I. Name
Themis is the Greek goddess of what is just and lawful (θέμις = ‘law’, ‘justice’, ‘custom’, probably deriving from the stem θε-, ‘to lay down, set, establish’; but see Hirzel 1907: 53–56; Ehrenberg 1921: 41–43); she is the embodiment of the ‘social imperative’, the ‘social conscience’ (Harrison 1927, 485–6). In the Bible themis does not occur as a goddess, but only twice in 2 Maccabees in the expression οὐ θέμις, ‘it is not lawful’.
II. Identity
Themis is one of the many personified and deified a…