I come now to that mass of Homeric deities, who are either wholly mythological, or so loaded with mythological features, that their traditive character is depressed, and of secondary importance.

Jupiter.

The character of Jupiter, which commonly occupies the first place in discussions of the Greek mythology, has been in some degree forestalled by our prior examination of the position of other figures in the system, which are both more interesting and more important, from their bearing more significant resemblances to and traces of the truth of Divine Revelation.

Nevertheless, this character will well repay attention, To be understood and appreciated, it must be viewed in a great variety of aspects. When so viewed, it will be found to range from the sublime down to the brutal, and almost even down to the ridiculous. Upon the whole, when we consider that the image which we thus bring before us was during so many ages, for such multitudes of the most remarkable portion of mankind, the chief representative of Godhead, it must leave a deep impression of pain and melancholy on the mind.

‘ If thou beest He ; but Oh! how fall'n, how changed!’

The Jupiter of Homer is to be regarded in these four distinct capacities:

1. 1. As the depository of the principal remnants of monotheistic and providential ideas.

2. 2. As the sovereign lord of meteorological phenomena.

3. 3. As the head of the Olympian community.

4. 4. As the receptacle and butt of the principal part of such earthly, sensual, and appetitive elements, as, at the time of Homer, anthropophuism had obtruded into the sphere of deity.