{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30250/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30250","id":"gutenberg_30250","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30250","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Ancient","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Greece -- Religion"],"text":"Produced by David Garcia, David Newman, Juliet Sutherland,\nLisa Reigel, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team\nat http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes: Greek words, Hebrew words, and some characters\nmay not display properly--in that case, try another version.\nTransliterations of Greek and Hebrew words can be found in the ascii and\nhtml files.\n\nWords surrounded by _underscores_ are in italics in the original.\nCharacters superscripted in the original are enclosed in {braces}.\nEllipses match the original. A row of asterisks represents a thought\nbreak.\n\nVariations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the\noriginal. Some typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected.\nA complete list follows the text.\n\n\n\n\n                            FIVE STAGES OF\n                            GREEK RELIGION\n\n\n                                  BY\n                            GILBERT MURRAY\n\n\n                                Boston\n                           THE BEACON PRESS\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION\n\n\nAnyone who has been in Greece at Easter time, especially among the more\nremote peasants, must have been struck by the emotion of suspense and\nexcitement with which they wait for the announcement \"_Christos\nanest\u00ea_,\" \"Christ is risen!\" and the response \"_Al\u00eath\u00f4s anest\u00ea_,\" \"He\nhas really risen!\" I have referred elsewhere to Mr. Lawson's old peasant\nwoman, who explained her anxiety: \"If Christ does not rise tomorrow we\nshall have no harvest this year\" (_Modern Greek Folklore_, p. 573). We\nare evidently in the presence of an emotion and a fear which, beneath\nits Christian colouring and, so to speak, transfiguration, is in its\nessence, like most of man's deepest emotions, a relic from a very remote\npre-Christian past. Every spring was to primitive man a time of terrible\nanxiety. His store of food was near its end. Would the dead world\nrevive, or would it not? The Old Year was dead; would the New Year, the\nYoung King, born afresh of Sky and Earth, come in the Old King's place\nand bring with him the new growth and the hope of life?\n\nI hardly realized, when writing the earlier editions of this book, how\ncentral, how omnipresent, this complex of ideas was in ancient Greek\nreligion. Attis, Adonis, Osiris, Dionysus, and the rest of the \"Year\nGods\" were not eccentric divagations in a religion whose proper worship\nwas given to the immortal Olympians; they are different names given in\ndifferent circumstances to this one being who dies and is born again\neach year, dies old and polluted with past deaths and sins, and is\nreborn young and purified. I have tried to trace this line of tradition\nin an article for the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_ for June 1951, and\nto show, incidentally, how many of the elements in the Christian\ntradition it has provided, especially those elements which are utterly\nalien from Hebrew monotheism and must, indeed, have shocked every\northodox Jew.\n\nThe best starting point is the conception of the series of Old Kings,\neach, when the due time comes, dethroned and replaced by his son, the\nYoung King, with the help of the Queen Mother; for Gaia or Earth, the\neternal Wife and Mother of each in turn, is always ready to renew\nherself. The new vegetation God each year is born from the union of the\nSky-God and the Earth-Mother; or, as in myth and legend the figures\nbecome personified, he is the Son of a God and a mortal princess.\n\nWe all know the sequence of Kings in Hesiod: First Uranus (Sky), King of\nthe World, and his wife Gaia (Earth); Uranus reigns till he is dethroned\nby his son Cronos with the help of Gaia; then Cronos and Rhea (Earth)\nreign till Cronos is dethroned by his son Zeus, with the help of Rhea;\nthen Zeus reigns till . . . but here the series stops, since, according\nto the orthodox Olympian system, Zeus is the eternal King. But there was\nanother system, underlying the Olympian, and it is to that other system\nthat the Year-Kings belong. The Olympians are definite persons. They are\nimmortal; they do not die and revive; they are not beings who come\nand go, in succession to one another. In the other series are the\nAttis-Adonis-Osiris type of gods, and especially Dionysus, whose name\nhas been shown by Kretschmer to be simply the Thracian _Deos_ or _Dios\nnysos_, \"Zeus-Young\" or \"Zeus-the-son.\" And in the Orphic tradition it\nis laid down that Zeus yields up his power to Dionysus and bids all the\ngods of the Cosmos obey him. The mother of Dionysus was Semel\u00ea, a name\nwhich, like Gaia and Rhea, means \"Earth.\" The series is not only\ncontinuous but infinite; for on one side Uranus (Sky) was himself the\nson of Gaia the eternal, and on the other, every year a Zeus was\nsucceeded by a \"Young Zeus.\"\n\nThe Young King, bearer of spring and the new summer, is the Saviour of\nthe Earth, made cold and lifeless by winter and doomed to barrenness by\nall the pollutions of the past; the Saviour also of mankind from all\nkinds of evils, and bringer of a new _Aion_, or Age, to the world.\nInnumerable different figures in Greek mythology are personifications of\nhim, from Dionysus and Heracles to the Dioscuri and many heroes of myth.\nHe bears certain distinguishing marks. He is always the son of a God and\na mortal princess. The mother is always persecuted, a _mater dolorosa_,\nand rescued by her son. The Son is always a Saviour; very often a\nchampion who saves his people from enemies or monsters; but sometimes a\nHealer of the Sick, like Asclepius; sometimes, like Dionysus, a priest\nor hierophant with a _thiasos_, or band of worshippers; sometimes a\nKing's Son who is sacrificed to save his people, and mystically\nidentified with some sacrificial animal, a lamb, a young bull, a horse\nor a fawn, whose blood has supernatural power. Sometimes again he is a\ndivine or miraculous Babe, for whose birth the whole world has been\nwaiting, who will bring his own Age or Kingdom and \"make all things\nnew.\" His life is almost always threatened by a cruel king, like Herod,\nbut he always escapes. The popularity of the Divine Babe is probably due\nto the very widespread worship of the Egyptian Child-God, Harpocrates.\nEgyptian also is the Virgin-Mother, impregnated by the holy _Pneuma_ or\n_Spiritus_ of the god, or sometimes by the laying on of his hand.\n\nBesides the ordinary death and rebirth of the vegetation year god, the\ngeneral conclusion to which these considerations point has many\nparallels elsewhere. Our own religious ideas are subject to the same\ntendencies as those of other civilizations. Men and women, when\nconverted to a new religion or instructed in some new and unaccustomed\nknowledge, are extremely unwilling, and sometimes absolutely unable, to\ngive up their old magical or religious practices and habits of thought.\nWhen African negroes are converted to Christianity and forbidden to\npractise their tribal magic, they are apt to steal away into the depths\nof the forest and do secretly what they have always considered necessary\nto ensure a good harvest. Not to do so would be too great a risk. When\nGoths were \"converted by battalions\" the change must have been more in\nnames than in substance. When Greeks of the Mediterranean were forbidden\nto say prayers to a figure of Helios, the Sun, it was not difficult to\ncall him the prophet Elias and go on with the same prayers and hopes.\nNot difficult to continue your prayers to the age-old Mother Goddess of\nall Mediterranean peoples, while calling her Mary, the Mother of Christ.\nEusebius studied the subject, somewhat superficially, in his\n_Praeparatio Evangelica_, in which he argued that much old pagan belief\nwas to be explained as an imperfect preparation for the full light of\nthe Gospel. And it is certainly striking how the Anatolian peoples,\namong whom the seed of the early Church was chiefly sown, could never,\nin spite of Jewish monotheism, give up the beloved Mother Goddess for\nwhom mankind craves, or the divine \"Faithful Son\" who will by his own\nsacrifice save his people. Where scientific knowledge fails man cannot\nbut be guided by his felt needs and longings and aspirations.\n\nThe elements in Christianity which derive from what Jews called \"_the\nG\u00f4yim_\" or \"nations\" beyond the pale, seem to be far deeper and more\nnumerous than those which come unchanged from Judaism. Even the Sabbath\nhad to be changed, and the birthday of Jesus conformed to that of the\nSun. Judaism contributed a strong, though not quite successful,\nresistance to polytheism, and a purification of sexual morality. It\nprovided perhaps a general antiseptic, which was often needed by the\npassionate gropings of Hellenistic religion, in the stage which I call\nthe Failure of Nerve.\n\n                                                            G. M.\n\n_September 1951._\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION\n\n\nIn revising the _Four Stages of Greek Religion_ I have found myself\nobliged to change its name. I felt there was a gap in the story. The\nhigh-water mark of Greek religious thought seems to me to have come just\nbetween the Olympian Religion and the Failure of Nerve; and the\ndecline--if that is the right word--which is observable in the later\nages of antiquity is a decline not from Olympianism but from the great\nspiritual and intellectual effort of the fourth century B.C., which\nculminated in the _Metaphysics_ and the _De Anima_ and the foundation of\nthe Stoa and the Garden. Consequently I have added a new chapter at this\npoint and raised the number of Stages to five.\n\nMy friend Mr. E. E. Genner has kindly enabled me to correct two or three\nerrors in the first edition, and I owe special thanks to my old pupil,\nProfessor E. R. Dodds, for several interesting observations and\ncriticisms on points connected with Plotinus and Sallustius. Otherwise I\nhave altered little. I am only sorry to have left the book so long out\nof print.\n\n                                                            G. M.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION\n\n\nThis small book has taken a long time in growing. Though the first two\nessays were only put in writing this year for a course of lectures which\nI had the honour of delivering at Columbia University in 1912, the\nthird, which was also used at Columbia, had in its main features\nappeared in the _Hibbert Journal_ in 1910, the fourth in part in the\n_English Review_ in 1908; the translation of Sallustius was made in 1907\nfor use with a small class at Oxford. Much of the material is much older\nin conception, and all has been reconsidered. I must thank the editors\nof both the above-named periodicals for their kind permission to\nreprint.\n\nI think it was the writings of my friend Mr. Andrew Lang that first\nawoke me, in my undergraduate days, to the importance of anthropology\nand primitive religion to a Greek scholar. Certainly I began then to\nfeel that the great works of the ancient Greek imagination are\npenetrated habitually by religious conceptions and postulates which\nliterary scholars like myself had not observed or understood. In the\nmeantime the situation has changed. Greek religion is being studied\nright and left, and has revealed itself as a surprisingly rich and\nattractive, though somewhat controversial, subject. It used to be a\ndeserted territory; now it is at least a battle-ground. If ever the\npresent differences resolved themselves into a simple fight with\nshillelaghs between the scholars and the anthropologists, I should\nwithout doubt wield my reluctant weapon on the side of the scholars.\nScholarship is the rarer, harder, less popular and perhaps the more\npermanently valuable work, and it certainly stands more in need of\ndefence at the moment. But in the meantime I can hardly understand how\nthe purest of 'pure scholars' can fail to feel his knowledge enriched by\nthe savants who have compelled us to dig below the surface of our\nclassical tradition and to realize the imaginative and historical\nproblems which so often lie concealed beneath the smooth security of a\nverbal 'construe'. My own essays do not for a moment claim to speak with\nauthority on a subject which is still changing and showing new facets\nyear by year. They only claim to represent the way of regarding certain\nlarge issues of Greek Religion which has gradually taken shape, and has\nproved practically helpful and consistent with facts, in the mind of a\nvery constant, though unsystematic, reader of many various periods of\nGreek literature.\n\nIn the first essay my debt to Miss Harrison is great and obvious. My\nstatement of one or two points is probably different from hers, but in\nthe main I follow her lead. And in either case I cannot adequately\ndescribe the advantage I have derived from many years of frequent\ndiscussion and comparison of results with a Hellenist whose learning and\noriginality of mind are only equalled by her vivid generosity towards\nher fellow-workers.\n\nThe second may also be said to have grown out of Miss Harrison's\nwritings. She has by now made the title of 'Olympian' almost a term of\nreproach, and thrown down so many a scornful challenge to the canonical\ngods of Greece, that I have ventured on this attempt to explain their\nhistorical origin and plead for their religious value. When the essay\nwas already written I read Mr. Chadwick's impressive book on _The Heroic\nAge_ (Cambridge, 1912), and was delighted to find in an author whose\nstandpoint and equipment are so different from mine so much that\nconfirmed or clarified my own view.\n\nThe title of the third essay I owe to a conversation with Professor J.\nB. Bury. We were discussing the change that took place in Greek thought\nbetween, say, Plato and the Neo-Platonists, or even between Aristotle\nand Posidonius, and which is seen at its highest power in the Gnostics.\nI had been calling it a rise of asceticism, or mysticism, or religious\npassion, or the like, when my friend corrected me. 'It is not a rise; it\nis a fall or failure of something, a sort of failure of nerve.'--We are\ntreading here upon somewhat firmer ground than in the first two essays.\nThe field for mere conjecture is less: we are supported more\ncontinuously by explicit documents. Yet the subject is a very difficult\none owing to the scattered and chaotic nature of the sources, and even\nwhere we get away from fragments and reconstructions and reach definite\ntreatises with or without authors' names, I cannot pretend to feel\nanything like the same clearness about the true meaning of a passage in\nPhilo or the Corpus Hermeticum that one normally feels in a writer of\nthe classical period. Consequently in this essay I think I have hugged\nmy modern authorities rather close, and seldom expressed an opinion for\nwhich I could not find some fairly authoritative backing, my debt being\nparticularly great to Reitzenstein, Bousset, and the brilliant\n_Hellenistisch-r\u00f6mische Kultur_ of P. Wendland. I must also thank my\nold pupil, Mr. Edwyn Bevan, who was kind enough to read this book in\nproof, for some valuable criticisms. The subject is one of such\nextraordinary interest that I offer no apology for calling further\nattention to it.\n\nA word or two about the last brief revival of the ancient religion under\n'Julian the Apostate' forms the natural close to this series of studies.\nBut here our material, both historical and literary, is so abundant that\nI have followed a different method. After a short historical\nintroduction I have translated in full a very curious and little-known\nancient text, which may be said to constitute something like an\nauthoritative Pagan creed. Some readers may regret that I do not give\nthe Greek as well as the English. I am reluctant, however, to publish a\ntext which I have not examined in the MSS., and I feel also that, while\nan edition of Sallustius is rather urgently needed, it ought to be an\nedition with a full commentary.[xvi:1]\n\nI was first led to these studies by the wish to fill up certain puzzling\nblanks of ignorance in my own mind, and doubtless the little book bears\nmarks of this origin. It aims largely at the filling of interstices. It\navoids the great illuminated places, and gives its mind to the stretches\nof intervening twilight. It deals little with the harvest of flowers or\nfruit, but watches the inconspicuous seasons when the soil is beginning\nto stir, the seeds are falling or ripening.\n\n                                                            G. M.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[xvi:1] Professor Nock's edition (Cambridge 1926) has admirably filled\nthis gap.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                          PAGE\n     I. SATURNIA REGNA                                       1\n\n    II. THE OLYMPIAN CONQUEST                               39\n\n   III. THE GREAT SCHOOLS                                   79\n\n    IV. THE FAILURE OF NERVE                               123\n\n     V. THE LAST PROTEST                                   173\n\n   APPENDIX: TRANSLATION OF THE TREATISE OF                200\n       SALLUSTIUS, \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u0398\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u039a\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\n\n   INDEX                                                   227\n\n\n\n\n     \u039f \u03c0\u03c1\u1ff6\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f72\u03ba \u03b3\u1fc6\u03c2, \u03c7\u03bf\u1fd6\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2\u00b7 \u1f41 \u03b4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f41\n     \u039a\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f10\u03be \u03bf\u1f50\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6.\n\n     \"The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the\n     Lord from heaven.\"\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nSATURNIA REGNA\n\n\nMany persons who are quite prepared to admit the importance to the world\nof Greek poetry, Greek art, and Greek philosophy, may still feel it\nrather a paradox to be told that Greek religion specially repays our\nstudy at the present day. Greek religion, associated with a romantic,\ntrivial, and not very edifying mythology, has generally seemed one of\nthe weakest spots in the armour of those giants of the old world. Yet I\nwill venture to make for Greek religion almost as great a claim as for\nthe thought and the literature, not only because the whole mass of it is\nshot through by those strange lights of feeling and imagination, and the\ndetails of it constantly wrought into beauty by that instinctive sense\nof artistic form, which we specially associate with Classical Greece,\nbut also for two definite historical reasons. In the first place, the\nstudent of that dark and fascinating department of the human mind which\nwe may call Religious Origins, will find in Greece an extraordinary mass\nof material belonging to a very early date. For detail and variety the\nprimitive Greek evidence has no equal. And, secondly, in this department\nas in others, ancient Greece has the triumphant if tragic distinction of\nbeginning at the very bottom and struggling, however precariously, to\nthe very summits. There is hardly any horror of primitive superstition\nof which we cannot find some distant traces in our Greek record. There\nis hardly any height of spiritual thought attained in the world that has\nnot its archetype or its echo in the stretch of Greek literature that\nlies between Thales and Plotinus, embracing much of the\n'Wisdom-Teachers' and of St. Paul.\n\nThe progress of Greek religion falls naturally into three stages, all of\nthem historically important. First there is the primitive _Euetheia_ or\nAge of Ignorance, before Zeus came to trouble men's minds, a stage to\nwhich our anthropologists and explorers have found parallels in every\npart of the world. Dr. Preuss applies to it the charming word\n'Urdummheit', or 'Primal Stupidity'. In some ways characteristically\nGreek, in others it is so typical of similar stages of thought elsewhere\nthat one is tempted to regard it as the normal beginning of all\nreligion, or almost as the normal raw material out of which religion is\nmade. There is certainly some repulsiveness, but I confess that to me\nthere is also an element of fascination in the study of these 'Beastly\nDevices of the Heathen', at any rate as they appear in early Greece,\nwhere each single 'beastly device' as it passes is somehow touched with\nbeauty and transformed by some spirit of upward striving.\n\nSecondly there is the Olympian or classical stage, a stage in which, for\ngood or ill, blunderingly or successfully, this primitive vagueness was\nreduced to a kind of order. This is the stage of the great Olympian\ngods, who dominated art and poetry, ruled the imagination of Rome, and\nextended a kind of romantic dominion even over the Middle Ages. It is\nthe stage that we learn, or mis-learn, from the statues and the\nhandbooks of mythology. Critics have said that this Olympian stage has\nvalue only as art and not as religion. That is just one of the points\ninto which we shall inquire.\n\nThirdly, there is the Hellenistic period, reaching roughly from Plato to\nSt. Paul and the earlier Gnostics. The first edition of this book\ntreated the whole period as one, but I have now divided it by writing a\nnew chapter on the Movements of the Fourth Century B. C., and making\nthat my third stage. This was the time when the Greek mind, still in its\nfull creative vigour, made its first response to the twofold failure of\nthe world in which it had put its faith, the open bankruptcy of the\nOlympian religion and the collapse of the city-state. Both had failed,\nand each tried vainly to supply the place of the other. Greece responded\nby the creation of two great permanent types of philosophy which have\ninfluenced human ethics ever since, the Cynic and Stoic schools on the\none hand, and the Epicurean on the other. These schools belong properly,\nI think, to the history of religion. The successors of Aristotle\nproduced rather a school of progressive science, those of Plato a school\nof refined scepticism. The religious side of Plato's thought was not\nrevealed in its full power till the time of Plotinus in the third\ncentury A. D.; that of Aristotle, one might say without undue paradox,\nnot till its exposition by Aquinas in the thirteenth.\n\nThe old Third Stage, therefore, becomes now a Fourth, comprising the\nlater and more popular movements of the Hellenistic Age, a period based\non the consciousness of manifold failure, and consequently touched both\nwith morbidity and with that spiritual exaltation which is so often the\ncompanion of morbidity. It not only had behind it the failure of the\nOlympian theology and of the free city-state, now crushed by\nsemi-barbarous military monarchies; it lived through the gradual\nrealization of two other failures--the failure of human government, even\nwhen backed by the power of Rome or the wealth of Egypt, to achieve a\ngood life for man; and lastly the failure of the great propaganda of\nHellenism, in which the long-drawn effort of Greece to educate a corrupt\nand barbaric world seemed only to lead to the corruption or\nbarbarization of the very ideals which it sought to spread. This sense\nof failure, this progressive loss of hope in the world, in sober\ncalculation, and in organized human effort, threw the later Greek back\nupon his own soul, upon the pursuit of personal holiness, upon emotions,\nmysteries and revelations, upon the comparative neglect of this\ntransitory and imperfect world for the sake of some dream-world far off,\nwhich shall subsist without sin or corruption, the same yesterday,\nto-day, and for ever. These four are the really significant and\nformative periods of Greek religious thought; but we may well cast our\neyes also on a fifth stage, not historically influential perhaps, but at\nleast romantic and interesting and worthy of considerable respect, when\nthe old religion in the time of Julian roused itself for a last\nspiritual protest against the all-conquering 'atheism' of the\nChristians. I omit Plotinus, as in earlier chapters I have omitted Plato\nand Aristotle, and for the same reason. As a rule in the writings of\nJulian's circle and still more in the remains of popular belief, the\ntendencies of our fourth stage are accentuated by an increased demand\nfor definite dogma and a still deeper consciousness of worldly defeat.\n\nI shall not start with any definition of religion. Religion, like\npoetry and most other living things, cannot be defined. But one may\nperhaps give some description of it, or at least some characteristic\nmarks. In the first place, religion essentially deals with the uncharted\nregion of human experience. A large part of human life has been\nthoroughly surveyed and explored; we understand the causes at work; and\nwe are not bewildered by the problems. That is the domain of positive\nknowledge. But all round us on every side there is an uncharted region,\njust fragments of the fringe of it explored, and those imperfectly; it\nis with this that religion deals. And secondly we may note that religion\ndeals with its own province not tentatively, by the normal methods of\npatient intellectual research, but directly, and by methods of emotion\nor sub-conscious apprehension. Agriculture, for instance, used to be\nentirely a question of religion; now it is almost entirely a question of\nscience. In antiquity, if a field was barren, the owner of it would\nprobably assume that the barrenness was due to 'pollution', or offence\nsomewhere. He would run through all his own possible offences, or at any\nrate those of his neighbours and ancestors, and when he eventually\ndecided the cause of the trouble, the steps that he would take would all\nbe of a kind calculated not to affect the chemical constitution of the\nsoil, but to satisfy his own emotions of guilt and terror, or the\nimaginary emotions of the imaginary being he had offended. A modern man\nin the same predicament would probably not think of religion at all, at\nany rate in the earlier stages; he would say it was a case for deeper\nploughing or for basic slag. Later on, if disaster followed disaster\ntill he began to feel himself a marked man, even the average modern\nwould, I think, begin instinctively to reflect upon his sins. A third\ncharacteristic flows from the first. The uncharted region surrounds us\non every side and is apparently infinite; consequently, when once the\nthings of the uncharted region are admitted as factors in our ordinary\nconduct of life they are apt to be infinite factors, overruling and\nswamping all others. The thing that religion forbids is a thing never to\nbe done; not all the inducements that this life can offer weigh at all\nin the balance. Indeed there is no balance. The man who makes terms with\nhis conscience is essentially non-religious; the religious man knows\nthat it will profit him nothing if he gain all this finite world and\nlose his stake in the infinite and eternal.[6:1]\n\nAm I going to draw no distinction then between religion and mere\nsuperstition? Not at present. Later on we may perhaps see some way to\nit. Superstition is the name given to a low or bad form of religion, to\nthe kind of religion we disapprove. The line of division, if we made\none, would be only an arbitrary bar thrust across a highly complex and\ncontinuous process.\n\nDoes this amount to an implication that all the religions that have\nexisted in the world are false? Not so. It is obvious indeed that most,\nif analysed into intellectual beliefs, are false; and I suppose that a\nthoroughly orthodox member of any one of the million religious bodies\nthat exist in the world must be clear in his mind that the other million\nminus one are wrong, if not wickedly wrong. That, I think, we must be\nclear about. Yet the fact remains that man must have some relation\ntowards the uncharted, the mysterious, tracts of life which surround him\non every side. And for my own part I am content to say that his method\nmust be to a large extent very much what St. Paul calls \u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2 or\nfaith: that is, some attitude not of the conscious intellect but of the\nwhole being, using all its powers of sensitiveness, all its feeblest and\nmost inarticulate feelers and tentacles, in the effort somehow to touch\nby these that which cannot be grasped by the definite senses or analysed\nby the conscious reason. What we gain thus is an insecure but a precious\npossession. We gain no dogma, at least no safe dogma, but we gain much\nmore. We gain something hard to define, which lies at the heart not only\nof religion, but of art and poetry and all the higher strivings of human\nemotion. I believe that at times we actually gain practical guidance in\nsome questions where experience and argument fail.[8:1] That is a great\nwork left for religion, but we must always remember two things about it:\nfirst, that the liability to error is enormous, indeed almost infinite;\nand second, that the results of confident error are very terrible.\nProbably throughout history the worst things ever done in the world on a\nlarge scale by decent people have been done in the name of religion, and\nI do not think that has entirely ceased to be true at the present day.\nAll the Middle Ages held the strange and, to our judgement, the\nobviously insane belief that the normal result of religious error was\neternal punishment. And yet by the crimes to which that false belief led\nthem they almost proved the truth of something very like it. The record\nof early Christian and medieval persecutions which were the direct\nresult of that one confident religious error comes curiously near to\none's conception of the wickedness of the damned.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo turn to our immediate subject, I wish to put forward here what is\nstill a rather new and unauthorized view of the development of Greek\nreligion; readers will forgive me if, in treating so vast a subject, I\ndraw my outline very broadly, leaving out many qualifications, and\nquoting only a fragment of the evidence.\n\nThe things that have misled us moderns in our efforts towards\nunderstanding the primitive stage in Greek religion have been first the\nwidespread and almost ineradicable error of treating Homer as primitive,\nand more generally our unconscious insistence on starting with the\nnotion of 'Gods'. Mr. Hartland, in his address as president of one of\nthe sections of the International Congress of Religions at Oxford,[9:1]\ndwelt on the significant fact about savage religions that wherever the\nword 'God' is used our trustiest witnesses tend to contradict one\nanother. Among the best observers of the Arunta tribes, for instance,\nsome hold that they have no conception of God, others that they are\nconstantly thinking about God. The truth is that this idea of a god far\naway in the sky--I do not say merely a First Cause who is 'without body\nparts or passions', but almost any being that we should naturally call a\n'god'--is an idea not easy for primitive man to grasp. It is a subtle\nand rarefied idea, saturated with ages of philosophy and speculation.\nAnd we must always remember that one of the chief religions of the\nworld, Buddhism, has risen to great moral and intellectual heights\nwithout using the conception of God at all; in his stead it has Dharma,\nthe Eternal Law.[10:1]\n\nApart from some few philosophers, both Christian and Moslem, the gods of\nthe ordinary man have as a rule been as a matter of course\nanthropomorphic. Men did not take the trouble to try to conceive them\notherwise. In many cases they have had the actual bodily shape of man;\nin almost all they have possessed--of course in their highest\ndevelopment--his mind and reason and his mental attributes. It causes\nmost of us even now something of a shock to be told by a medieval Arab\nphilosopher that to call God benevolent or righteous or to predicate of\nhim any other human quality is just as Pagan and degraded as to say that\nhe has a beard.[10:2] Now the Greek gods seem at first sight quite\nparticularly solid and anthropomorphic. The statues and vases speak\nclearly, and they are mostly borne out by the literature. Of course we\nmust discount the kind of evidence that misled Winckelmann, the mere\nRoman and Alexandrian art and mythology; but even if we go back to the\nfifth century B. C. we shall find the ruling conceptions far nobler\nindeed, but still anthropomorphic. We find firmly established the\nOlympian patriarchal family, Zeus the Father of gods and men, his wife\nHera, his son Apollo, his daughter Athena, his brothers Poseidon and\nHades, and the rest. We probably think of each figure more or less as\nlike a statue, a habit of mind obviously wrong and indeed absurd, as if\none thought of 'Labour' and 'Grief' as statues because Rodin or St.\nGaudens has so represented them. And yet it was a habit into which the\nlate Greeks themselves sometimes fell;[11:1] their arts of sculpture and\npainting as applied to religion had been so dangerously successful: they\nsharpened and made vivid an anthropomorphism which in its origin had\nbeen mostly the result of normal human laziness. The process of making\nwinds and rivers into anthropomorphic gods is, for the most part, not\nthe result of using the imagination with special vigour. It is the\nresult of not doing so. The wind is obviously alive; any fool can see\nthat. Being alive, it blows; how? why, naturally; just as you and I\nblow. It knocks things down, it shouts and dances, it whispers and\ntalks. And, unless we are going to make a great effort of the\nimagination and try to realize, like a scientific man, just what really\nhappens, we naturally assume that it does these things in the normal\nway, in the only way we know. Even when you worship a beast or a stone,\nyou practically anthropomorphize it. It happens indeed to have a\nperfectly clear shape, so you accept that. But it talks, acts, and\nfights just like a man--as you can see from the _Australian Folk Tales_\npublished by Mrs. Langloh Parker--because you do not take the trouble to\nthink out any other way of behaving. This kind of anthropomorphism--or\nas Mr. Gladstone used to call it, 'anthropophuism'--'humanity of\n_nature_'--is primitive and inevitable: the sharp-cut statue type of god\nis different, and is due in Greece directly to the work of the artists.\n\nWe must get back behind these gods of the artist's workshop and the\nromance-maker's imagination, and see if the religious thinkers of the\ngreat period use, or imply, the same highly human conceptions. We shall\nfind Parmenides telling us that God coincides with the universe, which\nis a sphere and immovable;[12:1] Heraclitus, that God is 'day night,\nsummer winter, war peace, satiety hunger'. Xenophanes, that God is\nall-seeing, all-hearing, and all mind;[12:2] and as for his supposed\nhuman shape, why, if bulls and lions were to speak about God they would\ndoubtless tell us that he was a bull or a lion.[12:3] We must notice the\ninstinctive language of the poets, using the word \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 in many subtle\nsenses for which our word 'God' is too stiff, too personal, and too\nanthropomorphic. \u03a4\u03cc \u03b5\u1f50\u03c4\u03c5\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd, 'the fact of success', is 'a god and more\nthan a god'; \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b3\u03b9\u03b3\u03bd\u03ce\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, 'the thrill of recognizing a friend'\nafter long absence, is a 'god'; wine is a 'god' whose body is poured out\nin libation to gods; and in the unwritten law of the human conscience 'a\ngreat god liveth and groweth not old'.[12:4] You will say that is mere\npoetry or philosophy: it represents a particular theory or a particular\nmetaphor. I think not. Language of this sort is used widely and without\nany explanation or apology. It was evidently understood and felt to be\nnatural by the audience. If it is metaphorical, all metaphors have grown\nfrom the soil of current thought and normal experience. And without\ngoing into the point at length I think we may safely conclude that the\nsoil from which such language as this grew was not any system of\nclear-cut personal anthropomorphic theology. No doubt any of these\npoets, if he had to make a picture of one of these utterly formless\nGods, would have given him a human form. That was the recognized symbol,\nas a veiled woman is St. Gaudens's symbol for 'Grief'.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut we have other evidence too which shows abundantly that these\nOlympian gods are not primary, but are imposed upon a background\nstrangely unlike themselves. For a long time their luminous figures\ndazzled our eyes; we were not able to see the half-lit regions behind\nthem, the dark primeval tangle of desires and fears and dreams from\nwhich they drew their vitality. The surest test to apply in this\nquestion is the evidence of actual cult. Miss Harrison has here shown\nus the right method, and following her we will begin with the three\ngreat festivals of Athens, the Diasia, the Thesmophoria, and the\nAnthesteria.[14:1]\n\nThe Diasia was said to be the chief festival of Zeus, the central figure\nof the Olympians, though our authorities generally add an epithet to\nhim, and call him Zeus Meilichios, Zeus of Placation. A god with an\n'epithet' is always suspicious, like a human being with an 'alias'. Miss\nHarrison's examination (_Prolegomena_, pp. 28 ff.) shows that in the\nrites Zeus has no place at all. Meilichios from the beginning has a\nfairly secure one. On some of the reliefs Meilichios appears not as a\ngod, but as an enormous bearded snake, a well-known representation of\nunderworld powers or dead ancestors. Sometimes the great snake is alone;\nsometimes he rises gigantic above the small human worshippers\napproaching him. And then, in certain reliefs, his old barbaric presence\nvanishes, and we have instead a benevolent and human father of gods and\nmen, trying, as Miss Harrison somewhere expresses it, to look as if he\nhad been there all the time.\n\nThere was a sacrifice at the Diasia, but it was not a sacrifice given to\nZeus. To Zeus and all the heavenly gods men gave sacrifice in the form\nof a feast, in which the god had his portion and the worshippers theirs.\nThe two parties cemented their friendship and feasted happily together.\nBut the sacrifice at the Diasia was a holocaust:[14:2] every shred of\nthe victim was burnt to ashes, that no man might partake of it. We know\nquite well the meaning of that form of sacrifice: it is a sacrifice to\nplacate or appease the powers below, the Chthonioi, the dead and the\nlords of death. It was performed, as our authorities tell us, \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u1f70\n\u03c3\u03c4\u03c5\u03b3\u03bd\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, with shuddering or repulsion.[15:1]\n\nThe Diasia was a ritual of placation, that is, of casting away various\nelements of pollution or danger and appeasing the unknown wraths of the\nsurrounding darkness. The nearest approach to a god contained in this\nfestival is Meilichios, and Meilichios, as we shall see later, belongs\nto a particular class of shadowy beings who are built up out of ritual\nservices. His name means '_He of appeasement_', and he is nothing else.\nHe is merely the personified shadow or dream generated by the emotion of\nthe ritual--very much, to take a familiar instance, as Father Christmas\nis a 'projection' of our Christmas customs.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Thesmophoria formed the great festival of Demeter and her daughter\nKor\u00ea, though here again Demeter appears with a clinging epithet,\nThesmophoros. We know pretty clearly the whole course of the ritual:\nthere is the carrying by women of certain magic charms, fir-cones and\nsnakes and unnameable objects made of paste, to ensure fertility; there\nis a sacrifice of pigs, who were thrown into a deep cleft of the earth,\nand their remains afterwards collected and scattered as a charm over the\nfields. There is more magic ritual, more carrying of sacred objects, a\nfast followed by a rejoicing, a disappearance of life below the earth,\nand a rising again of life above it; but it is hard to find definite\ntraces of any personal goddess. The Olympian Demeter and Persephone\ndwindle away as we look closer, and we are left with the shadow\nThesmophoros, '_She who carries Thesmoi_',[16:1] not a substantive\npersonal goddess, but merely a personification of the ritual itself: an\nimaginary Charm-bearer generated by so much charm-bearing, just as\nMeilichios in the Diasia was generated from the ritual of appeasement.\n\nNow the Diasia were dominated by a sacred snake. Is there any similar\ndivine animal in the Thesmophoria? Alas, yes. Both here, and still more\nmarkedly in the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis, we\nregularly find the most lovely of all goddesses, Demeter and Persephone,\nhabitually--I will not say represented by, but dangerously associated\nwith, a sacred Sow. A Pig is the one animal in Greek religion that\nactually had sacrifice made to it.[16:2]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe third feast, the Anthesteria, belongs in classical times to the\nOlympian Dionysus, and is said to be the oldest of his feasts. On the\nsurface there is a touch of the wine-god, and he is given due official\nprominence; but as soon as we penetrate anywhere near the heart of the\nfestival, Dionysus and his brother gods are quite forgotten, and all\nthat remains is a great ritual for appeasing the dead. All the days of\nthe Feast were _nefasti_, of ill omen; the first day especially was \u1f10\u03c2\n\u03c4\u1f78 \u03c0\u1fb6\u03bd \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03c6\u03c1\u03ac\u03c2. On it the Wine Jars which were also Seed and Funeral\nJars were opened and the spirits of the Dead let loose in the\nworld.[17:1] Nameless and innumerable, the ghosts are summoned out of\ntheir tombs, and are duly feasted, each man summoning his own ghosts to\nhis own house, and carefully abstaining from any act that would affect\nhis neighbours. And then, when they are properly appeased and made\ngentle, they are swept back again out of this world to the place where\nthey properly belong, and the streets and houses cleaned from the\npresence of death. There is one central stage indeed in which Dionysus\ndoes seem to appear. And he appears in a very significant way, to\nconduct a Sacred Marriage. For, why do you suppose the dead are summoned\nat all? What use to the tribe is the presence of all these dead\nancestors? They have come, I suspect, to be born again, to begin a new\nlife at the great Spring festival. For the new births of the tribe, the\nnew crops, the new kids, the new human beings, are of course really only\nthe old ones returned to earth.[17:2] The important thing is to get them\nproperly placated and purified, free from the contagion of ancient sin\nor underworld anger. For nothing is so dangerous as the presence of what\nI may call raw ghosts. The Anthesteria contained, like other feasts of\nthe kind, a \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03b3\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, or Holy Marriage, between the wife of the\nBasileus or Sacred King, and the imaginary god.[18:1] Whatever reality\nthere ever was in the ceremony has apparently by classical times faded\naway. But the place where the god received his bride is curious. It was\ncalled the Boukolion, or Bull's Shed. It was not originally the home of\nan anthropomorphic god, but of a divine animal.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus in each of these great festivals we find that the Olympian gods\nvanish away, and we are left with three things only: first, with an\natmosphere of religious dread; second, with a whole sequence of magical\nceremonies which, in two at least of the three cases,[18:2] produce a\nkind of strange personal emanation of themselves, the Appeasements\nproducing Meilichios, the Charm-bearings Thesmophoros; and thirdly, with\na divine or sacred animal. In the Diasia we find the old superhuman\nsnake, who reappears so ubiquitously throughout Greece, the regular\nsymbol of the underworld powers, especially the hero or dead ancestor.\nWhy the snake was so chosen we can only surmise. He obviously lived\nunderground: his home was among the Chthonioi, the Earth-People. Also,\nsays the Scholiast to Aristophanes (_Plut._ 533), he was a type of new\nbirth because he throws off his old skin and renews himself. And if that\nin itself is not enough to show his supernatural power, what normal\nearthly being could send his enemies to death by one little pin-prick,\nas some snakes can?\n\nIn the Thesmophoria we found sacred swine, and the reason given by the\nancients is no doubt the right one. The sow is sacred because of its\nfertility, and possibly as practical people we should add, because of\nits cheapness. Swine are always prominent in Greek agricultural rites.\nAnd the bull? Well, we modern town-dwellers have almost forgotten what a\nreal bull is like. For so many centuries we have tamed him and penned\nhim in, and utterly deposed him from his place as lord of the forest.\nThe bull was the chief of magic or sacred animals in Greece, chief\nbecause of his enormous strength, his size, his rage, in fine, as\nanthropologists call it, his _mana_; that primitive word which comprises\nforce, vitality, prestige, holiness, and power of magic, and which may\nbelong equally to a lion, a chief, a medicine-man, or a battle-axe.\n\nNow in the art and the handbooks these sacred animals have all been\nadopted into the Olympian system. They appear regularly as the\n'attributes' of particular gods. Zeus is merely accompanied by a snake,\nan eagle, a bull, or at worst assumes for his private purposes the forms\nof those animals. The cow and the cuckoo are sacred to Hera; the owl and\nthe snake to Athena; the dolphin, the crow, the lizard, the bull, to\nApollo. Dionysus, always like a wilder and less middle-aged Zeus,\nappears freely as a snake, bull, he-goat, and lion. Allowing for some\nisolated exceptions, the safest rule in all these cases is that the\nattribute is original and the god is added.[20:1] It comes out very\nclearly in the case of the snake and the bull. The tremendous _mana_ of\nthe wild bull indeed occupies almost half the stage of pre-Olympian\nritual. The religion unearthed by Dr. Evans in Crete is permeated by the\nbull of Minos. The heads and horns are in almost every sacred room and\non every altar. The great religious scene depicted on the sarcophagus of\nHagia Triada[20:2] centres in the holy blood that flows from the neck of\na captive and dying bull. Down into classical times bull's blood was a\nsacred thing which it was dangerous to touch and death to taste: to\ndrink a cup of it was the most heroic form of suicide.[20:3] The\nsacrificial bull at Delphi was called _Hosi\u00f4t\u00ear_: he was not merely\n_hosios_, holy; he was _Hosi\u00f4t\u00ear_, the Sanctifier, He who maketh Holy.\nIt was by contact with him that holiness was spread to others. On a coin\nand a vase, cited by Miss Harrison,[21:1] we have a bull entering a holy\ncave and a bull standing in a shrine. We have holy pillars whose\nholiness consists in the fact that they have been touched with the blood\nof a bull. We have a long record of a bull-ritual at Magnesia,[21:2] in\nwhich Zeus, though he makes a kind of external claim to be lord of the\nfeast, dare not claim that the bull is sacrificed to him. Zeus has a ram\nto himself and stands apart, showing but a weak and shadowy figure\nbeside the original Holy One. We have immense masses of evidence about\nthe religion of Mithras, at one time the most serious rival of\nChristianity, which sought its hope and its salvation in the blood of a\ndivine bull.\n\nNow what is the origin of this conception of the sacred animal? It was\nfirst discovered and explained with almost prophetic insight by Dr.\nRobertson Smith.[21:3] The origin is what he calls a sacramental feast:\nyou eat the flesh and drink the blood of the divine animal in\norder--here I diverge from Robertson Smith's language--to get into you\nhis _mana_, his vital power. The classical instance is the sacramental\neating of a camel by an Arab tribe, recorded in the works of St.\nNilus.[21:4] The camel was devoured on a particular day at the rising of\nthe morning star. He was cut to pieces alive, and every fragment of him\nhad to be consumed before the sun rose. If the life had once gone out\nof the flesh and blood the sacrifice would have been spoilt; it was the\nspirit, the vitality, of the camel that his tribesmen wanted. The only\nserious error that later students have found in Robertson Smith's\nstatement is that he spoke too definitely of the sacrifice as affording\ncommunion with the tribal god. There was no god there, only the raw\nmaterial out of which gods are made. You devoured the holy animal to get\nits _mana_, its swiftness, its strength, its great endurance, just as\nthe savage now will eat his enemy's brain or heart or hands to get some\nparticular quality residing there. The imagination of the pre-Hellenic\ntribes was evidently dominated above all things by the bull, though\nthere were other sacramental feasts too, combined with sundry horrible\nrendings and drinkings of raw blood. It is strange to think that even\nsmall things like kids and fawns and hares should have struck primitive\nman as having some uncanny vitality which he longed for, or at least\nsome uncanny power over the weather or the crops. Yet to him it no doubt\nappeared obvious. Frogs, for instance, could always bring rain by\ncroaking for it, and who can limit the powers and the knowledge of\nbirds?