the universe is comprehended: and the seeming polytheism, which it exhibits, offers the elements, and the stars and planets, as gods." For Schelling's critique, see XII, 470-71.
27. Strangely, Schelling almost never referred to the writings of this important thinker. See, for example, Görres' influential Mythengeschichte der asiatischen Welt, 2 vols. (Heidelberg: Mohr & Zimmer, 1810), and also his Über die Grundlage, Gliederung und Zeitenfolge der Weltgeschichte. Drei Vorträge, gehalten an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in München (Breslau: Max & Komp, 1830). Schelling's silence seems all the more remarkable since, as de Vries observes, Görres' thoughts on the nature and transformations of the "Urreligion" were in some respects closely similar to those of Schelling's primary source, Creuzer himself. Cf. de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte, pp. 157-59; Perspectives, pp. 47f. Also, cf. Tilliette, La mythologie comprise (Naples: Instituto Italiano per gli studi filosofici, 1984), pp. 54-57.
The most probable explanation for Schelling's virtual silence about Görres is that it stemmed from concern over the latter's completely unscholarly method, his fanciful speculations, and perhaps even his outspoken ultramontanism. To have used Görres as as intellectual support would therefore have seemed unacceptable to Schelling. (Consider, for example, Hegel's condescending 1831 review of Görres' Munich lectures, reprinted in G.W.F. Hegel, Werke: Theorie Werkausgabe, 20 vols., E. Moldenhauer & K.M. Michel, eds. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970), vol. 11, pp. 487-513; see esp. p. 493.) Yet some scholars believe that Schelling probably maintained a cool respect for Görres, in whom he would have recognized an ally in the cause of integrating mythology with Christianity. See Thomas Franklin O'Meara, Romantic Idealism and Roman Catholicism (Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), p. 133.
In any case, rather than apologize for, or combat, Görres's theories, which perhaps seemed to Schelling no less politically explosive than intellectually frivolous, he apparently chose to ignore them altogether.
28. Schelling was, however, very critical of the attempts which had been made to interpret Indian culture as a direct, primary source of the Hebraic, Greek, or other Western traditions. Cf. XI, 21, 87; XII, 431, 465.
29. For a summary outline closely conforming to Schelling's Historisch-kritische Einleitung in die Philosophie der Mythologie (1842; vol. XI of the SW), including his critiques of earlier treatments of mythology, see Jochem Hennigfeld, Mythos und Poesie. Interpretationen zu Schellings "Philosophie der Kunst" und "Philosophie der Mythologie" (Meisenheim am Glan: Hain, 1973), esp. pp. 91-133. In the following chapter I have adopted a different approach, both in order to avoid duplicating previous work as well as to highlight those issues and controversies that are particularly relevant for our purposes.
1. Jan de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte der Mythologie (Freiburg/München: Karl Alber, 1961), pp. 4-5; cf. by the same author, Perspectives in the History of Religions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 5-6.
2. Naturalistic interpetations were further developed by Metrodorus of Lampsacus, a disciple of Anaxagoras, who credited his teacher with having originated the idea. Cf. Robert S. Brumbaugh, The Philosophers of Greece (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981), p. 107.
3. See Plutarch, De Isidi et Osiridi (c. 100), trans. and ed. by J. Gwynn Griffiths (Cambridge: University of Wales Press, 1970), chapters 33-40, esp. 372A. Plutarch espoused a spiritual, Platonic style of allegory.
4. Cf. Christian Gottlob Heyne, Questio de causis fabularum seu mythorum veterum physicis, in his Opuscula academica collecta et animadversionibus locupletata, 6 vols. (Göttingen: H. Dieterich, 1785), vol. 1; also Gottfried Hermann, De mythologiae Graecorum antiquissima dissertatio (Lipsiae: G. Fleischerum, 1817). For Schelling's critique of Heyne, see XI, 30 ff. For his parallel critique of Hermann, see XI, 34ff. Compare de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte, pp. 143-49 and 178-83.
5. Gottfried Hermann, Dissertatio de Historiae Graecae primordia, in his Opuscula, 8 vols. (Lipsiae: G. Fleischerum, 1827-77), vol. 2, p. 121. Cf. de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte, p. 180. Schelling scathingly criticized this interpretation, XI, 58f. For other references in Schelling to Hermann, cf. XI, 40, 214, 236; also cf. XII, 15, 128, 136, 290, 296.
6. See Frank Byron Jevons, An Introduction to the History of Religions (London: Methuen, 1902, c. 1896), p. 263. Cf. de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte, pp. 279-81. See also Paul Ehrenreich, Die allgemeine Mythologie und ihre ethnologischen Grundlagen (New York: Arno Press, 1978, c. 1910), pp. 109, 118-21. (Cf. De Vries, op. cit., 274-78.) Compare Robin Horton, "African Traditional Thought and Western Science," in Rationality, Bryan R. Wilson, ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979), pp. 131-171.
