As in the case of their literature we have
the actual records but cannot read them, so in the case of their
religion a considerable mass of facts is apparent, but we have no
means of co-ordinating them so as to arrive at any definite idea
of a religious system. Some of the ritual we can see, and even
understand something of the Divinity to whom it was addressed,
but the theology is lacking. Accordingly, nothing more can be done
than to present the fragmentary facts which are apparent.
The Minoans, it seems fairly clear, were never, like their successors
the Greeks, the possessors of a well-peopled Pantheon; nor was the
chief object of their adoration a male deity like the Greek Zeus.
There are, indeed, traces of a male divinity, who was adopted by
the Greeks when they obtained predominance in the island, as the
representative of their own supreme deity, and who became the Cretan
Zeus. But in Minoan times this being occupied a very subordinate
place, and undoubtedly the chief object of worship was a goddess--a
Nature Goddess, a Great Mother--[Greek: potnia thaerou], the Lady
of the Wild Creatures--who was the source of all life, higher and
lower, its guardian during the period of its earthly existence,
and its ruler in the underworld.
The functions of this great deity, it has been aptly pointed out,
are substantially those claimed for herself by Artemis in Browning's
poem, 'Artemis Prologizes':
'Through heaven I roll my lucid moon along;
I shed in hell o'er my pale people peace;
On earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard
Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek,
And every feathered mother's callow brood,
And all that love green haunts and loneliness.
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