[22:1]\n\nHere comes a difficulty. If the Olympian god was not there to start\nwith, how did he originate? We can understand--at least after a course\nof anthropology--this desire of primitive man to acquire for himself the\nsuperhuman forces of the bull; but how does he make the transition from\nthe real animal to the imaginary human god? First let us remember the\ninnate tendency of primitive man everywhere, and not especially in\nGreece, to imagine a personal cause, like himself in all points not\notherwise specified, for every striking phenomenon. If the wind blows it\nis because some being more or less human, though of course superhuman,\nis blowing with his cheeks. If a tree is struck by lightning it is\nbecause some one has thrown his battle-axe at it. In some Australian\ntribes there is no belief in natural death. If a man dies it is because\n'bad man kill that fellow'. St. Paul, we may remember, passionately\nsummoned the heathen to refrain from worshipping \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03ba\u03c4\u03af\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, the\ncreation, and go back to \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03ba\u03c4\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, the creator, human and\nmasculine. It was as a rule a road that they were only too ready to\ntravel.[23:1]\n\nBut this tendency was helped by a second factor. Research has shown us\nthe existence in early Mediterranean religion of a peculiar transitional\nstep, a man wearing the head or skin of a holy beast. The Egyptian gods\nare depicted as men with beasts' heads: that is, the best authorities\ntell us, their shapes are derived from the kings and priests who on\ngreat occasions of sacrifice covered their heads with a\nbeast-mask.[23:2] Minos, with his projection the Minotaur, was a\nbull-god and wore a bull-mask. From early Island gems, from a fresco at\nMycenae, from Assyrian reliefs, Mr. A. B. Cook has collected many\nexamples of this mixed figure--a man wearing the _protom\u00ea_, or mask and\nmane, of a beast. Sometimes we can actually see him offering libations.\nSometimes the worshipper has become so closely identified with his\ndivine beast that he is represented not as a mere man wearing the\n_protom\u00ea_ of a lion or bull, but actually as a lion or bull wearing the\n_protom\u00ea_ of another.[24:1] Hera, \u03b2\u03bf\u1ff6\u03c0\u03b9\u03c2, with a cow's head; Athena,\n\u03b3\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03ba\u1ff6\u03c0\u03b9\u03c2, with an owl's head, or bearing on her breast the head of the\nGorgon; Heracles clad in a lion's skin and covering his brow \u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u1ff7\n\u03c7\u03ac\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b7\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2, 'with the awful spread jaws of the wild beast', belong to\nthe same class. So does the Dadouchos at Eleusis and other initiators\nwho let candidates for purification set one foot--one only and that the\nleft--on the skin of a sacrificial ram, and called the skin \u0394\u03b9\u1f78\u03c2 \u03ba\u1ff6\u03b1\u03c2,\nthe fleece not of a ram, but of Zeus.[24:2]\n\nThe _mana_ of the slain beast is in the hide and head and blood and fur,\nand the man who wants to be in thorough contact with the divinity gets\ninside the skin and wraps himself deep in it. He begins by being a man\nwearing a lion's skin: he ends, as we have seen, by feeling himself to\nbe a lion wearing a lion's skin. And who is this man? He may on\nparticular occasions be only a candidate for purification or initiation.\nBut _par excellence_ he who has the right is the priest, the\nmedicine-man, the divine king. If an old suggestion of my own is right,\nhe is the original \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 or \u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03cc\u03c2, the incarnate medicine or spell or\nmagic power.[24:3] He at first, I suspect, is the only \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 or 'God'\nthat his society knows. We commonly speak of ancient kings being\n'deified'; we regard the process as due to an outburst of superstition\nor insane flattery. And so no doubt it sometimes was, especially in\nlater times--when man and god were felt as two utterly distinct things.\nBut 'deification' is an unintelligent and misleading word. What we call\n'deification' is only the survival of this undifferentiated human \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2,\nwith his _mana_, his \u03ba\u03c1\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 and \u03b2\u03af\u03b1, his control of the weather, the\nrain and the thunder, the spring crops and the autumn floods; his\nknowledge of what was lawful and what was not, and his innate power to\ncurse or to 'make dead'. Recent researches have shown us in abundance\nthe early Greek medicine-chiefs making thunder and lightning and\nrain.[25:1] We have long known the king as possessor of Dike and Themis,\nof justice and tribal custom; we have known his effect on the fertility\nof the fields and the tribes, and the terrible results of a king's sin\nor a king's sickness.[25:2]\n\nWhat is the subsequent history of this medicine-chief or \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2? He is\ndifferentiated, as it were: the visible part of him becomes merely\nhuman; the supposed supernatural part grows into what we should call a\nGod. The process is simple. Any particular medicine-man is bound to\nhave his failures. As Dr. Frazer gently reminds us, every single\npretension which he puts forth on every day of his life is a lie, and\nliable sooner or later to be found out. Doubtless men are tender to\ntheir own delusions. They do not at once condemn the medicine-chief as a\nfraudulent institution, but they tend gradually to say that he is not\nthe real all-powerful \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2. He is only his representative. The real\n\u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2, tremendous, infallible, is somewhere far away, hidden in clouds\nperhaps, on the summit of some inaccessible mountain. If the mountain is\nonce climbed the god will move to the upper sky. The medicine-chief\nmeanwhile stays on earth, still influential. He has some connexion\nwith the great god more intimate than that of other men; at worst he\npossesses the god's sacred instruments, his \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac or \u1f44\u03c1\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1; he knows the\nrules for approaching him and making prayers to him.\n\nThere is therefore a path open from the divine beast to the\nanthropomorphic god. From beings like Thesmophoros and Meilichios the\nroad is of course much easier. They are already more than half\nanthropomorphic; they only lack the concreteness, the lucid shape and\nthe detailed personal history of the Olympians. In this connexion we\nmust not forget the power of hallucination, still fairly strong, as the\nhistory of religious revivals in America will bear witness,[26:1] but\nfar stronger, of course, among the impressionable hordes of early men.\n'The god', says M. Doutt\u00e9 in his profound study of Algerian magic,\n'c'est le d\u00e9sir collectif personnifi\u00e9', the collective desire projected,\nas it were, or personified.[27:1] Think of the gods who have appeared\nin great crises of battle, created sometimes by the desperate desire of\nmen who have for years prayed to them, and who are now at the last\nextremity for lack of their aid, sometimes by the confused and excited\nremembrances of the survivors after the victory. The gods who led the\nRoman charge at Lake Regillus,[27:2] the gigantic figures that were seen\nfighting before the Greeks at Marathon,[27:3] even the celestial signs\nthat promised Constantine victory for the cross:[27:4]--these are the\neffects of great emotion: we can all understand them. But even in daily\nlife primitive men seem to have dealt more freely than we generally do\nwith apparitions and voices and daemons of every kind. One of the most\nremarkable and noteworthy sources for this kind of hallucinatory god in\nearly societies is a social custom that we have almost forgotten, the\nreligious Dance. When the initiated young men of Crete or elsewhere\ndanced at night over the mountains in the Oreibasia or Mountain Walk\nthey not only did things that seemed beyond their ordinary workaday\nstrength; they also felt themselves led on and on by some power which\nguided and sustained them. This daemon has no necessary name: a man may\nbe named after him 'Oreibasius', 'Belonging to the Mountain Dancer',\njust as others may be named 'Apollonius' or 'Dionysius'. The god is only\nthe spirit of the Mountain Dance, Oreibates, though of course he is\nabsorbed at different times in various Olympians. There is one god\ncalled Aphiktor, the Suppliant, He who prays for mercy. He is just the\nprojection, as M. Doutt\u00e9 would say, of the intense emotion of one of\nthose strange processions well known in the ancient world, bands of\ndespairing men or women who have thrown away all means of self-defence\nand join together at some holy place in one passionate prayer for pity.\nThe highest of all gods, Zeus, was the special patron of the suppliant;\nand it is strange and instructive to find that Zeus the all-powerful\nis actually identified with this Aphiktor: \u0396\u03b5\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u1f08\u03c6\u03af\u03ba\u03c4\u03c9\u03c1 \u1f10\u03c0\u03af\u03b4\u03bf\u03b9\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03c9\u03c2.[28:1] The assembled prayer, the united cry that rises from\nthe oppressed of the world, is itself grown to be a god, and the\ngreatest god. A similar projection arose from the dance of the _Kouroi_,\nor initiate youths, in the dithyramb--the magic dance which was to\ncelebrate, or more properly, to hasten and strengthen, the coming on of\nspring. That dance projected the Megistos Kouros, the greatest of\nyouths, who is the incarnation of spring or the return of life, and lies\nat the back of so many of the most gracious shapes of the classical\npantheon. The Kouros appears as Dionysus, as Apollo, as Hermes, as Ares:\nin our clearest and most detailed piece of evidence he actually appears\nwith the characteristic history and attributes of Zeus.[28:2]\n\nThis spirit of the dance, who leads it or personifies its emotion,\nstands more clearly perhaps than any other daemon half-way between\nearth and heaven. A number of difficult passages in Euripides' _Bacchae_\nand other Dionysiac literature find their explanations when we realize\nhow the god is in part merely identified with the inspired chief dancer,\nin part he is the intangible projected incarnation of the emotion of the\ndance.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n'The collective desire personified': on what does the collective desire,\nor collective dread, of the primitive community chiefly concentrate? On\ntwo things, the food-supply and the tribe-supply, the desire not to die\nof famine and not to be harried or conquered by the neighbouring tribe.\nThe fertility of the earth and the fertility of the tribe, these two are\nfelt in early religion as one.[29:1] The earth is a mother: the human\nmother is an \u1f04\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1, or ploughed field. This earth-mother is the\ncharacteristic and central feature of the early Aegean religions. The\nintroduction of agriculture made her a mother of fruits and corn, and it\nis in that form that we best know her. But in earlier days she had been\na mother of the spontaneous growth of the soil, of wild beasts and trees\nand all the life of the mountain.[29:2] In early Crete she stands with\nlions erect on either side of her or with snakes held in her hands and\ncoiled about her body. And as the earth is mother when the harvest\ncomes, so in spring she is maiden or Kor\u00ea, but a maiden fated each year\nto be wedded and made fruitful; and earlier still there has been the\nterrible time when fields are bare and lifeless. The Kor\u00ea has been\nsnatched away underground, among the dead peoples, and men must wait\nexpectant till the first buds begin to show and they call her to rise\nagain with the flowers. Meantime earth as she brings forth vegetation in\nspring is Kourotrophos, rearer of Kouroi, or the young men of the tribe.\nThe nymphs and rivers are all Kourotrophoi. The Moon is Kourotrophos.\nShe quickens the young of the tribe in their mother's womb; at one\nterrible hour especially she is 'a lion to women' who have offended\nagainst her holiness. She also marks the seasons of sowing and\nploughing, and the due time for the ripening of crops. When men learn to\ncalculate in longer units, the Sun appears: they turn to the Sun for\ntheir calendar, and at all times of course the Sun has been a power in\nagriculture. He is not called Kourotrophos, but the Young Sun returning\nafter winter is himself a Kouros,[30:1] and all the Kouroi have some\ntouch of the Sun in them. The Cretan Spring-song of the Kouretes prays\nfor \u03bd\u03ad\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u1fd6\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, young citizens, quite simply among the other gifts of\nthe spring.[30:2]\n\nThis is best shown by the rites of tribal initiation, which seem\nnormally to have formed part of the spring Dr\u00f4mena or sacred\nperformances. The Kouroi, as we have said, are the initiated young men.\nThey pass through their initiation; they become no longer \u03c0\u03b1\u1fd6\u03b4\u03b5\u03c2, boys,\nbut \u1f04\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2, men. The actual name Kouros is possibly connected with\n\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd, to shave,[31:1] and may mean that after this ceremony they\nfirst cut their long hair. Till then the \u03ba\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 is \u1f00\u03ba\u03b5\u03c1\u03c3\u03b5\u03ba\u03cc\u03bc\u03b7\u03c2--with\nhair unshorn. They have now open to them the two roads that belong to\n\u1f04\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2 alone: they have the work of begetting children for the tribe,\nand the work of killing the tribe's enemies in battle.\n\nThe classification of people according to their age is apt to be sharp\nand vivid in primitive communities. We, for example, think of an old man\nas a kind of man, and an old woman as a kind of woman; but in primitive\npeoples as soon as a man and woman cease to be able to perform his and\nher due tribal functions they cease to be men and women, \u1f04\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2 and\n\u03b3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u1fd6\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2: the ex-man becomes a \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd; the ex-woman a \u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u1fe6\u03c2.[31:2] We\ndistinguish between 'boy' and 'man', between 'girl' and 'woman'; but\napart from the various words for baby, Attic Greek would have four sharp\ndivisions, \u03c0\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2, \u1f14\u03c6\u03b7\u03b2\u03bf\u03c2, \u1f00\u03bd\u03ae\u03c1, \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd.[31:3] In Sparta the divisions are\nstill sharper and more numerous, centring in the great initiation\nceremonies of the Iranes, or full-grown youths, to the goddess called\nOrthia or Bortheia.[32:1] These initiation ceremonies are called\nTeletai, 'completions': they mark the great 'rite of transition' from\nthe immature, charming, but half useless thing which we call boy or\ngirl, to the \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ae\u03c1, the full member of the tribe as fighter or\ncounsellor, or to the \u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03b1 \u03b3\u03c5\u03bd\u03ae, the full wife and mother. This whole\nsubject of Greek initiation ceremonies calls pressingly for more\ninvestigation. It is only in the last few years that we have obtained\nthe material for understanding them, and the whole mass of the evidence\nneeds re-treatment. For one instance, it is clear that a great number of\nrites which were formerly explained as remnants of human sacrifice are\nsimply ceremonies of initiation.[32:2]\n\nAt the great spring Dr\u00f4menon the tribe and the growing earth were\nrenovated together: the earth arises afresh from her dead seeds, the\ntribe from its dead ancestors; and the whole process, charged as it is\nwith the emotion of pressing human desire, projects its anthropomorphic\ngod or daemon. A vegetation-spirit we call him, very inadequately; he is\na divine Kouros, a Year-Daemon, a spirit that in the first stage is\nliving, then dies with each year, then thirdly rises again from the\ndead, raising the whole dead world with him--the Greeks called him in\nthis phase 'the Third One', or the 'Saviour'. The renovation ceremonies\nwere accompanied by a casting off of the old year, the old garments, and\neverything that is polluted by the infection of death. And not only of\ndeath; but clearly I think, in spite of the protests of some Hellenists,\nof guilt or sin also. For the life of the Year-Daemon, as it seems to be\nreflected in Tragedy, is generally a story of Pride and Punishment. Each\nYear arrives, waxes great, commits the sin of Hubris, and then is slain.\nThe death is deserved; but the slaying is a sin: hence comes the next\nYear as Avenger, or as the Wronged One re-risen. 'All things pay\nretribution for their injustice one to another according to the\nordinance of time.'[33:1] It is this range of ideas, half suppressed\nduring the classical period, but evidently still current among the ruder\nand less Hellenized peoples, which supplied St. Paul with some of his\nmost famous and deep-reaching metaphors. 'Thou fool, that which thou\nsowest is not quickened except it die.'[33:2] 'As He was raised from the\ndead we may walk with Him in newness of life.' And this renovation must\nbe preceded by a casting out and killing of the old polluted life--'the\nold man in us must first be crucified'.\n\n'The old man must be crucified.' We observed that in all the three\nFestivals there was a pervasive element of vague fear. Hitherto we have\nbeen dealing with early Greek religion chiefly from the point of view of\n_mana_, the positive power or force that man tries to acquire from his\ntotem-animal or his god. But there is also a negative side to be\nconsidered: there is not only the _mana_, but the _tabu_, the Forbidden,\nthe Thing Feared. We must cast away the old year; we must put our sins\non to a \u03c6\u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2 or scapegoat and drive it out. When the ghosts have\nreturned and feasted with us at the Anthesteria we must, with tar and\nbranches of buckthorn, purge them out of every corner of the rooms till\nthe air is pure from the infection of death. We must avoid speaking\ndangerous words; in great moments we must avoid speaking any words at\nall, lest there should be even in the most innocent of them some unknown\ndanger; for we are surrounded above and below by K\u00eares, or Spirits,\nwinged influences, shapeless or of unknown shape, sometimes the spirits\nof death, sometimes of disease, madness, calamity; thousands and\nthousands of them, as Sarpedon says, from whom man can never escape nor\nhide;[34:1] 'all the air so crowded with them', says an unknown ancient\npoet, 'that there is not one empty chink into which you could push the\nspike of a blade of corn.'[34:2]\n\nThe extraordinary security of our modern life in times of peace makes it\nhard for us to realize, except by a definite effort of the imagination,\nthe constant precariousness, the frightful proximity of death, that was\nusual in these weak ancient communities. They were in fear of wild\nbeasts; they were helpless against floods, helpless against\npestilences. Their food depended on the crops of one tiny plot of\nground; and if the Saviour was not reborn with the spring, they slowly\nand miserably died. And all the while they knew almost nothing of the\nreal causes that made crops succeed or fail. They only felt sure it was\nsomehow a matter of pollution, of unexpiated defilement. It is this\nstate of things that explains the curious cruelty of early agricultural\ndoings, the human sacrifices, the scapegoats, the tearing in pieces of\nliving animals, and perhaps of living men, the steeping of the fields in\nblood. Like most cruelty it has its roots in terror, terror of the\nbreach of _Tabu_--the Forbidden Thing. I will not dwell on this side of\nthe picture: it is well enough known. But we have to remember that, like\nso many morbid growths of the human mind, it has its sublime side. We\nmust not forget that the human victims were often volunteers. The\nrecords of Carthage and Jerusalem, the long list in Greek legend of\nprinces and princesses who died for their country, tell the same story.\nIn most human societies, savage as well as civilized, it is not hard to\nfind men who are ready to endure death for their fellow-citizens. We\nneed not suppose that the martyrs were always the noblest of the human\nrace. They were sometimes mad--hysterical or megalomaniac: sometimes\nreckless and desperate: sometimes, as in the curious case attested of\nthe Roman armies on the Danube, they were men of strong desires and weak\nimagination ready to die at the end of a short period, if in the\nmeantime they might glut all their senses with unlimited\nindulgence.[35:1]\n\nStill, when all is said, there is nothing that stirs men's imagination\nlike the contemplation of martyrdom, and it is no wonder that the more\nemotional cults of antiquity vibrate with the worship of this dying\nSaviour, the S\u00f4sipolis, the S\u00f4t\u00ear, who in so many forms dies with his\nworld or for his world, and rises again as the world rises, triumphant\nthrough suffering over Death and the broken _Tabu_.\n\n_Tabu_ is at first sight a far more prominent element in the primitive\nreligions than _Mana_, just as misfortune and crime are more highly\ncoloured and striking than prosperity and decent behaviour. To an early\nGreek tribe the world of possible action was sharply divided between\nwhat was Themis and what was Not Themis, between lawful and _tabu_, holy\nand unholy, correct and forbidden. To do a thing that was not Themis was\na sure source of public disaster. Consequently it was of the first\nnecessity in a life full of such perils to find out the exact rules\nabout them. How is that to be managed? Themis is ancient law: it is \u03c4\u1f70\n\u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1, the way of our ancestors, the thing that has always been done\nand is therefore divinely right. In ordinary life, of course, Themis is\nclear. Every one knows it. But from time to time new emergencies arise,\nthe like of which we have never seen, and they frighten us. We must go\nto the Gerontes, the Old Men of the Tribe; they will perhaps remember\nwhat our fathers did. What they tell us will be _Presbiston_, a\nword which means indifferently 'oldest' and 'best'--\u03b1\u1f30\u03b5\u1f76 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03bd\u03b5\u03ce\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\n\u1f00\u03c6\u03c1\u03b1\u03b4\u03ad\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, 'Young men are always being foolish'. Of course, if there\nis a Basileus, a holy King, he by his special power may perhaps know\nbest of all, though he too must take care not to gainsay the Old Men.\n\nFor the whole problem is to find out \u03c4\u1f70 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1, the ways that our\nfathers followed. And suppose the Old Men themselves fail us, what must\nwe needs do? Here we come to a famous and peculiar Greek custom, for\nwhich I have never seen quoted any exact parallel or any satisfactory\nexplanation. If the Old Men fail us, we must go to those older still, go\nto our great ancestors, the \u1f25\u03c1\u03c9\u03b5\u03c2, the Chthonian people, lying in their\nsacred tombs, and ask them to help. The word \u03c7\u03c1\u1fb6\u03bd means both 'to lend\nmoney' and 'to give an oracle', two ways of helping people in an\nemergency. Sometimes a tribe might happen to have a real ancestor buried\nin the neighbourhood; if so, his tomb would be an oracle. More often\nperhaps, for the memories of savage tribes are very precarious, there\nwould be no well-recorded personal tomb. The oracle would be at some\nplace sacred to the Chthonian people in general, or to some particular\npersonification of them, a Delphi or a cave of Troph\u00f4nius, a place of\nSnakes and Earth. You go to the Chthonian folk for guidance because they\nare themselves the Oldest of the Old Ones, and they know the real\ncustom: they know what is Presbiston, what is Themis. And by an easy\nextension of this knowledge they are also supposed to know what is. He\nwho knows the law fully to the uttermost also knows what will happen if\nthe law is broken. It is, I think, important to realize that the normal\nreason for consulting an oracle was not to ask questions of fact. It was\nthat some emergency had arisen in which men simply wanted to know how\nthey ought to behave. The advice they received in this way varied from\nthe virtuous to the abominable, as the religion itself varied. A great\nmass of oracles can be quoted enjoining the rules of customary morality,\njustice, honesty, piety, duty to a man's parents, to the old, and to the\nweak. But of necessity the oracles hated change and strangled the\nprogress of knowledge. Also, like most manifestations of early religion,\nthey throve upon human terror: the more blind the terror the stronger\nbecame their hold. In such an atmosphere the lowest and most beastlike\nelements of humanity tended to come to the front; and religion no doubt\nas a rule joined with them in drowning the voice of criticism and of\ncivilization, that is, of reason and of mercy. When really frightened\nthe oracle generally fell back on some remedy full of pain and blood.\nThe medieval plan of burning heretics alive had not yet been invented.\nBut the history of uncivilized man, if it were written, would provide a\nvast list of victims, all of them innocent, who died or suffered to\nexpiate some portent or _monstrum_--some reported \u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2--with which they\nhad nothing whatever to do, which was in no way altered by their\nsuffering, which probably never really happened at all, and if it did\nwas of no consequence. The sins of the modern world in dealing with\nheretics and witches have perhaps been more gigantic than those of\nprimitive men, but one can hardy rise from the record of these ancient\nobservances without being haunted by the judgement of the Roman poet:\n\n     Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum,\n\nand feeling with him that the lightening of this cloud, the taming of\nthis blind dragon, must rank among the very greatest services that\nHellenism wrought for mankind.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[6:1] Professor \u00c9mile Durkheim in his famous analysis of the religious\nemotions argues that when a man feels the belief and the command as\nsomething coming from without, superior, authoritative, of infinite\nimport, it is because religion is the work of the tribe and, as such,\nsuperior to the individual. The voice of God is the imagined voice of\nthe whole tribe, heard or imagined by him who is going to break its\nlaws. I have some difficulty about the psychology implied in this\ndoctrine: surely the apparent externality of the religious command seems\nto belong to a fairly common type of experience, in which the\npersonality is divided, so that first one part of it and then another\nemerges into consciousness. If you forget an engagement, sometimes\nyour peace is disturbed for quite a long time by a vague external\nannoyance or condemnation, which at last grows to be a distinct\njudgement--'Heavens! I ought to be at the Committee on So-and-so.' But\napart from this criticism, there is obviously much historical truth in\nProfessor Durkheim's theory, and it is not so different as it seems at\nfirst sight from the ordinary beliefs of religious men. The tribe to\nprimitive man is not a mere group of human beings. It is his whole\nworld. The savage who is breaking the laws of his tribe has all his\nworld--totems, tabus, earth, sky and all--against him. He cannot be at\npeace with God.\n\nThe position of the hero or martyr who defies his tribe for the sake of\nwhat he thinks the truth or the right can easily be thought out on these\nlines. He defies this false temporary Cosmos in loyalty to the true and\npermanent Cosmos.\n\nSee Durkheim, 'Les Formes \u00e9l\u00e9mentaires de la vie religieuse', in\n_Travaux de l'Ann\u00e9e Sociologique_, 1912; or G. Davy, 'La Sociologie de\nM. Durkheim', in _Rev. Philosophique_, xxxvi, pp. 42-71 and 160-85.\n\n[8:1] I suspect that most reforms pass through this stage. A man somehow\nfeels clear that some new course is, for him, right, though he cannot\nmarshal the arguments convincingly in favour of it, and may even admit\nthat the weight of obvious evidence is on the other side. We read of\njudges in the seventeenth century who believed that witches ought to be\nburned and that the persons before them were witches, and yet would not\nburn them--evidently under the influence of vague half-realized\nfeelings. I know a vegetarian who thinks that, as far as he can see,\ncarnivorous habits are not bad for human health and actually tend to\nincrease the happiness of the species of animals eaten--as the adoption\nof Swift's _Modest Proposal_ would doubtless relieve the economic\ntroubles of the human race, and yet feels clear that for him the\nordinary flesh meal (or 'feasting on corpses') would 'partake of the\nnature of sin'. The path of progress is paved with inconsistencies,\nthough it would be an error to imagine that the people who habitually\nreject any higher promptings that come to them are really any more\nconsistent.\n\n[9:1] _Transactions of the Third International Congress of Religions_,\nOxford, 1908, pp. 26-7.\n\n[10:1] _The Buddhist Dharma_, by Mrs. Rhys Davids.\n\n[10:2] See _Die Mutaziliten, oder die Freidenker im Islam_, von H.\nSteiner, 1865. This Arab was clearly under the influence of Plotinus or\nsome other Neo-Platonist.\n\n[11:1] Cf. E. Reisch, _Entstehung und Wandel griechischer\nG\u00f6ttergestalten_. Vienna, 1909.\n\n[12:1] Parm. Fr. 8, 3-7 (Diels{2}).\n\n[12:2] Xen. Fr. 24 (Diels{2}).\n\n[12:3] Xen. Fr. 15.\n\n[12:4] Aesch. _Cho._ 60; Eur. _Hel._ 560; Bac. 284; Soph. _O.T._ 871.\nCf. also \u1f21 \u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f01\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u1f74 \u03b8\u03b5\u1f78\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2. Soph. Fr. 836, 2 (Nauck).\n\n     \u1f41 \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5, \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2. Eur. _Cycl._ 316.\n\n     \u1f41 \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u1f21\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd \u1f10\u03bd \u1f11\u03ba\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u1ff3 \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2. Eur. Fr. 1018.\n\n     \u03c6\u03b8\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03ac\u03ba\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03ac\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2. Hippotho\u00f6n. Fr. 2.\n\nA certain moment of time: \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u1f74 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b8\u03b5\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f31\u03b4\u03c1\u03c5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7 \u03c3\u1ff4\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1. Pl. Leg.\n775 E.\n\n     \u03c4\u1f70 \u03bc\u1ff6\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4' \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u1f76\u03bd \u1f08\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03b4\u03af\u03c4\u03b7 \u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2. Eur. _Tro._ 989.\n\n     \u1f27\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b4\u03b1\u1f76\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03b2\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7 \u03b8\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd. Soph. Fr. 548.\n\n[14:1] See J. E. Harrison, _Prolegomena_, i, ii, iv; Mommsen, _Feste der\nStadt Athen_, 1898, pp. 308-22 (Thesmophoria), 384-404 (Anthesteria);\n421-6 (Diasia). See also Pauly Wissowa, s.v.\n\n[14:2] _Prolegomena_, p. 15 f.\n\n[15:1] Luc. _Icaro-Menippos_ 24 schol. ad loc.\n\n[16:1] Frequently dual, \u03c4\u1f7c \u0398\u03b5\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03c9, under the influence of the 'Mother\nand Maiden' idea; Dittenberger _Inscr. Sylloge_ 628, Ar. _Thesm._ 84,\n296 _et passim_. The plural \u03b1\u1f31 \u0398\u03b5\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9 used in late Greek is not, as\none might imagine, a projection from the whole band of worshippers; it\nis merely due to the disappearance of the dual from Greek. I accept\nprovisionally the derivation of these \u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03af from \u03b8\u03b5\u03c3- in \u03b8\u03ad\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9,\n\u03b8\u03ad\u03c3\u03c6\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u03b8\u03ad\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2, \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u1f00\u03c0\u03cc\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, &c.: cf. A. W. Verrall in _J.\nH. S._ xx, p. 114; and _Prolegomena_, pp. 48 ff., 136 f. But, whatever\nthe derivation, the Thesmoi were the objects carried.\n\n[16:2] Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 44 ff.; A. B. Cook, _J. H. S._ xiv,\npp. 153-4; J. E. Harrison, _Themis_, p. 5. See also A. Lang, _Homeric\nHymns_, 1899, p. 63.\n\n[17:1] _Feste der Stadt Athen_, p. 390 f. On Seed Jars, Wine Jars and\nFuneral Jars, see _Themis_, pp. 276-88, and Warde Fowler, 'Mundus\nPatet,' in _Journ. Roman Studies_, ii, pp. 25 ff. Cf. below, p. 28 f.\n\n[17:2] Dieterich, _Muttererde_, 1905, p. 48 f.\n\n[18:1] Dr. Frazer, _The Magic Art_, ii. 137, thinks it not certain that\nthe \u03b3\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 took place during the Anthesteria, at the same time as the\noath of the \u03b3\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03af. Without the \u03b3\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, however, it is hard to see what\nthe \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd\u03bd\u03b1 and \u03b3\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03af had to do in the festival; and this is the\nview of Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt Athen_, pp. 391-3; Gruppe in Iwan\nM\u00fcller, _Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte_, i. 33; Farnell, _Cults_,\nv. 217.\n\n[18:2] One might perhaps say, in all three. \u1f08\u03bd\u03b8\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03a0\u03c5\u03b8\u03bf\u03c7\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\n\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd is the name of a society of worshippers in the island of Thera,\n_I. G. I._ iii. 329. This gives a god Anthister, who is clearly\nidentified with Dionysus, and seems to be a projection of a feast\nAnthisteria = Anthesteria. The inscription is of the second century B.\nC. and it seems likely that Anthister-Anthisteria, with their clear\nderivation from \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd, are corruptions of the earlier and difficult\nforms \u1f08\u03bd\u03b8\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1-\u1f08\u03bd\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1. It is noteworthy that Thera, an island lying\nrather outside the main channels of civilization, kept up throughout its\nhistory a tendency to treat the 'epithet' as a full person. Hikesios and\nKoures come very early; also Polieus and Stoichaios without the name\nZeus; Delphinios, Karneios, Aiglatas, and Aguieus without Apollo.\n\nSee Hiller von Gaertringen in the _Festschrift f\u00fcr O. Benndorff_, p.\n228. Also Nilsson, _Griechische Feste_, 1906, p. 267, n. 5.\n\n[20:1] Miss Harrison, 'Bird and Pillar Worship in relation to Ouranian\nDivinities', _Transactions of the Third International Congress for the\nHistory of Religion_, Oxford, 1908, vol. ii, p. 154; Farnell, _Greece\nand Babylon_, 1911, pp. 66 ff.\n\n[20:2] First published by R. Paribeni, 'Il Sarcofago dipinto di Hagia\nTriada', in _Monumenti antichi della R. Accademia dei Lincei_, xix,\n1908, p. 6, T. i-iii. See also _Themis_, pp. 158 ff.\n\n[20:3] Ar. _Equites_, 82-4--or possibly of apotheosis. See _Themis_, p.\n154, n. 2.\n\n[21:1] _Themis_, p. 145, fig. 25; and p. 152, fig. 28 b.\n\n[21:2] O. Kern, _Inschriften v. Magnesia_, No. 98, discussed by O. Kern,\n_Arch. Anz._ 1894, p. 78, and Nilsson, _Griechische Feste_, p. 23.\n\n[21:3] _Religion of the Semites_, 1901, p. 338; Reuterskiold, in _Archiv\nf. Relig._ xv. 1-23.\n\n[21:4] _Nili Opera_, _Narrat._ iii. 28.\n\n[22:1] See Aristophanes' _Birds_, e. g. 685-736: cf. the practice of\naugury from birds, and the art-types of Winged K\u00eares, Victories and\nAngels.\n\n[23:1] Romans, i. 25; viii. 20-3.\n\n[23:2] Lang, _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, 1906, ii. 284; ibid., 130;\nMoret, _Caract\u00e8re religieux de la Monarchie \u00c9gyptienne_; Dieterich,\n_Mithrasliturgie_, 1903.\n\n[24:1] A. B. Cook in _J. H. S._ 1894, 'Animal Worship in the Mycenaean\nAge'. See also Hogarth on the 'Zakro Sealings', _J. H. S._ 1902; these\nseals show a riot of fancy in the way of mixed monsters, starting in all\nprobability from the simpler form. See the quotation from Robertson\nSmith in Hogarth, p. 91.\n\n[24:2] _Feste der Stadt Athen_, p. 416.\n\n[24:3] _Anthropology and the Classics_, 1908, pp. 77, 78.\n\n[25:1] A. B. Cook, _Class. Rev._ xvii, pp. 275 ff.; A. J. Reinach, _Rev.\nde l'Hist. des Religions_, lx, p. 178; S. Reinach, _Cultes, Mythes,\n&c._, ii. 160-6.\n\n[25:2] One may suggest in passing that this explains the enormous\nfamilies attributed to many sacred kings of Greek legend: why Priam or\nDanaus have their fifty children, and Heracles, most prolific of all,\nhis several hundred. The particular numbers chosen, however, are\nprobably due to other causes, e. g. the fifty moon-months of the\nPenteteris.\n\n[26:1] See _Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals_, by F. M. Davenport.\nNew York, 1906.\n\n[27:1] E. Doutt\u00e9, _Magie et religion dans l'Afrique du Nord_, 1909, p.\n601.\n\n[27:2] Cicero, _de Nat. Deorum_, ii. 2; iii. 5, 6; Florus, ii. 12.\n\n[27:3] Plut. _Theseus_, 35; Paus. i. 32. 5. Herodotus only mentions a\nbearded and gigantic figure who struck Epizelos blind (vi. 117).\n\n[27:4] Eusebius, _Vit. Constant._, l. i, cc. 28, 29, 30; _Nazarius inter\nPanegyr. Vet._ x. 14. 15.\n\n[28:1] Aesch. _Suppl._ 1, cf. 478 \u0396\u03b5\u1f7a\u03c2 \u1f31\u03ba\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1. _Rise of the Greek\nEpic_{3}, p. 275 n. Adjectival phrases like \u0396\u03b5\u1f7a\u03c2 \u1f39\u03ba\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2, \u1f39\u03ba\u03b5\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2,\n\u1f39\u03ba\u03c4\u03b1\u1fd6\u03bf\u03c2 are common and call for no remark.\n\n[28:2] Hymn of the Kouretes, _Themis_, passim.\n\n[29:1] See in general I. King, _The Development of Religion_, 1910; E.\nJ. Payne, _History of the New World_, 1892, p. 414. Also Dieterich,\n_Muttererde_, esp. pp. 37-58.\n\n[29:2] See Dieterich, _Muttererde_, J. E. Harrison, _Prolegomena_, chap.\nvi, 'The Making of a Goddess'; _Themis_, chap. vi, 'The Spring\nDr\u00f4menon'. As to the prehistoric art-type of this goddess technically\ncalled 'steatopygous', I cannot refrain from suggesting that it may be\nderived from a mountain \u0394 turned into a human figure, as the palladion\nor figure-8 type came from two round shields. See p. 52.\n\n[30:1] _Hymn Orph._ 8, 10 \u1f61\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c6\u03b5 \u03ba\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c1\u03b5.\n\n[30:2] For the order in which men generally proceed in worship, turning\ntheir attention to (1) the momentary incidents of weather, rain,\nsunshine, thunder, &c.; (2) the Moon; (3) the Sun and stars, see Payne,\n_History of the New World called America_, vol. i, p. 474, cited by Miss\nHarrison, _Themis_, p. 390.\n\n[31:1] On the subject of Initiations see Webster, _Primitive Secret\nSocieties_, New York, 1908; Schurtz, _Altersklassen und M\u00e4nnerbunde_,\nBerlin, 1902; Van Gennep, _Rites de Passage_, Paris, 1909; Nilsson,\n_Grundlage des Spartanischen Lebens_ in Klio xii (1912), pp. 308-40;\nThemis, p. 337, n. 1. Since the above, Rivers, _Social Organization_,\n1924.\n\n[31:2] Cf. Dr. Rivers on _mate_, 'Primitive Conception of Death',\n_Hibbert Journal_, January 1912, p. 393.\n\n[31:3] Cf. Cardinal Virtues, Pindar, _Nem._ iii. 72:\n\n     \u1f10\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03c3\u1f76 \u03bd\u03ad\u03bf\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2, \u1f10\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03ac\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03ae\u03c1, \u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\n     \u1f10\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2, \u1f15\u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bf\u1f36\u03bf\u03bd \u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\n     \u03b2\u03c1\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\u03bf\u03bd \u1f14\u03b8\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2. \u1f10\u03bb\u1fb6 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03ad\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u1f70\u03c2\n     \u1f41 \u03b8\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f30\u03ce\u03bd,\n\nalso Pindar, _Pyth._ iv. 281.\n\n[32:1] See Woodward in _B. S. A._ xiv, 83. Nikagoras won four\n(successive?) victories as \u03bc\u03b9\u03ba\u03ba\u03b9\u03c7\u03b9\u03b6\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2, \u03c0\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2, and \u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03b7\u03bd,\ni. e. from his tenth to fifteenth year. He would then at 14 or 15 become\nan _iran_. Plut. _Lyc._ 17 gives the age of an _iran_ as 20. This agrees\nwith the age of an \u1f14\u03c6\u03b7\u03b2\u03bf\u03c2 at Athens as '15-20', '14-21', 'about 16'; see\nauthorities in Stephanus s. v. \u1f14\u03c6\u03b7\u03b2\u03bf\u03c2. Such variations in the date of\n'puberty ceremonies' are common.\n\n[32:2] See _Rise of the Greek Epic_, Appendix on Hym. Dem.; and W. R.\nHalliday, _C. R._ xxv, 8. Nilsson's valuable article has appeared since\nthe above was written (see note 1, p. 31).\n\n[33:1] Anaximander apud Simplic. phys. 24, 13; Diels, _Fragmente der\nVorsokratiker_, i. 13. See especially F. M. Cornford, _From Religion to\nPhilosophy_ (Cambridge, 1912), i; also my article on English and Greek\nTragedy in _Essays of the Oxford English School_, 1912. This explanation\nof the \u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c9\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1 is my conjecture.\n\n[33:2] 1 Cor. xv. 36; Rom. vi. generally, 3-11.\n\n[34:1] _Il._ M. 326 f. \u03bc\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03b9, \u1f03\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f14\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c6\u03c5\u03b3\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd, \u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4' \u1f51\u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03cd\u03be\u03b1\u03b9.\n\n[34:2] Frg. Ap. Plut. _Consol. ad Apoll._ xxvi . . . \u1f45\u03c4\u03b9 \"\u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03b7 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03b3\u03b1\u1fd6\u03b1\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03b7 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\" \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \"\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03ac\u03b4\u03b5 \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u1f70 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03bc\u03c6\u03af \u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u1fc6\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2\n\u03b5\u1f30\u03bb\u03b5\u1fe6\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u1f74 \u03b4' \u03b5\u1f34\u03c3\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4' \u1f00\u03b8\u03ad\u03c1\u03b9\" (MS. \u03b1\u1f30\u03b8\u03ad\u03c1\u03b9).\n\n[35:1] Frazer, _Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship_, 267; F.\nCumont, 'Les Actes de S. Dasius', in _Analecta Bollandiana_, xvi. 5-16:\ncf. especially what St. Augustine says about the disreputable hordes of\nwould-be martyrs called _Circumcelliones_. See Index to Augustine, vol.\nxi in Migne: some passages collected in Seeck, _Gesch. d. Untergangs der\nantiken Welt_, vol. iii, Anhang, pp. 503 ff.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE OLYMPIAN CONQUEST\n\n\nI. _Origin of the Olympians_\n\nThe historian of early Greece must find himself often on the watch for a\nparticular cardinal moment, generally impossible to date in time and\nsometimes hard even to define in terms of development, when the clear\noutline that we call Classical Greece begins to take shape out of the\nmist. It is the moment when, as Herodotus puts it, 'the Hellenic race\nwas marked off from the barbarian, as more intelligent and more\nemancipated from silly nonsense'.[39:1] In the eighth century B. C., for\ninstance, so far as our remains indicate, there cannot have been much to\nshow that the inhabitants of Attica and Boeotia and the Peloponnese were\nmarkedly superior to those of, say, Lycia or Phrygia, or even Epirus. By\nthe middle of the fifth century the difference is enormous. On the one\nside is Hellas, on the other the motley tribes of 'barbaroi'.\n\nWhen the change does come and is consciously felt we may notice a\nsignificant fact about it. It does not announce itself as what it was, a\nnew thing in the world. It professes to be a revival, or rather an\nemphatic realization, of something very old. The new spirit of classical\nGreece, with all its humanity, its intellectual life, its genius for\npoetry and art, describes itself merely as being 'Hellenic'--like the\nHellenes. And the Hellenes were simply, as far as we can make out, much\nthe same as the Achaioi, one of the many tribes of predatory Northmen\nwho had swept down on the Aegean kingdoms in the dawn of Greek\nhistory.[40:1]\n\nThis claim of a new thing to be old is, in varying degrees, a common\ncharacteristic of great movements. The Reformation professed to be a\nreturn to the Bible, the Evangelical movement in England a return to the\nGospels, the High Church movement a return to the early Church. A large\nelement even in the French Revolution, the greatest of all breaches with\nthe past, had for its ideal a return to Roman republican virtue or to\nthe simplicity of the natural man.[40:2] I noticed quite lately a speech\nof an American Progressive leader claiming that his principles were\nsimply those of Abraham Lincoln. The tendency is due in part to the\nalmost insuperable difficulty of really inventing a new word to denote a\nnew thing. It is so much easier to take an existing word, especially a\nfamous word with fine associations, and twist it into a new sense. In\npart, no doubt, it comes from mankind's natural love for these old\nassociations, and the fact that nearly all people who are worth much\nhave in them some instinctive spirit of reverence. Even when striking\nout a new path they like to feel that they are following at least the\nspirit of one greater than themselves.\n\nThe Hellenism of the sixth and fifth centuries was to a great extent\nwhat the Hellenism of later ages was almost entirely, an ideal and a\nstandard of culture. The classical Greeks were not, strictly speaking,\npure Hellenes by blood. Herodotus, and Thucydides[41:1] are quite clear\nabout that. The original Hellenes were a particular conquering tribe of\ngreat prestige, which attracted the surrounding tribes to follow it,\nimitate it, and call themselves by its name. The Spartans were, to\nHerodotus, Hellenic; the Athenians on the other hand were not. They were\nPelasgian, but by a certain time 'changed into Hellenes and learnt the\nlanguage'. In historical times we cannot really find any tribe of pure\nHellenes in existence, though the name clings faintly to a particular\ndistrict, not otherwise important, in South Thessaly. Had there been any\nundoubted Hellenes with incontrovertible pedigrees still going, very\nlikely the ideal would have taken quite a different name. But where no\none's ancestry would bear much inspection, the only way to show you were\na true Hellene was to behave as such: that is, to approximate to some\nconstantly rising ideal of what the true Hellene should be. In all\nprobability if a Greek of the fifth century, like Aeschylus or even\nPindar, had met a group of the real Hellenes or Achaioi of the\nMigrations, he would have set them down as so many obvious and flaming\nbarbarians.\n\nWe do not know whether the old Hellenes had any general word to denote\nthe surrounding peoples ('Pelasgians and divers other barbarous\ntribes'[42:1]) whom they conquered or accepted as allies.[42:2] In any\ncase by the time of the Persian Wars (say 500 B. C.) all these tribes\ntogether considered themselves Hellenized, bore the name of 'Hellenes',\nand formed a kind of unity against hordes of 'barbaroi' surrounding them\non every side and threatening them especially from the east.