Creuzer, G. F. (1836). Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Volker. Germany: Druck und Verlag von Carl Wilhelm Leske.

Translation note. 

The fragments of this work were translated from German to Spanish and English with the support of Google Translate.

Symbolism and mythology of ancient people.

pp. 25-27

The earth next to Zeus now appears, although still quite vague, in two verses that were related to the Peleiades. These were the fortune tellers of Dodona, where the Pelasgians and the Hellenes under the sacred oak were instructed in the counsels of Jupiter. They were not sibyls of the people, but were called Peleiades, and their enigmatic sayings required interpreters who would explain them to people in a more understandable language. They were the first women to speak of the Pelasgian God in the following verses:

«Zeus was, Zeus will be, oh great Zeus!

                  The Earth produces fruits, so praise mother Earth.»

If one wanted to take the moments of the first verse: «was, is and will be» metaphysically, they certainly would not belong to such a naive song of the Pelasgian soothsayers. But let us ignore the words and look at the matter, that means nothing more than that wisely expressed by popular myth in genealogical terms as follows: Zeus fathered the Horae; which means that the life of nature develops cyclically in three recurring seasons, established according to the division of ancient peoples; and when Homer himself gives Zeus, who is shrouded in dark clouds, the ether to live on and allows him produce everything that lives above the sky, this can be understood as individual moments which are repeated annually. In the same way that Virgil exemplifies it, when he conceives that the igneous power of the sky, in spring, mixes with the fertilizing rain (foecundis imbribus aether) and the gigantic body of the earth (magnus alit magno commixtus corpore foetus), or more generally as in the ancient theological form, according to which, in the cosmogonies there are many mixtures between the elements of Homer, for example, where Apollo (the sun) fought with Poseidon (the sea) or where Hephaestus (the power of fire) fought with Scamander (the river), and they tried to destroy each other; thought and represented in Orphic, that is, in the old way theological. Because singing about forces and mixtures was Orphic, while singing about people and actions, Homeric.

pp. 35-36

[...] Just as the Æsir of the new cult were placed there in front of the androgynous solar beings of ancient, so here the old elemental powers had to gradually allow themselves to be concealed by the completely simplified Olympics. However, this was already innate in the human spirit for a long time. The personification asserted its rights, as we saw above, from the ancient priestly songs in its evolution, to the theological philosopher. The oldest names of the natural gods were formed entirely in this personalizing sense. There we hear of a Geryon or Geryone of three forms (Γηρυονεύς); the old man, who according to legend is a season, time itself or winter; of Demeter Helegerys (ελήγηρυς) as the mother of the old brown ear; and when an ancient king of Iberia is called Argantonio (Ἀργανθώνιος), the one with white flowers, like a snow-covered mountain (Αργανθών), we have here in language, the connection between a human individual and a part of nature. This also corresponds with Mons Argaeus in Cappadocia, which, according to scholarly writing, was both a god, an oath, and an image for the country's inhabitants. I already pointed out in the second edition of this book that, according to an earlier opinion, the Greeks had a similar idea of ​​their Olympus. According to popular tales, the holy mountains become the living and life-giving God himself. The first law is given in the stellar writing of heaven. Themis and the Horae preserve it, gather the gods and point out to them the first celestial statutes. The second law occurs at the top of Olympus. Its clear heights are cloud-covered to humans, and no mortal foot can penetrate its depths. The movement of Jupiter is an expression of the law. But this movement of his head makes the Olympic castle tremble and with thunder and lightning his laws are proclaimed. Just as when Moses brings stone tablets from Sinai, the mountain of the law, to the Israelites, the Olympic scrolls are also opened to the Hellenic people, prepared with the skin of the goat Amalthea, who feeds the god of laws with her milk. What these scrolls contain among their many folds —the law of nature and spirit— is Διος πολυπτυχία and a wonderful, often enigmatic content.

