Pan, the god of shepherds, hunters, and all of those who live in the fields; he was the son of Mercury and Penelope. Mercury turned himself into a goat to attract Penelope. That was the origin of Pan’s horns and his cloven hooves and the birth of the leader of the whole family of fauns and satyrs. The coupling of man with she-goat produces nothing; there is no evidence that that of a billy goat with a woman would be any less sterile: thus it is presumed that all of this is purely fable. He was named Pan , an ancient mythologist says, because Penelope, less chaste than people made her out to be, made all of her lovers happy in the absence of Ulysses, and that this child was the fruit of this libertinism. Epimenides believed that Pan was born of Jupiter and Callisto, and gave him Arcas for a twin brother; some others believe that he was the son of either the air and a water nymph, or of the sky and the earth. This god is not handsome: but if he is not meant to be a symbol of beauty — bearded, extremely hairy, horned, cloven-hoofed — he is meant to be one of strength, agility, and lust. He is commonly represented with a crook and with a flute having several pipes. He is considered the god of hunters, though his story shows him as fiercer in his pursuit of nymphs than of animals. The Arcadians particularly revere him; he brought them oracles. They offered him goat milk and honey; they celebrated the Lupercalia in his honor. The Arcadian Evander brought his worship and his festivals to Italy. The Egyptians had completely different ideas about Pan . According to them, he was one of the generals of Osiris; he fought against Typhon. His army was trapped in a valley whose avenues were guarded; during the night he ordered his soldiers to push through shouting loudly, the echoes multiplied over and over again: The horror of this loud and unexpected sound caused the enemy to flee; because of this, terror is called panic . Polyaenus attributes to Pan the invention of the order of battle, the phalanx, the distribution of an army in right wings, left wings or corners, and claims that this is where its horns came from. Hygin says that it was Pan who gave the idea to the gods, who were being scattered by the giants, of changing into animals, and gave them the example of turning into a goat. He adds that the gods recompensed him for his counsel by placing him in the sky, where he became the constellation Capricorn. People honor him still in Egypt, where in the Thebaid people built Panias, or the city of Pan, for him. His statue was seen in every temple. The name Pan which signifies all gave rise to the allegory in which this god is used as the symbol of nature. His horns are the rays of the sun; the brilliance of his complexion represents that of the sky; the starry goat skin of his chest, the firmament; the hair of his legs and his thighs, the earth, the trees, the animals, etc. As to the fable of the great Pan , here is what we read in the work of Plutarch called the obsolescence of oracles : the pilot Thamus was traveling in his ship one night around certain islands in the Aegean Sea, when the wind stopped suddenly. The crew was well alert, partly drinking and partly talking; when they heard a voice coming from the islands, calling to Thamus, who only responded after the third time. The voice commanded him, when he had entered a certain place, to cry out that the great Pan was dead. Everyone was terrified, and deliberated on whether they should obey the voice. Thamus concluded that if there was enough wind to pass by the indicated place he would say nothing; but if the wind stopped, he would carry out the order that he had received. He was surprised by a calm just in the place where he was supposed to cry out; he did it, and immediately the calm ceased, and the crew heard from all sides moaning and lamenting, as if from a large number of people afflicted and surprised. This adventure was witnessed by every person on the ship; before long the news had spread to Rome. Tiberius wanted to see Thamus; he assembled the scholars of pagan theology. They responded to the sovereign, saying that this great Pan was the son of Mercury and Penelope. The person who tells this story in Plutarch adds that he had heard it from Epitherses, his schoolmaster, who was onboard Thamus’ ship when the event happened. [1] I say, this story ; because if Pan was a demon, why would he need Thamus to bring the news of his death to the other demons? Why would these ill-advised demons reveal their weaknesses to a man? God compelled them to it. God therefore had a plan! What was the plan? To disabuse the world through the death of the great Pan ? Or what did not happen: to announce the death of Jesus Christ? no one thought of it in this sense: during the second century of the church, people had not yet imagined taking Pan for Jesus Christ. The people believed that the little Pan was dead, and they did not go to great pains to think otherwise.

1. See Plutarch, The Obsolescence of Oracles, chap. 17 (page 401).