\n\nLet us consider for a moment the dates. In political history this\nself-realization of the Greek tribes as Hellenes against barbarians\nseems to have been first felt in the Ionian settlements on the coast of\nAsia Minor, where the 'sons of Javan' (Yawan = \u1f38\u03ac\u03c9\u03bd) clashed as\ninvaders against the native Hittite and Semite. It was emphasized by a\nsimilar clash in the further colonies in Pontus and in the West. If we\nwish for a central moment as representing this self-realization of\nGreece, I should be inclined to find it in the reign of Pisistratus\n(560-527 B. C.) when that monarch made, as it were, the first sketch of\nan Athenian empire based on alliances and took over to Athens the\nleadership of the Ionian race.\n\nIn literature the decisive moment is clear. It came when, in Mr.\nMackail's phrase, 'Homer came to Hellas'.[42:3] The date is apparently\nthe same, and the influences at work are the same. It seems to have\nbeen under Pisistratus that the Homeric Poems, in some form or other,\ncame from Ionia to be recited in a fixed order at the Panathenaic\nFestival, and to find a canonical form and a central home in Athens till\nthe end of the classical period. Athens is the centre from which Homeric\ninfluence radiates over the mainland of Greece. Its effect upon\nliterature was of course enormous. It can be traced in various ways. By\nthe content of the literature, which now begins to be filled with the\nheroic saga. By a change of style which emerges in, say, Pindar and\nAeschylus when compared with what we know of Corinna or Thespis. More\nobjectively and definitely it can be traced in a remarkable change of\ndialect. The old Attic poets, like Solon, were comparatively little\naffected by the epic influence; the later elegists, like Ion, Euenus,\nand Plato, were steeped in it.[43:1]\n\nIn religion the cardinal moment is the same. It consists in the coming\nof Homer's 'Olympian Gods', and that is to be the subject of the present\nessay. I am not, of course, going to describe the cults and characters\nof the various Olympians. For that inquiry the reader will naturally go\nto the five learned volumes of my colleague, Dr. Farnell. I wish merely\nto face certain difficult and, I think, hitherto unsolved problems\naffecting the meaning and origin and history of the Olympians as a\nwhole.\n\nHerodotus in a famous passage tells us that Homer and Hesiod 'made the\ngenerations of the Gods for the Greeks and gave them their names and\ndistinguished their offices and crafts and portrayed their shapes' (2.\n53). The date of this wholesale proceeding was, he thinks, perhaps as\nmuch as four hundred years before his own day (_c._ 430 B. C.) but not\nmore. Before that time the Pelasgians--i. e. the primitive inhabitants\nof Greece as opposed to the Hellenes--were worshipping gods in\nindefinite numbers, with no particular names; many of them appear as\nfigures carved emblematically with sex-emblems to represent the powers\nof fertility and generation, like the Athenian 'Herms'. The whole\naccount bristles with points for discussion, but in general it suits\nvery well with the picture drawn in the first of these essays, with its\nEarth Maidens and Mothers and its projected Kouroi. The background is\nthe pre-Hellenic 'Urdummheit'; the new shape impressed upon it is the\ngreat anthropomorphic Olympian family, as defined in the Homeric epos\nand, more timidly, in Hesiod. But of Hesiod we must speak later.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow who are these Olympian Gods and where do they come from? Homer did\nnot 'make' them out of nothing. But the understanding of them is beset\nwith problems.\n\nIn the first place why are they called 'Olympian'? Are they the Gods of\nMount Olympus, the old sacred mountain of Homer's Achaioi, or do they\nbelong to the great sanctuary of Olympia in which Zeus, the lord of the\nOlympians, had his greatest festival? The two are at opposite ends of\nGreece, Olympus in North Thessaly in the north-east, Olympia in Elis in\nthe south-west. From which do the Olympians come? On the one hand it is\nclear in Homer that they dwell on Mount Olympus; they have 'Olympian\nhouses' beyond human sight, on the top of the sacred mountain, which in\nthe _Odyssey_ is identified with heaven. On the other hand, when\nPisistratus introduced the worship of Olympian Zeus on a great scale\ninto Athens and built the Olympieum, he seems to have brought him\nstraight from Olympia in Elis. For he introduced the special Elean\ncomplex of gods, Zeus, Rhea, Kronos, and G\u00ea Olympia.[45:1]\n\nFortunately this puzzle can be solved. The Olympians belong to both\nplaces. It is merely a case of tribal migration. History, confirmed by\nthe study of the Greek dialects, seems to show that these northern\nAchaioi came down across central Greece and the Gulf of Corinth and\nsettled in Elis.[45:2] They brought with them their Zeus, who was\nalready called 'Olympian', and established him as superior to the\nexisting god, Kronos. The Games became Olympian and the sanctuary by\nwhich they were performed 'Olympia'.[45:3]\n\nAs soon as this point is clear, we understand also why there is more\nthan one Mount Olympus. We can all think of two, one in Thessaly and one\nacross the Aegean in Mysia. But there are many more; some twenty-odd, if\nI mistake not, in the whole Greek region. It is a pre-Greek word applied\nto mountains; and it seems clear that the 'Olympian' gods, wherever\ntheir worshippers moved, tended to dwell in the highest mountain in the\nneighbourhood, and the mountain thereby became Olympus.\n\nThe name, then, explains itself. The Olympians are the mountain gods of\nthe old invading Northmen, the chieftains and princes, each with his\n_comitatus_ or loose following of retainers and minor chieftains, who\nbroke in upon the ordered splendours of the Aegean palaces and, still\nmore important, on the ordered simplicity of tribal life in the\npre-Hellenic villages of the mainland. Now, it is a canon of religious\nstudy that all gods reflect the social state, past or present, of their\nworshippers. From this point of view what appearance do the Olympians of\nHomer make? What are they there for? What do they do, and what are their\nrelations one to another?\n\nThe gods of most nations claim to have created the world. The Olympians\nmake no such claim. The most they ever did was to conquer it. Zeus and\nhis _comitatus_ conquered Cronos and his; conquered and expelled\nthem--sent them migrating beyond the horizon, Heaven knows where. Zeus\ntook the chief dominion and remained a permanent overlord, but he\napportioned large kingdoms to his brothers Hades and Poseidon, and\nconfirmed various of his children and followers in lesser fiefs. Apollo\nwent off on his own adventure and conquered Delphi. Athena conquered the\nGiants. She gained Athens by a conquest over Poseidon, a point of which\nwe will speak later.\n\nAnd when they have conquered their kingdoms, what do they do? Do they\nattend to the government? Do they promote agriculture? Do they practise\ntrades and industries? Not a bit of it. Why should they do any honest\nwork? They find it easier to live on the revenues and blast with\nthunderbolts the people who do not pay. They are conquering chieftains,\nroyal buccaneers. They fight, and feast, and play, and make music; they\ndrink deep, and roar with laughter at the lame smith who waits on them.\nThey are never afraid, except of their own king. They never tell lies,\nexcept in love and war.\n\nA few deductions may be from this statement, but they do not affect its\nmain significance. One god, you may say, Hephaistos, is definitely a\ncraftsman. Yes: a smith, a maker of weapons. The one craftsman that a\ngang of warriors needed to have by them; and they preferred him lame, so\nthat he should not run away. Again, Apollo herded for hire the cattle of\nAdmetus; Apollo and Poseidon built the walls of Troy for Laomedon.\nCertainly in such stories we have an intrusion of other elements; but in\nany case the work done is not habitual work, it is a special punishment.\nAgain, it is not denied that the Olympians have some effect on\nagriculture and on justice: they destroy the harvests of those who\noffend them, they punish oath-breakers and the like. Even in the Heroic\nAge itself--if we may adopt Mr. Chadwick's convenient title for the Age\nof the Migrations--chieftains and gods probably retained some vestiges\nof the functions they had exercised in more normal and settled times;\nand besides we must always realize that, in these inquiries, we never\nmeet a simple and uniform figure. We must further remember that these\ngods are not real people with a real character. They never existed. They\nare only concepts, exceedingly confused cloudy and changing concepts, in\nthe minds of thousands of diverse worshippers and non-worshippers. They\nchange every time they are thought of, as a word changes every time it\nis pronounced. Even in the height of the Achaean wars the concept of any\none god would be mixed up with traditions and associations drawn from\nthe surrounding populations and their gods; and by the time they come\ndown to us in Homer and our other early literature, they have passed\nthrough the minds of many different ages and places, especially Ionia\nand Athens.\n\nThe Olympians as described in our text of Homer, or as described in the\nAthenian recitations of the sixth century, are _mutatis mutandis_\nrelated to the Olympians of the Heroic Age much as the Hellenes of the\nsixth century are to the Hellenes of the Heroic Age. I say '_mutatis\nmutandis_', because the historical development of a group of imaginary\nconcepts shrined in tradition and romance can never be quite the same as\nthat of the people who conceive them. The realm of fiction is apt both\nto leap in front and to lag in the rear of the march of real life.\nRomance will hug picturesque darknesses as well as invent perfections.\nBut the gods of Homer, as we have them, certainly seem to show traces\nof the process through which they have passed: of an origin among the\nold conquering Achaioi, a development in the Ionian epic schools, and a\nfinal home in Athens.[49:1]\n\nFor example, what gods are chiefly prominent in Homer? In the _Iliad_\ncertainly three, Zeus, Apollo, and Athena, and much the same would hold\nfor the _Odyssey_. Next to them in importance will be Poseidon, Hera,\nand Hermes.\n\nZeus stands somewhat apart. He is one of the very few gods with\nrecognizable and undoubted Indo-germanic names, Dj\u00ebus, the well-attested\nsky- and rain-god of the Aryan race. He is Achaian; he is 'Hellanios',\nthe god worshipped by all Hellenes. He is also, curiously enough,\nPelasgian, and Mr. A. B. Cook[49:2] can explain to us the seeming\ncontradiction. But the Northern elements in the conception of Zeus have\non the whole triumphed over any Pelasgian or Aegean sky-god with which\nthey may have mingled, and Zeus, in spite of his dark hair, may be\nmainly treated as the patriarchal god of the invading Northmen, passing\nfrom the Upper Danube down by his three great sanctuaries, Dodona,\nOlympus, and Olympia. He had an extraordinary power of ousting or\nabsorbing the various objects of aboriginal worship which he found in\nhis path. The story of Meilichios above (p. 14) is a common one. Of\ncourse, we must not suppose that the Zeus of the actual Achaioi was a\nfigure quite like the Zeus of Pheidias or of Homer. There has been a\ngood deal of expurgation in the Homeric Zeus,[50:1] as Mr. Cook clearly\nshows. The Counsellor and Cloud-compeller of classical Athens was the\nwizard and rainmaker of earlier times; and the All-Father surprises us\nin Thera and Crete by appearing both as a babe and as a Kouros in spring\ndances and initiation rituals.[50:2] It is a long way from these\nconceptions to the Zeus of Aeschylus, a figure as sublime as the Jehovah\nof Job; but the lineage seems clear.\n\nZeus is the Achaean Sky-god. His son Phoebus Apollo is of more complex\nmake. On one side he is clearly a Northman. He has connexions with the\nHyperboreans.[50:3] He has a 'sacred road' leading far into the North,\nalong which offerings are sent back from shrine to shrine beyond the\nbounds of Greek knowledge. Such 'sacred roads' are normally the roads by\nwhich the God himself has travelled; the offerings are sent back from\nthe new sanctuary to the old. On the other side Apollo reaches back to\nan Aegean matriarchal Kouros. His home is Delos, where he has a mother,\nLeto, but no very visible father. He leads the ships of his islanders,\nsometimes in the form of a dolphin. He is no 'Hellene'. In the fighting\nat Troy he is against the Achaioi: he destroys the Greek host, he\nchampions Hector, he even slays Achilles. In the Homeric hymn to Apollo\nwe read that when the great archer draws near to Olympus all the gods\ntremble and start from their seats; Leto alone, and of course Zeus, hold\ntheir ground.[51:1] What this god's original name was at Delos we cannot\nbe sure: he has very many names and 'epithets'. But he early became\nidentified with a similar god at Delphi and adopted his name, 'Apoll\u00f4n',\nor, in the Delphic and Dorian form, 'Apell\u00f4n'--presumably the Kouros\nprojected from the Dorian gatherings called '_apellae_'.[51:2] As\nPhoibos he is a sun-god, and from classical times onward we often find\nhim definitely identified with the Sun, a distinction which came easily\nto a Kouros.\n\nIn any case, and this is the important point, he is at Delos the chief\ngod of the Ionians. The Ionians are defined by Herodotus as those tribes\nand cities who were sprung from Athens and kept the Apaturia. They\nrecognized Delos as their holy place and worshipped Apollo Patr\u00f4os as\ntheir ancestor.[51:3] The Ionian Homer has naturally brought us the\nIonian god; and, significantly enough, though the tradition makes him an\nenemy of the Greeks, and the poets have to accept the tradition, there\nis no tendency to crab or belittle him. He is the most splendid and\nawful of Homer's Olympians.\n\nThe case of Pallas Athena is even simpler, though it leads to a\nsomewhat surprising result. What Apollo is to Ionia that, and more,\nAthena is to Athens. There are doubtless foreign elements in Athena,\nsome Cretan and Ionian, some Northern.[52:1] But her whole appearance in\nhistory and literature tells the same story as her name. Athens is her\ncity and she is the goddess of Athens, the Athena or Athenaia Kor\u00ea. In\nAthens she can be simply 'Parthenos', the Maiden; elsewhere she is the\n'Attic' or 'Athenian Maiden'. As Glaucopis she is identified or\nassociated with the Owl that was the sacred bird of Athens. As Pallas\nshe seems to be a Thunder-maiden, a sort of Keraunia or bride of\nKeraunos. A Palladion consists of two thunder-shields, set one above the\nother like a figure 8, and we can trace in art-types the development of\nthis 8 into a human figure. It seems clear that the old Achaioi cannot\nhave called their warrior-maiden, daughter of Zeus, by the name Athena\nor Athenaia. The Athenian goddess must have come in from Athenian\ninfluence, and it is strange to find how deep into the heart of the\npoems that influence must have reached. If we try to conjecture whose\nplace it is that Athena has taken, it is worth remarking that her\nregular epithet, 'daughter of Zeus', belongs in Sanskrit to the\nDawn-goddess, E\u00f4s.[52:2] The transition might be helped by some touches\nof the Dawn-goddess that seem to linger about Athena in myth. The rising\nSun stayed his horses while Athena was born from the head of Zeus. Also\nshe was born amid a snowstorm of gold. And E\u00f4s, on the other hand, is,\nlike Athena, sometimes the daughter of the Giant Pallas.[53:1]\n\nOur three chief Olympians, then, explain themselves very easily. A body\nof poetry and tradition, in its origin dating from the Achaioi of the\nMigrations, growing for centuries in the hands of Ionian bards, and\nreaching its culminating form at Athens, has prominent in it the Achaian\nZeus, the Ionian Apollo, the Athenian Kor\u00ea--the same Kor\u00ea who descended\nin person to restore the exiled Pisistratus to his throne.[53:2]\n\nWe need only throw a glance in passing at a few of the other Olympians.\nWhy, for instance, should Poseidon be so prominent? In origin he is a\npuzzling figure. Besides the Achaean Earth-shaking brother of Zeus in\nThessaly there seems to be some Pelasgian or Aegean god present in him.\nHe is closely connected with Libya; he brings the horse from\nthere.[54:1] At times he exists in order to be defeated; defeated in\nAthens by Athena, in Naxos by Dionysus, in Aegina by Zeus, in Argos by\nHera, in Acrocorinth by Helios though he continues to hold the Isthmus.\nIn Trozen he shares a temple on more or less equal terms with\nAthena.[54:2] Even in Troy he is defeated and cast out from the walls\nhis own hands had built.[54:3] These problems we need not for the\npresent face. By the time that concerns us most the Earth-Shaker is a\nsea-god, specially important to the sea-peoples of Athens and Ionia. He\nis the father of Neleus, the ancestor of the Ionian kings. His temple at\nCape Mykale is the scene of the Panionia, and second only to Delos as a\nreligious centre of the Ionian tribes. He has intimate relations with\nAttica too. Besides the ancient contest with Athena for the possession\nof the land, he appears as the father of Theseus, the chief Athenian\nhero. He is merged in other Attic heroes, like Aigeus and Erechtheus. He\nis the special patron of the Athenian knights. Thus his prominence in\nHomer is very natural.\n\nWhat of Hermes? His history deserves a long monograph to itself; it is\nso exceptionally instructive. Originally, outside Homer, Hermes was\nsimply an old upright stone, a pillar furnished with the regular\nPelasgian sex-symbol of procreation. Set up over a tomb he is the power\nthat generates new lives, or, in the ancient conception, brings the\nsouls back to be born again. He is the Guide of the Dead, the\nPsychopompos, the divine Herald between the two worlds. If you have a\nmessage for the dead, you speak it to the Herm at the grave. This notion\nof Hermes as herald may have been helped by his use as a\nboundary-stone--the Latin _Terminus_. Your boundary-stone is your\nrepresentative, the deliverer of your message, to the hostile neighbour\nor alien. If you wish to parley with him, you advance up to your\nboundary-stone. If you go, as a Herald, peacefully, into his territory,\nyou place yourself under the protection of the same sacred stone, the\nlast sign that remains of your own safe country. If you are killed or\nwronged, it is he, the immovable Watcher, who will avenge you.\n\nNow this phallic stone post was quite unsuitable to Homer. It was not\ndecent; it was not quite human; and every personage in Homer has to be\nboth. In the _Iliad_ Hermes is simply removed, and a beautiful creation\nor tradition, Iris, the rainbow-goddess, takes his place as the\nmessenger from heaven to earth. In the _Odyssey_ he is admitted, but so\nchanged and castigated that no one would recognize the old Herm in the\nbeautiful and gracious youth who performs the gods' messages. I can only\ndetect in his language one possible trace of his old Pelasgian\ncharacter.[56:1]\n\nPausanias knew who worked the transformation. In speaking of Hermes\namong the other 'Workers', who were 'pillars in square form', he says,\n'As to Hermes, the poems of Homer have given currency to the report that\nhe is a servant of Zeus and leads down the spirits of the departed to\nHades'.[56:2] In the magic papyri Hermes returns to something of his old\nfunctions; he is scarcely to be distinguished from the Agathos Daimon.\nBut thanks to Homer he is purified of his old phallicism.\n\nHera, too, the wife of Zeus, seems to have a curious past behind her.\nShe has certainly ousted the original wife, Dione, whose worship\ncontinued unchallenged in far Dodona, from times before Zeus descended\nupon Greek lands. When he invaded Thessaly he seems to have left Dione\nbehind and wedded the Queen of the conquered territory. Hera's permanent\nepithet is 'Argeia', 'Argive'. She is the Argive Kor\u00ea or Year-Maiden, as\nAthena is the Attic, Cypris the Cyprian. But Argos in Homer denotes two\ndifferent places, a watered plain in the Peloponnese and a watered plain\nin Thessaly. Hera was certainly the chief goddess of Peloponnesian Argos\nin historic times, and had brought her consort Herakles[56:3] along with\nher, but at one time she seems to have belonged to the Thessalian Argos.\n\nShe helped Thessalian Jason to launch the ship _Argo_, and they\nlaunched it from Thessalian Pagasae. In the Argonautica she is a\nbeautiful figure, gracious and strong, the lovely patroness of the young\nhero. No element of strife is haunting her. But in the _Iliad_ for some\nreason she is unpopular. She is a shrew, a scold, and a jealous wife.\nWhy? Miss Harrison suggests that the quarrel with Zeus dates from the\ntime of the invasion, when he was the conquering alien and she the\nnative queen of the land.[57:1] It may be, too, that the Ionian poets\nwho respected their own Apollo and Athena and Poseidon, regarded Hera as\nrepresenting some race or tribe that they disliked. A goddess of Dorian\nArgos might be as disagreeable as a Dorian. It seems to be for some\nreason like this that Aphrodite, identified with Cyprus or some centre\namong Oriental barbarians, is handled with so much disrespect; that\nAres, the Thracian Kouros, a Sun-god and War-god, is treated as a mere\nbully and coward and general pest.[57:2]\n\nThere is not much faith in these gods, as they appear to us in the\nHomeric Poems, and not much respect, except perhaps for Apollo and\nAthena and Poseidon. The buccaneer kings of the Heroic Age, cut loose\nfrom all local and tribal pieties, intent only on personal gain and\nglory, were not the people to build up a powerful religious faith. They\nleft that, as they left agriculture and handiwork, to the nameless\ncommon folk.[57:3] And it was not likely that the bards of cultivated\nand scientific Ionia should waste much religious emotion on a system\nwhich was clearly meant more for romance than for the guiding of life.\n\nYet the power of romance is great. In the memory of Greece the kings and\ngods of the Heroic Age were transfigured. What had been really an age of\nbuccaneering violence became in memory an age of chivalry and splendid\nadventure. The traits that were at all tolerable were idealized; those\nthat were intolerable were either expurgated, or, if that was\nimpossible, were mysticized and explained away. And the savage old\nOlympians became to Athens and the mainland of Greece from the sixth\ncentury onward emblems of high humanity and religious reform.\n\n\nII. _The Religious Value of the Olympians_\n\nNow to some people this statement may seem a wilful paradox, yet I\nbelieve it to be true. The Olympian religion, radiating from Homer at\nthe Panathenaea, produced what I will venture to call exactly a\nreligious reformation. Let us consider how, with all its flaws and\nfalsehoods, it was fitted to attempt such a work.\n\nIn the first place the Poems represent an Achaian tradition, the\ntradition of a Northern conquering race, organized on a patriarchal\nmonogamous system vehemently distinct from the matrilinear customs of\nthe Aegean or Hittite races, with their polygamy and polyandry, their\nagricultural rites, their sex-emblems and fertility goddesses. Contrast\nfor a moment the sort of sexless Valkyrie who appears in the _Iliad_\nunder the name of Athena with the Kor\u00ea of Ephesus, strangely called\nArtemis, a shapeless fertility figure, covered with innumerable\nbreasts. That suggests the contrast that I mean.\n\nSecondly, the poems are by tradition aristocratic; they are the\nliterature of chieftains, alien to low popular superstition. True, the\npoems as we have them are not Court poems. That error ought not to be so\noften repeated. As we have them they are poems recited at a Panegyris,\nor public festival. But they go back in ultimate origin to something\nlike lays sung in a royal hall. And the contrast between the Homeric\ngods and the gods found outside Homer is well compared by Mr.\nChadwick[59:1] to the difference between the gods of the Edda and the\nhistorical traces of religion outside the Edda. The gods who feast with\nOdin in Asgard, forming an organized community or _comitatus_, seem to\nbe the gods of the kings, distinct from the gods of the peasants,\ncleaner and more warlike and lordlier, though in actual religious\nquality much less vital.\n\nThirdly, the poems in their main stages are Ionian, and Ionia was for\nmany reasons calculated to lead the forward movement against the\n'Urdummheit'. For one thing, Ionia reinforced the old Heroic tradition,\nin having much the same inward freedom. The Ionians are the descendants\nof those who fled from the invaders across the sea, leaving their homes,\ntribes, and tribal traditions. Wilamowitz has well remarked how the\nimagination of the Greek mainland is dominated by the gigantic\nsepulchres of unknown kings, which the fugitives to Asia had left behind\nthem and half forgotten.[59:2]\n\nAgain, when the Ionians settled on the Asiatic coasts they were no\ndoubt to some extent influenced, but they were far more repelled by the\nbarbaric tribes of the interior. They became conscious, as we have said,\nof something that was Hellenic, as distinct from something else that was\nbarbaric, and the Hellenic part of them vehemently rejected what struck\nthem as superstitious, cruel, or unclean. And lastly, we must remember\nthat Ionia was, before the rise of Athens, not only the most imaginative\nand intellectual part of Greece, but by far the most advanced in\nknowledge and culture. The Homeric religion is a step in the\nself-realization of Greece, and such self-realization naturally took its\nrise in Ionia.\n\nGranted, then, that Homer was calculated to produce a kind of religious\nreformation in Greece, what kind of reformation was it? We are again\nreminded of St. Paul. It was a move away from the 'beggarly elements'\ntowards some imagined person behind them. The world was conceived as\nneither quite without external governance, nor as merely subject to the\nincursions of _mana_ snakes and bulls and thunder-stones and monsters,\nbut as governed by an organized body of personal and reasoning rulers,\nwise and bountiful fathers, like man in mind and shape, only unspeakably\nhigher.\n\nFor a type of this Olympian spirit we may take a phenomenon that has\nperhaps sometimes wearied us: the reiterated insistence in the reliefs\nof the best period on the strife of men against centaurs or of gods\nagainst giants. Our modern sympathies are apt to side with the giants\nand centaurs. An age of order likes romantic violence, as landsmen safe\nin their houses like storms at sea. But to the Greek, this battle was\nfull of symbolical meaning. It is the strife, the ultimate victory, of\nhuman intelligence, reason, and gentleness, against what seems at first\nthe overwhelming power of passion and unguided strength. It is Hellas\nagainst the brute world.[61:1]\n\nThe victory of Hellenism over barbarism, of man over beast: that was the\naim, but was it ever accomplished? The Olympian gods as we see them in\nart appear so calm, so perfect, so far removed from the atmosphere of\nacknowledged imperfection and spiritual striving, that what I am now\nabout to say may again seem a deliberate paradox. It is nevertheless\ntrue that the Olympian Religion is only to the full intelligible and\nadmirable if we realize it as a superb and baffled endeavour, not a\n_telos_ or completion but a movement and effort of life.\n\nWe may analyse the movement into three main elements: a moral\nexpurgation of the old rites, an attempt to bring order into the old\nchaos, and lastly an adaptation to new social needs. We will take the\nthree in order.\n\nIn the first place, it gradually swept out of religion, or at least\ncovered with a decent veil, that great mass of rites which was concerned\nwith the Food-supply and the Tribe-supply and aimed at direct\nstimulation of generative processes.[62:1] It left only a few reverent\nand mystic rituals, a few licensed outbursts of riotous indecency in\ncomedy and the agricultural festivals. It swept away what seems to us a\nthing less dangerous, a large part of the worship of the dead. Such\nworship, our evidence shows us, gave a loose rein to superstition. To\nthe Olympian movement it was vulgar, it was semi-barbarous, it was often\nbloody. We find that it has almost disappeared from Homeric Athens at a\ntime when the monuments show it still flourishing in un-Homeric Sparta.\nThe Olympian movement swept away also, at least for two splendid\ncenturies, the worship of the man-god, with its diseased atmosphere of\nmegalomania and blood-lust.[62:2] These things return with the fall of\nHellenism; but the great period, as it urges man to use all his powers\nof thought, of daring and endurance, of social organization, so it bids\nhim remember that he is a man like other men, subject to the same laws\nand bound to reckon with the same death.\n\nSo much for the moral expurgation: next for the bringing of intellectual\norder. To parody the words of Anaxagoras, 'In the early religion all\nthings were together, till the Homeric system came and arranged them'.\n\nWe constantly find in the Greek pantheon beings who can be described as\n\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u1f74 \u03bc\u1f34\u03b1, 'one form of many names'. Each tribe, each\nlittle community, sometimes one may almost say each caste--the Children\nof the Bards, the Children of the Potters--had its own special gods. Now\nas soon as there was any general 'Sunoikismos' or 'Settling-together',\nany effective surmounting of the narrowest local barriers, these\ninnumerable gods tended to melt into one another. Under different\nhistorical circumstances this process might have been carried resolutely\nthrough and produced an intelligible pantheon in which each god had his\nproper function and there was no overlapping--one Kor\u00ea, one Kouros, one\nSun-God, and so on. But in Greece that was impossible. Imaginations had\nbeen too vivid, and local types had too often become clearly personified\nand differentiated. The Maiden of Athens, Athena, did no doubt absorb\nsome other Korai, but she could not possibly combine with her of Cyth\u00eara\nor Cyprus, or Ephesus, nor with the Argive Kor\u00ea or the Delian or the\nBrauronian. What happened was that the infinite cloud of Maidens was\ngreatly reduced and fell into four or five main types. The Korai of\nCyprus, Cyth\u00eara, Corinth, Eryx, and some other places were felt to be\none, and became absorbed in the great figure of Aphrodite. Artemis\nabsorbed a quantity more, including those of Delos and Brauron, of\nvarious parts of Arcadia and Sparta, and even, as we saw, the fertility\nKor\u00ea of Ephesus. Doubtless she and the Delian were originally much\ncloser together, but the Delian differentiated towards ideal virginity,\nthe Ephesian towards ideal fruitfulness. The Kouroi, or Youths, in the\nsame way were absorbed into some half-dozen great mythological shapes,\nApollo, Ares, Hermes, Dionysus, and the like.\n\nAs so often in Greek development, we are brought up against the immense\nformative power of fiction or romance. The simple Kor\u00ea or Kouros was a\nfigure of indistinct outline with no history or personality. Like the\nRoman functional gods, such beings were hardly persons; they melted\neasily one into another. But when the Greek imagination had once done\nits work upon them, a figure like Athena or Aphrodite had become, for\nall practical purposes, a definite person, almost as definite as\nAchilles or Odysseus, as Macbeth or Falstaff. They crystallize hard.\nThey will no longer melt or blend, at least not at an ordinary\ntemperature. In the fourth and third centuries we hear a great deal\nabout the gods all being one, 'Zeus the same as Hades, Hades as Helios,\nHelios the same as Dionysus',[64:1] but the amalgamation only takes\nplace in the white heat of ecstatic philosophy or the rites of religious\nmysticism.\n\nThe best document preserved to us of this attempt to bring order into\nChaos is the poetry of Hesiod. There are three poems, all devoted to\nthis object, composed perhaps under the influence of Delphi and\ncertainly under that of Homer, and trying in a quasi-Homeric dialect and\nunder a quasi-Olympian system to bring together vast masses of ancient\ntheology and folk-lore and scattered tradition. The _Theogony_ attempts\nto make a pedigree and hierarchy of the Gods; _The Catalogue of Women_\nand the _Eoiai_, preserved only in scanty fragments, attempt to fix in\ncanonical form the cloudy mixture of dreams and boasts and legends and\nhypotheses by which most royal families in central Greece recorded their\ndescent from a traditional ancestress and a conjectural God. The _Works\nand Days_ form an attempt to collect and arrange the rules and tabus\nrelating to agriculture. The work of Hesiod as a whole is one of the\nmost valiant failures in literature. The confusion and absurdity of it\nare only equalled by its strange helpless beauty and its extraordinary\nhistorical interest. The Hesiodic system when compared with that of\nHomer is much more explicit, much less expurgated, infinitely less\naccomplished and tactful. At the back of Homer lay the lordly\nwarrior-gods of the Heroic Age, at the back of Hesiod the crude and\ntangled superstitions of the peasantry of the mainland. Also the\nHesiodic poets worked in a comparatively backward and unenlightened\natmosphere, the Homeric were exposed to the full light of Athens.\n\nThe third element in this Homeric reformation is an attempt to make\nreligion satisfy the needs of a new social order. The earliest Greek\nreligion was clearly based on the tribe, a band of people, all in some\nsense kindred and normally living together, people with the same\ncustoms, ancestors, initiations, flocks and herds and fields. This\ntribal and agricultural religion can hardly have maintained itself\nunchanged at the great Aegean centres, like Cnossus and Mycenae.[65:1]\nIt certainly did not maintain itself among the marauding chiefs of the\nheroic age. It bowed its head beneath the sceptre of its own divine\nkings and the armed heel of its northern invaders, only to appear again\nalmost undamaged and unimproved when the kings were fallen and the\ninvaders sunk into the soil like storms of destructive rain.\n\nBut it no longer suited its environment. In the age of the migrations\nthe tribes had been broken, scattered, re-mixed. They had almost ceased\nto exist as important social entities. The social unit which had taken\ntheir place was the political community of men, of whatever tribe or\ntribes, who were held together in times of danger and constant war by\nmeans of a common circuit-wall, a Polis.[66:1] The idea of the tribe\nremained. In the earliest classical period we find every Greek city\nstill nominally composed of tribes, but the tribes are fictitious. The\nearly city-makers could still only conceive of society on a tribal\nbasis. Every local or accidental congregation of people who wish to act\ntogether have to invent an imaginary common ancestor. The clash between\nthe old tribal traditions that have lost their meaning, though not their\nsanctity, and the new duties imposed by the actual needs of the Polis,\nleads to many strange and interesting compromises. The famous\nconstitution of Cleisthenes shows several. An old proverb expresses well\nthe ordinary feeling on the subject:\n\n     \u1f65\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b5 \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9\u03c2 \u1fe5\u03ad\u03be\u03b5\u03b9\u03b5, \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b4' \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03b1\u1fd6\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f05\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2.\n\n     'Whatever the City may do; but the old custom is the best.'\n\nNow in the contest between city and tribe, the Olympian gods had one\ngreat negative advantage. They were not tribal or local, and all other\ngods were. They were by this time international, with no strong roots\nanywhere except where one of them could be identified with some native\ngod; they were full of fame and beauty and prestige. They were ready to\nbe made 'Poliouchoi', 'City-holders', of any particular city, still more\nready to be 'Hell\u00e2nioi', patrons of all Hellas.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the working out of these three aims the Olympian religion achieved\nmuch: in all three it failed. The moral expurgation failed owing to the\nmere force of inertia possessed by old religious traditions and local\ncults. We must remember how weak any central government was in ancient\ncivilization. The power and influence of a highly civilized society were\napt to end a few miles outside its city wall. All through the backward\nparts of Greece obscene and cruel rites lingered on, the darker and\nworse the further they were removed from the full light of Hellenism.\n\nBut in this respect the Olympian Religion did not merely fail: it did\nworse. To make the elements of a nature-religion human is inevitably to\nmake them vicious. There is no great moral harm in worshipping a\nthunder-storm, even though the lightning strikes the good and evil quite\nrecklessly. There is no need to pretend that the Lightning is exercising\na wise and righteous choice. But when once you worship an imaginary\nquasi-human being who throws the lightning, you are in a dilemma. Either\nyou have to admit that you are worshipping and flattering a being with\nno moral sense, because he happens to be dangerous, or else you have to\ninvent reasons for his wrath against the people who happen to be struck.\nAnd they are pretty sure to be bad reasons. The god, if personal,\nbecomes capricious and cruel.\n\nWhen the Ark of Israel was being brought back from the Philistines, the\ncattle slipped by the threshing floor of Nachon, and the holy object was\nin danger of falling. A certain Uzzah, as we all know, sprang forward to\nsave it and was struck dead for his pains. Now, if he was struck dead by\nthe sheer holiness of the tabu object, the holiness stored inside it\nlike so much electricity, his death was a misfortune, an interesting\naccident, and no more.[68:1] But when it is made into the deliberate act\nof an anthropomorphic god, who strikes a well-intentioned man dead in\nexplosive rage for a very pardonable mistake, a dangerous element has\nbeen introduced into the ethics of that religion. A being who is the\nmoral equal of man must not behave like a charge of dynamite.\n\nAgain, to worship emblems of fertility and generation, as was done in\nagricultural rites all through the Aegean area, is in itself an\nintelligible and not necessarily a degrading practice. But when those\nemblems are somehow humanized, and the result is an anthropomorphic god\nof enormous procreative power and innumerable amours, a religion so\nmodified has received a death-blow. The step that was meant to soften\nits grossness has resulted in its moral degradation. This result was\nintensified by another well-meant effort at elevation. The leading\ntribes of central Greece were, as we have mentioned, apt to count their\ndescent from some heroine-ancestress. Her consort was sometimes unknown\nand, in a matrilinear society, unimportant. Sometimes he was a local god\nor river. When the Olympians came to introduce some order and unity\namong these innumerable local gods, the original tribal ancestor tended,\nnaturally enough, to be identified with Zeus, Apollo, or Poseidon. The\nunfortunate Olympians, whose system really aimed at purer morals and\ncondemned polygamy and polyandry, are left with a crowd of consorts that\nwould put Solomon to shame.\n\nThus a failure in the moral expurgation was deepened by a failure in the\nattempt to bring intellectual order into the welter of primitive gods.\nThe only satisfactory end of that effort would have been monotheism. If\nZeus had only gone further and become completely, once and for all, the\nfather of all life, the scandalous stories would have lost their point\nand meaning. It is curious how near to monotheism, and to monotheism of\na very profound and impersonal type, the real religion of Greece came in\nthe sixth and fifth centuries. Many of the philosophers, Xenophanes,\nParmenides, and others, asserted it clearly or assumed it without\nhesitation. Aeschylus, Euripides, Plato, in their deeper moments point\nthe same road. Indeed a metaphysician might hold that their theology is\nfar deeper than that to which we are accustomed, since they seem not to\nmake any particular difference between \u03bf\u1f31 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af and \u1f41 \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 or \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd.\nThey do not instinctively suppose that the human distinctions between\n'he' and 'it', or between 'one' and 'many', apply to the divine.\nCertainly Greek monotheism, had it really carried the day, would have\nbeen a far more philosophic thing than the tribal and personal\nmonotheism of the Hebrews. But unfortunately too many hard-caked\nsuperstitions, too many tender and sensitive associations, were linked\nwith particular figures in the pantheon or particular rites which had\nbrought the worshippers religious peace. If there had been some Hebrew\nprophets about, and a tyrant or two, progressive and bloody-minded, to\nagree with them, polytheism might perhaps actually have been stamped out\nin Greece at one time. But Greek thought, always sincere and daring, was\nseldom brutal, seldom ruthless or cruel. The thinkers of the great\nperiod felt their own way gently to the Holy of Holies, and did not try\nto compel others to take the same way. Greek theology, whether popular\nor philosophical, seldom denied any god, seldom forbade any worship.\nWhat it tried to do was to identify every new god with some aspect of\none of the old ones, and the result was naturally confusion. Apart from\nthe Epicurean school, which though powerful was always unpopular, the\nreligious thought of later antiquity for the most part took refuge in a\nsort of apotheosis of good taste, in which the great care was not to\nhurt other people's feelings, or else it collapsed into helpless\nmysticism.\n\nThe attempt to make Olympianism a religion of the Polis failed also.\nThe Olympians did not belong to any particular city: they were too\nuniversal; and no particular city had a very positive faith in them. The\nactual Polis was real and tangible, the Homeric gods a little alien and\nliterary. The City herself was a most real power; and the true gods of\nthe City, who had grown out of the soil and the wall, were simply the\nCity herself in her eternal and personal aspect, as mother and guide and\nlawgiver, the worshipped and beloved being whom each citizen must defend\neven to the death. As the Kouros of his day emerged from the social\ngroup of Kouroi, or the Aphiktor from the band of suppliants, in like\nfashion \u1f21 \u03a0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03ac\u03c2 or \u1f41 \u03a0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03b5\u03cd\u03c2 emerged as a personification or projection\nof the city. \u1f21 \u03a0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03ac\u03c2 in Athens was of course Athena; \u1f41 \u03a0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03b5\u03cd\u03c2 might as\nwell be called Zeus as anything else. In reality such beings fall into\nthe same class as the hero Argos or 'Korinthos son of Zeus'. The City\nworship was narrow; yet to broaden it was, except in some rare minds, to\nsap its life. The ordinary man finds it impossible to love his next-door\nneighbours except by siding with them against the next-door-but-one.\n\nIt proved difficult even in a city like Athens to have gods that would\nappeal to the loyalty of all Attica. On the Acropolis at Athens there\nseem originally to have been Athena and some Kouros corresponding with\nher, some Waterer of the earth, like Erechtheus. Then as Attica was\nunited and brought under the lead of its central city, the gods of the\noutlying districts began to claim places on the Acropolis. Pallas, the\nthunder-maid of Pallene in the south, came to form a joint personality\nwith Athena. Oinoe, a town in the north-east, on the way from Delos to\nDelphi, had for its special god a 'Pythian Apollo'; when Oinoe became\nAttic a place for the Pythian Apollo had to be found on the Acropolis.\nDionysus came from Eleutherae, Demeter and Kor\u00ea from Eleusis, Theseus\nhimself perhaps from Marathon or even from Troz\u00ean. They were all given\nofficial residences on Athena's rock, and Athens in return sent out\nAthena to new temples built for her in Prasiae and Sunion and various\ncolonies.[72:1] This development came step by step and grew out of real\nworships. It was quite different from the wholesale adoption of a body\nof non-national, poetical gods: yet even this development was too\nartificial, too much stamped with the marks of expediency and courtesy\nand compromise. It could not live. The personalities of such gods vanish\naway; their prayers become prayers to 'all gods and goddesses of the\nCity'--\u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b8\u03b5\u1fc7\u03c3\u03b9 \u03c0\u1fb6\u03c3\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c3\u1fc3\u03c2\u03b9; those who remain, chiefly Athena and\nTheseus, only mean Athens.\n\nWhat then, amid all this failure, did the Olympian religion really\nachieve? First, it debarbarized the worship of the leading states of\nGreece--not of all Greece, since antiquity had no means of spreading\nknowledge comparable to ours. It reduced the horrors of the\n'Urdummheit', for the most part, to a romantic memory, and made religion\nno longer a mortal danger to humanity. Unlike many religious systems, it\ngenerally permitted progress; it encouraged not only the obedient\nvirtues but the daring virtues as well. It had in it the spirit that\nsaves from disaster, that knows itself fallible and thinks twice before\nit hates and curses and persecutes. It wrapped religion in Sophrosyn\u00ea.\n\nAgain, it worked for concord and fellow-feeling throughout the Greek\ncommunities. It is, after all, a good deal to say, that in Greek history\nwe find almost no warring of sects, no mutual tortures or even\nblasphemies. With many ragged edges, with many weaknesses, it built up\nsomething like a united Hellenic religion to stand against the 'beastly\ndevices of the heathen'. And after all, if we are inclined on the purely\nreligious side to judge the Olympian system harshly, we must not forget\nits sheer beauty. Truth, no doubt, is greater than beauty. But in many\nmatters beauty can be attained and truth cannot. All we know is that\nwhen the best minds seek for truth the result is apt to be beautiful. It\nwas a great thing that men should envisage the world as governed, not by\nGiants and Gorgons and dealers in eternal torture, but by some human and\nmore than human Understanding (\u039e\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2),[73:1] by beings of quiet\nsplendour like many a classical Zeus and Hermes and Demeter. If\nOlympianism was not a religious faith, it was at least a vital force in\nthe shaping of cities and societies which remain after two thousand\nyears a type to the world of beauty and freedom and high endeavour. Even\nthe stirring of its ashes, when they seemed long cold, had power to\nproduce something of the same result; for the classicism of the Italian\nRenaissance is a child, however fallen, of the Olympian spirit.\n\nOf course, I recognize that beauty is not the same as faith. There is,\nin one sense, far more faith in some hideous miracle-working icon which\nsends out starving peasants to massacre Jews than in the Athena of\nPhidias. Yet, once we have rid our minds of trivial mythology, there is\nreligion in Athena also. Athena is an ideal, an ideal and a mystery; the\nideal of wisdom, of incessant labour, of almost terrifying purity, seen\nthrough the light of some mystic and spiritual devotion like, but\ntranscending, the love of man for woman. Or, if the way of Athena is too\nhard for us common men, it is not hard to find a true religious ideal in\nsuch a figure as Persephone. In Persephone there is more of pathos and\nof mystery. She has more recently entered the calm ranks of Olympus; the\nold liturgy of the dying and re-risen Year-bride still clings to her. If\nReligion is that which brings us into relation with the great\nworld-forces, there is the very heart of life in this home-coming Bride\nof the underworld, life with its broken hopes, its disaster, its\nnew-found spiritual joy: life seen as Mother and Daughter, not a thing\ncontinuous and unchanging but shot through with parting and death, life\nas a great love or desire ever torn asunder and ever renewed.\n\n'But stay,' a reader may object: 'is not this the Persephone, the\nAthena, of modern sentiment? Are these figures really the goddesses of\nthe _Iliad_ and of Sophocles?' The truth is, I think, that they are\nneither the one nor the other. They are the goddesses of ancient\nreflection and allegory; the goddesses, that is, of the best and most\ncharacteristic worship that these idealized creations awakened. What we\nhave treated hitherto as the mortal weakness of the Olympians, the fact\nthat they have no roots in any particular soil, little hold on any\ndefinite primeval cult, has turned out to be their peculiar strength. We\nmust not think of allegory as a late post-classical phenomenon in\nGreece. It begins at least as early as Pythagoras and Heraclitus,\nperhaps as early as Hesiod; for Hesiod seems sometimes to be turning\nallegory back into myth. The Olympians, cut loose from the soil,\nenthroned only in men's free imagination, have two special regions which\nthey have made their own: mythology and allegory. The mythology drops\nfor the most part very early out of practical religion. Even in Homer we\nfind it expurgated; in Pindar, Aeschylus, and Xenophanes it is\nexpurgated, denied and allegorized. The myths survive chiefly as\nmaterial for literature, the shapes of the gods themselves chiefly as\nmaterial for art. They are both of them objects not of belief but of\nimagination. Yet when the religious imagination of Greece deepens it\ntwines itself still around these gracious and ever-moving shapes; the\nZeus of Aeschylus moves on into the Zeus of Plato or of Cleanthes or of\nMarcus Aurelius. Hermes, Athena, Apollo, all have their long spiritual\nhistory. They are but little impeded by the echoes of the old frivolous\nmythology; still less by any local roots or sectional prejudices or\ncompulsory details of ritual. As the more highly educated mind of Greece\nemerged from a particular, local, tribal, conception of religion, the\nold denationalized Olympians were ready to receive her.