GREEK RELIGION [FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS]. The most important religion for Western European scholars attempting to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon of religion has long been the Greek. Great historians of religion, from Vico and Herder to Friedrich Max Müller, Jane Ellen Harrison, and Sir James Frazer of The Golden Bough, all steeped themselves in the religious legacy of the Greeks, whom they considered superior to all other nations of the past. The study of Greek religion, then, is already several centuries old. The persistent efforts of classicists to collect and analyze the ancient Greek sources—coins, texts, vases, statues, inscriptions, and excavations—have supplied a basis that is more firm and varied than is available for the study of any other ancient religion.

The basic character of Greek religion is clear. Like the other religions of the ancient Mediterranean and...