p. 37

But I should also have remembered the bronze tables of the law that, according to a strange myth, the Cretans had received from a sidereal being. Since this saying stands at the same point of transition from the direct worship of nature to personification, and at the same time unites in a single vision nature and spirit and therefore appears in an organic connection with our discussion, I want to emphasize the following basic characteristics. Talos (τάλως), as the saying goes, was a bronze giant who, as guardian of Crete, circled this island three times a day. Heyne rightly calls this myth very old and adds the generally correct observation that the more absurd a fable is, the older it should be considered; but if the present myth is among those that have arisen from monuments, and has its origin in a Phoenician navigation legend that tells of a colossal mineral statue settled in Crete, then, if this supposition is true, it is only possible to think that it is a solar colossus. [...]

pp. 40-41

[...] Ancient people had once learned to consider the rising, setting and position of the sun at noon, as well as the course of the year, within a natural statute and order; so that its application to the order of the land, to the division and organization of the tribes, to customs and laws, could not fail at all. In other words, the constitution and the political-ethical order are, therefore, seen as a reflection of the laws of nature and the cosmic order.

pp. 56-61

[...] The strange design of Janus on a gold coin of Emperor Gallienus, with the inscription: «To Father Janus», has great difficulties. This god, with a double bearded and beardless head, also embarrassed a great German numismatist. He had previously stated that the Roman Janus always appeared with two bearded faces. But now the excellent man honestly admitted that this coin gives new weight to the opinion of those who claim that Janus also appears with a bearded face and without a beard. In the end, however, he stood by his previous statement and concluded with the observation that either there was an error in the representation of Pellerin's work or it had to be assumed that in the figure of Janus of that time a change had been made with respect to the ancient mode of representation. In addition to this, another archaeologist, on the occasion of the same coin, recognizes the great antiquity of the difference between the two faces of Janus and points out that the coins minted in Campania also attest to it. Both scholars appear to have been unaware of E. Q. Visconti's excellent analysis of the double and many-headed creatures that appear in ancient images. The famous Italian archaeologist rightly identified all these beings in the Eastern religions that passed into ancient Greek theology and among whom is also Janus, who does not belong exclusively to the Italian religion, but also to the figures of two, three, four heads or many eyes of ancient Greek symbolism, such as Phanes, Dionysus or Hermes, which were identical and came from the same source; so Visconti also took into account the two-headed figures on the Greek coins of Kamarina in Sicily, of Tenedos and Athens; with which he was finally able to show how Hermes arrived at this double form and how, therefore, in the Latin bronzes Janus can be related to the hat (petasus), where a Janus could easily be confused with the hat of Hermes, as if it were a Hermes (Mercurius) with two faces. Furthermore, this scholar is also inclined to consider feminine the bearded face of those heads of Janus which, with a glimpse of the ancient idea of ​​the double gender of Janus, in Phanes also used to be represented with double sexual parts. —I cannot go into details in this general part, but I only want to draw the conclusion in a concise argument, with the necessary auxiliary phrases, about the origin, migrations and metamorphoses of this strange being. Since on Etruscan coins, the dolphin appears specifically on one side and on the other; while in the Roman aces the obverse shows the double head of Janus and the reverse the front of a ship; here is the representation of a legend that tells how Janus arrived in a boat to Italy, accompanied by a Kamasena woman (inserted association), since he is always associated with water and χαμασῆνες meant fish in the Phoenician language. Although on the other hand this representation is also related to Chaldean legends, where Ziusudra appears placed among the gods with his wife and daughter, helped by the helmsman of his ship; since among the avatars of Indian theology it is told in detail how the god Vishnu, in the form of a fish, recovered the lost Vedas from the depths of the sea and thus revealed the law to people lost in darkness; so that we will finally hear a similar version among the Babylonian myths preserved by Berossus and Apollodorus: «And in the first year, a huge beast called Oannes (Ωάννης), emerged from the Red Sea on the coast of Babylon in the form of a fish; however, under the head, the fish had another head and instead of a tail, it had feet like humans and also had a human tongue; and this animal that lived during the day in association with people, although without the need to consume any food, was dedicated to teaching writing and science, instructing about the construction of cities and temples, as well as about legislation, because he taught them to defend the borders and reap the fruits»; —since all these statements coincide with the traditions and mythical images of Janus, then, if I am not mistaken, it would be licit to say: Janus is Oannes, and Janus, the double-headed god, with his fish wife kamasene (καμασήνη), is the one-body Oannes, divided into two bodies; from which, the following conclusion can be reached: Janus is the Vishnu who passed through the Chaldean-Phoenician versions in the transformations of this Indian god, where, like a fish, he brings the codes of law and with them morality; Janus, in a word, is a structure and an Indian-Chaldean-Phoenician-Italic being.