\n\nThe real religion of the fifth century was, as we have said, a devotion\nto the City itself. It is expressed often in Aeschylus and Sophocles,\nagain and again with more discord and more criticism in Euripides and\nPlato; for the indignant blasphemies of the Gorgias and the Troades bear\nthe same message as the ideal patriotism of the Republic. It is\nexpressed best perhaps, and that without mention of the name of a single\ngod, in the great Funeral Speech of Pericles. It is higher than most\nmodern patriotism because it is set upon higher ideals. It is more\nfervid because the men practising it lived habitually nearer to the\ndanger-point, and, when they spoke of dying for the City, spoke of a\nthing they had faced last week and might face again to-morrow. It was\nmore religious because of the unconscious mysticism in which it is\nclothed even by such hard heads as Pericles and Thucydides, the\nmysticism of men in the presence of some fact for which they have no\nwords great enough. Yet for all its intensity it was condemned by its\nmere narrowness. By the fourth century the average Athenian must have\nrecognized what philosophers had recognized long before, that a\nreligion, to be true, must be universal and not the privilege of a\nparticular people. As soon as the Stoics had proclaimed the world to be\n'one great City of gods and men', the only Gods with which Greece could\nsatisfactorily people that City were the idealized band of the old\nOlympians.\n\nThey are artists' dreams, ideals, allegories; they are symbols of\nsomething beyond themselves. They are Gods of half-rejected tradition,\nof unconscious make-believe, of aspiration. They are gods to whom\ndoubtful philosophers can pray, with all a philosopher's due caution, as\nto so many radiant and heart-searching hypotheses. They are not gods in\nwhom any one believes as a hard fact. Does this condemn them? Or is it\njust the other way? Is it perhaps that one difference between Religion\nand Superstition lies exactly in this, that Superstition degrades its\nworship by turning its beliefs into so many statements of brute fact, on\nwhich it must needs act without question, without striving, without any\nrespect for others or any desire for higher or fuller truth? It is only\nan accident--though perhaps an invariable accident--that all the\nsupposed facts are false. In Religion, however precious you may consider\nthe truth you draw from it, you know that it is a truth seen dimly, and\npossibly seen by others better than by you. You know that all your\ncreeds and definitions are merely metaphors, attempts to use human\nlanguage for a purpose for which it was never made. Your concepts are,\nby the nature of things, inadequate; the truth is not in you but beyond\nyou, a thing not conquered but still to be pursued. Something like this,\nI take it, was the character of the Olympian Religion in the higher\nminds of later Greece. Its gods could awaken man's worship and\nstrengthen his higher aspirations; but at heart they knew themselves to\nbe only metaphors. As the most beautiful image carved by man was not the\ngod, but only a symbol, to help towards conceiving the god;[77:1] so\nthe god himself, when conceived, was not the reality but only a symbol\nto help towards conceiving the reality. That was the work set before\nthem. Meantime they issued no creeds that contradicted knowledge, no\ncommands that made man sin against his own inner light.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[39:1] Hdt. i. 60 \u1f10\u03c0\u03b5\u03af \u03b3\u03b5 \u1f00\u03c0\u03b5\u03ba\u03c1\u03af\u03b8\u03b7 \u1f10\u03ba \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c1\u03b2\u03ac\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f14\u03b8\u03bd\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78\n\u1f19\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u1f78\u03bd \u1f10\u1f78\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b4\u03b5\u03be\u03b9\u03ce\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b5\u1f50\u03b7\u03b8\u03af\u03b7\u03c2 \u1f20\u03bb\u03b9\u03b8\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f00\u03c0\u03b7\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u1fb6\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd. As\nto the date here suggested for the definite dawn of Hellenism Mr. Edwyn\nBevan writes to me: 'I have often wondered what the reason is that about\nthat time a new age began all over the world that we know. In Nearer\nAsia the old Semitic monarchies gave place to the Zoroastrian Aryans; in\nIndia it was the time of Buddha, in China of Confucius.' \u0395\u1f50\u03b7\u03b8\u03af\u03b7 \u1f20\u03bb\u03af\u03b8\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2\nis almost '_Urdummheit_'.\n\n[40:1] See in general Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece_, vol. i; Leaf,\n_Companion to Homer_, Introduction: _R. G. E._, chap. ii; Chadwick, _The\nHeroic Age_ (last four chapters); and J. L. Myres, _Dawn of History_,\nchaps. viii and ix.\n\n[40:2] Since writing the above I find in Vandal, _L'Av\u00e8nement de\nBonaparte_, p. 20, in Nelson's edition, a phrase about the Revolutionary\nsoldiers: 'Ils se modelaient sur ces Romains . . . sur ces Spartiates .\n. . et ils cr\u00e9aient un type de haute vertu guerri\u00e8re, quand ils\ncroyaient seulement le reproduire.'\n\n[41:1] Hdt. i. 56 f.; Th. i. 3 (Hellen son of Deucalion, in both).\n\n[42:1] Hdt. i. 58. In viii. 44 the account is more detailed.\n\n[42:2] The Homeric evidence is, as usual, inconclusive. The word\n\u03b2\u03ac\u03c1\u03b2\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9 is absent from both poems, an absence which must be intentional\non the part of the later reciters, but may well come from the original\nsources. The compound \u03b2\u03b1\u03c1\u03b2\u03b1\u03c1\u03cc\u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 occurs in B 867, but who knows the\ndate of that particular line in that particular wording?\n\n[42:3] Paper read to the Classical Association at Birmingham in 1908.\n\n[43:1] For Korinna see Wilamowitz in _Berliner Klassikertexte_, V. xiv,\nespecially p. 55. The Homeric epos drove out poetry like Corinna's. She\nhad actually written: 'I sing the great deeds of heroes and heroines'\n(\u1f30\u03ce\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b4' \u03b5\u1f31\u03c1\u03ce\u03c9\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03c7\u03b5\u1f76\u03c1\u03c9\u03b9\u03ac\u03b4\u03c9\u03bd \u1f00\u03af\u03b4\u03c9, fr. 10, Bergk), so that presumably her\nstyle was sufficiently 'heroic' for an un-Homeric generation. For the\nchange of dialect in elegy, &c., see Thumb, _Handbuch d. gr. Dialekte_,\npp. 327-30, 368 ff., and the literature there cited. Fick and Hoffmann\noverstated the change, but Hoffmann's new statement in _Die griechische\nSprache_, 1911, sections on _Die Elegie_, seems just. The question of\nTyrtaeus is complicated by other problems.\n\n[45:1] The facts are well known: see Paus. i. 18. 7. The inference was\npointed out to me by Miss Harrison.\n\n[45:2] I do not here raise the question how far the Achaioi have special\naffinities with the north-west group of tribes or dialects. See Thumb,\n_Handbuch d. gr. Dialekte_ (1909), p. 166 f. The Achaioi must have\npassed through South Thessaly in any case.\n\n[45:3] That Kronos was in possession of the Kronion and Olympia\ngenerally before Zeus came was recognized in antiquity; Paus. v. 7. 4\nand 10. Also Mayer in Roscher's Lexicon, ii, p. 1508, 50 ff.; _Rise of\nGreek Epic_{3}, pp. 40-8; J. A. K. Thomson, Studies in the Odyssey\n(1914), chap. vii, viii; Chadwick, _Heroic Age_ (1911), pp. 282, 289.\n\n[49:1] I do not touch here on the subject of the gradual expurgation of\nthe Poems to suit the feelings of a more civilized audience; see _Rise\nof the Greek Epic_,{3} pp. 120-4. Many scholars believe that the Poems\ndid not exist as a written book till the public copy was made by\nPisistratus; see Cauer, _Grundfragen der Homerkritik_{2}, (1909), pp.\n113-45; _R. G. E._,{3} pp. 304-16; Leaf, _Iliad_, vol. i, p. xvi. This\nview is tempting, though the evidence seems to be insufficient to\njustify a pronouncement either way. If it is true, then various passages\nwhich show a verbal use of earlier documents (like the Bellerophon\npassage, _R. G. E._,{3} pp. 175 ff.) cannot have been put in before the\nAthenian period.\n\n[49:2] In his _Zeus, the Indo-European Sky-God_ (1914, 1924). See _R. G.\nE._,{3} pp. 40 ff.\n\n[50:1] A somewhat similar change occurred in Othin, though he always\nretains more of the crooked wizard.\n\n[50:2] _Themis_, chap. i. On the Zeus of Aeschylus cf. _R. G. E._,{3}\npp. 277 ff.; Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_, ii. 6-8.\n\n[50:3] Farnell, _Cults_, iv. 100-4. See, however, Gruppe, p. 107 f.\n\n[51:1] _Hymn. Ap._ init. Cf. Wilamowitz's Oxford Lecture on 'Apollo'\n(Oxford, 1907).\n\n[51:2] _Themis_, p. 439 f. Cf. \u1f41 \u1f08\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1\u1fd6\u03bf\u03c2. Other explanations of the\nname in Gruppe, p. 1224 f., notes.\n\n[51:3] Hdt. i. 147; Plato, _Euthyd._ 302 c: _Socrates_. 'No Ionian\nrecognizes a Zeus Patr\u00f4os; Apollo is our Patr\u00f4os, because he was father\nof Ion.'\n\n[52:1] See Gruppe, p. 1206, on the development of his 'Philistine\nthunderstorm-goddess'.\n\n[52:2] Hoffmann, _Gesch. d. griechischen Sprache_, Leipzig, 1911, p. 16.\nCf. Pind. _Ol._ vii. 35; Ov. _Metam._ ix. 421; xv. 191, 700, &c.\n\n[53:1] As to the name, \u1f09\u03b8\u03b7\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03b1 is of course simply 'Athenian'; the\nshorter and apparently original form \u1f08\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1, \u1f08\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7 is not so clear, but\nit seems most likely to mean 'Attic'. Cf. Meister, _Gr. Dial._ ii. 290.\nHe classes under the head of Oertliche Bestimmungen: \u1f01 \u03b8\u03b5\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f01 \u03a0\u03b1\u03c6\u03af\u03b1\n(Collitz and Bechtel, _Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften_,\n2, 3, 14{a}, {b}, 15, 16). 'In Paphos selbst hiess die G\u00f6ttin nur \u1f01 \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2\noder \u1f01 \u03dd\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1;--\u1f01 \u03b8\u03b9\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f01 \u0393\u03bf\u03bb\u03b3\u03af\u03b1 (61)--\u1f01 \u03b8\u03b9\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f01 \u1f08\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1 \u1f01 \u03c0\u1f72\u03c1 \u1f28\u03b4\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd (60,\n27, 28), 'die G\u00f6ttin, die Athenische, die \u00fcber Edalion (waltet)';\n'\u1f08\u03b8-\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1 ist, wie J. Baunack (_Studia Nicolaitana_, s. 27) gezeigt hat,\ndas Adjectiv zu (*\u1f08\u03c3\u03c3-\u03af\u03c2 'Seeland'): \u1f08\u03c4\u03c4-\u03af\u03c2; \u1f08\u03c4\u03b8-\u03af\u03c2; *\u1f08\u03b8-\u03af\u03c2; also \u1f08\u03b8-\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\n= \u1f08\u03c4\u03c4-\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae, \u1f08\u03b8-\u1fc6\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 urspr\u00fcnglich \u1f08\u03b8-\u1fc6\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9.' Other derivations in\nGruppe, p. 1194. Or again \u03b1\u1f31 \u1f08\u03b8\u1fc6\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 may be simply 'the place where the\nAthenas are', like \u03bf\u1f31 \u1f30\u03c7\u03b8\u03cd\u03b5\u03c2, the fish-market; 'the Athenas' would be\nstatues, like \u03bf\u1f31 \u1f19\u03c1\u03bc\u03b1\u1fd6--the famous 'Attic Maidens' on the Acropolis.\nThis explanation would lead to some interesting results.\n\nWe need not here consider how, partly by identification with other\nKorae, like Pallas, Onka, &c., partly by a genuine spread of the cult,\nAthena became prominent in other cities. As to Homer, Athena is far more\ndeeply imbedded in the _Odyssey_ than in the _Iliad_. I am inclined to\nagree with those who believe that our _Odyssey_ was very largely\ncomposed in Athens, so that in most of the poem Athena is original. (Cf.\nO. Seeck, _Die Quellen der Odyssee_ (1887), pp. 366-420; M\u00fclder, _Die\nIlias and ihre Quellen_ (1910), pp. 350-5.) In some parts of the _Iliad_\nthe name Athena may well have been substituted for some Northern goddess\nwhose name is now lost.\n\n[53:2] It is worth noting also that this Homeric triad seems also to be\nrecognized as the chief Athenian triad. Plato, _Euthyd._ 302 c, quoted\nabove, continues: _Socrates._ 'We have Zeus with the names Herkeios and\nPhratrios, but not Patr\u00f4os, and Athena Phratria.' _Dionysodorus._ 'Well\nthat is enough. You have, apparently, Apollo and Zeus and Athena?'\n_Socrates._ 'Certainly.'--Apollo is put first because he has been\naccepted as Patr\u00f4os. But see _R. G. E._,{3} p. 49, n.\n\n[54:1] Ridgeway, _Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse_, 1905,\npp. 287-93; and _Early Age of Greece_, 1901, p. 223.\n\n[54:2] Cf. Plut. _Q. Conv._ ix. 6; Paus. ii. 1. 6; 4. 6; 15. 5; 30. 6.\n\n[54:3] So in the non-Homeric tradition, Eur. _Troades_ init. In the\n_Iliad_ he is made an enemy of Troy, like Athena, who is none the less\nthe Guardian of the city.\n\n[56:1] _Od._ \u03b8 339 ff.\n\n[56:2] See Paus. viii. 32. 4. _Themis_, pp. 295, 296.\n\n[56:3] For the connexion of \u1f2d\u03c1\u03b1 \u1f24\u03c1\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f29\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03bb\u1fc6\u03c2 (\u1f29\u03c1\u03cd\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 in Sophron, fr.\n142 K) see especially A. B. Cook, _Class. Review_, 1906, pp. 365 and\n416. The name \u1f2d\u03c1\u03b1 seems probably to be an 'ablaut' form of \u1f65\u03c1\u03b1: cf.\nphrases like \u1f2d\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03b1. Other literature in Gruppe, pp. 452, 1122.\n\n[57:1] _Prolegomena_, p. 315, referring to H. D. M\u00fcller, _Mythologie d.\ngr. St\u00e4mme_, pp. 249-55. Another view is suggested by M\u00fclder, _Die Ilias\nund ihre Quellen_, p. 136. The jealous Hera comes from the\nHeracles-saga, in which the wife hated the bastard.\n\n[57:2] P. Gardner, in _Numismatic Chronicle_, N.S. xx, 'Ares as a\nSun-God'.\n\n[57:3] Chadwick, _Heroic Age_, especially pp. 414, 459-63.\n\n[59:1] Chap. xviii.\n\n[59:2] Introduction to his edition of the _Cho\u00ebphoroe_, p. 9.\n\n[61:1] The spirit appears very simply in Eur. _Iph. Taur._ 386 ff.,\nwhere Iphigenia rejects the gods who demand human sacrifice:\n\n     These tales be false, false as those feastings wild\n     Of Tantalus, and gods that tare a child.\n     This land of murderers to its gods hath given\n     Its own lust. Evil dwelleth not in heaven.\n\nYet just before she has accepted the loves of Zeus and Leto without\nobjection. 'Leto, whom Zeus loved, could never have given birth to such\na monster!' Cf. Plutarch, _Vit. Pelop._ xxi, where Pelopidas, in\nrejecting the idea of a human sacrifice, says: 'No high and more than\nhuman beings could be pleased with so barbarous and unlawful a\nsacrifice. It was not the fabled Titans and Giants who ruled the world,\nbut one who was a Father of all gods and men.' Of course, criticism and\nexpurgation of the legends is too common to need illustration. See\nespecially Kaibel, _Daktyloi Idaioi_, 1902, p. 512.\n\n[62:1] Aristophanes did much to reduce this element in comedy; see\n_Clouds_, 537 ff.: also _Albany Review_, 1907, p. 201.\n\n[62:2] _R. G. E._,{3} p. 139 f.\n\n[64:1] Justin, _Cohort._ c. 15. But such pantheistic language is common\nin Orphic and other mystic literature. See the fragments of the Orphic\n\u0394\u03b9\u03b1\u03b8\u1fc6\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 (pp. 144 ff. in Abel's _Hymni_).\n\n[65:1] I have not attempted to consider the Cretan cults. They lie\nhistorically outside the range of these essays, and I am not competent\nto deal with evidence that is purely archaeological. But in general I\nimagine the Cretan religion to be a development from the religion\ndescribed in my first essay, affected both by the change in social\nstructure from village to sea-empire and by foreign, especially\nEgyptian, influences. No doubt the Achaean gods were influenced on their\nside by Cretan conceptions, though perhaps not so much as Ionia was. Cf.\nthe Cretan influences in Ionian vase-painting, and e. g. A. B. Cook on\n'Cretan Axe-cult outside Crete', _Transactions of the Third\nInternational Congress for the History of Religion_, ii. 184. See also\nSir A. Evans's striking address on 'The Minoan and Mycenaean Element in\nHellenic Life', _J. H. S._ xxxii. 277-97.\n\n[66:1] See _R. G. E._,{3} p. 58 f.\n\n[68:1] 2 Sam. vi. 6. See S. Reinach, _Orpheus_, p. 5 (English\nTranslation, p. 4).\n\n[72:1] Cf. Sam Wide in Gercke and Norden's _Handbuch_, ii. 217-19.\n\n[73:1] The \u039e\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 in which the Chorus finds it hard to believe,\n_Hippolytus_, 1105. Cf. _Iph. Aul._ 394, 1189; _Herc._ 655; also the\nideas in _Suppl._ 203, Eur. Fr. 52, 9, where \u039e\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 is implanted in man\nby a special grace of God. The gods are \u03be\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03af, but of course Euripides\ngoes too far in actually praying to \u039e\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2, Ar. _Frogs_, 893.\n\n[77:1] Cf. the beautiful defence of idols by Maximus of Tyre, Or. viii\n(in Wilamowitz's _Lesebuch_, ii. 338 ff.). I quote the last paragraph:\n\n'God Himself, the father and fashioner of all that is, older than the\nSun or the Sky, greater than time and eternity and all the flow of\nbeing, is unnameable by any lawgiver, unutterable by any voice, not to\nbe seen by any eye. But we, being unable to apprehend His essence, use\nthe help of sounds and names and pictures, of beaten gold and ivory and\nsilver, of plants and rivers, mountain-peaks and torrents, yearning for\nthe knowledge of Him, and in our weakness naming all that is beautiful\nin this world after His nature--just as happens to earthly lovers. To\nthem the most beautiful sight will be the actual lineaments of the\nbeloved, but for remembrance' sake they will be happy in the sight of a\nlyre, a little spear, a chair, perhaps, or a running-ground, or anything\nin the world that wakens the memory of the beloved. Why should I further\nexamine and pass judgement about Images? Let men know what is divine (\u03c4\u1f78\n\u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2), let them know: that is all. If a Greek is stirred to the\nremembrance of God by the art of Pheidias, an Egyptian by paying worship\nto animals, another man by a river, another by fire--I have no anger for\ntheir divergences; only let them know, let them love, let them\nremember.'\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE GREAT SCHOOLS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY, B. C.\n\n\nThere is a passage in Xenophon describing how, one summer night, in 405\nB. C., people in Athens heard a cry of wailing, an _oim\u00f4g\u00ea_, making its\nway up between the long walls from the Piraeus, and coming nearer and\nnearer as they listened. It was the news of the final disaster of\nKynoskephalai, brought at midnight to the Piraeus by the galley Paralos.\n'And that night no one slept. They wept for the dead, but far more\nbitterly for themselves, when they reflected what things they had done\nto the people of M\u00ealos, when taken by siege, to the people of Histiaea,\nand Sk\u00eeon\u00ea and Tor\u00f4n\u00ea and Aeg\u00eena, and many more of the Hellenes.'[79:1]\n\nThe echo of that lamentation seems to ring behind most of the literature\nof the fourth century, and not the Athenian literature alone. Defeat can\non occasion leave men their self-respect or even their pride; as it did\nafter Chaeronea in 338 and after the Chremonidean War in 262, not to\nspeak of Thermopylae. But the defeat of 404 not only left Athens at the\nmercy of her enemies. It stripped her of those things of which she had\nbeen inwardly most proud; her 'wisdom', her high civilization, her\nleadership of all that was most Hellenic in Hellas. The 'Beloved City'\nof Pericles had become a tyrant, her nature poisoned by war, her\ngovernment a by-word in Greece for brutality. And Greece as a whole\nfelt the tragedy of it. It is curious how this defeat of Athens by\nSparta seems to have been felt abroad as a defeat for Greece itself and\nfor the hopes of the Greek city state. The fall of Athens mattered more\nthan the victory of Lysander. Neither Sparta nor any other city ever\nattempted to take her place. And no writer after the year 400 speaks of\nany other city as Pericles used to speak of fifth-century Athens, not\neven Polybius 250 years later, when he stands amazed before the solidity\nand the 'fortune' of Rome.\n\nThe city state, the Polis, had concentrated upon itself almost all the\nloyalty and the aspirations of the Greek mind. It gave security to life.\nIt gave meaning to religion. And in the fall of Athens it had failed. In\nthe third century, when things begin to recover, we find on the one hand\nthe great military monarchies of Alexander's successors, and on\nthe other, a number of federations of tribes, which were generally\nstrongest in the backward regions where the city state had been least\ndeveloped. \u03a4\u1f78 \u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u1f78\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u0391\u1f30\u03c4\u03c9\u03bb\u1ff6\u03bd or \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f08\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bd had become more important\nthan Athens or Corinth, and Sparta was only strong by means of a\nLeague.[80:1] By that time the Polis was recognized as a comparatively\nweak social organism, capable of very high culture but not quite able,\nas the Covenant of the League of Nations expresses it, 'to hold its own\nunder the strenuous conditions of modern life'. Besides, it was not now\nruled by the best citizens. The best had turned away from politics.\n\nThis great discouragement did not take place at a blow. Among the\npractical statesmen probably most did not form any theory about the\ncause of the failure but went on, as practical statesmen must, doing as\nbest they could from difficulty to difficulty. But many saw that the\nfatal danger to Greece was disunion, as many see it in Europe now. When\nMacedon proved indisputably stronger than Athens Isocrates urged Philip\nto accept the leadership of Greece against the barbarian and against\nbarbarism. He might thus both unite the Greek cities and also evangelize\nthe world. Lysias, the democratic and anti-Spartan orator, had been\ngroping for a similar solution as early as 384 B. C., and was prepared\nto make an even sharper sacrifice for it. He appealed at Olympia for a\ncrusade of all the free Greek cities against Dionysius of Syracuse, and\nbegged Sparta herself to lead it. The Spartans are 'of right the leaders\nof Hellas by their natural nobleness and their skill in war. They alone\nlive still in a city unsacked, unwalled, unconquered, uncorrupted by\nfaction, and have followed always the same modes of life. They have been\nthe saviours of Hellas in the past, and one may hope that their freedom\nwill be everlasting.'[81:1] A great and generous change in one who had\n'learned by suffering' in the Peloponnesian War. Others no doubt merely\ngave their submission to the stronger powers that were now rising. There\nwere openings for counsellors, for mercenary soldiers, for court savants\nand philosophers and poets, and, of course, for agents in every free\ncity who were prepared for one motive or another not to kick against the\npricks. And there were always also those who had neither learned nor\nforgotten, the unrepentant idealists; too passionate or too heroic or,\nas some will say, too blind, to abandon their life-long devotion to\n'Athens' or to 'Freedom' because the world considered such ideals out of\ndate. They could look the ruined Athenians in the face, after the lost\nbattle, and say with Demosthenes, ''\u039f\u1f50\u03ba \u1f14\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd, \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f14\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd \u1f45\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f21\u03bc\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5.\nIt cannot be that you did wrong, it cannot be!'[82:1]\n\nBut in practical politics the currents of thought are inevitably\nlimited. It is in philosophy and speculation that we find the richest\nand most varied reaction to the Great Failure. It takes different shapes\nin those writers, like Plato and Xenophon, who were educated in the\nfifth century and had once believed in the Great City, and those whose\nwhole thinking life belonged to the time of disillusion.\n\nPlato was disgusted with democracy and with Athens, but he retained his\nfaith in the city, if only the city could be set on the right road.\nThere can be little doubt that he attributes to the bad government of\nthe Demos many evils which were really due to extraneous causes or to\nthe mere fallibility of human nature. Still his analysis of democracy is\none of the most brilliant things in the history of political theory. It\nis so acute, so humorous, so affectionate; and at many different ages of\nthe world has seemed like a portrait of the actual contemporary society.\nLike a modern popular newspaper, Plato's democracy makes it its business\nto satisfy existing desires and give people a 'good time'. It does not\ndistinguish between higher and lower. Any one man is as good as another,\nand so is any impulse or any idea. Consequently the commoner have the\npull. Even the great democratic statesmen of the past, he now sees,\nhave been ministers to mob desires; they have 'filled the city with\nharbours and docks and walls and revenues and such-like trash, without\nSophrosyn\u00ea and righteousness'. The sage or saint has no place in\npractical politics. He would be like a man in a den of wild beasts. Let\nhim and his like seek shelter as best they can, standing up behind some\nwall while the storm of dust and sleet rages past. The world does not\nwant truth, which is all that he could give it. It goes by appearances\nand judges its great men with their clothes on and their rich relations\nround them. After death, the judges will judge them naked, and alone;\nand then we shall see![83:1]\n\nYet, in spite of all this, the child of the fifth century cannot keep\nhis mind from politics. The speculations which would be scouted by the\nmass in the marketplace can still be discussed with intimate friends and\ndisciples, or written in books for the wise to read. Plato's two longest\nworks are attempts to construct an ideal society; first, what may be\ncalled a City of Righteousness, in the _Republic_; and afterwards in\nhis old age, in the _Laws_, something more like a City of Refuge,\nuncontaminated by the world; a little city on a hill-top away in Crete,\nremote from commerce and riches and the 'bitter and corrupting sea'\nwhich carries them; a city where life shall move in music and discipline\nand reverence for the things that are greater than man, and the songs\nmen sing shall be not common songs but the preambles of the city's laws,\nshowing their purpose and their principle; where no wall will be needed\nto keep out the possible enemy, because the courage and temperance of\nthe citizens will be wall enough, and if war comes the women equally\nwith the men 'will fight for their young, as birds do'.\n\nThis hope is very like despair; but, such as it is, Plato's thought is\nalways directed towards the city. No other form of social life ever\ntempts him away, and he anticipates no insuperable difficulty in keeping\nthe city in the right path if once he can get it started right. The\nfirst step, the necessary revolution, is what makes the difficulty. And\nhe sees only one way. In real life he had supported the conspiracy of\nthe extreme oligarchs in 404 which led to the rule of the 'Thirty\nTyrants'; but the experience sickened him of such methods. There was no\nhope unless, by some lucky combination, a philosopher should become a\nking or some young king turn philosopher. 'Give me a city governed by a\ntyrant,' he says in the _Laws_,[84:1] 'and let the tyrant be young, with\na good memory, quick at learning, of high courage, and a generous\nnature. . . . And besides, let him have a wise counsellor!' Ironical\nfortune granted him an opportunity to try the experiment himself at the\ncourt of Syracuse, first with the elder and then, twenty years later,\nwith the younger Dionysius (387 and 367 B. C.). It is a story of\ndisappointment, of course; bitter, humiliating and ludicrous\ndisappointment, but with a touch of that sublimity which seems so often\nto hang about the errors of the wise. One can study them in Seneca at\nthe court of Nero, or in Turgot with Louis; not so well perhaps in\nVoltaire with Frederick. Plato failed in his enterprise, but he did\nkeep faith with the 'Righteous City'.\n\nAnother of the Socratic circle turned in a different direction.\nXenophon, an exile from his country, a brilliant soldier and adventurer\nas well as a man of letters, is perhaps the first Greek on record who\nopenly lost interest in the city. He thought less about cities and\nconstitutions than about great men and nations, or generals and armies.\nTo him it was idle to spin cobweb formations of ideal laws and\ncommunities. Society is right enough if you have a really fine man to\nlead it. It may be that his ideal was formed in childhood by stories of\nPericles and the great age when Athens was 'in name a democracy but in\ntruth an empire of one leading man'. He gave form to his dream in the\n_Education of Cyrus_, an imaginary account of the training which formed\nCyrus the Great into an ideal king and soldier. The _Cyropaedeia_ is\nsaid to have been intended as a counterblast to Plato's _Republic_, and\nit may have provoked Plato's casual remark in the _Laws_ that 'Cyrus\nnever so much as touched education'. No doubt the book suffered in\npersuasiveness from being so obviously fictitious.[85:1] For example,\nthe Cyrus of Xenophon dies peacefully in his bed after much affectionate\nand edifying advice to his family, whereas all Athens knew from\nHerodotus how the real Cyrus had been killed in a war against the\nMassagetae, and his head, to slake its thirst for that liquid, plunged\ninto a wineskin full of human blood. Perhaps also the monarchical rule\nof Cyrus was too absolute for Greek taste. At any rate, later on\nXenophon adopted a more real hero, whom he had personally known and\nadmired.\n\nAgesilaus, king of Sparta, had been taken as a type of 'virtue' even by\nthe bitter historian Theopompus. Agesilaus was not only a great general.\nHe knew how to 'honour the gods, do his duty in the field, and to\npractise obedience'. He was true to friend and foe. On one memorable\noccasion he kept his word even to an enemy who had broken his. He\nenjoined kindness to enemy captives. When he found small children left\nbehind by the barbarians in some town that he occupied--because either\ntheir parents or the slave-merchants had no room for them--he always\ntook care of them or gave them to guardians of their own race: 'he never\nlet the dogs and wolves get them'. On the other hand, when he sold his\nbarbarian prisoners he sent them to market naked, regardless of their\nmodesty, because it cheered his own soldiers to see how white and fat\nthey were. He wept when he won a victory over Greeks; 'for he loved all\nGreeks and only hated barbarians'. When he returned home after his\nsuccessful campaigns, he obeyed the orders of the ephors without\nquestion; his house and furniture were as simple as those of a common\nman, and his daughter the princess, when she went to and fro to Amyclae,\nwent simply in the public omnibus. He reared chargers and hunting dogs;\nthe rearing of chariot horses he thought effeminate. But he advised his\nsister Cynisca about hers, and she won the chariot race at Olympia.\n'Have a king like that', says Xenophon, 'and all will be well. He will\ngovern right; he will beat your enemies; and he will set an example of\ngood life. If you want Virtue in the state look for it in a good man,\nnot in a speculative tangle of laws. The Spartan constitution, as it\nstands, is good enough for any one.'\n\nBut it was another of the great Socratics who uttered first the\ncharacteristic message of the fourth century, and met the blows of\nFortune with a direct challenge. Antisthenes was a man twenty years\nolder than Plato. He had fought at Tanagra in 426 B. C. He had been\nfriends with Gorgias and Prodicus, the great Sophists of the Periclean\nage. He seems to have been, at any rate till younger and more brilliant\nmen cut him out, the recognized philosophic heir of Socrates.[87:1] And\nlate in life, after the fall of Athens and the condemnation and death of\nhis master, the man underwent a curious change of heart. He is taunted\nmore than once with the lateness of his discovery of truth,[87:2] and\nwith his childish subservience to the old _jeux d'esprit_ of the\nSceptics which professed to prove the impossibility of knowledge.[87:3]\nIt seems that he had lost faith in speculation and dialectic and the\nelaborate superstructures which Plato and others had built upon them;\nand he felt, like many moralists after him, a sort of hostility to all\nknowledge that was not immediately convertible into conduct.\n\nBut this scepticism was only part of a general disbelief in the world.\nGreek philosophy had from the first been concerned with a fundamental\nquestion which we moderns seldom put clearly to ourselves. It asked\n'What is the Good?' meaning thereby 'What is the element of value in\nlife?' or 'What should be our chief aim in living?' A medieval Christian\nwould have answered without hesitation 'To go to Heaven and not be\ndamned', and would have been prepared with the necessary prescriptions\nfor attaining that end. But the modern world is not intensely enough\nconvinced of the reality of Sin and Judgement, Hell and Heaven, to\naccept this answer as an authoritative guide in life, and has not\nclearly thought out any other. The ancient Greek spent a great part of\nhis philosophical activity in trying, without propounding supernatural\nrewards and punishments, or at least without laying stress on them, to\nthink out what the Good of man really was.\n\nThe answers given by mankind to this question seem to fall under two\nmain heads. Before a battle if both parties were asked what aim they\nwere pursuing, both would say without hesitation 'Victory'. After the\nbattle, the conqueror would probably say that his purpose was in some\nway to consolidate or extend his victory; but the beaten party, as soon\nas he had time to think, would perhaps explain that, after all, victory\nwas not everything. It was better to have fought for the right, to have\ndone your best and to have failed, than to revel in the prosperity of\nthe unjust. And, since it is difficult to maintain, in the midst of the\ntriumph of the enemy and your own obvious misery and humiliation, that\nall is well and you yourself thoroughly contented, this second answer\neasily develops a third: 'Wait a little, till God's judgement asserts\nitself; and see who has the best of it then!' There will be a rich\nreward hereafter for the suffering virtuous.\n\nThe typical Athenian of the Periclean age would have been in the first\nstate of mind. His 'good' would be in the nature of success: to spread\nJustice and Freedom, to make Athens happy and strong and her laws wise\nand equal for rich and poor. Antisthenes had fallen violently into the\nsecond. He was defeated together with all that he most cared for, and he\ncomforted himself with the thought that nothing matters except to have\ndone your best. As he phrased it _Aret\u00ea is the good_, Aret\u00ea meaning\n'virtue' or 'goodness', the quality of a good citizen, a good father, a\ngood dog, a good sword.\n\nThe things of the world are vanity, and philosophy as vain as the rest.\nNothing but goodness is good; and the first step towards attaining it is\nto repent.\n\nThere was in Athens a gymnasium built for those who were base-born and\ncould not attend the gymnasia of true citizens. It was called Kynosarges\nand was dedicated to the great bastard, Heracles. Antisthenes, though he\nhad moved hitherto in the somewhat patrician circle of the Socratics,\nremembered how that his mother was a Thracian slave, and set up his\nschool in Kynosarges among the disinherited of the earth. He made\nfriends with the 'bad,' who needed befriending. He dressed like the\npoorest workman. He would accept no disciples except those who could\nbear hardship, and was apt to drive new-comers away with his stick. Yet\nhe also preached in the streets, both in Athens and Corinth. He preached\nrhetorically, with parables and vivid emotional phrases, compelling the\nattention of the crowd. His eloquence was held to be bad style, and it\nstarted the form of literature known to the Cynics as \u03c7\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b1, 'a help',\nor \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b2\u03ae, 'a study', and by the Christians as \u1f41\u03bc\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b1, a 'homily' or\nsermon.\n\nThis passionate and ascetic old man would have attracted the interest of\nthe world even more, had it not been for one of his disciples. This was\na young man from Sinope, on the Euxine, whom he did not take to at first\nsight; the son of a disreputable money-changer who had been sent to\nprison for defacing the coinage. Antisthenes ordered the lad away, but\nhe paid no attention; he beat him with his stick, but he never moved. He\nwanted 'wisdom', and saw that Antisthenes had it to give. His aim in\nlife was to do as his father had done, to 'deface the coinage', but on a\nmuch larger scale. He would deface all the coinage current in the world.\nEvery conventional stamp was false. The men stamped as generals and\nkings; the things stamped as honour and wisdom and happiness and riches;\nall were base metal with lying superscriptions. All must have the stamp\ndefaced.[90:1]\n\nThis young man was Diogenes, afterwards the most famous of all the\nCynics. He started by rejecting all stamps and superscriptions and\nholding that nothing but _Aret\u00ea_, 'worth' or 'goodness', was good. He\nrejected tradition. He rejected the current religion and the rules and\ncustoms of temple worship. True religion was a thing of the spirit, and\nneeded no forms. He despised divination. He rejected civil life and\nmarriage. He mocked at the general interest in the public games and the\nrespect paid to birth, wealth, or reputation. Let man put aside these\ndelusions and know himself. And for his defences let him arm himself\n'against Fortune with courage, against Convention with Nature, against\npassion with Reason'. For Reason is 'the god within us'.\n\nThe salvation for man was to return to Nature, and Diogenes interpreted\nthis return in the simplest and crudest way. He should live like the\nbeasts, like primeval men, like barbarians. Were not the beasts blessed,\n\u1fe5\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1 \u03b6\u03ce\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 like the Gods in Homer? And so, though in less perfection,\nwere primitive men, not vexing their hearts with imaginary sins and\nconventions. Travellers told of savages who married their sisters, or\nate human flesh, or left their dead unburied. Why should they not, if\nthey wished to? No wonder Zeus punished Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, who\nhad brought all this progress upon us and left man civilized and more\nunhappy than any beast! He deserved his crag and his vulture!\n\nDiogenes took his mission with great earnestness. He was leader in a\n'great battle against Pleasures and Desires'. He was 'the servant, the\nmessage-bearer, sent by Zeus', 'the Setter-Free of mankind' and the\n'Healer of passions'.\n\nThe life that he personally meant to live, and which he recommended to\nthe wise, was what he called \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03ba\u03c5\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u1f78\u03bd \u03b2\u03af\u03bf\u03bd, 'a dog's life', and he\nhimself wished to be a 'cynic' or 'canine'. A dog was brave and\nfaithful; it had no bodily shame, no false theories, and few wants. A\ndog needed no clothes, no house, no city, no possessions, no titles;\nwhat he did need was 'virtue', Aret\u00ea, to catch his prey, to fight wild\nbeasts, and to defend his master; and that he could provide for himself.\nDiogenes found, of course, that he needed a little more than an ordinary\ndog; a blanket, a wallet or bowl to hold his food, and a staff a 'to\nbeat off dogs and bad men'. It was the regular uniform of a beggar. He\nasked for no house. There was a huge earthen pitcher--not a tub--outside\nthe Temple of the Great Mother; the sort of vessel that was used for\nburial in primitive Greece and which still had about it the associations\nof a coffin. Diogenes slept there when he wanted shelter, and it became\nthe nearest approach to a home that he had. Like a dog he performed any\nbodily act without shame, when and where he chose. He obeyed no human\nlaws because he recognized no city. He was _Cosmopol\u00eetes_, Citizen of\nthe Universe; all men, and all beasts too, were his brothers. He lived\npreaching in the streets and begging his bread; except that he did not\n'beg', he 'commanded'. Other folk obeyed his commands because they were\nstill slaves, while he 'had never been a slave again since Antisthenes\nset him free'. He had no fear, because there was nothing to take from\nhim. Only slaves are afraid.\n\nGreece rang with stories of his mordant wit, and every bitter saying\nbecame fathered on Diogenes. Every one knew how Alexander the Great had\ncome to see the famous beggar and, standing before him where he sat in\nthe open air, had asked if there was any boon he could confer on him.\n'Yes, move from between me and the sun.' They knew the king's saying,\n'If I were not Alexander I would be Diogenes', and the polite answer 'If\nI were not Diogenes I would be Alexander'. The Master of the World and\nthe Rejector of the World met on an equality. People told too how the\nCynic walked about with a lamp in the daytime searching, so he said,\n'for a man'. They knew his scorn of the Mysteries with their doctrine of\nexclusive salvation; was a thief to be in bliss because he was\ninitiated, while Agesilaus and Epaminondas were in outer darkness? A few\nof the stories are more whimsical. A workman carrying a pole\naccidentally hit Diogenes and cried 'Look out!' 'Why,' said he, 'are you\ngoing to hit me again?'\n\nHe had rejected patriotism as he rejected culture. Yet he suffered as he\nsaw Greece under the Macedonians and Greek liberties disappearing. When\nhis death was approaching some disciple asked his wishes about his\nburial; 'Let the dogs and wolves have me,' he said; 'I should like to be\nof some use to my brothers when I die.' When this request was refused\nhis thoughts turned again to the Macedonian Wars; 'Bury me face\ndownwards; everything is soon going to be turned the other way up.'\n\nHe remains the permanent and unsurpassed type of one way of grappling\nwith the horror of life. Fear nothing, desire nothing, possess nothing:\nand then Life with all its ingenuity of malice cannot disappoint you. If\nman cannot enter into life nor yet depart from it save through agony and\nfilth, let him learn to endure the one and be indifferent to the other.\nThe watchdog of Zeus on earth has to fulfil his special duty, to warn\nmankind of the truth and to set slaves free. Nothing else matters.\n\nThe criticism of this solution is not that it is selfish. It is not. The\nCynic lives for the salvation of his fellow creatures. And it is worth\nremembering that before the Roman gladiatorial games were eventually\nstopped by the self-immolation of the monk Telemachus, two Cynic\nphilosophers had thrown themselves into the arena in the same spirit.\nIts weakness lies in a false psychology, common to all the world at that\ntime, which imagined that salvation or freedom consists in living\nutterly without desire or fear, that such a life is biologically\npossible, and that Diogenes lived it. To a subtler critic it is obvious\nthat Diogenes was a man of very strong and successful ambitions, though\nhis ambitions were different from those of most men. He solved the\nproblem of his own life by following with all the force and courage of\nhis genius a line of conduct which made him, next to Alexander, the most\nfamous man in Greece. To be really without fear or desire would mean\ndeath, and to die is not to solve the riddle of living.\n\nThe difference between the Cynic view of life and that of Plato's\n_Republic_ is interesting. Plato also rejected the most fundamental\nconventions of existing society, the accepted methods of government, the\nlaws of property and of marriage, the traditional religion and even the\npoetry which was a second religion to the Greeks. But he rejected the\nexisting culture only because he wanted it to be better. He condemned\nthe concrete existing city in order to build a more perfect city, to\nproceed in infinite searching and longing towards the Idea of Good, the\nSun of the spiritual universe. Diogenes rejected the civilization which\nhe saw, and admitted the reality of no other. His crude realistic\nattitude of mind had no use for Plato's 'Ideas'. 'I can see a table,' he\nsaid; 'I cannot see Tabularity' (\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c0\u03b5\u03b6\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2). 'I know Athens and Corinth\nand other cities, and can see that they are all bad. As for the Ideal\nSociety, show it me and I will say what I think.'\n\nIn spite of its false psychology the Cynic conception of life had a\ngreat effect in Greece. It came almost as a revelation to both men and\nwomen[95:1] and profoundly influenced all the Schools. Here indeed, it\nseemed, was a way to baffle Fortune and to make one's own soul unafraid.\nWhat men wanted was \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd 'to be of good cheer'; as we say now, to\nregain their _morale_ after bewildering defeats. The Cynic answer,\nafterwards corrected and humanized by the Stoics, was to look at life as\na long and arduous campaign. The loyal soldier does not trouble about\nhis comfort or his rewards or his pleasures. He obeys his commander's\norders without fear or failing, whether they lead to easy victories or\nmerely to wounds, captivity or death. Only Goodness is good, and for the\nsoldier Goodness (\u1f00\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03ae) is the doing of Duty. That is his true prize,\nwhich no external power can take away from him.\n\nBut after all, what is Duty? Diogenes preached 'virtue' and assumed that\nhis way of life was 'virtue'. But was it really so? And, if so, on what\nevidence? To live like a beast, to be indifferent to art, beauty,\nletters, science, philosophy, to the amenities of civic life, to all\nthat raised Hellenic Man above the beast or the savage? How could this\nbe the true end of man? The Stoic School, whose founder, Zeno, was a\ndisciple of old Antisthenes, gradually built up a theory of moral life\nwhich has on the whole weathered the storms of time with great success.\nIt largely dominated later antiquity by its imaginative and emotional\npower. It gave form to the aspirations of early Christianity. It lasts\nnow as the nearest approach to an acceptable system of conduct for those\nwho do not accept revelation, but still keep some faith in the Purpose\nof Things.\n\nThe problem is to combine the absolute value of that Goodness which, as\nwe say, 'saves the soul' with the relative values of the various good\nthings that soothe or beautify life. For, if there is any value at\nall--I will not say in health and happiness, but in art, poetry,\nknowledge, refinement, public esteem, or human affection, and if their\nclaims do clash, as in common opinion they sometimes do, with the\ndemands of absolute sanctity, how is the balance to be struck? Are we to\nbe content with the principle of accepting a little moral wrong for the\nsake of much material or artistic or intellectual advantage? That is the\nrule which the practical world follows, though without talking about\nit; but the Stoics would have none of any such compromise.\n\nZeno first, like Antisthenes, denied any value whatever to these earthly\nthings that are not virtue--to health or sickness, riches or poverty,\nbeauty or ugliness, pain or pleasure; who would ever mention them when\nthe soul stood naked before God? All that would then matter, and\nconsequently all that can ever matter, is the goodness of the man's\nself, that is, of his free and living will. The Stoics improved on the\nmilitary metaphor; for to the soldier, after all, it does matter whether\nin his part of the field he wins or loses. Life is not like a battle but\nlike a play, in which God has handed each man his part unread, and the\ngood man proceeds to act it to the best of his power, not knowing what\nmay happen in the last scene. He may become a crowned king, he may be a\nslave dying in torment. What matters it? The good actor can play either\npart. All that matters is that he shall act his best, accept the order\nof the Cosmos and obey the Purpose of the great Dramaturge.