7. Fragments of Euhemerus' writings have been preserved in the works of Diodorus of Sicily, vol. 3, bk. 6, ch. 1. Cf. Franz Susemihl, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur in der Alexandrinerzeit (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1891), vol. I, pp. 316-22; Baron Friedrich von Hügel, The Reality of God and Religion and Agnosticism, two titles bound in one volume (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1931), pp. 224-32.
8. Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda (c. 1230), trans. by A.G. Brodeur (New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1916). See especially the Prologue, Chs. 3-5, pp. 6-9. Snorri relates that Thor and Odin were powerful lords in Asia (whence they were called "Aesir"), descendents of the Trojan king Priam. Odin allegedly brought a large group of followers to the north and eventually settled with them in Sigtuna, Sweden. Later generations venerated him as a god.
9. Samuel Bochart, Geographiae Sacra (Cadomi: P. Cardonelli, 1646), pt. II, p. 487. Cf. de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte, p. 70.
10. Pierre Daniel Huet, Demonstratio evangelica ad serenissimum Delphinum, 3rd edition (Paris: Daniel Hortemel, 1690; 1st edition, 1679), pp. 149-50. Cf. de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte, pp. 78-79.
11. Huet, op. cit., pp. 68-153. See esp. pp. 140-41, where Huet writes that "all the gods of fable are one and the same -- most assuredly Moses." Huet adds that the goddesses are all either Sephora, Moses' wife, or Maria, his sister. Cf. de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte, p. 78, and Schelling, XI, 86.
12. Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, in Thomas Carlyle's Works, in 17 vols. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1885-88), vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 11; see also pp. 6f., 9ff., 14ff.
13. Ernst Cassirer, Sprache und Mythos. Ein Beitrag zum Problem der Götternamen (Leipzig & Berlin: B.G. Teubner, 1925), pp. 6ff., esp. p. 8; English translation by S. K. Langer, Language and Myth (New York: Dover, 1953), pp. 8ff., esp. pp. 10f. Also Paul Ricoeur, "The Hermeneutics of Symbols and Philosophical Reflection," in International Philosophical Quarterly 2 (1962), pp. 191-218; reprinted in The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur: An Anthology of his Work, ed. by Charles E. Reagan and David Stewart (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978), pp. 36- 58. See esp. p. 46. Cf. de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte, pp. 360-63....
38. XI, 195-96; cf. XII, 139f. Schelling cautions in a footnote (XI, 196), however, that he does not understand the term "tautegorical" in the same sense as Coleridge -- that is, as the equivalent of a philosopheme -- but rather as a lived reality. (Coleridge was actually not the originator of the concept of the "tautegorical." Tilliette points out in La Mythologie comprise (Naples: Instituto Italiano per gli studi filosofici, 1984), pp. 36, 70, that the credit for this idea should go to Karl Philipp Moritz. Cf. the latter's Götterlehre oder mythologische Dichtungen der Alten (Berlin: Unger, 1795), pp. 2f.)
Schelling's footnote at XI, 196 will be interesting to English-speaking readers, because it documents the great respect and appreciation that Coleridge earned from the German philosopher for his efforts to introduce Continental ideas and texts, including Schelling's own Gottheiten von Samothrake, into England. With uncharacteristic generosity, and a touch of humor, Schelling adds, "In return for the above-mentioned fitting expression, I willingly grant to him the borrowings which he has made, without attribution, from my writings, and for which he has been sharply -- indeed, too sharply -- censured by his own countrymen." For other references to Coleridge, see XI, 277, 294. In the latter passage, Schelling lauds Coleridge as having been among the few who really understood him.
42. Schelling's arguments against the Erfindungs-hypothesis were of central importance to his entire approach; hence they were carefully elaborated and often reiterated. See XI, 47, 56ff., 125, 193, 200, 222; XII, 3, 130, 669; XIII, 500.
43. XII, 638. Similar arguments for a reversal of the naturalistic analyses can be found at XII, 174, 214, 385-87.
45. ibid., and cf. XIII, 499. For the term, "reverse Euhemerism" (umgekehrter Euemerismus), see XI, 233.
46. Ernst Howald, editor of an anthology of polemical essays from the period, was moved to preface his study of the century-old controversy with the wistful observation that the "victory" of J.H. Voß, G. Hermann, C.G. Heyne, and others had led to the virtual "disappearance . . . from religious studies of a sense for the religious mentality," with the result that scholarship in this area had advanced little over the last hundred years. Cf. Der Kampf um Creuzers Symbolik. Eine Auswahl von Dokumenten (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1926), p. 3. The factual incorrectness of this assessment does not prevent it from being revealing about the perceptions of many students of mythology.