This amphibian god of water and land, this fish-man and androgynous Oannes-Janus, could also be associated with the Telchines, because as we have seen previously, there is a close relationship between the legends of Rhodes and of those other eastern coastal countries, where the Telchines, on the one hand, are linked to the sea, while on the other, they also appear linked to the town and its culture. At the same time, it can be seen how the idea of ​​a divine scarab already shows traces of an ancient Syrian-Phoenician-Pelasgian animal cult; therefore, in the mythological circle of the Telchines, the traces of the transition between the cult of animals and the service of images can already be seen more clearly. Because it is said that it was the same Telchines who killed the bull Apis and rebelled against the dual avatar of the bull and the snake that represented the god Zagreus-Dionysus; and just as they made the trident of Poseidon, they also erected a statue of Athena Telchinia (Αθηνα Τελχινία); because indeed, they were the first to create the images of the gods, and as such, they have been called θεοποιοί, so perhaps it would be justified to call all the oldest idols Telchines, just as we now call the oldest buildings in the Near East, Greece and Italy Cyclopean. But this is due to more specific evidence from the ancients, which describes such buildings above and below ground, which may also be called Ogygian (i.e., ancient) or of Pelasgian origin, but which are expressly defined by the term Cyclopean to commemorate a popular legend, in which it was considered that the construction of these enormous stone buildings had not been carried out by human hands, but rather that they were Cyclopean works.

pp. 62-63

I conclude this collection of examples on hieratic sculpture with the words of Winkelmann, all the more so since he cites the same carved image of Zeus Hercius and Apollo Patroos: «The oldest Greek artists designed their paintings according to the interpretation of the symbolic canons, that is, the concepts of beauty arose after the symbolic ideas represented in the works, at a time when beauty was not yet the highest ultimate goal for artists. This type of allegory can be seen in the lion's head placed on the chest of Cypselus in Elis, or in the wooden Jupiter that Sthenelus had supposedly kidnapped from Troy, etc.» [...]

pp. 69-71

[...] I will also be brief regarding Hesiod and limit myself to the following observations about his theogony: Suppose, as most philologists assume, that it is post-Homeric—taking into account the current view of its antiquity, no one can easily convince himself that it was taken in part from Homer and enlarged with many of the poet's own additions. Nor is it legitimate to suppose that Hesiod, whose poems everywhere attest to a connection between the anthropomorphized gods and the natural elemental gods, would like to make us guess the secret of these anthropomorphisms. What in my opinion can be rightly said is that in Hesiodic theology a more defined appearance of divine personalities is already perceived: the gods, as beings endowed with intelligence, passion and will, who engender their equals, that is, lineages of gods and demigods, constitute the main content of their theological song, which is and is called theogony precisely for that reason. But since anthropomorphism still contains many elementary and indeterminate things and is still on the way to being fully formed, precisely for this reason the interpretation that Hesiod was a precursor of Homer could be affirmed. Well, how else could the physical-theological content be satisfactorily explained and sometimes, almost with a mystical indeterminacy, the lukewarmness of Hesiodic anthropomorphism compared to Homeric? But to clarify the question whether, and to what extent, this poet of the Theogony was aware of the nature of the deity he presents to us and was able to penetrate into the inner meaning of the myths and their connections with each other, I would like to join now to the refusal defined by a famous critic, in the same way that I cannot refrain from repeating his explanation regarding the most direct contradiction of this theogony. —In general, the following idea of ​​this poem seems to be the most correct: In this poem, Hesiod first tried to put together a compendium of myths or a theologoumenon that, in the mouths of the people and popular singers, gradually became more anthropomorphized, since he created this kind of poetic system as best he could, and achieved so much, that he thus won the approval of his contemporaries and posterity, thanks to his own sweetness of language and presentation. This was his quest and his well-deserved reward; He was not concerned with the true meaning of the stories of the gods and had no clear knowledge of the original spirit of his religion; this had long since become foreign to the popular youth mind and spirit; and when he mixed Asian, Phoenician and Egyptian elements with Greek elements in his poem, he was no more able to distinguish the foreign from the local than his compatriots, to whom he sang the genealogies and stories of their gods. In short, Hesiod can be compared to an artist who, from a drawing made in his mind, assembles an artificial mosaic using different types of stones and molten glass, without knowing if the piece he has in his hands is Egyptian or Phoenician, if the marble is from Caria or Phrygia; much less could it determine mineralogically its materials. Unfortunately, this parable also applies to the current state of the work: the changes in the region and its climate, but especially the desire for destruction of human beings, have caused many gaps in the beautiful painting engraved in stone; while some others will be busy filling these gaps and, as time reveals new damage, it will always be repaired. In this way, not only individual dowels and pieces of wood were assembled, but also entire compartments and often a completely new pattern were put on them. Without speaking of comparisons, today, after repeated and careful investigations, the authority of antiquity can only be attributed to those myths of Hesiod's Theogony that find confirmation in unequivocal testimonies of reliable ancient writers and are justified by an exact agreement with this content. In these circumstances, the mythological use that we can make of this theogony is problematic, and its importance in the history of Greek religions cannot be estimated as high as hitherto.