\n\nThe answer seems absolute and unyielding, with no concession to the\nweakness of the flesh. Yet, in truth, it contains in itself the germ of\na sublime practical compromise which makes Stoicism human. It accepts\nthe Cosmos and it obeys the Purpose; therefore there is a Cosmos, and\nthere is a purpose in the world. Stoicism, like much of ancient thought\nat this period, was permeated by the new discoveries of astronomy and\ntheir formation into a coherent scientific system, which remained\nunshaken till the days of Copernicus. The stars, which had always moved\nmen's wonder and even worship, were now seen and proved to be no\nwandering fires but parts of an immense and apparently eternal order.\nOne star might differ from another star in glory, but they were all\nalike in their obedience to law. They had their fixed courses, divine\nthough they were, which had been laid down for them by a Being greater\nthan they. The Order, or Cosmos, was a proven fact; therefore, the\nPurpose was a proven fact; and, though in its completeness inscrutable,\nit could at least in part be divined from the fact that all these varied\nand eternal splendours had for their centre our Earth and its ephemeral\nmaster. The Purpose, though it is not our Purpose, is especially\nconcerned with us and circles round us. It is the purpose of a God who\nloves Man.\n\nLet us forget that this system of astronomy has been overthrown, and\nthat we now know that Man is not the centre of the universe. Let us\nforget that the majestic order which reigns, or seems to reign, among\nthe stars, is matched by a brutal conflict and a chaos of jarring\npurposes in the realms of those sciences which deal with life.[98:1] If\nwe can recover the imaginative outlook of the generations which\nstretched from, say, Meton in the fifth century before Christ to\nCopernicus in the sixteenth after, we shall be able to understand the\nspiritual exaltation with which men like Zeno or Poseidonius regarded\nthe world.\n\nWe are part of an Order, a Cosmos, which we see to be infinitely above\nour comprehension but which we know to be an expression of love for Man;\nwhat can we do but accept it, not with resignation but with enthusiasm,\nand offer to it with pride any sacrifice which it may demand of us. It\nis a glory to suffer for such an end.\n\nAnd there is more. For the Stars show only what may be called a\nstationary purpose, an Order which is and remains for ever. But in the\nrest of the world, we can see a moving Purpose. It is Phusis, the word\nwhich the Romans unfortunately translated 'Natura', but which means\n'Growing' or 'the way things grow'--almost what we call Evolution. But\nto the Stoic it is a living and conscious evolution, a forethought\nor \u03a0\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1 in the mind of God, what the Romans called _providentia_,\nguiding all things that grow in a direction which accords with the\ndivine will. And the direction, the Stoic pointed out, was not towards\nmere happiness but towards _Aret\u00ea_, or the perfection of each thing or\neach species after its kind. _Phusis_ shapes the acorn to grow into the\nperfect oak, the blind puppy into the good hound; it makes the deer grow\nin swiftness to perform the function of a deer, and man grow in power\nand wisdom to perform the function of a man. If a man is an artist it is\nhis function to produce beauty; if he a governor, it is his function to\nproduce a flourishing and virtuous city. True, the things that he\nproduces are but shadows and in themselves utterly valueless; it matters\nnot one straw whether the deer goes at ten miles an hour or twenty,\nwhether the population of a city die this year of famine and sickness or\ntwenty years hence of old age. But it belongs to the good governor to\navert famine and to produce healthy conditions, as it belongs to the\ndeer to run its best. So it is the part of a friend, if need arise, to\ngive his comfort or his life for a friend; of a mother to love and\ndefend her children; though it is true that in the light of eternity\nthese 'creaturely' affections shrivel into their native worthlessness.\nIf the will of God is done, and done willingly, all is well. You may, if\nit brings you great suffering, feel the pain. You may even, through\nhuman weakness, weep or groan; that can be forgiven. \u1f1c\u03c3\u03c9\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u1f74\n\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03bd\u03ac\u03be\u03b7\u03c2, 'But in the centre of your being groan not!' Accept the Cosmos.\nWill joyously that which God wills and make the eternal Purpose your\nown.\n\nI will say no more of this great body of teaching, as I have dealt with\nit in a separate publication.[100:1] But I would point out two special\nadvantages of a psychological kind which distinguish Stoicism from many\nsystems of philosophy. First, though it never consciously faced the\npsychological problem of instinct, it did see clearly that man does not\nnecessarily pursue what pleases him most, or what is most profitable to\nhim, or even his 'good'. It saw that man can determine his end, and may\nwell choose pain in preference to pleasure. This saved the school from a\ngreat deal of that false schematization which besets most forms of\nrationalistic psychology. Secondly, it did build up a system of thought\non which, both in good days and evil, a life can be lived which is not\nonly saintly, but practically wise and human and beneficent. It did for\npractical purposes solve the problem of living, without despair and\nwithout grave, or at least without gross, illusion.\n\nThe other great school of the fourth century, a school which, in the\nmatter of ethics, may be called the only true rival of Stoicism, was\nalso rooted in defeat. But it met defeat in a different spirit.[101:1]\nEpicurus, son of Neocles, of the old Athenian clan of the Phila\u00efdae, was\nborn on a colony in Samos in 341 B. C. His father was evidently poor;\nelse he would hardly have left Athens to live on a colonial farm, nor\nhave had to eke out his farming by teaching an elementary school. We do\nnot know how much the small boy learned from his father. But for older\nstudents there was a famous school on the neighbouring island of Teos,\nwhere a certain Nausiphanes taught the Ionian tradition of Mathematics\nand Physics as well as rhetoric and literary subjects. Epicurus went to\nthis school when he was fourteen, and seems, among other things, to have\nimbibed the Atomic Theory of Democritus without realizing that it was\nanything peculiar. He felt afterwards as if his school-days had been\nmerely a waste of time. At the age of eighteen he went to Athens, the\ncentre of the philosophic world, but he only went, as Athenian citizens\nwere in duty bound, to perform his year of military service as\n_eph\u00eabus_. Study was to come later. The next year, however, 322,\nPerdiccas of Thrace made an attack on Samos and drove out the Athenian\ncolonists. Neocles had by then lived on his bit of land for thirty\nyears, and was old to begin life again. The ruined family took refuge in\nColophon, and there Epicurus joined them. They were now too poor for the\nboy to go abroad to study philosophy. He could only make the best of a\nhard time and puzzle alone over the problems of life.\n\nRecent years have taught us that there are few forms of misery harder\nthan that endured by a family of refugees, and it is not likely to have\nbeen easier in ancient conditions. Epicurus built up his philosophy, it\nwould seem, while helping his parents and brothers through this bad\ntime. The problem was how to make the life of their little colony\ntolerable, and he somehow solved it. It was not the kind of problem\nwhich Stoicism and the great religions specially set themselves; it was\nat once too unpretending and too practical. One can easily imagine the\ncondition for which he had to prescribe. For one thing, the unfortunate\nrefugees all about him would torment themselves with unnecessary\nterrors. The Thracians were pursuing them. The Gods hated them; they\nmust obviously have committed some offence or impiety. (It is always\neasy for disheartened men to discover in themselves some sin that\ndeserves punishment.) It would surely be better to die at once; except\nthat, with that sin upon them, they would only suffer more dreadfully\nbeyond the grave! In their distress they jarred, doubtless, on one\nanother's nerves; and mutual bitterness doubled their miseries.\n\nEpicurus is said to have had poor health, and the situation was one\nwhere even the best health would be sorely tried. But he had superhuman\ncourage, and--what does not always go with such courage--a very\naffectionate and gentle nature. In later life all his three brothers\nwere his devoted disciples--a testimonial accorded to few prophets or\nfounders of religions. And he is the first man in the record of European\nhistory whose mother was an important element in his life. Some of his\nletters to her have been preserved, and show a touch of intimate\naffection which of course must have existed between human beings from\nthe remotest times, but of which we possess no earlier record. And\nfragments of his letters to his friends strike the same note.[103:1]\n\nHis first discovery was that men torture themselves with unnecessary\nfears. He must teach them courage, \u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u1f78 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd, \u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u1f78\n\u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd, to fear no evil from either man or God. God is a blessed\nbeing; and no blessed being either suffers evil or inflicts evil on\nothers. And as for men, most of the evils you fear from them can be\navoided by Justice; and if they do come, they can be borne. Death is\nlike sleep, an unconscious state, nowise to be feared. Pain when it\ncomes can be endured; it is the anticipation that makes men miserable\nand saps their courage. The refugees were forgotten by the world, and\nhad no hope of any great change in their condition. Well, he argued, so\nmuch the better! Let them till the earth and love one another, and they\nwould find that they had already in them that Natural Happiness which is\nman's possession until he throws it away. And of all things that\ncontribute to happiness the greatest is Affection, \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b1.\n\nLike the Cynics and Stoics, he rejected the world and all its\nconventions and prizes, its desires and passions and futility. But where\nthe Stoic and Cynic proclaimed that in spite of all the pain and\nsuffering of a wicked world, man can by the force of his own will be\nvirtuous, Epicurus brought the more surprising good news that man can\nafter all be happy.\n\nBut to make this good news credible he had to construct a system of\nthought. He had to answer the temple authorities and their adherents\namong the vulgar, who threatened his followers with the torments of\nHades for their impiety. He had to answer the Stoics and Cynics,\npreaching that all is worthless except Aret\u00ea; and the Sceptics, who\ndwelt on the fallibility of the senses, and the logical impossibility of\nknowledge.\n\nHe met the last of these by the traditional Ionian doctrine of\nsense-impressions, ingeniously developed. We can, he argued, know the\nouter world, because our sense impressions are literally 'impressions'\nor stamps made by external objects upon our organs. To see, for\ninstance, is to be struck by an infinitely tenuous stream of images,\nflowing from the object and directly impinging upon the retina. Such\nstreams are flowing from all objects in every direction--an idea which\nseemed incredible until the modern discoveries about light, sound, and\nradiation. Thus there is direct contact with reality, and consequently\nknowledge. Besides direct vision, however, we have 'anticipations', or\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03bb\u03ae\u03c8\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2, sometimes called 'common conceptions', e. g. the general\nconception which we have of a horse when we are not seeing one. These\nare merely the result of repeated acts of vision. A curious result of\nthis doctrine was that all our 'anticipations' or 'common ideas' are\ntrue; mistakes occur through some interpretation of our own which we add\nto the simple sensation.\n\nWe can know the world. How then are we to understand it? Here again\nEpicurus found refuge in the old Ionian theory of Atoms and the Void,\nwhich is supposed to have originated with Democritus and Leucippus, a\ncentury before. But Epicurus seems to have worked out the Atomic Theory\nmore in detail, as we have it expounded in Lucretius' magnificent poem.\nIn particular it was possibly he who first combined the Atomic Theory\nwith hylozoism; i. e. he conceived of the Atoms as possessing some\nrudimentary power of movement and therefore able to swerve slightly in\ntheir regular downward course. That explains how they have become\ninfinitely tangled and mingled, how plants and animals are alive, and\nhow men have Free Will. It also enables Epicurus to build up a world\nwithout the assistance of a god. He set man free, as Lucretius says,\nfrom the 'burden of Religion', though his doctrine of the 'blessed\nBeing' which neither has pain nor gives pain, enables him to elude the\ndangerous accusation of atheism. He can leave people believing in all\ntheir traditional gods, including even, if so they wish, 'the bearded\nZeus and the helmed Athena' which they see in dreams and in their\n'common ideas', while at the same time having no fear of them.\n\nThere remains the foolish fancy of the Cynics and Stoics that 'Aret\u00ea'\nis the only good. Of course, he answers, Aret\u00ea is good; but that is\nbecause it produces happy life, or blessedness or pleasure or whatever\nyou call it. He used normally the word \u1f21\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae 'sweetness', and counted\nthe Good as that which makes life sweet. He seems never to have entered\ninto small disputes as to the difference between 'sweetness', or\n'pleasure', and 'happiness' and 'well-being' (\u1f21\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae, \u03b5\u1f50\u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03af\u03b1,\n\u03b5\u1f50\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ce, \u03ba\u03c4\u03bb.), though sometimes, instead of 'sweetness' he spoke of\n'blessedness' (\u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2). Ultimately the dispute between him and the\nStoics seems to resolve itself into a question whether the Good lies in\n\u03c0\u03ac\u03c3\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd or \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd, in Experience or in Action; and average human beings\nseem generally to think that the Good for a conscious being must be\nsomething of which he is conscious.\n\nThus the great system is built, simple, intelligible, dogmatic, and--as\nsuch systems go--remarkably water-tight. It enables man to be unafraid,\nand it helps him to be happy. The strange thing is that, although on\nmore than one point it seems to anticipate most surprisingly the\ndiscoveries of modern science, it was accepted in a spirit more\nreligious than scientific. As we can see from Lucretius it was taken\nalmost as a revelation, from one who had saved mankind; whose intellect\nhad pierced beyond the 'flaming walls of Heaven' and brought back to man\nthe gospel of an intelligible universe.[106:1]\n\nIn 310 B. C., when Epicurus was thirty-two, things had so far improved\nthat he left Colophon and set up a school of philosophy in Mytilene, but\nsoon moved to Lampsacus, on the Sea of Marmora, where he had friends.\nDisciples gathered about him. Among them were some of the leading men of\nthe city, like Leonteus and Idomeneus. The doctrine thrilled them and\nseemed to bring freedom with it. They felt that such a teacher must be\nset up in Athens, the home of the great philosophers. They bought by\nsubscription a house and garden in Athens for 80 minae (about\n\u00a3320)[107:1] and presented it to the Master. He crossed to Athens in 306\nand, though he four times revisited Lampsacus and has left letters\naddressed _To Friends in Lampsacus_, he lived in the famous Garden for\nthe rest of his life.\n\nFriends from Lampsacus and elsewhere came and lived with him or near\nhim. The Garden was not only a philosophical school; it was also a sort\nof retreat or religious community. There lived there not only\nphilosophers like M\u00eatrod\u00f4rus, Col\u00f4tes, Hermarchus, and others; there\nwere slaves, like Mys, and free women, like Themista, the wife of\nLeonteus, to both of whom the Master, as the extant fragments testify,\nwrote letters of intimate friendship. And not only free women, but women\nwith names that show that they were slaves, Leontion, Nikidion,\nMammarion. They were _hetairae_; perhaps victims of war, like many of\nthe unfortunate heroines in the New Comedy; free women from conquered\ncities, who had been sold in the slave market or reduced to misery as\nrefugees, and to whom now the Garden afforded a true and spiritual\nrefuge. For, almost as much as Diogenes, Epicurus had obliterated the\nstamp on the conventional currency. The values of the world no longer\nheld good after you had passed the wicket gate of the Garden, and spoken\nwith the Deliverer.\n\nThe Epicureans lived simply. They took neither flesh nor wine, and there\nis a letter extant, asking some one to send them a present of 'potted\ncheese'[108:1] as a special luxury. Their enemies, who were numerous and\nlively, make the obvious accusations about the hetairae, and cite an\nalleged letter of the Master to Leontion. 'Lord Paean, my dear little\nLeontion, your note fills me with such a bubble of excitement!'[108:2]\nThe problem of this letter well illustrates the difficulty of forming\nclear judgements about the details of ancient life. Probably the letter\nis a forgery: we are definitely informed that there was a collection of\nsuch forgeries, made in order to damage Epicurus. But, if genuine, would\nit have seemed to a fair-minded contemporary a permissible or an\nimpermissible letter for a philosopher to write? By modern standards it\nwould be about the border-line. And again, suppose it is a definite\nlove-letter, what means have we of deciding whether Epicurus--or for\nthat matter Zeno or Plato or any unconventional philosopher of this\nperiod--would have thought it blameworthy, or would merely have called\nour attention to the legal difficulties of contracting marriage with one\nwho had been a Hetaira, and asked us how we expect men and women to\nlive. Curiously enough, we happen to have the recorded sayings of\nEpicurus himself: 'The wise man will not fall in love', and 'Physical\nunion of the sexes never did good; it is much if it does not do harm.'\n\nThis philosophy is often unjustly criticized. It is called selfish; but\nthat it is certainly not. It is always aiming at the deliverance of\nmankind[109:1] and it bases its happiness on \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b1, Friendship or\nAffection, just as the early Christians based it on \u1f00\u03b3\u03ac\u03c0\u03b7, a word no\nwhit stronger than \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b1, though it is conventionally translated\n'Love'. By this conception it becomes at once more human than the Stoa,\nto which, as to a Christian monk, human affection was merely a weakness\nof the flesh which might often conflict with the soul's duty towards\nGod. Epicurus passionately protested against this unnatural 'apathy'. It\nwas also human in that it recognized degrees of good or bad, of virtue\nor error. To the Stoic that which was not right was wrong. A calculator\nwho says that seven sevens make forty-eight is just as wrong as one who\nsays they make a thousand, and a sailor one inch below the surface of\nthe water drowns just as surely as one who is a furlong deep. Just so in\nhuman life, wrong is wrong, falsehood is falsehood, and to talk of\ndegrees is childish. Epicureanism had an easy and natural answer to\nthese arguments, since pleasure and pain obviously admit of\ndegrees.[110:1]\n\nThe school is blamed also for pursuing pleasure, on the ground that the\ndirect pursuit of pleasure is self-defeating. But Epicurus never makes\nthat mistake. He says that pleasure, or 'sweetness of life', is the\ngood; but he never counsels the direct pursuit of it. Quite the reverse.\nHe says that if you conquer your desires and fears, and live simply and\nlove those about you, the natural sweetness of life will reveal itself.\n\nA truer criticism is one which appears dimly in Plutarch and\nCicero.[110:2] There is a strange shadow of sadness hanging over this\nwise and kindly faith, which proceeds from the essential distrust of\nlife that lies at its heart. The best that Epicurus has really to say of\nthe world is that if you are very wise and do not attract its\nnotice--\u039b\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5 \u03b2\u03b9\u03ce\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2--it will not hurt you. It is a philosophy not of\nconquest but of escape. This was a weakness from which few of the\nfourth-century thinkers completely escaped. To aim at what we should\ncall positive happiness was, to the Epicureans, only to court\ndisappointment; better make it your aim to live without strong\npassion or desire, without high hopes or ambitions. Their professed\nideals--\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f00\u03bb\u03b3\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f51\u03c0\u03b5\u03be\u03b1\u03af\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2, \u1f00\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03be\u03af\u03b1, \u03b5\u1f55\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1, 'the removal of all\nactive suffering', 'undisturbedness', 'a smooth flow'--seem to result in\nrather a low tension, in a life that is only half alive. We know that,\nas a matter of fact, this was not so. The Epicureans felt their doctrine\nto bring not mere comfort but inspiration and blessedness. The young\nColotes, on first hearing the master speak, fell on his knees with tears\nand hailed him as a god.[111:1] We may compare the rapturous phrases of\nLucretius. What can be the explanation of this?\n\nPerhaps it is that a deep distrust of the world produces its own inward\nreaction, as starving men dream of rich banquets, and persecuted sects\nhave apocalyptic visions of paradise. The hopes and desires that are\nstarved of their natural sustenance project themselves on to some plane\nof the imagination. The martyr, even the most heretical martyr, sees the\nvision of his crown in the skies, the lover sees in obvious defects only\nrare and esoteric beauties. Epicurus avoided sedulously the\ntranscendental optimism of the Stoics. He avoided mysticism, avoided\nallegory, avoided faith; he tried to set the feet of his philosophy on\nsolid ground. He can make a strong case for the probable happiness of a\nman of kindly affections and few desires, who asks little from the\noutside world. But after all it is only probable; misfortunes and\nmiseries may come to any man. 'Most of the evils you fear are false,' he\nanswers, still reasonably. 'Death does not hurt. Poverty need never\nmake a man less happy.' And actual pain? 'Yes, pain may come. But you\ncan endure it. Intense pains are brief; long-drawn pains are not\nexcruciating; or seldom so.' Is that common-sense comfort not enough?\nThe doctrine becomes more intense both in its promises and its demands.\nIf intense suffering comes, he enjoins, turn away your mind and conquer\nthe pain by the 'sweetness' of memory. There are in every wise man's\nlife moments of intense beauty and delight; if he has strength of mind\nhe will call them back to him at will and live in the blessedness of the\npast, not in the mere dull agony of the moment. Nay, can he not actually\nenjoy the intellectual interest of this or that pang? Has he not that\nwithin him which can make the quality of its own life? On hearing of the\ndeath of a friend he will call back the sweetness of that friend's\nconverse; in the burning Bull of Phalaris he will think his thoughts and\nbe glad. Illusion, the old Siren with whom man cannot live in peace, nor\nyet without her, has crept back unseen to the centre of the citadel. It\nwas Epicurus, and not a Stoic or Cynic, who asserts that a Wise Man will\nbe happy on the rack.[112:1]\n\nStrangely obliging, ironic Fortune gave to him also a chance of testing\nof his own doctrine. There is extant a letter written on his death-bed.\n'I write to you on this blissful day which is the last of my life. The\nobstruction of my bladder and internal pains have reached the extreme\npoint, but there is marshalled against them the delight of my mind in\nthinking over our talks together. Take care of the children of\nMetrodorus in a way worthy of your life-long devotion to me and to\nphilosophy.'[113:1] At least his courage, and his kindness, did not\nfail.\n\nEpicureanism had certainly its sublime side; and from this very\nsublimity perhaps arose the greatest flaw in the system, regarded as a\nrational philosophy. It was accepted too much as a Revelation, too\nlittle as a mere step in the search for truth. It was based no doubt on\ncareful and even profound scientific studies, and was expounded by the\nmaster in a vast array of volumes. But the result so attained was\nconsidered sufficient. Further research was not encouraged. Heterodoxy\nwas condemned as something almost approaching 'parricide'.[113:2] The\npursuit of 'needless knowledge' was deliberately frowned upon.[113:3]\nWhen other philosophers were working out calculations about the size of\nthe Sun and the commensurability of the sun-cycle and the moon-cycle,\nEpicurus contemptuously remarked that the Sun was probably about as big\nas it looked, or perhaps smaller: since fires at a distance generally\nlook bigger than they are. The various theories of learned men were all\npossible but none certain. And as for the cycles, how did any one know\nthat there was not a new sun shot off and extinguished every day?[113:4]\nIt is not surprising to find that none of the great discoveries of the\nHellenistic Age were due to the Epicurean school. Lucretius, writing 250\nyears later, appears to vary hardly in any detail from the doctrines of\nthe Master, and Diogenes of Oenoanda, 500 years later, actually repeats\nhis letters and sayings word for word.\n\nIt is sad, this. It is un-Hellenic; it is a clear symptom of decadence\nfrom the free intellectual movement and the high hopes which had made\nthe fifth century glorious. Only in one great school does the true\nHellenic _S\u00f4phrosyn\u00ea_ continue flourishing, a school whose modesty of\npretension and quietness of language form a curious contrast with the\nrapt ecstasies of Stoic and Cynic and even, as we have seen, of\nEpicurean, just as its immense richness of scientific achievement\ncontrasts with their comparative sterility. The Porch and the Garden\noffered new religions to raise from the dust men and women whose spirits\nwere broken; Aristotle in his Open Walk, or _Peripatos_, brought\nphilosophy and science and literature to guide the feet and interest the\nminds of those who still saw life steadily and tried their best to see\nit whole.\n\nAristotle was not lacking in religious insight and imagination, as he\ncertainly was not without profound influence on the future history of\nreligion. His complete rejection of mythology and of anthropomorphism;\nhis resolute attempt to combine religion and science, not by sacrificing\none to the other but by building the highest spiritual aspirations on\nascertained truth and the probable conclusions to which it pointed; his\nsplendid imaginative conception of the Divine Being or First Cause as\nunmoved itself while moving all the universe 'as the beloved moves the\nlover'; all these are high services to religious speculation, and\njustify the position he held, even when known only through a distorting\nArabic translation, in medieval Christianity. If he had not written his\nother books he might well be famous now as a great religious teacher.\nBut his theology is dwarfed by the magnificence and mass of his other\nwork. And as a philosopher and man of science he does not belong to our\npresent subject.\n\nHe is only mentioned here as a standard of that characteristic quality\nin Hellenism from which the rest of this book records a downfall. One\nvariant of a well-known story tells how a certain philosopher, after\nfrequenting the Peripatetic School, went to hear Chrysippus, the Stoic,\nand was transfixed. 'It was like turning from men to Gods.' It was\nreally turning from Greeks to Semites, from philosophy to religion, from\na school of very sober professions and high performance to one whose\nprofessions dazzled the reason. 'Come unto me,' cried the Stoic, 'all ye\nwho are in storm or delusion; I will show you the truth and the world\nwill never grieve you more.'\n\nAristotle made no such profession. He merely thought and worked and\ntaught better than other men. Aristotle is always surprising us not\nmerely by the immense volume of clear thinking and co-ordinated\nknowledge of which he was master, but by the steady _S\u00f4phrosyn\u00ea_ of his\ntemper. Son of the court physician of Philip, tutor for some years to\nAlexander the Great, he never throughout his extant writings utters one\nsyllable of flattery to his royal and world-conquering employers; nor\nyet one syllable which suggests a grievance. He saw, at close quarters\nand from the winning side, the conquest of the Greek city states by the\nMacedonian _ethnos_ or nation; but he judges dispassionately that the\ncity is the higher social form.\n\nIt seems characteristic that in his will, which is extant, after\nproviding a dowry for his widow, Herpyllis, to facilitate her getting a\nsecond husband, and thanking her for her goodness to him, he directs\nthat his bones are to be laid in the same grave with those of his first\nwife, Pythias, whom he had rescued from robbers more than twenty years\nbefore.[116:1]\n\nOther philosophers disliked him because he wore no long beard, dressed\nneatly and had good normal manners, and they despised his philosophy for\nvery similar reasons. It was a school which took the existing world and\ntried to understand it instead of inventing some intense ecstatic\ndoctrine which should transform it or reduce it to nothingness.\n\nIt possessed no Open Sesame to unlock the prison of mankind; yet it is\nnot haunted by that _Oim\u00f4g\u00ea_ of Kynoskephalai. While armies sweep Greece\nthis way and that, while the old gods are vanquished and the cities lose\ntheir freedom and their meaning, the Peripatetics instead of\npassionately saving souls diligently pursued knowledge, and in\ngeneration after generation produced scientific results which put all\ntheir rivals into the shade.[116:2] In mathematics, astronomy, physics,\nbotany, zoology, and biology, as well as the human sciences of\nliterature and history, the Hellenistic Age was one of the most creative\nknown to our record. And it is not only that among the savants\nresponsible for these advances the proportion of Peripatetics is\noverwhelming; one may also notice that in this school alone it is\nassumed as natural that further research will take place and will\nprobably correct as well as increase our knowledge, and that, when such\ncorrections or differences of opinion do take place, there is no cry\nraised of Heresy.\n\nIt is the old difference between Philosophy and Religion, between the\nsearch of the intellect for truth and the cry of the heart for\nsalvation. As the interest in truth for its own sake gradually abated in\nthe ancient world, the works of Aristotle might still find commentators,\nbut his example was forgotten and his influence confined to a small\ncircle. The Porch and the Garden, for the most part, divided between\nthem the allegiance of thoughtful men. Both systems had begun in days of\ndiscomfiture, and aimed originally more at providing a refuge for the\nsoul than at ordering the course of society. But after the turmoil of\nthe fourth century had subsided, when governments began again to\napproach more nearly to peace and consequently to justice, and public\nlife once more to be attractive to decent men, both philosophies showed\nthemselves adaptable to the needs of prosperity as well as adversity.\nMany kings and great Roman governors professed Stoicism. It held before\nthem the ideal of universal Brotherhood, and of duty to the 'Great\nSociety of Gods and Men'; it enabled them to work, indifferent to mere\npain and pleasure, as servants of the divine purpose and 'fellow-workers\nwith God' in building up a human Cosmos within the eternal Cosmos. It\nis perhaps at first sight strange that many kings and governors also\nfollowed Epicurus. Yet after all the work of a public man is not\nhindered by a slight irony as to the value of worldly greatness and a\nconviction that a dinner of bread and water with love to season it 'is\nbetter than all the crowns of the Greeks'. To hate cruelty and\nsuperstition, to avoid passion and luxury, to regard human 'pleasure' or\n'sweetness of life' as the goal to be aimed at, and 'friendship' or\n'kindliness' as the principal element in that pleasure, are by no means\ndoctrines incompatible with wise and effective administration. Both\nsystems were good and both in a way complementary one to another. They\nstill divide between them the practical philosophy of western mankind.\nAt times to most of us it seems as though nothing in life had value\nexcept to do right and to fear not; at others that the only true aim is\nto make mankind happy. At times man's best hope seems to lie in that\npart of him which is prepared to defy or condemn the world of fact if it\ndiverges from the ideal; in that intensity of reverence which will\naccept many impossibilities rather than ever reject a holy thing; above\nall in that uncompromising moral sensitiveness to which not merely the\ncorruptions of society but the fundamental and necessary facts of animal\nexistence seem both nauseous and wicked, links and chains in a system\nwhich can never be the true home of the human spirit. At other times men\nfeel the need to adapt their beliefs and actions to the world as it is;\nto brush themselves free from cobwebs; to face plain facts with common\nsense and as much kindliness as life permits, meeting the ordinary needs\nof a perishable and imperfect species without illusion and without\nmake-believe. At one time we are Stoics, at another Epicureans.\n\nBut amid their differences there is one faith which was held by both\nschools in common. It is the great characteristic faith of the ancient\nworld, revealing itself in many divergent guises and seldom fully\nintelligible to modern men; faith in the absolute supremacy of the\ninward life over things external. These men really believed that wisdom\nis more precious than jewels, that poverty and ill health are things of\nno import, that the good man is happy whatever befall him, and all the\nrest. And in generation after generation many of the ablest men, and\nwomen also, acted upon the belief. They lived by free choice lives whose\nsimplicity and privation would horrify a modern labourer, and the world\nabout them seems to have respected rather than despised their poverty.\nTo the Middle Age, with its monks and mendicants expectant of reward in\nheaven, such an attitude, except for its disinterestedness, would be\neasily understood. To some eastern nations, with their cults of\nasceticism and contemplation, the same doctrines have appealed almost\nlike a physical passion or a dangerous drug running riot in their veins.\nBut modern western man cannot believe them, nor believe seriously that\nothers believe them. On us the power of the material world has, through\nour very mastery of it and the dependence which results from that\nmastery, both inwardly and outwardly increased its hold. _Capta ferum\nvictorem cepit._ We have taken possession of it, and now we cannot move\nwithout it.\n\nThe material element in modern life is far greater than in ancient; but\nit does not follow that the spiritual element is correspondingly less.\nNo doubt it is true that a naval officer in a conning-tower in a modern\nbattle does not need less courage and character than a naked savage who\nmeets his enemy with a stick and a spear. Yet probably in the first case\nthe battle is mainly decided by the weight and accuracy of the guns, in\nthe second by the qualities of the fighter. Consequently the modern\nworld thinks more incessantly and anxiously about the guns, that is,\nabout money and mechanism; the ancient devotes its thought more to human\ncharacter and duty. And it is curious to observe how, in general, each\ntries to remedy what is wrong with the world by the method that is\nhabitually in its thoughts. Speaking broadly, apart from certain\nreligious movements, the enlightened modern reformer, if confronted with\nsome ordinary complex of misery and wickedness, instinctively proposes\nto cure it by higher wages, better food, more comfort and leisure; to\nmake people comfortable and trust to their becoming good. The typical\nancient reformer would appeal to us to care for none of those things\n(since riches notoriously do not make men virtuous), but with all our\npowers to pursue wisdom or righteousness and the life of the spirit; to\nbe good men, as we can be if we will, and to know that all else will\nfollow.\n\nThis is one of the regions in which the ancients might have learned much\nfrom us, and in which we still have much to learn from them, if once we\ncan shake off our temporal obsessions and listen.\n\n\nNOTE\n\nAs an example it is worth noticing, even in a bare catalogue, the work\ndone by one of Aristotle's own pupils, a Peripatetic of the second\nrank, Dicaearchus of Messene. His _floruit_ is given as 310 B. C. Dorian\nby birth, when Theophrastus was made head of the school he retired to\nthe Peloponnese, and shows a certain prejudice against Athens.\n\nOne of the discoveries of the time was biography. And, by a brilliant\nstroke of imagination Dicaearchus termed one of his books \u0392\u03af\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f19\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2,\n_The Life of Hellas_. He saw civilization as the biography of the world.\nFirst, the Age of Cronos, when man as a simple savage made no effort\nafter higher things; next, the ancient river-civilizations of the\norient; third, the Hellenic system. Among his scanty fragments we find\nnotes on such ideas as \u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1, \u03c6\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b1, \u03c6\u03c5\u03bb\u03ae, as Greek institutions. The\n_Life of Hellas_ was much used by late writers. It formed the model for\nanother \u0392\u03af\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f19\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 by a certain Jason, and for Varro's _Vita Populi\nRomani_.\n\nThen, like his great master, Dicaearchus made studies of the\nConstitutions of various states (e. g. Pellene, Athens, and Corinth);\nhis treatise on the Constitution of Sparta was read aloud annually in\nthat city by order of the Ephors. It was evidently appreciative.\n\nA more speculative work was his _Tripoliticus_, arguing that the best\nconstitution ought to be compounded of the three species, monarchic,\naristocratic, and democratic, as in Sparta. Only then would it be sure\nto last. Polybius accepted the principle of the Mixed Constitution, but\nfound his ideal in the constitution of Rome, which later history was to\nprove so violently unstable. Cicero, _De Republica_, takes the same line\n(Polyb. vi. 2-10; Cic. _De Rep._ i. 45; ii. 65). Dicaearchus treated of\nsimilar political subjects in his public addresses at Olympia and at the\nPanathenaea.\n\nWe hear more about his work on the history of literature, though his\ngeneration was almost the first to realize that such a subject had any\nexistence. He wrote _Lives of Philosophers_--a subject hitherto not\nconsidered worth recording--giving the biographical facts followed by\nphilosophic and aesthetic criticism. We hear, for example, of his life\nof Plato; of Pythagoras (in which he laid emphasis on the philosopher's\npractical work), of Xenophanes, and of the Seven Wise Men.\n\nHe also wrote _Lives of Poets_. We hear of books on Alcaeus and on\nHomer, in which latter he is said to have made the startling remark that\nthe poems 'should be pronounced in the Aeolic dialect'. Whatever this\nremark exactly meant, and we cannot tell without the context, it seems\nan extraordinary anticipation of modern philological discoveries. He\nwrote on the _Hypotheses_--i. e. the subject matter--_of Sophocles and\nEuripides_; also on _Musical Contests_, \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u039c\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03b3\u03ce\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd, carrying\nfurther Aristotle's own collection of the _Didascaliae_, or official\nnotices of the production of Tragedies in Athens. The book dealt both\nwith dates and with customs; it told how Skolia were sung, with a\nlaurel or myrtle twig in the hand, how Sophocles introduced a third\nactor, and the like.\n\nIn philosophy proper he wrote On the Soul, \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u1fc6\u03c2. His first book,\nthe _Corinthiacus_, proved that the Soul was a 'harmony' or 'right\nblending' of the four elements, and was identical with the force of the\nliving body. The second, the _Lesbiacus_, drew the conclusion that, if a\ncompound, it was destructible. (Hence a great controversy with his\nmaster.)\n\nHe wrote \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c6\u03b8\u03bf\u03c1\u1fb6\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd, on the _Perishing of Mankind_; i. e. on\nthe way in which large masses of men have perished off the earth,\nthrough famine, pestilence, wild beasts, war, and the like. He decides\nthat man's most destructive enemy is Man. (The subject may have been\nsuggested to him by a fine imaginative passage in Aristotle's\n_Meteorology_ (i. 14, 7) dealing with the vast changes that have taken\nplace on the earth's surface and the unrecorded perishings of races and\ncommunities.)\n\nHe wrote a treatise against _Divination_, and a (satirical?) _Descent to\nthe Cave of Trophonius_. He seems, however, to have allowed some\nimportance to dreams and to the phenomena of 'possession'.\n\nAnd, with all this, we have not touched on his greatest work, which was\nin the sphere of geography. He wrote a \u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b3\u1fc6\u03c2, a _Journey Round\nthe Earth_, accompanied with a map. He used for this map the greatly\nincreased stores of knowledge gained by the Macedonian expeditions over\nall Asia as far as the Ganges. He also seems to have devised the method\nof denoting the position of a place by means of two co-ordinates, the\nmethod soon after developed by Eratosthenes into Latitude and Longitude.\nHe attempted calculations of the measurements of large geographic\ndistances, for which of course both his data and his instruments were\ninadequate. Nevertheless his measurements remained a well-known\nstandard; we find them quoted and criticized by Strabo and Polybius.\nAnd, lastly, he published _Measurements of the Heights of Mountains in\nthe Peloponnese_; but the title seems to have been unduly modest, for we\nfind in the fragments statements about mountains far outside that area;\nabout Pelion and Olympus in Thessaly and of Atabyrion in Rhodes. He had\na subvention, Pliny tells us (N. H. ii. 162, 'regum cura permensus\nmontes'), from the king of Macedon, probably either Cassander or, as one\nwould like to believe, the philosophic Antigonus Gonatas. And he\ncalculated the heights, so we are told, by trigonometry, using the\n\u03b4\u03af\u03bf\u03c0\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1, an instrument of hollow reeds without lenses which served for\nhis primitive theodolite. It is an extraordinary record, and illustrates\nthe true Peripatetic spirit.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[79:1] _Hellen._ ii. 2, 3.\n\n[80:1] Cf. Tarn, _Antigonus Gonatas_, p. 52, and authorities there\nquoted.\n\n[81:1] Lysias, xxxiii.\n\n[82:1] Dem. _Crown_, 208.\n\n[83:1] 'Such-like trash', _Gorgias_, 519 A; dust-storm, _Rep._ vi. 496;\nclothes, _Gorg._ 523 E; 'democratic man', _Rep._ viii. 556 ff.\n\n[84:1] _Laws_, 709 E, cf. Letter VII.\n\n[85:1] Aulus Gellius, xiv. 3; Plato, _Laws_, p. 695; Xen. _Cyrop._ viii.\n7, compared with _Hdt._ i. 214.\n\n[87:1] This is the impression left by Xenophon, especially in the\nSymposium. Cf. D\u00fcmmler, _Antisthenica_ (1882); _Akademika_ (1889). Cf.\nthe _Life of Antisthenes_ in Diog. Laert.\n\n[87:2] \u0393\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd \u1f40\u03c8\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03db, Plato, _Soph._ 251 B, Isocr. _Helena_, i. 2.\n\n[87:3] e. g. no combination of subject and predicate can be true because\none is different from the other. 'Man' is 'man' and 'good' is 'good';\nbut 'man' is not 'good'. Nor can 'a horse' possibly be 'running'; they\nare totally different conceptions. See Plutarch, _adv. Co._ 22, 1 (p.\n1119); Plato, _Soph._ 251 B; Arist. _Metaph._ 1024{b} 33; Top. 104{b}\n20; Plato, _Euthyd._ 285 E. For similar reasons no statement can ever\ncontradict another; the statements are either the same or not the same;\nand if not the same they do not touch. Every object has one \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 or\nthing to be said about it; if you say a different \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 you are speaking\nof something else. See especially _Scholia Arist._, p. 732{a} 30 ff. on\nthe passage in the _Metaphysics_, 1024{b} 33.\n\n[90:1] \u03a4\u1f78 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03c4\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd: see _Life_ in Diog. Laert., fragments\nin Mullach, vol. ii, and the article in Pauly-Wissowa.\n\n[95:1] There were women among the Cynics. 'The doctrine also captured\nMetrocles' sister, Hipparchia. She loved Crates, his words, and his way\nof life, and paid no attention to any of her suitors, however rich or\nhighborn or handsome. Crates was everything to her. She threatened her\nparents that she would commit suicide unless she were given to him. They\nasked Crates to try to change the girl's mind, and he did all he could\nto no effect, till at last he put all his possessions on the floor and\nstood up in front of her. 'Here is your bridegroom; there is his\nfortune; now think!' The girl made her choice, put on the beggar's garb,\nand went her ways with Crates. She lived with him openly and went like\nhim to beg food at dinners.' Diog. Laert. vi. 96 ff.\n\n[98:1] e. g. the struggle for existence among animals and plants; the\n\u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03bb\u03bf\u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03af\u03b1, or 'mutual devouring', of animals; and such points as the\nvarious advances in evolution which seem self-destructive. Thus, Man has\nlearnt to stand on two feet and use his hands; a great advantage but one\nwhich has led to numerous diseases. Again, physiologists say that the\nincreasing size of the human head, especially when combined with the\ndiminishing size of the pelvis, tends to make normal birth impossible.\n\n[100:1] _The Stoic Philosophy_ (1915). See also Arnold's _Roman\nStoicism_ (1911); Bevan's _Stoics and Sceptics_ (1913); and especially\n_Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta_ by von Arnim (1903-5).\n\n[101:1] The chief authorities on Epicurus are Usener's _Epicurea_,\ncontaining the _Life_ from Diog. Laert., fragments and introduction: the\npapyrus fragments of Philodemus in _Volumina Herculanensia_; Diogenes of\nOenoanda (text by William, Teubner, 1907); the commentaries on Lucretius\n(Munro, Giussani, &c.).\n\n[103:1] Epicurus is the one philosopher who protests with real\nindignation against that inhuman superiority to natural sorrows which is\nso much prized by most of the ancient schools. To him such 'apathy'\nargues either a hard heart or a morbid vanity (Fr. 120). His letters are\nfull of affectionate expressions which rather shock the stern reserve of\nantique philosophy. He waits for one friend's 'heavenly presence' (Fr.\n165). He 'melts with a peculiar joy mingled with tears in remembering\nthe last words' of one who is dead (Fr. 186; cf. 213). He is\nenthusiastic about an act of kindness performed by another, who walked\nsome five miles to help a barbarian prisoner (Fr. 194).\n\n[106:1] Lucretius, i. 62-79, actually speaks of the great\natheist in language taken from the Saviour Religions (see below, p.\n162):\n\n     When Man's life upon earth in base dismay,\n     Crushed by the burthen of Religion, lay,\n     Whose face, from all the regions of the sky,\n     Hung, glaring hate upon mortality,\n     First one Greek man against her dared to raise\n     His eyes, against her strive through all his days;\n     Him noise of Gods nor lightnings nor the roar\n     Of raging heaven subdued, but pricked the more\n     His spirit's valiance, till he longed the Gate\n     To burst of this low prison of man's fate.\n     And thus the living ardour of his mind\n     Conquered, and clove its way; he passed behind\n     The world's last flaming wall, and through the whole\n     Of space uncharted ranged his mind and soul.\n     Whence, conquering, he returned to make Man see\n     At last what can, what cannot, come to be;\n     By what law to each Thing its power hath been\n     Assigned, and what deep boundary set between;\n     Till underfoot is tamed Religion trod,\n     And, by His victory, Man ascends to God.\n\n[107:1] That is, 8,000 drachmae. Rents had risen violently in 314 and so\npresumably had land prices. Else one would say the Garden was about the\nvalue of a good farm. See Tarn in _The Hellenistic Age_ (1923), p. 116.\n\n[108:1] \u03c4\u03c5\u03c1\u1f78\u03bd \u03ba\u03c5\u03b8\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, Fr. 182.