Introduction to the Science of Religion

Author(s): Max Muller
Publisher: Longmans Green and Compny London

Page 52

LECTURE I.
Doros, the ancestor of the Dorians, and Xuthos, the father of Achæos and Ion, should all be represented as the sons of Hellen. So far all is intelligible, if we will only remember that this is the technical language of the heraldic office of ancient Greece.
But very soon the question arose, who was the father of Hellen, the ancestor of the Greeks, or, according to the intellectual horizon of the ancient Greeks, of the whole human race? If he was the ancestor of the whole human race, or the first man, he could only be the son of Zeus, the supreme god, and thus we find that Hellen is by some authorities actually called the son of Zeus. Others, however, give a different account. There was in Greece, as in many countries, the tradition of a general deluge by which every living being had been destroyed, except a few who escaped in a boat, and who, after the flood had subsided, repeopled the earth. The person thus saved, according to Greek traditions, was called Deukalion, the ruler of Thessaly, the son of Prometheus. Prometheus had told him to build a ship and furnish it with provisions, and when the flood came, he and his wife Pyrrha were the only people who escaped.
Thus it will be seen that the Greeks had really two ancestors of the human race, Hellen and Deukalion, and in order to remove this difficulty, nothing remained but to make Hellen the son of Deukalion. All this is perfectly natural and intelligible, if only we will learn to speak, and not only to speak, but also to think the language of the ancient world.
The story then goes on to explain how Deukalion