p. 92

To solve the task that concerns us here, I choose Heracles, with whom I will proceed in a very specific manner, as before, ignoring the other demigods.

The religious and loyal Herodotus was confused by this nature, which he discovered in the East when he first observed in Egypt a high divine honor granted to a god of the second order, who, although he had several other names there, was also known as Heracles, but that in Hellenic myths and cults generally only a demigod was known under this name and to whom death sacrifices were offered as such, so he came to a particular conclusion about the Heracles of Thrace and Thasos, , which communicates with the following words: «This research clearly demonstrates that Heracles is an ancient god. And I think that the Hellenes, who built two temples of Heracles, have done quite well; that is, one is sacrificed as an immortal and called the Olympian, but the other's death is celebrated as a hero.»

p. 93

I consider this opinion of Herodotus to be generally correct, especially because of the last circumstance, which is demonstrated by the fact that some Greeks had already dedicated a double cult to Heracles; including a divine one. Inasmuch as, according to the same testimonies, the same being was worshiped since ancient times among the deities of the country of the pharaohs, it can be assumed that it is a completely Egyptian cosmogony, bearing the names of Hieronymus and Hellanicus on the front, it is actually based on Egyptian priestly doctrine. «A third principle, it says there, is derived from the first two (water and earth), it is a two-headed serpent with the heads of the bull and the lion attached to it, which in the middle reveals the face of a god and bears wings on its back. whose name never shows aging and at the same time is Heracles. Connected to this is the need to be nature that is represented in the incorporeal Adrasteia» etc. So here we have the serpent god Heracles, connected in a hieroglyph with the natural soul of Adrasteia, and the sculptures and paintings of the Thebaid leave no room for the slightest doubt as to the age of such hieratic images. Such an image represented in the figure of Heracles time that is eternally renewed, united with nature in its causal necessity; just as ancient images used to describe the fatalistic connection of things, like a Heracleian knot. The mediator of time on earth is the solar god; it is a year-round chronometer and light-bringer, starting from Aries and establishing the yearly order through the zodiac.[...]

p.p. 107-108

Concerning the issue itself, regarding idolatry towards individuals, it is important to carefully distinguish very different phenomena and their causes. When the Egyptians, who had different sacred animals whose names used to vary between the different cities where they worshiped them, just as happened in one of them, in Anabis, where they paid divine honors to a living man and offered him animals and other sacrifices, what they reflected with this is a peculiar consequence of this entire religion, a necessary organic supplement for the entire animal cult, whose basic essence we have already considered in a previous section as a deification of life. Furthermore, when the Egyptians themselves divinely honored an idol, a normal animal, the Apis bull, and in its periodic departure, according to certain hieratic signs, replaced it with another representative of the same animal genus, they were initially honoring the basis of life of all bodies, who was their god, namely, Osiris; but if they divinely worship Apis because the soul of Osiris had entered into him and resided periodically within him, ergo, that in reality it was about that god whose appearance on earth had once been a benefactor to the people of the pharaohs and other nations, so that shows a close relationship with the religions of Buddha and especially with Lamaism, whose essence is to worship a God incarnated in the Dalai Lama,  who does not die, according to the beliefs of the followers of this cult, but, according to the law of transmigration, just leave this human individual to move on to another, which is identified by the Panchen Lama according to certain signs that only they know. [...]