\n\n[108:2] Fr. 143. \u03a0\u03b1\u03b9\u1f70\u03bd \u1f04\u03bd\u03b1\u03be, \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u039b\u03b5\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, \u03bf\u1f34\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u03b8\u03bf\u03c1\u03cd\u03b2\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f21\u03bc\u1fb6\u03c2\n\u1f00\u03bd\u03ad\u03c0\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2, \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03b3\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03cc \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd. Fr. 121 (from an enemy) implies\nthat the Hetairae were expected to reform when they entered the Garden.\nCf. Fr. 62 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03af\u03b7 \u1f64\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u03ad\u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5, \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03b7\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b5\u1f30 \u03bc\u1f74 \u1f14\u03b2\u03bb\u03b1\u03c8\u03b5: cf.\nFr. 574.\n\n[109:1] See p. 169 below on Diogenes of Oenoanda.\n\n[110:1] Pleasures and pains may be greater or less, but the complete\n'removal of pain and fear' is a perfect end, not to be surpassed. Fr.\n408-48, Ep. iii. 129-31.\n\n[110:2] e. g. Plut. _Ne suaviter quidem vivi_, esp. chap. 17 (p. 1098\nD).\n\n[111:1] Cf. Fr. 141 when Epicurus writes to Colotes: 'Think of me as\nimmortal, and go your ways as immortal too.'\n\n[112:1] Fr. 601; cf. 598 ff.\n\n[113:1] Fr. 138; cf. 177.\n\n[113:2] '\u03bf\u1f31 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03b3\u03c1\u03ac\u03c6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u1f70\u03bd \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bd\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b4\u03af\u03ba\u03b7\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c6\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd', Fr. 49. Usener, from Philodemus, _De Rhet._ This\nmay be only a playful reference to Plato's phrase about being a\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 of his father, Parmenides, _Soph._, p. 241 D.\n\n[113:3] Epicurus congratulated himself (erroneously) that he came to\nPhilosophy \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03c2, 'undefiled by education'. Cf. Fr. 163\nto Pythocles, \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c0\u1fb6\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd, \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b5, \u03c6\u03b5\u1fe6\u03b3\u03b5 \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f00\u03ba\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2,\n'From education in every shape, my son, spread sail and fly!'\n\n[113:4] Fr. 343-6.\n\n[116:1] Pythias was the niece, or ward, of Aristotle's friend, Hermias,\nan extraordinary man who rose from slavery to be first a free man and a\nphilosopher, and later Prince or 'Dynast' of Assos and Atarneus. In the\nend he was treacherously entrapped by the Persian General, Mentor, and\ncrucified by the king. Aristotle's 'Ode to Virtue' is addressed to him.\nTo his second wife, Herpyllis, Aristotle was only united by a civil\nmarriage like the Roman _usus_.\n\n[116:2] See note on Dicaearchus at end of chapter.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE FAILURE OF NERVE\n\n\nAny one who turns from the great writers of classical Athens, say\nSophocles or Aristotle, to those of the Christian era must be conscious\nof a great difference in tone. There is a change in the whole relation\nof the writer to the world about him. The new quality is not\nspecifically Christian: it is just as marked in the Gnostics and\nMithras-worshippers as in the Gospels and the Apocalypse, in Julian and\nPlotinus as in Gregory and Jerome. It is hard to describe. It is a rise\nof asceticism, of mysticism, in a sense, of pessimism; a loss of\nself-confidence, of hope in this life and of faith in normal human\neffort; a despair of patient inquiry, a cry for infallible revelation;\nan indifference to the welfare of the state, a conversion of the soul to\nGod. It is an atmosphere in which the aim of the good man is not so much\nto live justly, to help the society to which he belongs and enjoy the\nesteem of his fellow creatures; but rather, by means of a burning faith,\nby contempt for the world and its standards, by ecstasy, suffering, and\nmartyrdom, to be granted pardon for his unspeakable unworthiness, his\nimmeasurable sins. There is an intensifying of certain spiritual\nemotions; an increase of sensitiveness, a failure of nerve.\n\nNow this antithesis is often exaggerated by the admirers of one side or\nthe other. A hundred people write as if Sophocles had no mysticism and\npractically speaking no conscience. Half a dozen retort as if St. Paul\nhad no public spirit and no common sense. I have protested often against\nthis exaggeration; but, stated reasonably, as a change of proportion and\nnot a creation of new hearts, the antithesis is certainly based on fact.\nThe historical reasons for it are suggested above, in the first of these\nessays.\n\nMy description of this complicated change is, of course, inadequate, but\nnot, I hope, one-sided. I do not depreciate the religions that followed\non this movement by describing the movement itself as a 'failure of\nnerve'. Mankind has not yet decided which of two opposite methods leads\nto the fuller and deeper knowledge of the world: the patient and\nsympathetic study of the good citizen who lives in it, or the ecstatic\nvision of the saint who rejects it. But probably most Christians are\ninclined to believe that without some failure and sense of failure,\nwithout a contrite heart and conviction of sin, man can hardly attain\nthe religious life. I can imagine an historian of this temper believing\nthat the period we are about to discuss was a necessary softening of\nhuman pride, a _Praeparatio Evangelica_.[124:1]\n\nI am concerned in this paper with the lower country lying between two\ngreat ranges. The one range is Greek Philosophy, culminating in Plato,\nAristotle, the Porch, and the Garden; the other is Christianity,\nculminating in St. Paul and his successors. The one is the work of\nHellas, using some few foreign elements; the second is the work of\nHellenistic culture on a Hebrew stock. The books of Christianity are\nGreek, the philosophical background is Hellenistic, the result of the\ninterplay, in the free atmosphere of Greek philosophy, of religious\nideas derived from Egypt, Anatolia, Syria, and Babylon. The preaching is\ncarried on in Greek among the Greek-speaking workmen of the great\nmanufacturing and commercial cities. The first preachers are Jews: the\ncentral scene is set in Jerusalem. I wish in this essay to indicate how\na period of religious history, which seems broken, is really continuous,\nand to trace the lie of the main valleys which lead from the one range\nto the other, through a large and imperfectly explored territory.\n\nThe territory in question is the so-called Hellenistic Age, the period\nduring which the Schools of Greece were 'hellenizing' the world. It is a\ntime of great enlightenment, of vigorous propaganda, of high importance\nto history. It is a time full of great names: in one school of\nphilosophy alone we have Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Panaetius,\nPosidonius. Yet, curiously enough, it is represented in our tradition by\nsomething very like a mere void. There are practically no complete books\npreserved, only fragments and indirect quotations. Consequently in the\nsearch for information about this age we must throw our nets wide.\nBeside books and inscriptions of the Hellenistic period proper I have\ndrawn on Cicero, Pliny, Seneca, and the like for evidence about their\nteachers and masters. I have used many Christian and Gnostic documents\nand works like the Corpus of Hermetic writings and the Mithras Liturgy.\nAmong modern writers I must acknowledge a special debt to the researches\nof Dieterich, Cumont, Bousset, Wendland, and Reitzenstein.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Hellenistic Age seems at first sight to have entered on an\ninheritance such as our speculative Anarchists sometimes long for, a\n_tabula rasa_, on which a new and highly gifted generation of thinkers\nmight write clean and certain the book of their discoveries about\nlife--what Herodotus would call their '_Histori\u00ea_'. For, as we have seen\nin the last essay, it is clear that by the time of Plato the traditional\nreligion of the Greek states was, if taken at its face value, a bankrupt\nconcern. There was hardly one aspect in which it could bear criticism;\nand in the kind of test that chiefly matters, the satisfaction of men's\nethical requirements and aspirations, it was if anything weaker than\nelsewhere. Now a religious belief that is scientifically preposterous\nmay still have a long and comfortable life before it. Any worshipper can\nsuspend the scientific part of his mind while worshipping. But a\nreligious belief that is morally contemptible is in serious danger,\nbecause when the religious emotions surge up the moral emotions are not\nfar away. And the clash cannot be hidden.\n\nThis collapse of the traditional religion of Greece might not have\nmattered so much if the form of Greek social life had remained. If a\ngood Greek had his Polis, he had an adequate substitute in most respects\nfor any mythological gods. But the Polis too, as we have seen in the\nlast essay, fell with the rise of Macedon. It fell, perhaps, not from\nany special spiritual fault of its own; it had few faults except its\nfatal narrowness; but simply because there now existed another social\nwhole, which, whether higher or lower in civilization, was at any rate\nutterly superior in brute force and in money. Devotion to the Polis lost\nits reality when the Polis, with all that it represented of rights and\nlaws and ideals of Life, lay at the mercy of a military despot, who\nmight, of course, be a hero, but might equally well be a vulgar sot or a\ncorrupt adventurer.\n\nWhat the succeeding ages built upon the ruins of the Polis is not our\nimmediate concern. In the realm of thought, on the whole, the Polis\ntriumphed. Aristotle based his social theory on the Polis, not the\nnation. Dicaearchus, Didymus, and Posidonius followed him, and we still\nuse his language. Rome herself was a Polis, as well as an Empire. And\nProfessor Haverfield has pointed out that a City has more chance of\ntaking in the whole world to its freedoms and privileges than a Nation\nhas of making men of alien birth its compatriots. A Jew of Tarsus could\neasily be granted the civic rights of Rome: he could never have been\nmade an Italian or a Frenchman. The Stoic ideal of the World as 'one\ngreat City of Gods and Men' has not been surpassed by any ideal based on\nthe Nation.\n\nWhat we have to consider is the general trend of religious thought from,\nsay, the Peripatetics to the Gnostics. It is a fairly clear history. A\nsoil once teeming with wild weeds was to all appearance swept bare and\nmade ready for new sowing: skilled gardeners chose carefully the best of\nherbs and plants and tended the garden sedulously. But the bounds of the\ngarden kept spreading all the while into strange untended ground, and\neven within the original walls the weeding had been hasty and\nincomplete. At the end of a few generations all was a wilderness of\nweeds again, weeds rank and luxuriant and sometimes extremely beautiful,\nwith a half-strangled garden flower or two gleaming here and there in\nthe tangle of them. Does that comparison seem disrespectful to religion?\nIs philosophy all flowers and traditional belief all weeds? Well, think\nwhat a weed is. It is only a name for all the natural wild vegetation\nwhich the earth sends up of herself, which lives and will live without\nthe conscious labour of man. The flowers are what we keep alive with\ndifficulty; the weeds are what conquer us.\n\nIt has been well observed by Zeller that the great weakness of all\nancient thought, not excepting Socratic thought, was that instead of\nappealing to objective experiment it appealed to some subjective sense\nof fitness. There were exceptions, of course: Democritus, Eratosthenes,\nHippocrates, and to a great extent Aristotle. But in general there was a\nstrong tendency to follow Plato in supposing that people could really\nsolve questions by an appeal to their inner consciousness. One result of\nthis, no doubt, was a tendency to lay too much stress on mere agreement.\nIt is obvious, when one thinks about it, that quite often a large number\nof people who know nothing about a subject will all agree and all be\nwrong. Yet we find the most radical of ancient philosophers\nunconsciously dominated by the argument _ex consensu gentium_. It is\nhard to find two more uncompromising thinkers than Zeno and Epicurus.\nYet both of them, when they are almost free from the popular\nsuperstitions, when they have constructed complete systems which, if not\nabsolutely logic-proof, are calculated at least to keep out the weather\nfor a century or so, open curious side-doors at the last moment and let\nin all the gods of mythology.[129:1] True, they are admitted as\nsuspicious characters, and under promise of good behaviour. Epicurus\nexplains that they do not and cannot do anything whatever to anybody;\nZeno explains that they are not anthropomorphic, and are only symbols or\nemanations or subordinates of the all-ruling Unity; both parties get rid\nof the myths. But the two great reformers have admitted a dangerous\nprinciple. The general consensus of humanity, they say, shows that there\nare gods, and gods which in mind, if not also in visual appearance,\nresemble man. Epicurus succeeded in barring the door, and admitted\nnothing more. But the Stoics presently found themselves admitting or\ninsisting that the same consensus proved the existence of daemons, of\nwitchcraft, of divination, and when they combined with the Platonic\nschool, of more dangerous elements still.\n\nI take the Stoics and Epicureans as the two most radical schools. On the\nwhole both of them fought steadily and strongly against the growth of\nsuperstition, or, if you like to put it in other language, against the\ndumb demands of man's infra-rational nature. The glory of the Stoics is\nto have built up a religion of extraordinary nobleness; the glory of the\nEpicureans is to have upheld an ideal of sanity and humanity stark\nupright amid a reeling world, and, like the old Spartans, never to have\nyielded one inch of ground to the common foe.\n\nThe great thing to remember is that the mind of man cannot be\nenlightened permanently by merely teaching him to reject some particular\nset of superstitions. There is an infinite supply of other superstitions\nalways at hand; and the mind that desires such things--that is, the mind\nthat has not trained itself to the hard discipline of reasonableness and\nhonesty, will, as soon as its devils are cast out, proceed to fill\nitself with their relations.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet us first consider the result of the mere denial of the Olympian\nreligion. The essential postulate of that religion was that the world is\ngoverned by a number of definite personal gods, possessed of a human\nsense of justice and fairness and capable of being influenced by normal\nhuman motives. In general, they helped the good and punished the bad,\nthough doubtless they tended too much to regard as good those who paid\nthem proper attention and as bad those who did not.\n\nSpeaking broadly, what was left when this conception proved inadequate?\nIf it was not these personal gods who made things happen, what was it?\nIf the Tower of Siloam was not deliberately thrown down by the gods so\nas to kill and hurt a carefully collected number of wicked people, while\nletting the good escape, what was the explanation of its falling? The\nanswer is obvious, but it can be put in two ways. You can either say:\n'It was just chance that the Tower fell at that particular moment when\nSo-and-so was under it.' Or you can say, with rather more reflection but\nnot any more common sense: 'It fell because of a definite chain of\ncauses, a certain degree of progressive decay in the building, a certain\ndefinite pressure, &c. It was bound to fall.'\n\nThere is no real difference in these statements, at least in the meaning\nof those who ordinarily utter them. Both are compatible with a\nreasonable and scientific view of the world. But in the Hellenistic Age,\nwhen Greek thought was spreading rapidly and superficially over vast\nsemi-barbarous populations whose minds were not ripe for it, both views\nturned back instinctively into a theology as personal as that of the\nOlympians. It was not, of course, Zeus or Apollo who willed this; every\none knew so much: it happened by Chance. That is, Chance or Fortune\nwilled it. And \u03a4\u03cd\u03c7\u03b7 became a goddess like the rest. The great\ncatastrophes, the great transformations of the mediterranean world\nwhich marked the Hellenistic period, had a strong influence here. If\nAlexander and his generals had practised some severely orthodox\nMacedonian religion, it would have been easy to see that the Gods of\nMacedon were the real rulers of the world. But they most markedly did\nnot. They accepted hospitably all the religions that crossed their path.\nSome power or other was disturbing the world, that was clear. It was not\nexactly the work of man, because sometimes the good were exalted,\nsometimes the bad; there was no consistent purpose in the story. It was\njust Fortune. Happy is the man who knows how to placate Fortune and make\nher smile upon him!\n\nIt is worth remembering that the best seed-ground for superstition is a\nsociety in which the fortunes of men seem to bear practically no\nrelation to their merits and efforts. A stable and well-governed society\ndoes tend, speaking roughly, to ensure that the Virtuous and Industrious\nApprentice shall succeed in life, while the Wicked and Idle Apprentice\nfails. And in such a society people tend to lay stress on the reasonable\nor visible chains of causation. But in a country suffering from\nearthquakes or pestilences, in a court governed by the whim of a despot,\nin a district which is habitually the seat of a war between alien\narmies, the ordinary virtues of diligence, honesty, and kindliness seem\nto be of little avail. The only way to escape destruction is to win the\nfavour of the prevailing powers, take the side of the strongest invader,\nflatter the despot, placate the Fate or Fortune or angry god that is\nsending the earthquake or the pestilence. The Hellenistic period pretty\ncertainly falls in some degree under all of these categories. And one\nresult is the sudden and enormous spread of the worship of Fortune. Of\ncourse, there was always a protest. There is the famous\n\n     _Nullum numen habes si sit prudentia: nos te,\n     Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam_,\n\ntaken by Juvenal from the Greek. There are many unguarded phrases and at\nleast three corrections in Polybius.[133:1] Most interesting of all\nperhaps, there is the first oration of Plutarch on the Fortune of\nAlexander.[133:2] A sentence in Pliny's _Natural History_, ii. 22, seems\nto go back to Hellenistic sources:\n\n     'Throughout the whole world, at every place and hour, by\n     every voice Fortune alone is invoked and her name spoken: she\n     is the one defendant, the one culprit, the one thought in\n     men's minds, the one object of praise, the one cause. She is\n     worshipped with insults, counted as fickle and often as blind,\n     wandering, inconsistent, elusive, changeful, and friend of the\n     unworthy. . . . We are so much at the mercy of chance that\n     Chance is our god.'\n\nThe word used is first _Fortuna_ and then _Sors_. This shows how little\nreal difference there is between the two apparently contradictory\nconceptions.--'Chance would have it so.' 'It was fated to be.' The sting\nof both phrases--their pleasant bitterness when played with, their\nquality of poison when believed--lies in their denial of the value of\nhuman endeavour.\n\nYet on the whole, as one might expect, the believers in Destiny are a\nmore respectable congregation than the worshippers of Chance. It\nrequires a certain amount of thoughtfulness to rise to the conception\nthat nothing really happens without a cause. It is the beginning,\nperhaps, of science. Ionic philosophers of the fifth century had laid\nstress on the \u1f08\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03ba\u03b7 \u03c6\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2,[134:1] what we should call the Chain of\ncauses in Nature. After the rise of Stoicism Fate becomes something less\nphysical, more related to conscious purpose. It is not _Anank\u00ea_ but\n_Heimarmen\u00ea_. Heimarmen\u00ea, in the striking simile of Zeno,[134:2] is like\na fine thread running through the whole of existence--the world, we must\nremember, was to the Stoics a live thing--like that invisible thread of\nlife which, in heredity, passes on from generation to generation of\nliving species and keeps the type alive; it runs causing, causing for\never, both the infinitesimal and the infinite. It is the \u039b\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\n\u039a\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5,[135:1] the \u039d\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 \u0394\u03b9\u03cc\u03c2, the Reason of the World or the mind of\nZeus, rather difficult to distinguish from the Pronoia or Providence\nwhich is the work of God and indeed the very essence of God. Thus it is\nnot really an external and alien force. For the human soul itself is a\nfragment or effluence of the divine, and this Law of God is also the law\nof man's own Phusis. As long as you act in accordance with your true\nself you are complying with that divine \u0395\u1f31\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7 or \u03a0\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1, whose\nservice is perfect freedom. Only when you are false to your own nature\nand become a rebel against the kingdom of God which is within you, are\nyou dragged perforce behind the chariot-wheels. The doctrine is implied\nin Cleanthes' celebrated Hymn to Destiny and is explained clearly by\nPlotinus.[135:2]\n\nThat is a noble conception. But the vulgar of course can turn Kismet\ninto a stupid idol, as easily as they can Fortune. And Epicurus may have\nhad some excuse for exclaiming that he would sooner be a slave to the\nold gods of the vulgar, than to the Destiny of the philosophers.[135:3]\n\nSo much for the result in superstitious minds of the denial, or rather\nthe removal, of the Olympian Gods. It landed men in the worship of\nFortune or of Fate.\n\nNext, let us consider what happened when, instead of merely rejecting\nthe Gods _en masse_, people tried carefully to collect what remained of\nreligion after the Olympian system fell.\n\nAristotle himself gives us a fairly clear answer. He held that the\norigins of man's idea (\u1f14\u03bd\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1) of the Divine were twofold,[136:1] the\nphenomena of the sky and the phenomena of the human soul. It is very\nmuch what Kant found two thousand years later. The spectacle of the vast\nand ordered movements of the heavenly bodies are compared by him in a\nfamous fragment with the marching forth of Homer's armies before Troy.\nBehind such various order and strength there must surely be a conscious\nmind capable\n\n     \u039a\u03bf\u03c3\u03bc\u1fc6\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f35\u03c1\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c3\u03c0\u03b9\u03b4\u03b9\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n     To order steeds of war and mail\u00e8d men.\n\nIt is only a step from this to regarding the sun, moon, and stars as\nthemselves divine, and it is a step which both Plato and Aristotle,\nfollowing Pythagoras and followed by the Stoics, take with confidence.\nChrysippus gives practically the same list of gods: 'the Sun, Moon, and\nStars; and Law: and men who have become Gods.'[136:2] Both the wandering\nstars and the fixed stars are 'animate beings, divine and eternal',\nself-acting subordinate gods. As to the divinity of the soul or the mind\nof man, the earlier generations are shy about it. But in the later\nStoics it is itself a portion of the divine life. It shows this\nordinarily by its power of reason, and more conspicuously by becoming\n\u1f14\u03bd\u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2, or 'filled with God', in its exalted moments of prevision,\necstasy, and prophetic dreams. If reason itself is divine, there is\nsomething else in the soul which is even higher than reason or at least\nmore surprisingly divine.\n\nLet us follow the history of both these remaining substitutes for the\nOlympian gods.\n\nFirst for the Heavenly bodies. If they are to be made divine, we can\nhardly stop there. The Earth is also a divine being. Old tradition has\nalways said so, and Plato has repeated it. And if Earth is divine, so\nsurely are the other elements, the _Stoicheia_, Water, Air, and above\nall, Fire. For the Gods themselves are said by Plato to be made of fire,\nand the Stars visibly are so. Though perhaps the heavenly Fire is really\nnot our Fire at all, but a \u03c0\u03ad\u03bc\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c3\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1, a 'Fifth Body', seeing that it\nseems not to burn nor the Stars to be consumed.\n\nThis is persuasive enough and philosophic; but whither has it led us?\nBack to the Olympians, or rather behind the Olympians; as St. Paul puts\nit (Gal. iv. 9), to 'the beggarly elements'. The old Kor\u00ea, or Earth\nMaiden and Mother, seems to have held her own unshaken by the changes of\ntime all over the Aegean area. She is there in prehistoric Crete with\nher two lions; with the same lions orientalized in Olympia and Ephesus;\nin Sparta with her great marsh birds; in Boeotia with her horse. She\nruns riot in a number of the Gnostic systems both pre-Christian and\npost-Christian. She forms a divine triad with the Father and the Son:\nthat is ancient and natural. But she also becomes the Divine Wisdom,\nSophia, the Divine Truth, Aletheia, the Holy Breath or Spirit, the\nPneuma. Since the word for 'spirit' is neuter in Greek and masculine in\nLatin, this last is rather a surprise. It is explained when we remember\nthat in Hebrew the word for Spirit, 'Ruah', is mostly feminine. In the\nmeantime let us notice one curious development in the life of this\ngoddess. In the old religion of Greece and Western Asia, she begins as a\nMaiden, then in fullness of time becomes a mother. There is evidence\nalso for a third stage, the widowhood of withering autumn.[138:1] To the\nclassical Greek this motherhood was quite as it should be, a due\nfulfilment of normal functions. But to the Gnostic and his kind it\nconnoted a 'fall', a passage from the glory of Virginity to a state of\nSin.[138:2] The Kor\u00ea becomes a fallen Virgin, sometimes a temptress or\neven a female devil; sometimes she has to be saved by her Son the\nRedeemer.[138:3] As far as I have observed, she loses most of her\nearthly agricultural quality, though as Selene or even Helen she keeps\nup her affinity with the Moon.\n\nAlmost all the writers of the Hellenistic Age agree in regarding the\nSun, Moon, and Stars as gods. The rationalists Hecataeus and Euhemerus,\nbefore going on to their deified men, always start with the heavenly\nbodies. When Plutarch explains in his beautiful and kindly way that all\nreligions are really attempts towards the same goal, he clinches his\nargument by observing that we all see the same Sun and Moon though we\ncall them by different names in all languages.[139:1] But the belief\ndoes not seem to have had much religious intensity in it, until it was\nreinforced by two alien influences.\n\nFirst, we have the ancient worship of the Sun, implicit, if not\nexplicit, in a great part of the oldest Greek rituals, and then\nidealized by Plato in the _Republic_, where the Sun is the author of all\nlight and life in the material world, as the Idea of Good is in the\nideal world. This worship came gradually into contact with the\ntraditional and definite Sun-worship of Persia. The final combination\ntook place curiously late. It was the Roman conquests of Cilicia,\nCappadocia, Commagene, and Armenia that gave the decisive moment.[139:2]\nTo men who had wearied of the myths of the poets, who could draw no more\ninspiration from their Apollo and Hyperion, but still had the habits and\nthe craving left by their old Gods, a fresh breath of reality came with\nthe entrance of \u1f2d\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03af\u03ba\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u039c\u03af\u03b8\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2, 'Mithras, the Unconquered Sun'.\nBut long before the triumph of Mithraism as the military religion of the\nRoman frontier, Greek literature is permeated with a kind of intense\nlanguage about the Sun, which seems derived from Plato.[139:3] In later\ntimes, in the fourth century A. D. for instance, it has absorbed some\nmore full-blooded and less critical element as well.\n\nSecondly, all the seven planets. These had a curious history. The\nplanets were of course divine and living bodies, so much Plato gave us.\nThen come arguments and questions scattered through the Stoic and\neclectic literature. Is it the planet itself that is divine, or is the\nplanet under the guidance of a divine spirit? The latter seems to win\nthe day. Anthropomorphism has stolen back upon us: we can use the old\nlanguage and speak simply of the planet Mercury as \u1f19\u03c1\u03bc\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f00\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1. It is\nthe star of Hermes, and Hermes is the spirit who guides it.[140:1] Even\nPlato in his old age had much to say about the souls of the seven\nplanets. Further, each planet has its sphere. The Earth is in the\ncentre, then comes the sphere of the Moon, then that of the Sun, and so\non through a range of seven spheres. If all things are full of gods, as\nthe wise ancients have said, what about those parts of the sphere in\nwhich the shining planet for the moment is not? Are they without god?\nObviously not. The whole sphere is filled with innumerable spirits\neverywhere. It is all Hermes, all Aphrodite. (We are more familiar with\nthe Latin names, Mercury and Venus.) But one part only is visible. The\nvoice of one school, as usual, is raised in opposition. One veteran had\nseen clearly from the beginning whither all this sort of thing was sure\nto lead. 'Epicurus approves none of these things.'[140:2] It was no\ngood his having destroyed the old traditional superstition, if people\nby deifying the stars were to fill the sky with seven times seven as\nmany objects of worship as had been there before. He allows no\n_Schw\u00e4rmerei_ about the stars. They are _not_ divine animate beings, or\nguided by Gods. Why cannot the astrologers leave God in peace? When\ntheir orbits are irregular it is _not_ because they are looking for\nfood. They are just conglomerations of ordinary atoms of air or fire--it\ndoes not matter which. They are not even very large--only about as large\nas they look, or perhaps smaller, since most fires tend to look bigger\nat a distance. They are not at all certainly everlasting. It is quite\nlikely that the sun comes to an end every day, and a new one rises in\nthe morning. All kinds of explanations are possible, and none certain.\n\u039c\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u1f41 \u03bc\u1fe6\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c0\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03c9. In any case, as you value your life and your\nreason, do not begin making myths about them!\n\nOn other lines came what might have been the effective protest of real\nScience, when Aristarchus of Samos (250 B. C.) argued that the earth was\nnot really the centre of the universe, but revolved round the Sun. But\nhis hypothesis did not account for the phenomena as completely as the\ncurrent theory with its 'Epicycles'; his fellow astronomers were against\nhim; Cleanthes the Stoic denounced him for 'disturbing the Hearth of the\nUniverse', and his heresy made little headway.[141:1]\n\nThe planets in their seven spheres surrounding the earth continued to be\nobjects of adoration. They had their special gods or guiding spirits\nassigned them. Their ordered movements through space, it was held,\nproduce a vast and eternal harmony. It is beautiful beyond all earthly\nmusic, this Music of the Spheres, beyond all human dreams of what music\nmight be. The only pity is that--except for a few individuals in\ntrances--nobody has ever heard it. Circumstances seem always to be\nunfavourable. It may be that we are too far off, though, considering the\nvastness of the orchestra, this seems improbable. More likely we are\nmerely deaf to it because it never stops and we have been in the middle\nof it since we first drew breath.[142:1]\n\nThe planets also become Elements in the Kosmos, _Stoicheia_. It is\nsignificant that in Hellenistic theology the word Stoicheion, Element,\ngets to mean a Daemon--as Megathos, Greatness, means an Angel.[142:2]\nBut behold a mystery! The word _Stoicheia_, 'elementa', had long been\nused for the Greek A B C, and in particular for the seven vowels \u03b1 \u03b5 \u03b7 \u03b9\n\u03bf \u03c5 \u03c9. That is no chance, no mere coincidence. The vowels are the mystic\nsigns of the Planets; they have control over the planets. Hence strange\nprayers and magic formulae innumerable.\n\nEven the way of reckoning time changed under the influence of the\nPlanets. Instead of the old division of the month into three periods of\nnine days, we find gradually establishing itself the week of seven days\nwith each day named after its planet, Sun, Moon, Ares, Hermes, Zeus,\nAphrodite, Kronos. The history of the Planet week is given by Dio\nCassius, xxxvii. 18, in his account of the Jewish campaign of Pompeius.\nBut it was not the Jewish week. The Jews scorned such idolatrous and\npolytheistic proceedings. It was the old week of Babylon, the original\nhome of astronomy and planet-worship.[143:1]\n\nFor here again a great foreign religion came like water in the desert to\nminds reluctantly and superficially enlightened, but secretly longing\nfor the old terrors and raptures from which they had been set free. Even\nin the old days Aeschylus had called the planets 'bright potentates,\nshining in the fire of heaven', and Euripides had spoken of the 'shaft\nhurled from a star'.[143:2] But we are told that the first teaching of\nastrology in Hellenic lands was in the time of Alexander, when B\u00ear\u00f4ssos\nthe Chaldaean set up a school in Cos and, according to Seneca, _Belum\ninterpretatus est_. This must mean that he translated into Greek the\n'_Eye of Bel_', a treatise in seventy tablets found in the library of\nAssur-bani-pal (686-626 B. C.) but composed for Sargon I in the third\nmillennium B. C. Even the philosopher Theophrastus is reported by\nProclus[143:3] as saying that 'the most extraordinary thing of his age\nwas the lore of the Chaldaeans, who foretold not only events of public\ninterest but even the lives and deaths of individuals'. One wonders\nslightly whether Theophrastus spoke with as much implicit faith as\nProclus suggests. But the chief account is given by Diodorus, ii. 30\n(perhaps from Hecataeus).\n\n     'Other nations despise the philosophy of Greece. It is so\n     recent and so constantly changing. They have traditions which\n     come from vast antiquity and never change. Notably the\n     Chaldaeans have collected observations of the Stars through\n     long ages, and teach how every event in the heavens has its\n     meaning, as part of the eternal scheme of divine forethought.\n     Especially the seven Wanderers, or Planets, are called by them\n     Herm\u00eaneis, Interpreters: and among them the Interpreter in\n     chief is Saturn. Their work is to interpret beforehand \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd\n     \u03b8\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f14\u03bd\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1\u03bd, the thought that is in the mind of the Gods. By\n     their risings and settings, and by the colours they assume,\n     the Chaldaeans predict great winds and storms and waves of\n     excessive heat, comets, and earthquakes, and in general all\n     changes fraught with weal or woe not only to nations and\n     regions of the world, but to kings and to ordinary men and\n     women. Beneath the Seven are thirty Gods of Counsel, half\n     below and half above the Earth; every ten days a Messenger or\n     Angel star passes from above below and another from below\n     above. Above these gods are twelve Masters, who are the twelve\n     signs of the Zodiac; and the planets pass through all the\n     Houses of these twelve in turn. The Chaldaeans have made\n     prophecies for various kings, such as Alexander who conquered\n     Darius, and Antigonus and Seleucus Nikator, and have always\n     been right. And private persons who have consulted them\n     consider their wisdom as marvellous and above human power.'\n\nAstrology fell upon the Hellenistic mind as a new disease falls upon\nsome remote island people. The tomb of Ozymandias, as described by\nDiodorus (i. 49, 5), was covered with astrological symbols, and that of\nAntiochus I, which has been discovered in Commagene, is of the same\ncharacter. It was natural for monarchs to believe that the stars watched\nover them. But every one was ready to receive the germ. The Epicureans,\nof course, held out, and so did Panaetius, the coolest head among the\nStoics. But the Stoics as a whole gave way. They formed with good reason\nthe leading school of philosophy, and it would have been a service to\nmankind if they had resisted. But they were already committed to a\nbelief in the deity of the stars and to the doctrine of Heimarmen\u00ea, or\nDestiny. They believed in the pervading Pronoia,[145:1] or Forethought,\nof the divine mind, and in the \u03a3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f45\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd--the Sympathy of all\nCreation,[145:2] whereby whatever happens to any one part, however\nremote or insignificant, affects all the rest. It seemed only a natural\nand beautiful illustration of this Sympathy that the movements of the\nStars should be bound up with the sufferings of man. They also appealed\nto the general belief in prophecy and divination.[145:3] If a prophet\ncan foretell that such and such an event will happen, then it is\nobviously fated to happen. Foreknowledge implies Predestination. This\nbelief in prophecy was, in reality, a sort of appeal to fact and to\ncommon sense. People could produce then, as they can now, a large number\nof striking cases of second sight, presentiment, clairvoyance, actual\nprophecy and the like;[145:4] and it was more difficult then to test\nthem.\n\nThe argument involved Stoicism with some questionable allies.\nEpicureans and sceptics of the Academy might well mock at the sight of a\ngreat man like Chrysippus or Posidonius resting an important part of his\nreligion on the undetected frauds of a shady Levantine 'medium'. Still\nthe Stoics could not but welcome the arrival of a system of prophecy and\npredestination which, however the incredulous might rail at it,\npossessed at least great antiquity and great stores of learning, which\nwas respectable, recondite, and in a way sublime.\n\nIn all the religious systems of later antiquity, if I mistake not, the\nSeven Planets play some lordly or terrifying part. The great Mithras\nLiturgy, unearthed by Dieterich from a magical papyrus in Paris,[146:1]\nrepeatedly confronts the worshipper with the seven vowels as names of\n'the Seven Deathless Kosmokratores', or Lords of the Universe, and\nseems, under their influence, to go off into its 'Seven Maidens with\nheads of serpents, in white raiment', and its divers other Sevens. The\nvarious Hermetic and Mithraic communities, the Naassenes described by\nHippolytus,[146:2] and other Gnostic bodies, authors like Macrobius and\neven Cicero in his _Somnium Scipionis_, are full of the influence of the\nseven planets and of the longing to escape beyond them. For by some\nsimple psychological law the stars which have inexorably pronounced our\nfate, and decreed, or at least registered the decree, that in spite of\nall striving we must needs tread their prescribed path; still more\nperhaps, the Stars who know in the midst of our laughter how that\nlaughter will end, become inevitably powers of evil rather than good,\nbeings malignant as well as pitiless, making life a vain thing. And\nSaturn, the chief of them, becomes the most malignant. To some of the\nGnostics he becomes Jaldabaoth, the Lion-headed God, the evil\nJehovah.[147:1] The religion of later antiquity is overpoweringly\nabsorbed in plans of escape from the prison of the seven planets.\n\nIn author after author, in one community after another, the subject\nrecurs. And on the whole there is the same answer. Here on the earth we\nare the sport of Fate; nay, on the earth itself we are worse off still.\nWe are beneath the Moon, and beneath the Moon there is not only Fate but\nsomething more unworthy and equally malignant, Chance--to say nothing of\ndamp and the ills of earth and bad daemons. Above the Moon there is no\nchance, only Necessity: there is the will of the other six\nKosmokratores, Rulers of the Universe. But above them all there is an\nEighth region--they call it simply the Ogdoas--the home of the ultimate\nGod,[147:2] whatever He is named, whose being was before the Kosmos. In\nthis Sphere is true Being and Freedom. And more than freedom, there is\nthe ultimate Union with God. For that spark of divine life which is\nman's soul is not merely, as some have said, an \u1f00\u03c0\u03cc\u03c1\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f04\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd, an\neffluence of the stars: it comes direct from the first and ultimate\nGod, the Alpha and Omega, who is beyond the Planets. Though the\nKosmokratores cast us to and fro like their slaves or dead chattels, in\nsoul at least we are of equal birth with them. The Mithraic votary, when\ntheir wrathful and tremendous faces break in upon his vision, answers\nthem unterrified: \u1f10\u03b3\u03ce \u03b5\u1f30\u03bc\u03b9 \u03c3\u03cd\u03bc\u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f51\u03bc\u1fd6\u03bd \u1f00\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1, 'I am your fellow\nwanderer, your fellow Star.' The Orphic carried to the grave on his\ngolden scroll the same boast: first, 'I am the child of Earth and of the\nstarry Heaven'; then later, 'I too am become God'.[148:1] The Gnostic\nwritings consist largely of charms to be uttered by the Soul to each of\nthe Planets in turn, as it pursues its perilous path past all of them to\nits ultimate home.\n\nThat journey awaits us after death; but in the meantime? In the meantime\nthere are initiations, sacraments, mystic ways of communion with God. To\nsee God face to face is, to the ordinary unprepared man, sheer death.\nBut to see Him after due purification, to be led to Him along the true\nWay by an initiating Priest, is the ultimate blessing of human life. It\nis to die and be born again. There were regular official initiations. We\nhave one in the Mithras-Liturgy, more than one in the Corpus Hermeticum.\nApuleius[148:2] tells us at some length, though in guarded language, how\nhe was initiated to Isis and became 'her image'. After much fasting,\nclad in holy garments and led by the High Priest, he crossed the\nthreshold of Death and passed through all the Elements. The Sun shone\nupon him at midnight, and he saw the Gods of Heaven and of Hades. In the\nmorning he was clad in the Robe of Heaven, set up on a pedestal in\nfront of the Goddess and worshipped by the congregation as a God. He had\nbeen made one with Osiris or Horus or whatever name it pleased that\nSun-God to be called. Apuleius does not reveal it.\n\nThere were also, of course, the irregular personal initiations and\nvisions of god vouchsafed to persons of special prophetic powers. St.\nPaul, we may remember, knew personally a man who had actually been\nsnatched up into the Third Heaven, and another who was similarly rapt\ninto Paradise, where he heard unspeakable words;[149:1] whether in the\nbody or not, the apostle leaves undecided. He himself on the road to\nDamascus had seen the Christ in glory, not after the flesh. The\nphilosopher Plotinus, so his disciple tells us, was united with God in\ntrance four times in five years.[149:2]\n\nWe seem to have travelled far from the simplicity of early Greek\nreligion. Yet, apart always from Plotinus, who is singularly aloof, most\nof the movement has been a reaction under Oriental and barbarous\ninfluences towards the most primitive pre-Hellenic cults. The union of\nman with God came regularly through _Ekstasis_--the soul must get clear\nof its body--and _Enthousiasmos_--the God must enter and dwell inside\nthe worshipper. But the means to this union, while sometimes allegorized\nand spiritualized to the last degree, are sometimes of the most\nprimitive sort. The vagaries of religious emotion are apt to reach very\nlow as well as very high in the scale of human nature. Certainly the\nprimitive Thracian savages, who drank themselves mad with the hot blood\nof their God-beast, would have been quite at home in some of these\nrituals, though in others they would have been put off with some\nsubstitute for the actual blood. The primitive priestesses who waited in\na bridal chamber for the Divine Bridegroom, even the Cretan Kour\u00eates\nwith their Zeus Kour\u00eas[150:1] and those strange hierophants of the\n'Men's House' whose initiations are written on the rocks of Thera, would\nhave found rites very like their own reblossoming on earth after the\nfall of Hellenism. 'Prepare thyself as a bride to receive her\nbridegroom,' says Markos the Gnostic,[150:2] 'that thou mayst be what I\nam and I what thou art.' 'I in thee, and thou in me!' is the ecstatic\ncry of one of the Hermes liturgies. Before that the prayer has been\n'Enter into me as a babe into the womb of a woman'.[150:3]\n\nIn almost all the liturgies that I have read need is felt for a\nmediator between the seeker after God and his goal. Mithras himself saw\na Mes\u00eet\u00eas, a Mediator, between Ormuzd and Ahriman, but the ordinary\nmediator is more like an interpreter or an adept with inner knowledge\nwhich he reveals to the outsider. The circumstances out of which these\nsystems grew have left their mark on the new gods themselves. As usual,\nthe social structure of the worshippers is reflected in their objects of\nworship. When the Chaldaeans came to Cos, when the Thracians in the\nPiraeus set up their national worship of Bendis, when the Egyptians in\nthe same port founded their society for the Egyptian ritual of Isis,\nwhen the Jews at Assuan in the fifth century B. C. established their own\ntemple, in each case there would come proselytes to whom the truth must\nbe explained and interpreted, sometimes perhaps softened. And in each\ncase there is behind the particular priest or initiator there present\nsome greater authority in the land he comes from. Behind any explanation\nthat can be made in the Piraeus, there is a deeper and higher\nexplanation known only to the great master in Jerusalem, in Egypt, in\nBabylon, or perhaps in some unexplored and ever-receding region of the\neast. This series of revelations, one behind the other, is a\ncharacteristic of all these mixed Graeco-Oriental religions.\n\nMost of the Hermetic treatises are put in the form of initiations or\nlessons revealed by a 'father' to a 'son', by Ptah to Hermes, by Hermes\nto Thoth or Asclepios, and by one of them to us. It was an ancient\nformula, a natural vehicle for traditional wisdom in Egypt, where the\nyoung priest became regularly the 'son' of the old priest. It is a form\nthat we find in Greece itself as early as Euripides, whose Melanippe\nsays of her cosmological doctrines,\n\n     'It is not my word but my Mother's word'.[152:1]\n\nIt was doubtless the language of the old Medicine-Man to his disciple.\nIn one fine liturgy Thoth wrestles with Hermes in agony of spirit, till\nHermes is forced to reveal to him the path to union with God which he\nhimself has trodden before. At the end of the Mithras liturgy the\ndevotee who has passed through the mystic ordeals and seen his god face\nto face, is told: 'After this you can show the way to others.'\n\nBut this leads us to the second great division of our subject. We turn\nfrom the phenomena of the sky to those of the soul.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf what I have written elsewhere is right, one of the greatest works of\nthe Hellenic spirit, and especially of fifth-century Athens, was to\ninsist on what seems to us such a commonplace truism, the difference\nbetween Man and God. Sophrosyn\u00ea in religion was the message of the\nclassical age. But the ages before and after had no belief in such a\nlesson. The old Medicine-Man was perhaps himself the first _Theos_. At\nany rate the primeval kings and queens were treated as divine.[152:2]\nJust for a few great generations, it would seem, humanity rose to a\nsufficient height of self-criticism and self-restraint to reject these\ndreams of self-abasement or megalomania. But the effort was too great\nfor the average world; and in a later age nearly all the kings and\nrulers--all people in fact who can command an adequate number of\nflatterers--become divine beings again. Let us consider how it came\nabout.\n\nFirst there was the explicit recognition by the soberest philosophers of\nthe divine element in man's soul.[153:1] Aristotle himself built an\naltar to Plato. He did nothing superstitious; he did not call Plato a\ngod, but we can see from his beautiful elegy to Eudemus, that he\nnaturally and easily used language of worship which would seem a little\nstrange to us. It is the same emotion--a noble and just emotion on the\nwhole--which led the philosophic schools to treat their founders as\n'heroes', and which has peopled most of Europe and Asia with the\nmemories and the worship of saints. But we should remember that only a\nrare mind will make its divine man of such material as Plato. The common\nway to dazzle men's eyes is a more brutal and obvious one.\n\nTo people who were at all accustomed to the conception of a God-Man it\nwas difficult not to feel that the conception was realized in Alexander.\nHis tremendous power, his brilliant personality, his achievements\nbeggaring the fables of the poets, put people in the right mind for\nworship. Then came the fact that the kings whom he conquered were, as a\nmatter of fact, mostly regarded by their subjects as divine\nbeings.[154:1] It was easy, it was almost inevitable, for those who\nworshipped the 'God'[154:2] Darius to feel that it was no man but a\ngreater god who had overthrown Darius. The incense which had been burned\nbefore those conquered gods was naturally offered to their conqueror. He\ndid not refuse it. It was not good policy to do so, and\nself-depreciation is not apt to be one of the weaknesses of the born\nruler.[154:3] But besides all this, if you are to judge a God by his\nfruits, what God could produce better credentials? Men had often seen\nZeus defied with impunity; they had seen faithful servants of Apollo\ncome to bad ends. But those who defied Alexander, however great they\nmight be, always rued their defiance, and those who were faithful to him\nalways received their reward. With his successors the worship became\nmore official. Seleucus, Ptolemaeus, Antigonus, Demetrius, all in\ndifferent degrees and different styles are deified by the acclamations\nof adoring subjects. Ptolemy Philadelphus seems to have been the first\nto claim definite divine honours during his own life. On the death of\nhis wife in 271 he proclaimed her deity and his own as well in the\nworship of the Theoi Adelphoi, the 'Gods Brethren'. Of course there was\nflattery in all this, ordinary self-interested lying flattery, and its\ninevitable accompaniment, megalomania. Any reading of the personal\nhistory of the Ptolemies, the Seleucidae or the Caesars shows it. But\nthat is not the whole explanation.\n\nOne of the characteristics of the period of the Diadochi is the\naccumulation of capital and military force in the hands of individuals.\nThe Ptolemies and Seleucidae had at any moment at their disposal powers\nvery much greater than any Pericles or Nicias or Lysander.[155:1] The\nfolk of the small cities of the Aegean hinterlands must have felt\ntowards these great strangers almost as poor Indian peasants in time of\nflood and famine feel towards an English official. There were men now on\nearth who could do the things that had hitherto been beyond the power of\nman. Were several cities thrown down by earthquake; here was one who by\nhis nod could build them again. Famines had always occurred and been\nmostly incurable. Here was one who could without effort allay a famine.\nProvinces were harried and wasted by habitual wars: the eventual\nconqueror had destroyed whole provinces in making the wars; now, as he\nhad destroyed, he could also save. 'What do you mean by a god,' the\nsimple man might say, 'if these men are not gods? The only difference is\nthat these gods are visible, and the old gods no man has seen.'\n\nThe titles assumed by all the divine kings tell the story clearly.\nAntiochus Epiphan\u00eas--'the god made manifest'; Ptolemaios Euerget\u00eas,\nPtolemaios S\u00f4t\u00ear. Occasionally we have a Keraunos or a Nikator, a\n'Thunderbolt' or a 'God of Mana', but mostly it is S\u00f4t\u00ear, Euerget\u00eas and\nEpiphan\u00eas, the Saviour, the Benefactor, the God made manifest, in\nconstant alternation. In the honorific inscriptions and in the writings\nof the learned, philanthropy (\u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03af\u03b1) is by far the most prominent\ncharacteristic of the God upon earth. Was it that people really felt\nthat to save or benefit mankind was a more godlike thing than to blast\nand destroy them? Philosophers have generally said that, and the vulgar\npretended to believe them. It was at least politic, when ministering to\nthe half-insane pride of one of these princes, to remind him of his\nmercy rather than of his wrath.\n\nWendland in his brilliant book, _Hellenistisch-r\u00f6mische Kultur_, calls\nattention to an inscription of the year 196 B. C. in honour of the young\nPtolemaios Epiphan\u00eas, who was made manifest at the age of twelve\nyears.[156:1] It is a typical document of Graeco-Egyptian king-worship:\n\n     'In the reign of the young king by inheritance from his\n     Father, Lord of the Diadems, great in glory, pacificator of\n     Egypt and pious towards the gods, superior over his\n     adversaries, Restorer of the life of man, Lord of the Periods\n     of Thirty Years, like Hephaistos the Great, King like the Sun,\n     the Great King of the Upper and Lower Lands; offspring of the\n     Gods of the Love of the Father, whom Hephaistos has approved,\n     to whom the Sun has given Victory; living image of Zeus; Son\n     of the Sun, Ptolemaios the ever-living, beloved by Phtha; in\n     the ninth year of A\u00ebtos son of A\u00ebtos, Priest of Alexander and\n     the Gods Saviours and the Gods Brethren and the Gods\n     Benefactors and the Gods of the Love of the Father and the\n     God Manifest for whom thanks be given:'\n\nThe Priests who came to his coronation ceremony at Memphis proclaim:\n\n     'Seeing that King Ptolemaios ever-living, beloved of Phtha,\n     God Manifest for whom Thanks be given, born of King Ptolemaios\n     and Queen Arsinoe, the Gods of the Love of the Father, has\n     done many benefactions to the Temples and those in them and\n     all those beneath his rule, being from the beginning God born\n     of God and Goddess, like Horus son of Isis and Osiris, who\n     came to the help of his father Osiris (and?) in his benevolent\n     disposition towards the Gods has consecrated to the temples\n     revenues of silver and of corn, and has undergone many\n     expenses in order to lead Egypt into the sunlight and give\n     peace to the Temples, and has with all his powers shown love\n     of mankind.'\n\nWhen the people of Lycopolis revolted, we hear:\n\n     'in a short time he took the city by storm and slew all the\n     Impious who dwelt in it, even as Hermes and Horus, son of Isis\n     and Osiris, conquered those who of old revolted in the same\n     regions . . . in return for which the Gods have granted him\n     Health Victory Power and all other good things, the Kingdom\n     remaining to him and his sons for time everlasting.'[157:1]\n\nThe conclusion which the Priests draw from these facts is that the\nyoung king's titles and honours are insufficient and should be\nincreased. It is a typical and terribly un-Hellenic document of the\nHellenistic God-man in his appearance as King.\n\nNow the early successors of Alexander mostly professed themselves\nmembers of the Stoic school, and in the mouth of a Stoic this doctrine\nof the potential divinity of man was an inspiring one. To them virtue\nwas the really divine thing in man; and the most divine kind of virtue\nwas that of helping humanity. To love and help humanity is, according to\nStoic doctrine, the work and the very essence of God. If you take away\nPronoia from God, says Chrysippus,[158:1] it is like taking away light\nand heat from fire. This doctrine is magnificently expressed by Pliny in\na phrase that is probably translated from Posidonius: 'God is the\nhelping of man by man; and that is the way to eternal glory.'[158:2]\n\nThe conception took root in the minds of many Romans. A great Roman\ngovernor often had the chance of thus helping humanity on a vast scale,\nand liked to think that such a life opened the way to heaven. 'One\nshould conceive', says Cicero (_Tusc._ i. 32), 'the gods as like men\nwho feel themselves born for the work of helping, defending, and saving\nhumanity. Hercules has passed into the number of the gods. He would\nnever have so passed if he had not built up that road for himself while\nhe was among mankind.'\n\nI have been using some rather late authors, though the ideas seem\nlargely to come from Posidonius.[159:1] But before Posidonius the sort\nof fact on which we have been dwelling had had its influence on\nreligious speculation. When Alexander made his conquering journey to\nIndia and afterwards was created a god, it was impossible not to reflect\nthat almost exactly the same story was related in myth about Dionysus.\nDionysus had started from India and travelled in the other direction:\nthat was the only difference. A flood of light seemed to be thrown on\nall the traditional mythology, which, of course, had always been a\npuzzle to thoughtful men. It was impossible to believe it as it stood,\nand yet hard--in an age which had not the conception of any science of\nmythology--to think it was all a mass of falsehood, and the great Homer\nand Hesiod no better than liars. But the generation which witnessed the\nofficial deification of the various Seleucidae and Ptolemies seemed\nsuddenly to see light. The traditional gods, from Heracles and Dionysus\nup to Zeus and Cronos and even Ouranos, were simply old-world rulers and\nbenefactors of mankind, who had, by their own insistence or the\ngratitude of their subjects, been transferred to the ranks of heaven.\nFor that is the exact meaning of making them divine: they are classed\namong the true immortals, the Sun and Moon and Stars and Corn and Wine,\nand the everlasting elements.\n\nThe philosophic romance of Euhemerus, published early in the third\ncentury B. C., had instantaneous success and enormous influence.[160:1]\nIt was one of the first Greek books translated into Latin, and became\nlong afterwards a favourite weapon of the Christian fathers in their\npolemics against polytheism. 'Euhemerism' was, on the face of it, a very\nbrilliant theory; and it had, as we have noticed, a special appeal for\nthe Romans.\n\nYet, if such a conception might please the leisure of a statesman, it\ncould hardly satisfy the serious thought of a philosopher or a religious\nman. If man's soul really holds a fragment of God and is itself a divine\nbeing, its godhead cannot depend on the possession of great riches and\narmies and organized subordinates. If 'the helping of man by man is\nGod', the help in question cannot be material help. The religion which\nends in deifying only kings and millionaires may be vulgarly popular but\nis self-condemned.\n\nAs a matter of fact the whole tendency of Greek philosophy after Plato,\nwith some illustrious exceptions, especially among the Romanizing\nStoics, was away from the outer world towards the world of the soul. We\nfind in the religious writings of this period that the real Saviour of\nmen is not he who protects them against earthquake and famine, but he\nwho in some sense saves their souls. He reveals to them the _Gn\u00f4sis\nTheou_, the Knowledge of God. The 'knowledge' in question is not a mere\nintellectual knowledge. It is a complete union, a merging of beings.\nAnd, as we have always to keep reminding our cold modern intelligence,\nhe who has 'known' God is himself thereby deified. He is the Image of\nGod, the Son of God, in a sense he _is_ God.[161:1] The stratum of ideas\ndescribed in the first of the studies will explain the ease with which\ntransition took place. The worshipper of Bacchos became Bacchos simply\nenough, because in reality the God Bacchos was originally only the\nprojection of the human Bacchoi. And in the Hellenistic age the notion\nof these secondary mediating gods was made easier by the analogy of the\nhuman interpreters. Of course, we have abundant instances of actual\npreachers and miracle-workers who on their own authority posed, and were\naccepted, as gods. The adventure of Paul and Barnabas at Lystra[161:2]\nshows how easily such things could happen. But as a rule, I suspect, the\nmost zealous priest or preacher preferred to have his God in the\nbackground. He preaches, he heals the sick and casts out devils, not in\nhis own name but in the name of One who sent him. This actual present\npriest who initiates you or me is himself already an Image of God; but\nabove him there are greater and wiser priests, above them others, and\nabove all there is the one eternal Divine Mediator, who being in\nperfection both man and God can alone fully reveal God to man, and lead\nman's soul up the heavenly path, beyond Change and Fate and the Houses\nof the Seven Rulers, to its ultimate peace. I have seen somewhere a\nGnostic or early Christian emblem which indicates this doctrine. Some\nShepherd or Saviour stands, his feet on the earth, his head towering\nabove the planets, lifting his follower in his outstretched arms.\n\nThe Gnostics are still commonly thought of as a body of Christian\nheretics. In reality there were Gnostic sects scattered over the\nHellenistic world before Christianity as well as after. They must have\nbeen established in Antioch and probably in Tarsus well before the days\nof Paul or Apollos. Their Saviour, like the Jewish Messiah, was\nestablished in men's minds before the Saviour of the Christians. 'If we\nlook close', says Professor Bousset, 'the result emerges with great\nclearness, that the figure of the Redeemer as such did not wait for\nChristianity to force its way into the religion of Gn\u00f4sis, but was\nalready present there under various forms.'[162:1] He occurs notably in\ntwo pre-Christian documents, discovered by the keen analysis and\nprofound learning of Dr. Reitzenstein: the Poimandres revelation printed\nin the _Corpus Hermeticum_, and the sermon of the Naassenes in\nHippolytus, _Refutatio Omnium Haeresium_, which is combined with\nAttis-worship.[162:2] The violent anti-Jewish bias of most of the\nsects--they speak of 'the accursed God of the Jews' and identify him\nwith Saturn and the Devil--points on the whole to pre-Christian\nconditions: and a completely non-Christian standpoint is still visible\nin the Mandaean and Manichean systems.\n\nTheir Redeemer is descended by a fairly clear genealogy from the 'Tritos\nS\u00f4t\u00ear' of early Greece, contaminated with similar figures, like Attis\nand Adonis from Asia Minor, Osiris from Egypt, and the special Jewish\nconception of the Messiah of the Chosen people. He has various names,\nwhich the name of Jesus or 'Christos', 'the Anointed', tends gradually\nto supersede. Above all he is, in some sense, Man, or 'the Second Man'\nor 'the Son of Man'. The origin of this phrase needs a word of\nexplanation. Since the ultimate unseen God, spirit though He is, made\nman in His image, since holy men (and divine kings) are images of God,\nit follows that He is Himself Man. He is the real, the ultimate, the\nperfect and eternal Man, of whom all bodily men are feeble copies. He is\nalso the Father; the Saviour is his Son, 'the Image of the Father', 'the\nSecond Man', 'the Son of Man'. The method in which he performs his\nmystery of Redemption varies. It is haunted by the memory of the old\nSuffering and Dying God, of whom we spoke in the first of these studies.\nIt is vividly affected by the ideal 'Righteous Man' of Plato, who 'shall\nbe scourged, tortured, bound, his eyes burnt out, and at last, after\nsuffering every evil, shall be impaled or crucified'.[163:1] But in the\nmain he descends, of his free will or by the eternal purpose of the\nFather, from Heaven through the spheres of all the Archontes or\nKosmokratores, the planets, to save mankind, or sometimes to save the\nfallen Virgin, the Soul, Wisdom, or 'the Pearl'.[164:1] The Archontes\nlet him pass because he is disguised; they do not know him (cf. 1 Cor.\nii. 7 ff.). When his work is done he ascends to Heaven to sit by the\nside of the Father in glory; he conquers the Archontes, leads them\ncaptive in his triumph, strips them of their armour (Col. ii. 15; cf.\nthe previous verse), sometimes even crucifies them for ever in their\nplaces in the sky.[164:2] The epistles to the Colossians and the\nEphesians are much influenced by these doctrines. Paul himself\nconstantly uses the language of them, but in the main we find him\ndiscouraging the excesses of superstition, reforming, ignoring,\nrejecting. His Jewish blood was perhaps enough to keep him to strict\nmonotheism. Though he admits Angels and Archontes, Principalities and\nPowers, he scorns the Elements and he seems deliberately to reverse the\ndoctrine of the first and second Man.[164:3] He says nothing about the\nTrinity of Divine Beings that was usual in Gnosticism, nothing about the\nDivine Mother. His mind, for all its vehement mysticism, has something\nof that clean antiseptic quality that makes such early Christian works\nas the Octavius of Minucius Felix and the Epistle to Diognetus so\ninfinitely refreshing. He is certainly one of the great figures in Greek\nliterature, but his system lies outside the subject of this essay. We\nare concerned only with those last manifestations of Hellenistic\nreligion which probably formed the background of his philosophy. It is a\nstrange experience, and it shows what queer stuff we humans are made of,\nto study these obscure congregations, drawn from the proletariate of the\nLevant, superstitious, charlatan-ridden, and helplessly ignorant, who\nstill believed in Gods begetting children of mortal mothers, who took\nthe 'Word', the 'Spirit', and the 'Divine Wisdom', to be persons called\nby those names, and turned the Immortality of the Soul into 'the\nstanding up of the corpses';[165:1] and to reflect that it was these who\nheld the main road of advance towards the greatest religion of the\nwestern world.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have tried to sketch in outline the main forms of belief to which\nHellenistic philosophy moved or drifted. Let me dwell for a few pages\nmore upon the characteristic method by which it reached them. It may be\nsummed up in one word, Allegory. All Hellenistic philosophy from the\nfirst Stoics onward is permeated by allegory. It is applied to Homer, to\nthe religious traditions, to the ancient rituals, to the whole world. To\nSallustius after the end of our period the whole material world is only\na great myth, a thing whose value lies not in itself but in the\nspiritual meaning which it hides and reveals. To Cleanthes at the\nbeginning of it the Universe was a mystic pageant, in which the immortal\nstars were the dancers and the Sun the priestly torch-bearer.[165:2]\nChrysippus reduced the Homeric gods to physical or ethical principles;\nand Crates, the great critic, applied allegory in detail to his\ninterpretation of the all-wise poet.[166:1] We possess two small but\ncomplete treatises which illustrate well the results of this tendency,\nCornutus \u03c1\u03b5\u03c0\u1f76 \u03b8\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd and the _Homeric Allegories_ of Heraclitus, a\nbrilliant little work of the first century B. C. I will not dwell upon\ndetails: they are abundantly accessible and individually often\nridiculous. A by-product of the same activity is the mystic treatment of\nlanguage: a certain Titan in Hesiod is named Koios. Why? Because the\nTitans are the elements and one of them is naturally the element of\n\u039a\u03bf\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2, the Ionic Greek for 'Quality'. The Egyptian Isis is derived\nfrom the root of the Greek \u03b5\u1f30\u03b4\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9, Knowledge, and the Egyptian Osiris\nfrom the Greek \u1f45\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 and \u1f31\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 ('holy' and 'sacred', or perhaps more\nexactly 'lawful' and '_tabu_'). Is this totally absurd? I think not. If\nall human language is, as most of these thinkers believed, a divine\ninstitution, a cap filled to the brim with divine meaning, so that by\nreflecting deeply upon a word a pious philosopher can reach the secret\nthat it holds, then there is no difficulty whatever in supposing that\nthe special secret held by an Egyptian word may be found in Greek, or\nthe secret of a Greek word in Babylonian. Language is One. The Gods who\nmade all these languages equally could use them all, and wind them all\nintricately in and out, for the building up of their divine enigma.\n\nWe must make a certain effort of imagination to understand this method\nof allegory. It is not the frigid thing that it seems to us. In the\nfirst place, we should remember that, as applied to the ancient\nliterature and religious ritual, allegory was at least a _vera\ncausa_--it was a phenomenon which actually existed. Heraclitus of\nEphesus is an obvious instance. He deliberately expressed himself in\nlanguage which should not be understood of the vulgar, and which bore a\nhidden meaning to his disciples. Pythagoras did the same. The prophets\nand religious writers must have done so to an even greater\nextent.[167:1] And we know enough of the history of ritual to be sure\nthat a great deal of it is definitely allegorical. The Hellenistic Age\ndid not wantonly invent the theory of allegory.\n\nAnd secondly, we must remember what states of mind tend especially to\nproduce this kind of belief. They are not contemptible states of mind.\nIt needs only a strong idealism with which the facts of experience\nclash, and allegory follows almost of necessity. The facts cannot be\naccepted as they are. They must needs be explained as meaning something\ndifferent.\n\nTake an earnest Stoic or Platonist, a man of fervid mind, who is\npossessed by the ideals of his philosophy and at the same time feels his\nheart thrilled by the beauty of the old poetry. What is he to do? On one\nside he can find Zoilus, or Plato himself, or the Cynic preachers,\ncondemning Homer and the poets without remorse, as teachers of\nfoolishness. He can treat poetry as the English puritans treated the\nstage. But is that a satisfactory solution? Remember that these\ngenerations were trained habitually to give great weight to the voice of\ntheir inner consciousness, and the inner consciousness of a sensitive\nman cries out that any such solution is false: that Homer is not a liar,\nbut noble and great, as our fathers have always taught us. On the other\nside comes Heraclitus the allegorist. 'If Homer used no allegories he\ncommitted all impieties.' On this theory the words can be allowed to\npossess all their old beauty and magic, but an inner meaning is added\nquite different from that which they bear on the surface. It may, very\nlikely, be a duller and less poetic meaning; but I am not sure that the\nverses will not gain by the mere process of brooding study fully as much\nas they lose by the ultimate badness of the interpretation. Anyhow, that\nwas the road followed. The men of whom I speak were not likely to give\nup any experience that seemed to make the world more godlike or to feed\ntheir spiritual and emotional cravings. They left that to the barefooted\ncynics. They craved poetry and they craved philosophy; if the two spoke\nlike enemies, their words must needs be explained away by one who loved\nboth.\n\nThe same process was applied to the world itself. Something like it is\nhabitually applied by the religious idealists of all ages. A fundamental\ndoctrine of Stoicism and most of the idealist creeds was the perfection\nand utter blessedness of the world, and the absolute fulfilment of the\npurpose of God. Now obviously this belief was not based on experience.\nThe poor world, to do it justice amid all its misdoings, has never lent\nitself to any such barefaced deception as that. No doubt it shrieked\nagainst the doctrine then, as loud as it has always shrieked, so that\neven a Posidonian or a Pythagorean, his ears straining for the music of\nthe spheres, was sometimes forced to listen. And what was his answer?\nIt is repeated in all the literature of these sects. 'Our human\nexperience is so small: the things of the earth may be bad and more than\nbad, but, ah! if you only went beyond the Moon! That is where the true\nKosmos begins.' And, of course, if we did ever go there, we all know\nthey would say it began beyond the Sun. Idealism of a certain type will\nhave its way; if hard life produces an ounce or a pound or a million\ntons of fact in the scale against it, it merely dreams of infinite\nmillions in its own scale, and the enemy is outweighed and smothered. I\ndo not wish to mock at these Posidonian Stoics and Hermetics and\nGnostics and Neo-Pythagoreans. They loved goodness, and their faith is\nstrong and even terrible. One feels rather inclined to bow down before\ntheir altars and cry: _Magna est Delusio et praevalebit._\n\nYet on the whole one rises from these books with the impression that all\nthis allegory and mysticism is bad for men. It may make the emotions\nsensitive, it certainly weakens the understanding. And, of course, in\nthis paper I have left out of account many of the grosser forms of\nsuperstition. In any consideration of the balance, they should not be\nforgotten.\n\nIf a reader of Proclus and the _Corpus Hermeticum_ wants relief, he will\nfind it, perhaps, best in the writings of a gentle old Epicurean who\nlived at Oenoanda in Cappadocia about A. D. 200. His name was\nDiogenes.[169:1] His works are preserved, in a fragmentary state, not on\npapyrus or parchment, but on the wall of a large portico where he\nengraved them for passers-by to read. He lived in a world of\nsuperstition and foolish terror, and he wrote up the great doctrines of\nEpicurus for the saving of mankind.\n\n     'Being brought by age to the sunset of my life, and expecting\n     at any moment to take my departure from the world with a glad\n     song for the fullness of my happiness, I have resolved, lest I\n     be taken too soon, to give help to those of good temperament.\n     If one person or two or three or four, or any small number you\n     choose, were in distress, and I were summoned out to help one\n     after another, I would do all in my power to give the best\n     counsel to each. But now, as I have said, the most of men lie\n     sick, as it were of a pestilence, in their false beliefs about\n     the world, and the tale of them increases; for by imitation\n     they take the disease from one another, like sheep. And\n     further it is only just to bring help to those who shall come\n     after us--for they too are ours, though they be yet unborn;\n     and love for man commands us also to help strangers who may\n     pass by. Since therefore the good message of the Book has this\n     wall and to set forth in public the medicine of the healing of\n     mankind.'\n\nThe people of his time and neighbourhood seem to have fancied that the\nold man must have some bad motive. They understood mysteries and\nredemptions and revelations. They understood magic and curses. But they\nwere puzzled, apparently, by this simple message, which only told them\nto use their reason, their courage, and their sympathy, and not to be\nafraid of death or of angry gods. The doctrine was condensed into four\nsentences of a concentrated eloquence that make a translator\ndespair:[170:1] 'Nothing to fear in God: Nothing to feel in Death: Good\ncan be attained: Evil can be endured.'\n\nOf course, the doctrines of this good old man do not represent the whole\ntruth. To be guided by one's aversions is always a sign of weakness or\ndefeat; and it is as much a failure of nerve to reject blindly for fear\nof being a fool, as to believe blindly for fear of missing some\nemotional stimulus.\n\nThere is no royal road in these matters. I confess it seems strange to\nme as I write here, to reflect that at this moment many of my friends\nand most of my fellow creatures are, as far as one can judge, quite\nconfident that they possess supernatural knowledge. As a rule, each\nindividual belongs to some body which has received in writing the\nresults of a divine revelation. I cannot share in any such feeling. The\nUncharted surrounds us on every side and we must needs have some\nrelation towards it, a relation which will depend on the general\ndiscipline of a man's mind and the bias of his whole character. As far\nas knowledge and conscious reason will go, we should follow resolutely\ntheir austere guidance. When they cease, as cease they must, we must use\nas best we can those fainter powers of apprehension and surmise and\nsensitiveness by which, after all, most high truth has been reached as\nwell as most high art and poetry: careful always really to seek for\ntruth and not for our own emotional satisfaction, careful not to neglect\nthe real needs of men and women through basing our life on dreams; and\nremembering above all to walk gently in a world where the lights are dim\nand the very stars wander.\n\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\nIt is not my purpose to make anything like a systematic bibliography,\nbut a few recommendations may be useful to some students who approach\nthis subject, as I have done, from the side of classical Greek.\n\nFor Greek Philosophy I have used besides Plato and Aristotle, Diogenes\nLaertius and Philodemus, Diels, _Fragmente der Vorsokratiker_; Diels,\n_Doxographi Graeci_; von Arnim, _Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta_; Usener,\n_Epicurea_; also the old _Fragmenta Philosophorum_ of Mullach.\n\nFor later Paganism and Gnosticism, Reitzenstein, _Poimandres_;\nReitzenstein, _Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen_; Dieterich,\n_Eine Mithrasliturgic_ (also _Abraxas_, _Nekyia_, _Muttererde_, &c.); P.\nWendland, _Hellenistisch-R\u00f6mische Kultur_; Cumont, _Textes et Monuments\nrelatifs aux Myst\u00e8res de Mithra_ (also _The Mysteries of Mithra_,\nChicago, 1903), and _Les Religions Orientales dans l'Empire Romain_;\nSeeck, _Untergang der antiken Welt_, vol. iii; Philo, _de Vita\nContemplativa_, Conybeare; Gruppe, _Griechische Religion and\nMythologie_, pp. 1458-1676; Bousset, _Hauptprobleme der Gnosis_, 1907,\nwith good bibliography in the introduction; articles by E. Bevan in the\n_Quarterly Review_, No. 424 (June 1910), and the _Hibbert Journal_, xi.\n1 (October 1912). _Dokumente der Gnosis_, by W. Schultz (Jena, 1910),\ngives a highly subjective translation and reconstruction of most of the\nGnostic documents: the _Corpus Hermeticum_ is translated into English by\nG. R. S. Meade, _Thrice Greatest Hermes_, 1906. The first volume of Dr.\nScott's monumental edition of the _Hermetica_ (Clarendon Press, 1924)\nhas appeared just too late to be used in the present volume.\n\nFor Jewish thought before the Christian era Dr. Charles's _Testaments of\nthe Twelve Patriarchs_; also the same writer's _Book of Enoch_, and the\n_Religionsgeschichtliche Erkl\u00e4rung des Neuen Testaments_ by Carl Clemen,\nGiessen, 1909.\n\nOf Christian writers apart from the New Testament those that come most\ninto account are Hippolytis ([cross symbol] A. D. 250), _Refutatio\nOmnium Haeresium_, Epiphanius (367-403), _Panarion_, and Irenaeus\n([cross symbol] A. D. 202), _Contra Haereses_, i, ii. For a simple\nintroduction to the problems presented by the New Testament literature I\nwould venture to recommend Prof. Bacon's _New Testament_, in the Home\nUniversity Library, and Dr. Estlin Carpenter's _First Three Gospels_. In\nsuch a vast literature I dare not make any further recommendations, but\nfor a general introduction to the History of Religions with a good and\nbrief bibliography I would refer the reader to Salomon Reinach's\n_Orpheus_ (Paris, 1909; English translation the same year), a book of\nwide learning and vigorous thought.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[124:1] Mr. Marett has pointed out that this conception has its roots\ndeep in primitive human nature: _The Birth of Humility_, Oxford, 1910,\np. 17. 'It would, perhaps, be fanciful to say that man tends to run away\nfrom the sacred as uncanny, to cower before it as secret, and to\nprostrate himself before it as tabu. On the other hand, it seems plain\nthat to these three negative qualities of the sacred taken together\nthere corresponds on the part of man a certain negative attitude of\nmind. Psychologists class the feelings bound up with flight, cowering,\nand prostration under the common head of \"asthenic emotion\". In plain\nEnglish they are all forms of heart-sinking, of feeling unstrung. This\ngeneral type of innate disposition would seem to be the psychological\nbasis of Humility. Taken in its social setting, the emotion will, of\ncourse, show endless shades of complexity; for it will be excited, and\nagain will find practical expression, in all sorts of ways. Under these\nvarying conditions, however, it is reasonable to suppose that what Mr.\nMcDougall would call the \"central part\" of the experience remains very\nmuch the same. In face of the sacred the normal man is visited by a\nheart-sinking, a wave of asthenic emotion.' Mr. Marett continues: 'If\nthat were all, however, Religion would be a matter of pure fear. But it\nis not all. There is yet the positive side of the sacred to be taken\ninto account.' It is worth remarking also that Schleiermacher\n(1767-1834) placed the essence of religion in the feeling of absolute\ndependence without attempting to define the object towards which it was\ndirected.\n\n[129:1] Usener, _Epicurea_ (1887), pp. 232 ff.; Diels, _Doxographi\nGraeci_ (1879), p. 306; Arnim, _Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta_ (1903-5),\nChrysippus 1014, 1019.\n\n[133:1] Juv. x. 365 f.; Polyb. ii. 38, 5; x. 5, 8; xviii. 11, 5.\n\n[133:2] Cf. also his _Consolatio ad Apollonium_. The earliest text is\nperhaps the interesting fragment of Demetrius of Phalerum (fr. 19, in\n_F. H. G._ ii. 368), written about 317 B. C. It is quoted with\nadmiration by Polybius xxix. 21, with reference to the defeat of Perseus\nof Macedon by the Romans:\n\n'One must often remember the saying of Demetrius of Phalerum . . . in\nhis Treatise on Fortune. . . . \"If you were to take not an indefinite\ntime, nor many generations, but just the fifty years before this, you\ncould see in them the violence of Fortune. Fifty years ago do you\nsuppose that either the Macedonians or the King of Macedon, or the\nPersians or the King of Persia, if some God had foretold them what was\nto come, would ever have believed that by the present time the Persians,\nwho were then masters of almost all the inhabited world, would have\nceased to be even a geographical name, while the Macedonians, who were\nthen not even a name, would be rulers of all? Yet this Fortune, who\nbears no relation to our method of life, but transforms everything in\nthe way we do not expect and displays her power by surprises, is at the\npresent moment showing all the world that, when she puts the Macedonians\ninto the rich inheritance of the Persian, she has only lent them these\ngood things until she changes her mind about them.\" Which has now\nhappened in the case of Perseus. The words of Demetrius were a prophecy\nuttered, as it were, by inspired lips.'\n\n[134:1] Eur., _Tro._ 886. Literally it means 'The Compulsion in the way\nThings grow'.\n\n[134:2] Zeno, fr. 87, Arnim.\n\n[135:1] Chrysippus, fr. 913, Arnim.\n\n[135:2] Cleanthes, 527, Arnim. \u1f0a\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03ad \u03bc', \u1f66 \u0396\u03b5\u1fe6, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c3\u03cd \u03b3' \u1f21 \u03a0\u03b5\u03c0\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7,\n\u03ba\u03c4\u03bb. Plotinus, _Enn._ III. i. 10.\n\n[135:3] Epicurus, Third Letter. Usener, p. 65, 12 = Diog. La. x. 134.\n\n[136:1] Aristotle, fr. 12 ff.\n\n[136:2] e. g. Chrysippus, fr. 1076, Arnim.\n\n[138:1] _Themis_, p. 180, n. 1.\n\n[138:2] Not to Plotinus: _Enn._ II. ix against the Valentinians. Cf.\nPorphyry, \u1f08\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03bc\u03b1\u03af, 28.\n\n[138:3] Bousset, _Hauptprobleme der Gnosis_, 1907, pp. 13, 21, 26, 81,\n&c.; pp. 332 ff. She becomes Helen in the beautiful myth of the Simonian\nGnostics--a Helen who has forgotten her name and race, and is a slave in\na brothel in Tyre. Simon discovers her, gradually brings back her memory\nand redeems her. Irenaeus, i. 23, 2.\n\n[139:1] _De Iside et Osiride_, 67. (He distinguishes them from the real\nGod, however, just as Sallustius would.)\n\n[139:2] Mithras was worshipped by the Cilician Pirates conquered by\nPompey. Plut., _Vit. Pomp._ 24.\n\n[139:3] \u1f14\u03ba\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6. Plato (Diels, 305); Stoics, ib. 547, l.\n8.\n\n[140:1] Aristotle (Diels, 450). \u1f45\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b5\u1f36\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c3\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\n\u1f51\u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2. Chrysippus (Diels 466); Posidonius,\nib. (cf. Plato, _Laws_. 898 ff.). See Epicurus's Second Letter,\nespecially Usener, pp. 36-47 = Diog. La. x. 86-104. On the food required\nby the heavenly bodies cf. Chrysippus, fr. 658-61, Arnim.\n\n[140:2] \u1f41 \u03b4\u1f72 \u1f18\u03c0\u03af\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u1f72\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u1f10\u03b3\u03ba\u03c1\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9. Diels, 307{a} 15. Cf.\n432{a} 10.\n\n[141:1] Heath, _Aristarchos of Samos_, pp. 301-10.\n\n[142:1] Pythagoras in Diels, p. 555, 20; the best criticism is in\nAristotle, _De Caelo_, chap. 9 (p. 290 b), the fullest account in\nMacrobius, _Comm. in Somn. Scipionis_, ii.\n\n[142:2] See Diels, _Elementium_, 1899, p. 17. These magic letters are\nstill used in the Roman ritual for the consecration of churches.\n\n[143:1] A seven-day week was known to Pseudo-Hippocrates \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c3\u03b1\u03c1\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd _ad\nfin._, but the date of that treatise is very uncertain.\n\n[143:2] Aesch., _Ag._ 6; Eur., _Hip._ 530. Also _Ag._ 365, where \u1f00\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd\n\u03b2\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 goes together and \u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03bc\u03ae\u03b8' \u1f55\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1.\n\n[143:3] Proclus, _In Timaeum_, 289 F; Seneca, _Nat. Quaest._ iii. 29, 1.\n\n[145:1] Chrysippus, 1187-95. Esse divinationem si di sint et\nprovidentia.\n\n[145:2] Cicero, _De Nat. De._ iii. 11, 28; especially _De Divinatione_,\nii. 14, 34; 60, 124; 69, 142. 'Qua ex coniunctione naturae et quasi\nconcentu atque consensu, quam \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u03bd Graeci appellant, convenire\npotest aut fissum iecoris cum lucello meo aut meus quaesticulus cum\ncaelo, terra rerumque natura?' asks the sceptic in the second of these\npassages.\n\n[145:3] Chrysippus, 939-44. Vaticinatio probat fati necessitatem.\n\n[145:4] Chrysippus, 1214, 1200-6.\n\n[146:1] _Eine Mithrasliturgie_, 1903. The MS. is 574 Suppl\u00e9ment grec de\nla Bibl. Nationale. The formulae of various religions were used as\ninstruments of magic, as our own witches used the Lord's Prayer\nbackwards.\n\n[146:2] _Refutatio Omnium Haeresium_, v. 7. They worshipped the Serpent,\nN\u0101h\u0101sh (\u05e0\u05b8\u05d7\u05b8\u05e9\u05c1).\n\n[147:1] Bousset, p. 351. The hostility of Zoroastrianism to the old\nBabylonian planet gods was doubtless at work also. Ib. pp. 37-46.\n\n[147:2] Or, in some Gnostic systems, of the Mother.\n\n[148:1] Harrison, _Prolegomena_, Appendix on the Orphic tablets.\n\n[148:2] Ap. _Metamorphoses_, xi.\n\n[149:1] 2 Cor. xii. 2 and 3 (he may be referring in veiled language to\nhimself); Gal. i. 12 ff.; Acts ix. 1-22. On the difference of tone and\nfidelity between the Epistles and the Acts see the interesting remarks\nof Prof. P. Gardner, _The Religious Experience of St. Paul_, pp. 5 ff.\n\n[149:2] Porphyry, _Vita Plotini_, 23. 'We have explained that he was\ngood and gentle, mild and merciful; we who lived with him could feel it.\nWe have said that he was vigilant and pure of soul, and always striving\ntowards the Divine, which with all his soul he loved. . . . And thus it\nhappened to this extraordinary man, constantly lifting himself up\ntowards the first and transcendent God by thought and the ways explained\nby Plato in the _Symposium_, that there actually came a vision of that\nGod who is without shape or form, established above the understanding\nand all the intelligible world. To whom I, Porphyry, being now in my\nsixty-eighth year, profess that I once drew near and was made one with\nhim. At any rate he appeared to Plotinus \"a goal close at hand.\" For his\nwhole end and goal was to be made One and draw near to the supreme God.\nAnd he attained that goal four times, I think, while I was living with\nhim--not potentially but in actuality, though an actuality which\nsurpasses speech.'\n\n[150:1] _C. I. G._, vol. xii, fasc. 3; and Bethe in _Rhein. Mus._, N.\nF., xlii, 438-75.\n\n[150:2] Irenaeus, i. 13, 3.\n\n[150:3] Bousset, chap. vii; Reitzenstein, _Mysterienreligionen_, p. 20\nff., with excursus; _Poimandres_, 226 ff.; Dieterich, _Mithrasliturgie_,\npp. 121 ff.\n\n[152:1] Eur. fr. 484.\n\n[152:2] _R. G. E._{3}, pp. 135-40. I do not touch on the political side\nof this apotheosis of Hellenistic kings; it is well brought out in\nFerguson's _Hellenistic Athens_, e. g. p. 108 f., also p. 11 f. and\nnote. Antigonus Gonatas refused to be worshipped (Tarn, p. 250 f.). For\nSallustius's opinion, see below, p. 223, chap. xviii _ad fin._\n\n[153:1] Cf. \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u1f74 \u03bf\u1f30\u03ba\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, Democr. 171, Diels, and Alcmaeon\nis said by Cicero to have attributed divinity to the Stars and the Soul.\nMelissus and Zeno \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f34\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ac\u03c2. The phrase \u03c4\u03b9\u03bd\u1f72\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u1f74\u03bd \u1f00\u03c0\u1f78\n\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f04\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd \u1fe5\u03ad\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd, Diels 651, must refer to some Gnostic sect.\n\n[154:1] See for instance Frazer, _Golden Bough_{3}, part I, i. 417-19.\n\n[154:2] Aesch. _Pers._ 157, 644 (\u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2), 642 (\u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd). Mr. Bevan however\nsuspects that Aeschylus misunderstood his Persian sources: see his\narticle on 'Deification' in Hastings's _Dictionary of Religion_.\n\n[154:3] Cf. Aristotle on the \u039c\u03b5\u03b3\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2, _Eth. Nic._ 1123 b. 15. \u03b5\u1f30 \u03b4\u1f72\n\u03b4\u1f74 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u1f11\u03b1\u03bc\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f00\u03be\u03b9\u03bf\u1fd6 \u1f04\u03be\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f64\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd, \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u1f13\u03bd\n\u03bc\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1 \u1f02\u03bd \u03b5\u1f32\u03b7. . . . \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4' \u1f02\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03b7\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u1f43 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2\n\u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03ad\u03bc\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd. But these kings clearly transgressed the mean. For the\nsatirical comments of various public men in Athens see Ed. Meyer,\n_Kleine Schriften_, 301 ff., 330.\n\n[155:1] Lysander too had altars raised to him by some Asiatic cities.\n\n[156:1] Dittenberger, _Inscr. Orientis Graeci_, 90; Wendland,\n_Hellenistisch-r\u00f6mische Kultur_, 1907, p. 74 f. and notes.\n\n[157:1] Several of the phrases are interesting. The last gift of the\nheavenly gods to this Theos is the old gift of Mana. In Hesiod it was\n\u039a\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b5 \u0392\u03af\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b5, the two ministers who are never away from the King\nZeus. In Aeschylus it was Kratos and Bia who subdue Prometheus. In\nTyrtaeus it was \u039d\u03af\u03ba\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u039a\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2. In other inscriptions of the Ptolemaic\nage it is \u03a3\u03c9\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03af\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u039d\u03af\u03ba\u03b7 or \u03a3\u03c9\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03af\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u039d\u03af\u03ba\u03b7 \u03b1\u1f30\u03ce\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2. In the current\nChristian liturgies it is 'the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory'. _R.\nG. E._{3}, p. 135, n. The new conception, as always, is rooted in the\nold. 'The Gods Saviours, Brethren', &c., are of course Ptolemy Soter,\nPtolemy Philadelphus, &c., and their Queens. The phrases \u03b5\u1f30\u03ba\u1f7c\u03bd \u03b6\u1ff6\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\n\u0394\u03b9\u03cc\u03c2, \u03c5\u1f31\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f29\u03bb\u03af\u03bf\u03c5, \u1f20\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f51\u03c0\u1f78 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03a6\u03b8\u1fb6, are characteristic of the\nreligious language of this period. Cf. also Col. i. 14, \u03b5\u1f30\u03ba\u1f7c\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6\n\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f00\u03bf\u03c1\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5; 2 Cor. iv. 4; Ephes. i. 5, 6.\n\n[158:1] Fr. 1118. Arnim. Cf. Antipater, fr. 33, 34, \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b5\u1f50\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03b7\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd is\npart of the definition of Deity.\n\n[158:2] Plin., _Nat. Hist._ ii. 7, 18. Deus est mortali iuvare mortalem\net haec ad aeternam gloriam via. Cf. also the striking passages from\nCicero and others in Wendland, p. 85, n. 2.\n\n[159:1] The Stoic philosopher, teaching at Rhodes, _c._ 100 B. C. A man\nof immense knowledge and strong religious emotions, he moved the Stoa in\nthe direction of Oriental mysticism. See Schwartz's sketch in\n_Characterk\u00f6pfe_{a}, pp. 89-98. Also Norden's _Commentary on Aeneid_ vi.\n\n[160:1] Jacoby in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclop\u00e4die_, vi. 954. It was\ncalled \u1f39\u03b5\u03c1\u1f70 \u1f08\u03bd\u03b1\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03ae.\n\n[161:1] Cf. Plotin. _Enn._ I, ii. 6 \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb' \u1f21 \u03c3\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u1f74 \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f14\u03be\u03c9 \u1f01\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03af\u03b1\u03c2\n\u03b5\u1f36\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9, \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u1f70 \u03b8\u03b5\u1f78\u03bd \u03b5\u1f36\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9.\n\n[161:2] Acts xiv. 12. They called Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes, because\nhe was \u1f41 \u1f21\u03b3\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5.--Paul also writes to the Galatians (iv.\n14): 'Ye received me _as a messenger of God, as Jesus Christ_.'\n\n[162:1] Bousset, p. 238.\n\n[162:2] Hippolytus, 134, 90 ff., text in Reitzenstein's _Poimandres_,\npp. 83-98.\n\n[163:1] _Republic_, 362 A. \u1f08\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c7\u03b9\u03bd\u03b4\u03c5\u03bb\u03b5\u03cd\u03c9 is said to = \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03c0\u03af\u03b6\u03c9,\nwhich is used both for 'impale' and 'crucify'. The two were alternative\nforms of the most slavish and cruel capital punishment, impalement being\nmainly Persian, crucifixion Roman.\n\n[164:1] See _The Hymn of the Soul_, attributed to the Gnostic\nBardesanes, edited by A. A. Bevan, Cambridge, 1897.\n\n[164:2] Bousset cites Acta Archelai 8, and Epiphanius, _Haeres_. 66, 32.\n\n[164:3] Gal. iv. 9; 1 Cor. xv. 21 f., 47; Rom. v. 12-18.\n\n[165:1] \u1f21 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03bd\u03b5\u03ba\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd. Cf. Acts xvii. 32.\n\n[165:2] Cleanthes, 538, Arnim; Diels, p. 592, 30. Cf. Philolaus, Diels,\np. 336 f.\n\n[166:1] See especially the interpretation of Nestor's Cup, Athenaeus,\npp. 489 c. ff.\n\n[167:1] I may refer to the learned and interesting remarks on the\nEsoteric Style in Prof. Margoliouth's edition of Aristotle's _Poetics_.\nIt is not, of course, the same as Allegory.\n\n[169:1] Published in the Teubner series by William, 1907.\n\n[170:1]\n\n     \u1f0c\u03c6\u03bf\u03b2\u03bf\u03bd \u1f41 \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2. \u1f08\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u1f41 \u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2.\n     \u03a4\u1f78 \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u1f78\u03bd \u03b5\u1f54\u03ba\u03c4\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd. \u03a4\u1f78 \u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u1f78\u03bd \u03b5\u1f50\u03b5\u03ba\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd.\n\nI regret to say that I cannot track this Epicurean 'tetractys' to its\nsource.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE LAST PROTEST\n\n\nIn the last essay we have followed Greek popular religion to the very\nthreshold of Christianity, till we found not only a soil ready for the\nseed of Christian metaphysic, but a large number of the plants already\nin full and exuberant growth. A complete history of Greek religion\nought, without doubt, to include at least the rise of Christianity and\nthe growth of the Orthodox Church, but, of course, the present series of\nstudies does not aim at completeness. We will take the Christian\ntheology for granted as we took the classical Greek philosophy, and will\nfinish with a brief glance at the Pagan reaction of the fourth century,\nwhen the old religion, already full of allegory, mysticism, asceticism,\nand Oriental influences, raised itself for a last indignant stand\nagainst the all-prevailing deniers of the gods.