p.p. 171-172

It is not my intention to oppose Christianity, with all the richness of its spiritual goods, to paganism; but since, in my opinion, we must consider the Greek and Italian gods as deified nature, we can conclude with a few sentences on the completely different relationship that pagans and Christians maintain with the deity. Even the most cheerful Greek must have felt a secret fear of each one of his gods; there was something demonic in their nature. Every epiphany of an ethnic deity had something strange about it, and the perceived closeness to the gods, even at the happiest festivals, contained in its counterpart something truly terrifying. Man always felt confronted with a dark and unpredictable force of nature. —Who can say what the god can impose on weak mortals subjected to him? Just as the source and the river, when they cool the air, refresh the plants, animals and people, so they also overflow like a torrent, destroy the crops, take people and animals with them, so that the excessive power of the gods can at any moment manifest itself in its most terrible outbursts. —Even when the Greek called Zeus father and the Italian referred to Janus in a similar way, the idea of ​​a physical creator was too present; in other words: among the Greeks and Romans this name rather expressed a genealogical concept, in the sense that these deities were thought to be the last link in a chain of families of gods; and the beautiful concept of motherhood, associated with the name and myth of Ceres, did not exclude, not even in the Eleusinian legends, the feelings of the strange, hidden, terrifying and angry. When the Christian calls his God father, it is undivided trust that inspires him to use this word. He knows what he can know about it as a human being and only what he needs to know. The Christian God made the sun, the moon and the stars, founded the ancient mountains in their fortresses and poured out rivers. Storms, thunder and lightning proclaim his omnipotence. No matter how terrible and destructive these natural forces may be; -God is with us; and if we do not want to be impious, we remain close to him with our knowledge and desires; and even as omnipotent God, it does not want to dominate or destroy our spiritual life, but to awaken it and strengthen it. The Christian God is friendly. Man cannot trust nature and the forces of nature, but he can trust the One Creator and Lord of Nature.

p. 224

The word of creation and law, the original word, Honover, was symbolized in three moments: in the first it becomes a substance —a spirit, in the second it acquires a natural type and becomes a tree, in the third he becomes a human being. Consequently, he was first personified as the spirit of light and life, eternally possessing, omnipotent and eternally combative. It is known that the personification of the word (λόγος) also circulated among the Hebrews and that it passed into Christianity, at least in the Johannine version of the latter. In a second moment the word was captured under the name Hom (Ομωμι), as an image of eternal blessing and prosperity, like a Tree that was the crown of the entire plant kingdom and had a wonderful revitalizing power. That is why a piece of Haoma was essential for each sacrifice. The Indians (and other peoples) also had their sacred sacrificial wood, called Kolpo or Tuloschi (search J. F. Kleuker's work). In the third moment the word of life becomes human; becomes the first proclamation of the word Hom, also known as Homanes, a term spread during the Jamshid reign and related to the founding of Magism, as if it were the tree of life and the sap of immortality.

p.p. 226-227

As we develop this idea, one of the most sublime and pure that we find in all of antiquity, whose origin must be sought in a primitive teaching, which was common to Brahmaism and Magism, but passed through Persia and the Near East in various forms, in turn modeled and transformed in Egypt and Greece (where however, it was mixed with Egyptian components, hidden in the Argolic theory of the light of Perseus and then displaced by the prevailing cult of Bacchus, then, from Asia Minor it was also taken to Rome and other regions of the West, even to our Germanic regions, although, certainly no longer in its original purity and with partial eclipses, —and I must point out that we will start from Plutarch's classic passage from Iside et Osiride, which will be used as the basis of the following exposition. There it says: «Others believe that there are two gods, dedicated, so to speak, to opposite aspirations, so that one does good and the other evil. Others call the good God (Θεόν), but to the other demon (Δαίμονα). Thus teaches Zoroaster, the magician, who is said to have lived five thousand years before the Trojan War. Therefore, called one Oromasdes (Ωρομάζην), but to the other Arimanius (Αρειμάνιον), and added the phrase: among sensitive things, one looks more like light, the other to darkness and ignorance, Mithras stands in the middle between the two.» [...]

p. 235

Thus, in addition to what has already been pointed out, the analogy observed in the rest of antiquity also speaks in favor of the acceptance by the Persians of a feminine being as a supreme principle; because everywhere we find divinity as a double gender, divided into masculine and feminine. Thus, in Egypt we see Phthas-Neith, like the same divine and creative igneous source, divided into two powers, one masculine and one feminine, and in the same internal relationship that was attributed to Mithras in Persia. In India we see Brahma, the Creator, himself as a hermaphrodite; not to mention other aspects. [...]

p.p. 239-240

Plutarch gives quite remarkable and fruitful information about the nature of Mitra, no doubt from older writers. After expounding the well-known predicates of Ormusd and Ahriman, he comments that, according to the teachings of Zoroaster, Mitra stands in the middle of the two. That's why they called him Mediator. Although I don't understand why Zoëga and Schlegel have reservations about accepting Plutarch's testimony, because they only admit a mediating work between Ormusd and Ahriman with the people. For his part, Kleuker has already shown that the role of the mediator can denote a participation in the nature of each of the two beings, good and evil, or a step towards the center as the mediating power (as appears in the Avesta texts: through the service offered to Ormusd, enables Ahriman to make a reconciliation with the supreme entity); or finally make a decisive judgment between the two, which indicates that in reality it is a power superior to both. And here I would also like to confirm that, according to different perspectives, each of these visions had its historical reality. The fact that Mithras was first seen as an inhabitant of the kingdom of light, then as a citizen of darkness and, consequently, sharing both natures, is immediately clear from its meaning as a solar figure.

p.p. 311-313

Since the classical passage of Eudemus deserves special attention, I put it here in context and accompany it with the necessary observations (Damascius de Principiis):

«But the magicians and the entire race of Aryans, as Eudemus also reports, called partly place (space) and partly time, to the intelligible as a whole and to the unified (thought as a unit); and where a good God and a bad demon were separated, or the contrast of light and darkness, as some say. Therefore, these last ones also constitute the division of higher beings, subordinated to undivided nature. This is how Oromasdes leads the main line; while in front of the other is Arimanius».

First of all, this source presents us a double interpretation of the supreme principle of magician theory, described in its philosophical language as an intelligible and unified whole. Some called it a place from other times. I do not know if in the writings of the Avesta certain traces of the ancient idea of ​​the primordial being can be found; but I would like at least review the Zendavesta passage, (according to Kleuker's edition): «Through Zeruane Akerene (search W. T. Harris' work) the root of all things from the beginning was given», although what these words describe as the original cause of all real things should not be interpreted literally. Implicitly, however, something like this really lies at the basis of the Persian theological worldview; and since we have no reason to suspect the testimony of Eudemus, such a designation of the supreme principle must have been affirmed at least in his time. The second idea of ​​a primordial being represented as time, emerges decisively and profoundly in the dogma and culture of the Persians. A scholarly theologian also shows traces of this vision in other Eastern religions: «We can assume here that beginningless time (Zeruane Akerene) was conceived by the Parsi theologian as impersonal, but in no way insubstantial. This is supported by the analogy of the entire Eastern theory of God (add Nitzsch), in which the first and supreme being is always identified with unlimited time. Egyptian water jugs were a symbol of the Eternal and Most High God at the same time. Among the Samaneans, the same supreme being was called Schi (search C. Cantù's work), whom the Arabs translate as Alem, and both words are nothing other than Hazaruan (70 thousand years. Search M. Hissmann's work), the Lord of all things among the Indians (according to Guignes' general history of the Huns). Besides, this is supported by the fact that the systems (Gnostics), that are visibly derived from Parsism, they certainly begin the scale of beings from an Aeon Teleos,  Agnostos, etc. However, as a last resort, even the lower spirits of Zoroastrian doctrine are based on concepts structured in time periods, like the Gahs, which in a syncretic way can be compared with the Horae of the Greeks.»