\n\nThis period, however, admits a rather simpler treatment than the others.\nIt so happens that for the last period of paganism we actually possess\nan authoritative statement of doctrine, something between a creed and a\ncatechism. It seems to me a document so singularly important and, as far\nas I can make out, so little known, that I shall venture to print it\nentire.\n\nA creed or catechism is, of course, not at all the same thing as the\nreal religion of those who subscribe to it. The rules of metre are not\nthe same thing as poetry; the rules of cricket, if the analogy may be\nexcused, are not the same thing as good play. Nay, more. A man states in\nhis creed only the articles which he thinks it right to assert\npositively against those who think otherwise. His deepest and most\npractical beliefs are those on which he acts without question, which\nhave never occurred to him as being open to doubt. If you take on the\none hand a number of persons who have accepted the same creed but lived\nin markedly different ages and societies, with markedly different\nstandards of thought and conduct, and on the other an equal number who\nprofess different creeds but live in the same general environment, I\nthink there will probably be more real identity of religion in the\nlatter group. Take three orthodox Christians, enlightened according to\nthe standards of their time, in the fourth, the sixteenth, and the\ntwentieth centuries respectively, I think you will find more profound\ndifferences of religion between them than between a Methodist, a\nCatholic, a Freethinker, and even perhaps a well-educated Buddhist or\nBrahmin at the present day, provided you take the most generally\nenlightened representatives of each class. Still, when a student is\ntrying to understand the inner religion of the ancients, he realizes how\nimmensely valuable a creed or even a regular liturgy would be.\n\nLiterature enables us sometimes to approach pretty close, in various\nways, to the minds of certain of the great men of antiquity, and\nunderstand how they thought and felt about a good many subjects. At\ntimes one of these subjects is the accepted religion of their society;\nwe can see how they criticized it or rejected it. But it is very hard to\nknow from their reaction against it what that accepted religion really\nwas. Who, for instance, knows Herodotus's religion? He talks in his\npenetrating and garrulous way, 'sometimes for children and sometimes for\nphilosophers,' as Gibbon puts it, about everything in the world; but at\nthe end of his book you find that he has not opened his heart on this\nsubject. No doubt his profession as a reciter and story-teller prevented\nhim. We can see that Thucydides was sceptical; but can we fully see what\nhis scepticism was directed against, or where, for instance, Nikias\nwould have disagreed with him, and where he and Nikias both agreed\nagainst us?\n\nWe have, of course, the systems of the great philosophers--especially of\nPlato and Aristotle. Better than either, perhaps, we can make out the\nreligion of M. Aurelius. Amid all the harshness and plainness of his\nliterary style, Marcus possessed a gift which has been granted to few,\nthe power of writing down what was in his heart just as it was, not\nobscured by any consciousness of the presence of witnesses or any\nstriving after effect. He does not seem to have tried deliberately to\nreveal himself, yet he has revealed himself in that short personal\nnote-book almost as much as the great inspired egotists, Rousseau and\nSt. Augustine. True, there are some passages in the book which are\nunintelligible to us; that is natural in a work which was not meant to\nbe read by the public; broken flames of the white passion that consumed\nhim bursting through the armour of his habitual accuracy and\nself-restraint.\n\nPeople fail to understand Marcus, not because of his lack of\nself-expression, but because it is hard for most men to breathe at that\nintense height of spiritual life, or, at least, to breathe soberly. They\ncan do it if they are allowed to abandon themselves to floods of\nemotion, and to lose self-judgement and self-control. I am often rather\nsurprised at good critics speaking of Marcus as 'cold'. There is as much\nintensity of feeling in \u03a4\u1f70 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd as in most of the nobler modern\nbooks of religion, only there is a sterner power controlling it. The\nfeeling never amounts to complete self-abandonment. 'The Guiding Power'\nnever trembles upon its throne, and the emotion is severely purged of\nearthly dross. That being so, we children of earth respond to it less\nreadily.\n\nStill, whether or no we can share Marcus's religion, we can at any rate\nunderstand most of it. But even then we reach only the personal religion\nof a very extraordinary man; we are not much nearer to the religion of\nthe average educated person--the background against which Marcus, like\nPlato, ought to stand out. I believe that our conceptions of it are\nreally very vague and various. Our great-grandfathers who read 'Tully's\n_Offices_ and _Ends_' were better informed than we. But there are many\nlarge and apparently simple questions about which, even after reading\nCicero's philosophical translations, scholars probably feel quite\nuncertain. Were the morals of Epictetus or the morals of Part V of the\nAnthology most near to those of real life among respectable persons? Are\nthere not subjects on which Plato himself sometimes makes our flesh\ncreep? What are we to feel about slavery, about the exposing of\nchildren? True, slavery was not peculiar to antiquity; it flourished in\na civilized and peculiarly humane people of English blood till a\ngeneration ago. And the history of infanticide among the finest modern\nnations is such as to make one reluctant to throw stones, and even\ndoubtful in which direction to throw them. Still, these great facts and\nothers like them have to be understood, and are rather hard to\nunderstand, in their bearing on the religious life of the ancients.\n\nPoints of minor morals again are apt to surprise a reader of ancient\nliterature. We must remember, of course, that they always do surprise\none, in every age of history, as soon as its manners are studied in\ndetail. One need not go beyond Salimbene's Chronicle, one need hardly go\nbeyond Macaulay's History, or any of the famous French memoirs, to\nrealize that. Was it really an ordinary thing in the first century, as\nPhilo seems to say, for gentlemen at dinner-parties to black one\nanother's eyes or bite one another's ears off?[177:1] Or were such\npractices confined to some Smart Set? Or was Philo, for his own\npurposes, using some particular scandalous occurrence as if it was\ntypical?\n\nSt. Augustine mentions among the virtues of his mother her unusual\nmeekness and tact. Although her husband had a fiery temper, she never\nhad bruises on her face, which made her a _rara avis_ among the matrons\nof her circle.[177:2] Her circle, presumably, included Christians as\nwell as Pagans and Manicheans. And Philo's circle can scarcely be\nconsidered Pagan. Indeed, as for the difference of religion, we should\nbear in mind that, just at the time we are about to consider, the middle\nof the fourth century, the conduct of the Christians, either to the rest\nof the world or to one another, was very far from evangelical. Ammianus\nsays that no savage beasts could equal its cruelty; Ammianus was a\npagan; but St. Gregory himself says it was like Hell.[178:1]\n\nI have expressed elsewhere my own general answer to this puzzle.[178:2]\nNot only in early Greek times, but throughout the whole of antiquity the\npossibility of all sorts of absurd and atrocious things lay much nearer,\nthe protective forces of society were much weaker, the strain on\npersonal character, the need for real 'wisdom and virtue', was much\ngreater than it is at the present day. That is one of the causes that\nmake antiquity so interesting. Of course, different periods of antiquity\nvaried greatly, both in the conventional standard demanded and in the\nspiritual force which answered or surpassed the demand. But, in general,\nthe strong governments and orderly societies of modern Europe have made\nit infinitely easier for men of no particular virtue to live a decent\nlife, infinitely easier also for men of no particular reasoning power or\nscientific knowledge to have a more or less scientific or sane view of\nthe world.\n\nThat, however, does not carry us far towards solving the main problem:\nit brings us no nearer to knowledge of anything that we may call\ntypically a religious creed or an authorized code of morals, in any age\nfrom Hesiod to M. Aurelius.\n\nThe book which I have ventured to call a Creed or Catechism is the work\nof Sallustius _About the Gods and the World_, a book, I should say,\nabout the length of the Scottish Shorter Catechism. It is printed in the\nthird volume of Mullach's _Fragmenta Philosophorum_; apart from that,\nthe only edition generally accessible--and that is rare--is a duodecimo\npublished by Allatius in 1539. Orelli's brochure of 1821 seems to be\nunprocurable.\n\nThe author was in all probability that Sallustius who is known to us as\na close friend of Julian before his accession, and a backer or inspirer\nof the emperor's efforts to restore the old religion. He was concerned\nin an educational edition of Sophocles--the seven selected plays now\nextant with a commentary. He was given the rank of prefect in 362, that\nof consul in 363. One must remember, of course, that in that rigorous\nand ascetic court high rank connoted no pomp or luxury. Julian had\ndismissed the thousand hairdressers, the innumerable cooks and eunuchs\nof his Christian predecessor. It probably brought with it only an\nincreased obligation to live on pulse and to do without such pamperings\nof the body as fine clothes or warmth or washing.\n\nJulian's fourth oration, a prose hymn _To King Sun_, \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f2d\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03ad\u03b1,\nis dedicated to Sallustius; his eighth is a 'Consolation to Himself upon\nthe Departure of Sallustius'. (He had been with Julian in the wars in\nGaul, and was recalled by the jealousy of the emperor Constantius.) It\nis a touching and even a noble treatise. The nervous self-distrust which\nwas habitual in Julian makes him write always with a certain\naffectation, but no one could mistake the real feeling of loss and\nloneliness that runs through the consolation. He has lost his 'comrade\nin the ranks', and now is 'Odysseus left alone'. So he writes, quoting\nthe _Iliad_; Sallustius has been carried by God outside the spears and\narrows: 'which malignant men were always aiming at you, or rather at me,\ntrying to wound me through you, and believing that the only way to beat\nme down was by depriving me of the fellowship of my true friend and\nfellow-soldier, the comrade who never flinched from sharing my dangers.'\n\nOne note recurs four times; he has lost the one man to whom he could\ntalk as a brother; the man of 'guileless and clean free-speech',[180:1]\nwho was honest and unafraid and able to contradict the emperor freely\nbecause of their mutual trust. If one thinks of it, Julian, for all his\ngentleness, must have been an alarming emperor to converse with. His\nstandard of conduct was not only uncomfortably high, it was also a\nlittle unaccountable. The most correct and blameless court officials\nmust often have suspected that their master looked upon them as simply\nwallowing in sin. And that feeling does not promote ease or\ntruthfulness. Julian compares his friendship with Sallustius to that of\nScipio and Laelius. People said of Scipio that he only carried out what\nLaelius told him. 'Is that true of me?' Julian asks himself. 'Have I\nonly done what Sallustius told me?' His answer is sincere and beautiful:\n\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd. It little matters who suggested, and who agreed to the\nsuggestion; his thoughts, and any credit that came from the thoughts,\nare his friend's as much as his own. We happen to hear from the\nChristian Theodoret (_Hist._ iii. 11) that on one occasion when Julian\nwas nearly goaded into persecution of the Christians, it was Sallustius\nwho recalled him to their fixed policy of toleration.\n\nSallustius then may be taken to represent in the most authoritative way\nthe Pagan reaction of Julian's time, in its final struggle against\nChristianity.\n\nHe was, roughly speaking, a Neo-Platonist. But it is not as a professed\nphilosopher that he writes. It is only that Neo-Platonism had permeated\nthe whole atmosphere of the age.[181:1] The strife of the philosophical\nsects had almost ceased. Just as Julian's mysticism made all gods and\nalmost all forms of worship into one, so his enthusiasm for Hellenism\nrevered, nay, idolized, almost all the great philosophers of the past.\nThey were all trying to say the same ineffable thing; all lifting\nmankind towards the knowledge of God. I say 'almost' in both cases; for\nthe Christians are outside the pale in one domain and the Epicureans and\na few Cynics in the other. Both had committed the cardinal sin; they had\ndenied the gods. They are sometimes lumped together as _Atheoi_.\n_L'ath\u00e9isme, voil\u00e0 l'ennemi._\n\nThis may surprise us at first sight, but the explanation is easy. To\nJulian the one great truth that matters is the presence and glory of\nthe gods. No doubt, they are all ultimately one: they are \u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2,\n'forces,' not persons, but for reasons above our comprehension they are\nmanifest only under conditions of form, time, and personality, and have\nso been revealed and worshipped and partly known by the great minds of\nthe past. In Julian's mind the religious emotion itself becomes the\nthing to live for. Every object that has been touched by that emotion is\nthereby glorified and made sacred. Every shrine where men have\nworshipped in truth of heart is thereby a house of God. The worship may\nbe mixed up with all sorts of folly, all sorts of unedifying practice.\nSuch things must be purged away, or, still better, must be properly\nunderstood. For to the pure all things are pure: and the myths that\nshock the vulgar are noble allegories to the wise and reverent. Purge\nreligion from dross, if you like; but remember that you do so at your\nperil. One false step, one self-confident rejection of a thing which is\nmerely too high for you to grasp, and you are darkening the Sun, casting\nGod out of the world. And that was just what the Christians deliberately\ndid. In many of the early Christian writings denial is a much greater\nelement than assertion. The beautiful _Octavius_ of Minucius Felix\n(about A. D. 130-60) is an example. Such denial was, of course, to our\njudgement, eminently needed, and rendered a great service to the world.\nBut to Julian it seemed impiety. In other Christian writings the\nmisrepresentation of pagan rites and beliefs is decidedly foul-mouthed\nand malicious. Quite apart from his personal wrongs and his contempt for\nthe character of Constantius, Julian could have no sympathy for men who\noverturned altars and heaped blasphemy on old deserted shrines, defilers\nof every sacred object that was not protected by popularity. The most\nthat such people could expect from him was that they should not be\nproscribed by law.\n\nBut meantime what were the multitudes of the god-fearing to believe? The\narm of the state was not very strong or effective. Labour as he might to\nsupply good teaching to all provincial towns, Julian could not hope to\neducate the poor and ignorant to understand Plato and M. Aurelius. For\nthem, he seems to say, all that is necessary is that they should be\npious and god-fearing in their own way. But for more or less educated\npeople, not blankly ignorant, and yet not professed students of\nphilosophy, there might be some simple and authoritative treatise\nissued--a sort of reasoned creed, to lay down in a convincing manner the\noutlines of the old Hellenic religion, before the Christians and\nAtheists should have swept all fear of the gods from off the earth.\n\nThe treatise is this work of Sallustius.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Christian fathers from Minucius Felix onward have shown us what was\nthe most vulnerable point of Paganism: the traditional mythology.\nSallustius deals with it at once. The _Akro\u00e2t\u00eas_, or pupil, he says in\nSection 1, needs some preliminary training. He should have been well\nbrought up, should not be incurably stupid, and should not have been\nfamiliarized with foolish fables. Evidently the mythology was not to be\ntaught to children. He enunciates certain postulates of religious\nthought, viz. that God is always good and not subject to passion or to\nchange, and then proceeds straight to the traditional myths. In the\nfirst place, he insists that they are what he calls 'divine'. That is,\nthey are inspired or have some touch of divine truth in them. This is\nproved by the fact that they have been uttered, and sometimes invented,\nby the most inspired poets and philosophers and by the gods themselves\nin oracles--a very characteristic argument.\n\nThe myths are all expressions of God and of the goodness of God; but\nthey follow the usual method of divine revelation, to wit, mystery and\nallegory. The myths state clearly the one tremendous fact that the Gods\n_are_; that is what Julian cared about and the Christians denied: _what_\nthey are the myths reveal only to those who have understanding. 'The\nworld itself is a great myth, in which bodies and inanimate things are\nvisible, souls and minds invisible.'\n\n'But, admitting all this, how comes it that the myths are so often\nabsurd and even immoral?' For the usual purpose of mystery and allegory;\nin order to make people think. The soul that wishes to know God must\nmake its own effort; it cannot expect simply to lie still and be told.\nThe myths by their obvious falsity and absurdity on the surface\nstimulate the mind capable of religion to probe deeper.\n\nHe proceeds to give instances, and chooses at once myths that had been\nfor generations the mock of the sceptic, and in his own day furnished\nabundant ammunition for the artillery of Christian polemic. He takes\nfirst Hesiod's story of Kronos swallowing his children; then the\nJudgement of Paris; then comes a long and earnest explanation of the\nmyth of Attis and the Mother of the Gods. It is on the face of it a\nstory highly discreditable both to the heart and the head of those\naugust beings, and though the rites themselves do not seem to have been\nin any way improper, the Christians naturally attacked the Pagans and\nJulian personally for countenancing the worship. Sallustius's\nexplanation is taken directly from Julian's fifth oration in praise of\nthe Great Mother, and reduces the myth and the ritual to an expression\nof the adventures of the Soul seeking God.\n\nSo much for the whole traditional mythology. It has been explained\ncompletely away and made subservient to philosophy and edification,\nwhile it can still be used as a great well-spring of religious emotion.\nFor the explanations given by Sallustius and Julian are never\nrationalistic. They never stimulate a spirit of scepticism, always a\nspirit of mysticism and reverence. And, lest by chance even this\nreverent theorizing should have been somehow lacking in insight or true\npiety, Sallustius ends with the prayer: 'When I say these things\nconcerning the myths, may the gods themselves and the spirits of those\nwho wrote the myths be gracious to me.'\n\nHe now leaves mythology and turns to the First Cause. It must be one,\nand it must be present in all things. Thus, it cannot be Life, for, if\nit were, all things would be alive. By a Platonic argument in which he\nwill still find some philosophers to follow him, he proves that\neverything which exists, exists because of some goodness in it; and thus\narrives at the conclusion that the First Cause is \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u03cc\u03bd, the Good.\n\nThe gods are emanations or forces issuing from the Good; the makers of\nthis world are secondary gods; above them are the makers of the makers,\nabove all the One.\n\nNext comes a proof that the world is eternal--a very important point of\ndoctrine; next that the soul is immortal; next a definition of the\nworkings of Divine Providence, Fate, and Fortune--a fairly skilful piece\nof dialectic dealing with a hopeless difficulty. Next come Virtue and\nVice, and, in a dead and perfunctory echo of Plato's _Republic_, an\nenumeration of the good and bad forms of human society. The questions\nwhich vibrated with life in free Athens had become meaningless to a\ndespot-governed world. Then follows more adventurous matter.\n\nFirst a chapter headed: 'Whence Evil things come, and that there is no\n_Phusis Kakou_--Evil is not a real thing.' 'It is perhaps best', he\nsays, 'to observe at once that, since the gods are good and make\neverything, there is no positive evil; there is only absence of good;\njust as there is no positive darkness, only absence of light.'\n\nWhat we call 'evils' arise only in the activities of men, and even here\nno one ever does evil for the sake of evil. 'One who indulges in some\npleasant vice thinks the vice bad but his pleasure good; a murderer\nthinks the murder bad, but the money he will get by it, good; one who\ninjures an enemy thinks the injury bad, but the being quits with his\nenemy, good'; and so on. The evil acts are all done for the sake of some\ngood, but human souls, being very far removed from the original flawless\ndivine nature, make mistakes or sins. One of the great objects of the\nworld, he goes on to explain, of gods, men, and spirits, of religious\ninstitutions and human laws alike, is to keep the souls from these\nerrors and to purge them again when they have fallen.\n\nNext comes a speculative difficulty. Sallustius has called the world\n'eternal in the fullest sense'--that is, it always has been and always\nwill be. And yet it is 'made' by the gods. How are these statements\ncompatible? If it was made, there must have been a time before it was\nmade. The answer is ingenious. It is not made by handicraft as a table\nis; it is not begotten as a son by a father. It is the result of a\nquality of God just as light is the result of a quality of the sun. The\nsun causes light, but the light is there as soon as the sun is there.\nThe world is simply the other side, as it were, of the goodness of God,\nand has existed as long as that goodness has existed.\n\nNext come some simpler questions about man's relation to the gods. In\nwhat sense do we say that the gods are angry with the wicked or are\nappeased by repentance? Sallustius is quite firm. The gods cannot ever\nbe glad--for that which is glad is also sorry; cannot be angry--for\nanger is a passion; and obviously they cannot be appeased by gifts or\nprayers. Even men, if they are honest, require higher motives than that.\nGod is unchangeable, always good, always doing good. If we are good, we\nare nearer to the gods, and we feel it; if we are evil, we are separated\nfurther from them. It is not they that are angry, it is our sins that\nhide them from us and prevent the goodness of God from shining into us.\nIf we repent, again, we do not make any change in God; we only, by the\nconversion of our soul towards the divine, heal our own badness and\nenjoy again the goodness of the gods. To say that the gods turn away\nfrom the wicked, would be like saying that the sun turns away from a\nblind man.\n\nWhy then do we make offerings and sacrifices to the gods, when the gods\nneed nothing and can have nothing added to them? We do so in order to\nhave more communion with the gods. The whole temple service, in fact, is\nan elaborate allegory, a representation of the divine government of the\nworld.\n\nThe custom of sacrificing animals had died out some time before this.\nThe Jews of the Dispersion had given it up long since because the Law\nforbade any such sacrifice outside the Temple.[188:1] When Jerusalem was\ndestroyed Jewish sacrifice ceased altogether. The Christians seem from\nthe beginning to have generally followed the Jewish practice. But\nsacrifice was in itself not likely to continue in a society of large\ntowns. It meant turning your temples into very ill-conducted\nslaughter-houses, and was also associated with a great deal of muddled\nand indiscriminate charity.[188:2] One might have hoped that men so\nhigh-minded and spiritual as Julian and Sallustius would have considered\nthis practice unnecessary or even have reformed it away. But no. It was\npart of the genuine Hellenic tradition; and no jot or tittle of that\ntradition should, if they could help it, be allowed to die. Sacrifice is\ndesirable, argues Sallustius, because it is a gift of life. God has\ngiven us life, as He has given us all else. We must therefore pay to Him\nsome emblematic tithe of life. Again, prayers in themselves are merely\nwords; but with sacrifice they are words plus life, Living Words.\nLastly, we are Life of a sort, and God is Life of an infinitely higher\nsort. To approach Him we need always a medium or a mediator; the medium\nbetween life and life must needs be life. We find that life in the\nsacrificed animal.[189:1]\n\nThe argument shows what ingenuity these religious men had at their\ncommand, and what trouble they would take to avoid having to face a fact\nand reform a bad system.\n\nThere follows a long and rather difficult argument to show that the\nworld is, in itself, eternal. The former discussion on this point had\nonly shown that the gods would not destroy it. This shows that its own\nnature is indestructible. The arguments are very inconclusive, though\nclever, and one wonders why the author is at so much pains. Indeed, he\nis so earnest that at the end of the chapter he finds it necessary to\napologize to the Kosmos in case his language should have been\nindiscreet. The reason, I think, is that the Christians were still, as\nin apostolic times, pinning their faith to the approaching end of the\nworld by fire.[190:1] They announced the end of the world as near, and\nthey rejoiced in the prospect of its destruction. History has shown more\nthan once what terrible results can be produced by such beliefs as these\nin the minds of excitable and suffering populations, especially those of\neastern blood. It was widely believed that Christian fanatics had from\ntime to time actually tried to light fires which should consume the\naccursed world and thus hasten the coming of the kingdom which should\nbring such incalculable rewards to their own organization and plunge the\nrest of mankind in everlasting torment. To any respectable Pagan such\naction was an insane crime made worse by a diabolical motive. The\ndestruction of the world, therefore, seems to have become a subject of\nprofound irritation, if not actually of terror. At any rate the doctrine\nlay at the very heart of the _perniciosa superstitio_, and Sallustius\nuses his best dialectic against it.\n\nThe title of Chapter XVIII has a somewhat pathetic ring: 'Why are\n_Athe\u00efai_'--Atheisms or rejections of God--'permitted, and that God is\nnot injured thereby?' \u0398\u03b5\u1f78\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50 \u03b2\u03bb\u03ac\u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9. 'If over certain parts of the\nworld there have occurred (and will occur more hereafter) rejections of\nthe gods, a wise man need not be disturbed at that.' We have always\nknown that the human soul was prone to error. God's providence is there;\nbut we cannot expect all men at all times and places to enjoy it\nequally. In the human body it is only the eye that sees the light, the\nrest of the body is ignorant of the light. So are many parts of the\nearth ignorant of God.\n\nVery likely, also, this rejection of God is a punishment. Persons who in\na previous life have known the gods but disregarded them, are perhaps\nnow born, as it were, blind, unable to see God; persons who have\ncommitted the blasphemy of worshipping their own kings as gods may\nperhaps now be cast out from the knowledge of God.\n\nPhilosophy had always rejected the Man-God, especially in the form of\nKing-worship; but opposition to Christianity no doubt intensifies the\nprotest.\n\nThe last chapter is very short. 'Souls that have lived in virtue, being\notherwise blessed and especially separated from their irrational part\nand purged of all body, are joined with the gods and sway the whole\nworld together with them.' So far triumphant faith: then the\nafter-thought of the brave man who means to live his best life even if\nfaith fail him. 'But even if none of these rewards came to them, still\nVirtue itself and the Joy and Glory of Virtue, and the Life that is\nsubject to no grief and no master, would be enough to make blessed those\nwho have set themselves to live in Virtue and have succeeded.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere the book ends. It ends upon that well-worn paradox which, from the\nsecond book of the _Republic_ onwards, seems to have brought so much\ncomfort to the nobler spirits of the ancient world. Strange how we\nmoderns cannot rise to it! We seem simply to lack the intensity of moral\nenthusiasm. When we speak of martyrs being happy on the rack; in the\nfirst place we rarely believe it, and in the second we are usually\nsupposing that the rack will soon be over and that harps and golden\ncrowns will presently follow. The ancient moralist believed that the\ngood man was happy then and there, because the joy, being in his soul,\nwas not affected by the torture of his body.[192:1]\n\nNot being able fully to feel this conviction, we naturally incline to\nthink it affected or unreal. But, taking the conditions of the ancient\nworld into account, we must admit that the men who uttered this belief\nat least understood better than most of us what suffering was. Many of\nthem were slaves, many had been captives of war. They knew what they\nwere talking about. I think, on a careful study of M. Aurelius,\nEpictetus, and some of these Neo-Platonic philosophers, that we shall be\nforced to realize that these men could rise to much the same heights of\nreligious heroism as the Catholic saints of the Middle Age, and that\nthey often did so--if I may use such a phrase--on a purer and thinner\ndiet of sensuous emotion, with less wallowing in the dust and less\ndelirium.\n\nBe that as it may, we have now seen in outline the kind of religion\nwhich ancient Paganism had become at the time of its final reaction\nagainst Christianity. It is a more or less intelligible whole, and\nsucceeds better than most religions in combining two great appeals. It\nappeals to the philosopher and the thoughtful man as a fairly complete\nand rational system of thought, which speculative and enlightened minds\nin any age might believe without disgrace. I do not mean that it is\nprobably true; to me all these overpowering optimisms which, by means of\na few untested _a priori_ postulates, affect triumphantly to disprove\nthe most obvious facts of life, seem very soon to become meaningless. I\nconceive it to be no comfort at all, to a man suffering agonies of\nfrostbite, to be told by science that cold is merely negative and does\nnot exist. So far as the statement is true it is irrelevant; so far as\nit pretends to be relevant it is false. I only mean that a system like\nthat of Sallustius is, judged by any standard, high, civilized, and\nenlightened.\n\nAt the same time this religion appeals to the ignorant and the\nhumble-minded. It takes from the pious villager no single object of\nworship that has turned his thoughts heavenwards. It may explain and\npurge; it never condemns or ridicules. In its own eyes that was its\ngreat glory, in the eyes of history perhaps its most fatal weakness.\nChristianity, apart from its positive doctrines, had inherited from\nJudaism the noble courage of its disbeliefs.\n\nTo compare this Paganism in detail with its great rival would be, even\nif I possessed the necessary learning, a laborious and unsatisfactory\ntask. But if a student with very imperfect knowledge may venture a\npersonal opinion on this obscure subject, it seems to me that we often\nlook at such problems from a wrong angle. Harnack somewhere, in\ndiscussing the comparative success or failure of various early Christian\nsects, makes the illuminating remark that the main determining cause in\neach case was not their comparative reasonableness of doctrine or skill\nin controversy--for they practically never converted one another--but\nsimply the comparative increase or decrease of the birth-rate in the\nrespective populations. On somewhat similar lines it always appears to\nme that, historically speaking, the character of Christianity in these\nearly centuries is to be sought not so much in the doctrines which it\nprofessed, nearly all of which had their roots and their close parallels\nin older Hellenistic or Hebrew thought, but in the organization on which\nit rested. For my own part, when I try to understand Christianity as a\nmass of doctrines, Gnostic, Trinitarian, Monophysite, Arian and the\nrest, I get no further. When I try to realize it as a sort of\nsemi-secret society for mutual help with a mystical religious basis,\nresting first on the proletariates of Antioch and the great commercial\nand manufacturing towns of the Levant, then spreading by instinctive\nsympathy to similar classes in Rome and the West, and rising in\ninfluence, like certain other mystical cults, by the special appeal it\nmade to women, the various historical puzzles begin to fall into place.\nAmong other things this explains the strange subterranean power by which\nthe emperor Diocletian was baffled, and to which the pretender\nConstantine had to capitulate; it explains its humanity, its intense\nfeeling of brotherhood within its own bounds, its incessant care for the\npoor, and also its comparative indifference to the virtues which are\nspecially incumbent on a governing class, such as statesmanship,\nmoderation, truthfulness, active courage, learning, culture, and public\nspirit. Of course, such indifference was only comparative. After the\ntime of Constantine the governing classes come into the fold, bringing\nwith them their normal qualities, and thereafter it is Paganism, not\nChristianity, that must uphold the flag of a desperate fidelity in the\nface of a hostile world--a task to which, naturally enough, Paganism was\nnot equal. But I never wished to pit the two systems against one\nanother. The battle is over, and it is poor work to jeer at the wounded\nand the dead. If we read the literature of the time, especially some\nrecords of the martyrs under Diocletian, we shall at first perhaps\nimagine that, apart from some startling exceptions, the conquered party\nwere all vicious and hateful, the conquerors, all wise and saintly.\nThen, looking a little deeper, we shall see that this great controversy\ndoes not stand altogether by itself. As in other wars, each side had its\nwise men and its foolish, its good men and its evil. Like other\nconquerors these conquerors were often treacherous and brutal; like\nother vanquished these vanquished have been tried at the bar of history\nwithout benefit of counsel, have been condemned in their absence and\ndied with their lips sealed. The polemic literature of Christianity is\nloud and triumphant, the books of the Pagans have been destroyed.\n\nOnly an ignorant man will pronounce a violent or bitter judgement here.\nThe minds that are now tender, timid, and reverent in their orthodoxy\nwould probably in the third or fourth century have sided with the old\ngods; those of more daring and puritan temper with the Christians. The\nhistorian will only try to have sympathy and understanding for both.\nThey are all dead now, Diocletian and Ignatius, Cyril and Hypatia,\nJulian and Basil, Athanasius and Ar\u00eeus: every party has yielded up its\npersecutors and its martyrs, its hates and slanders and aspirations and\nheroisms, to the arms of that great Silence whose secrets they all\nclaimed so loudly to have read. Even the dogmas for which they fought\nmight seem to be dead too. For if Julian and Sallustius, Gregory and\nJohn Chrysostom, were to rise again and see the world as it now is, they\nwould probably feel their personal differences melt away in comparison\nwith the vast difference between their world and this. They fought to\nthe death about this credo and that, but the same spirit was in all of\nthem. In the words of one who speaks with greater knowledge than mine,\n'the most inward man in these four contemporaries is the same. It is the\nSpirit of the Fourth Century.'[196:1]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n'Dieselbe Seelenstimmung, derselbe Spiritualismus'; also the same\npassionate asceticism. All through antiquity the fight against luxury\nwas a fiercer and stronger fight than comes into our modern experience.\nThere was not more objective luxury in any period of ancient history\nthan there is now; there was never anything like so much. But there does\nseem to have been more subjective abandonment to physical pleasure and\nconcomitantly a stronger protest against it. From some time before the\nChristian era it seems as if the subconscious instinct of humanity was\nslowly rousing itself for a great revolt against the long intolerable\ntyranny of the senses over the soul, and by the fourth century the\nrevolt threatened to become all-absorbing. The Emperor Julian was\nprobably as proud of his fireless cell and the crowding lice in his\nbeard and cassock as an average Egyptian monk. The ascetic movement\ngrew, as we all know, to be measureless and insane. It seemed to be\nalmost another form of lust, and to have the same affinities with\ncruelty. But it has probably rendered priceless help to us who come\nafterwards. The insane ages have often done service for the sane, the\nharsh and suffering ages for the gentle and well-to-do.\n\n_Sophrosyn\u00ea_, however we try to translate it, temperance, gentleness,\nthe spirit that in any trouble thinks and is patient, that saves and not\ndestroys, is the right spirit. And it is to be feared that none of these\nfourth-century leaders, neither the fierce bishops with their homilies\non Charity, nor Julian and Sallustius with their worship of Hellenism,\ncame very near to that classic ideal. To bring back that note of\nSophrosyn\u00ea I will venture, before proceeding to the fourth-century Pagan\ncreed, to give some sentences from an earlier Pagan prayer. It is cited\nby Stobaeus from a certain Eusebius, a late Ionic Platonist of whom\nalmost nothing is known, not even the date at which he lived.[197:1] But\nthe voice sounds like that of a stronger and more sober age.\n\n     'May I be no man's enemy,' it begins, 'and may I be the friend\n     of that which is eternal and abides. May I never quarrel with\n     those nearest to me; and if I do, may I be reconciled quickly.\n     May I never devise evil against any man; if any devise evil\n     against me, may I escape uninjured and without the need of\n     hurting him. May I love, seek, and attain only that which is\n     good. May I wish for all men's happiness and envy none. May I\n     never rejoice in the ill-fortune of one who has wronged\n     me. . . . When I have done or said what is wrong, may I never\n     wait for the rebuke of others, but always rebuke myself until\n     I make amends. . . . May I win no victory that harms either me\n     or my opponent. . . . May I reconcile friends who are wroth\n     with one another. May I, to the extent of my power, give all\n     needful help to my friends and to all who are in want. May I\n     never fail a friend in danger. When visiting those in grief\n     may I be able by gentle and healing words to soften their\n     pain. . . . May I respect myself. . . . May I always keep tame\n     that which rages within me. . . . May I accustom myself to be\n     gentle, and never be angry with people because of\n     circumstances. May I never discuss who is wicked and what\n     wicked things he has done, but know good men and follow in\n     their footsteps.'\n\nThere is more of it. How unpretending it is and yet how searching! And\nin the whole there is no petition for any material blessing, and--most\nstriking of all--it is addressed to no personal god. It is pure prayer.\nOf course, to some it will feel thin and cold. Most men demand of their\nreligion more outward and personal help, more physical ecstasy, a more\nheady atmosphere of illusion. No one man's attitude towards the\nUncharted can be quite the same as his neighbour's. In part\ninstinctively, in part superficially and self-consciously, each\ngeneration of mankind reacts against the last. The grown man turns from\nthe lights that were thrust upon his eyes in childhood. The son shrugs\nhis shoulders at the watchwords that thrilled his father, and with\nvarying degrees of sensitiveness or dullness, of fuller or more\nfragmentary experience, writes out for himself the manuscript of his\ncreed. Yet, even for the wildest or bravest rebel, that manuscript is\nonly a palimpsest. On the surface all is new writing, clean and\nself-assertive. Underneath, dim but indelible in the very fibres of the\nparchment, lie the characters of many ancient aspirations and raptures\nand battles which his conscious mind has rejected or utterly forgotten.\nAnd forgotten things, if there be real life in them, will sometimes\nreturn out of the dust, vivid to help still in the forward groping of\nhumanity. A religious system like that of Eusebius or Marcus, or even\nSallustius, was not built up without much noble life and strenuous\nthought and a steady passion for the knowledge of God. Things of that\nmake do not, as a rule, die for ever.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[177:1] _De Vit. Contempl._, p. 477 M.\n\n[177:2] _Conf._ ix. 9.\n\n[178:1] Gibbon, chap. xxi, notes 161, 162.\n\n[178:2] _Rise of the Greek Epic_, chap. i.\n\n[180:1] \u1f04\u03b4\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u1f70 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03af\u03b1.\n\n[181:1] 'Many of his sections come straight from Plotinus: xiv and xv\nperhaps from Porphyry's _Letter to Marcella_, an invaluable document for\nthe religious side of Neo-Platonism. A few things (prayer to the souls\nof the dead in iv, to the Cosmos in xvii, the doctrine of \u03c4\u03cd\u03c7\u03b7, in ix)\nare definitely un-Plotinian: probably concessions to popular\nreligion.'--_E. R. D._\n\n[188:1] S. Reinach, _Orpheus_, p. 273 (Engl. trans., p. 185).\n\n[188:2] See Ammianus, xxii. 12, on the bad effect of Julian's\nsacrifices. Sacrifice was finally forbidden by the emperor Theodosius in\n391. It was condemned by Theophrastus, and is said by Porphyry (_De\nAbstinentia_, ii. 11) simply \u03bb\u03b1\u03b2\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u1f74\u03bd \u1f10\u03be \u1f00\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03af\u03b1\u03c2.\n\n[189:1] Sallustius's view of sacrifice is curiously like the\nilluminating theory of MM. Hubert and Mauss, in which they define\nprimitive sacrifice as a medium, a bridge or lightning-conductor,\nbetween the profane and the sacred. 'Essai sur la Nature et la Fonction\ndu Sacrifice' (_Ann\u00e9e Sociologique_, ii. 1897-8), since republished in\nthe _M\u00e9langes d'Histoire des Religions_, 1909.\n\n[190:1] Cf. Minucius Felix, _Octavius_, p. 96, Ouzel (chap. 11, Boenig).\n'Quid quod toti orbi et ipsi mundo cum sideribus suis minantur\nincendium, ruinam moliuntur?' The doctrine in their mouths became a very\ndifferent thing from the Stoic theory of the periodic re-absorption of\nthe universe in the Divine Element. Ibid., pp. 322 ff. (34 Boenig).\n\n[192:1] Even Epicurus himself held \u03ba\u1f70\u03bd \u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03b2\u03bb\u03ce\u03b8\u1fc3 \u1f41 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03c2, \u03b5\u1f36\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd\n\u03b5\u1f50\u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1. Diog. La. x. 118. See above, end of chap. iii.\n\n[196:1] Geffcken in the _Neue Jahrb\u00fccher_, xxi. 162 f.\n\n[197:1] Mullach, _Fragmenta Philosophorum_, iii. 7, from Stob. _Flor._\ni. 85.\n\n\n\n\n     SALLUSTIUS\n     'ON THE GODS AND THE WORLD'[200:1]\n\n\nI. _What the Disciple should be; and concerning Common Conceptions._\n\nThose who wish to hear about the Gods should have been well guided from\nchildhood, and not habituated to foolish beliefs. They should also be in\ndisposition good and sensible, that they may properly attend to the\nteaching.\n\nThey ought also to know the Common Conceptions. Common Conceptions are\nthose to which all men agree as soon as they are asked; for instance,\nthat all God is good, free from passion, free from change. For whatever\nsuffers change does so for the worse or the better: if for the worse, it\nis made bad; if for the better, it must have been bad at first.\n\n\nII. _That God is unchanging, unbegotten, eternal, incorporeal, and not\nin space._\n\nLet the disciple be thus. Let the teachings be of the following sort.\nThe essences of the Gods never came into existence (for that which\nalways is never comes into existence; and that exists for ever which\npossesses primary force and by nature suffers nothing): neither do they\nconsist of bodies; for even in bodies the powers are incorporeal.\nNeither are they contained by space; for that is a property of bodies.\nNeither are they separate from the First Cause nor from one another,\njust as thoughts are not separate from mind nor acts of knowledge from\nthe soul.\n\n\nIII. _Concerning myths; that they are divine, and why._\n\nWe may well inquire, then, why the ancients forsook these doctrines and\nmade use of myths. There is this first benefit from myths, that we have\nto search and do not have our minds idle.\n\n_That_ the myths are divine can be seen from those who have used them.\nMyths have been used by inspired poets, by the best of philosophers, by\nthose who established the mysteries, and by the Gods themselves in\noracles. But _why_ the myths are divine it is the duty of Philosophy to\ninquire. Since all existing things rejoice in that which is like them\nand reject that which is unlike, the stories about the Gods ought to be\nlike the Gods, so that they may both be worthy of the divine essence and\nmake the Gods well disposed to those who speak of them: which could only\nbe done by means of myths.\n\nNow the myths represent the Gods themselves and the goodness of the\nGods--subject always to the distinction of the speakable and the\nunspeakable, the revealed and the unrevealed, that which is clear and\nthat which is hidden: since, just as the Gods have made the goods of\nsense common to all, but those of intellect only to the wise, so the\nmyths state the existence of Gods to all, but who and what they are only\nto those who can understand.\n\nThey also represent the activities of the Gods. For one may call the\nWorld a Myth, in which bodies and things are visible, but souls and\nminds hidden. Besides, to wish to teach the whole truth about the Gods\nto all produces contempt in the foolish, because they cannot understand,\nand lack of zeal in the good; whereas to conceal the truth by myths\nprevents the contempt of the foolish, and compels the good to practise\nphilosophy.\n\nBut why have they put in the myths stories of adultery, robbery,\nfather-binding, and all the other absurdity? Is not that perhaps a thing\nworthy of admiration, done so that by means of the visible absurdity the\nSoul may immediately feel that the words are veils and believe the truth\nto be a mystery?\n\n\nIV. _That the species of Myth are five, with examples of each._\n\nOf myths some are theological, some physical, some psychic, and again\nsome material, and some mixed from these last two. The theological are\nthose myths which use no bodily form but contemplate the very essences\nof the Gods: e. g. Kronos swallowing his children. Since God is\nintellectual, and all intellect returns into itself, this myth expresses\nin allegory the essence of God.\n\nMyths may be regarded physically when they express the activities of the\nGods in the world: e. g. people before now have regarded Kronos as Time,\nand calling the divisions of Time his sons say that the sons are\nswallowed by the father.\n\nThe psychic way is to regard the activities of the Soul itself: the\nSoul's acts of thought, though they pass on to other objects,\nnevertheless remain inside their begetters.\n\nThe material and last is that which the Egyptians have mostly used,\nowing to their ignorance, believing material objects actually to be\nGods, and so calling them: e. g. they call the Earth Isis, moisture\nOsiris, heat Typhon, or again, water Kronos, the fruits of the earth\nAdonis, and wine Dionysus.\n\nTo say that these objects are sacred to the Gods, like various herbs and\nstones and animals, is possible to sensible men, but to say that they\nare gods is the notion of madmen--except, perhaps, in the sense in which\nboth the orb of the sun and the ray which comes from the orb are\ncolloquially called 'the Sun'.[203:1]\n\nThe mixed kind of myth may be seen in many instances: for example they\nsay that in a banquet of the Gods Discord threw down a golden apple; the\ngoddesses contended for it, and were sent by Zeus to Paris to be judged;\nParis saw Aphrodite to be beautiful and gave her the apple. Here the\nbanquet signifies the hyper-cosmic powers of the Gods; that is why they\nare all together. The golden apple is the world, which, being formed out\nof opposites, is naturally said to be 'thrown by Discord'. The different\nGods bestow different gifts upon the world and are thus said to 'contend\nfor the apple'. And the soul which lives according to sense--for that\nis what Paris is--not seeing the other powers in the world but only\nbeauty, declares that the apple belongs to Aphrodite.\n\nTheological myths suit philosophers, physical and psychic suit poets,\nmixed suit religious initiations, since every initiation aims at uniting\nus with the World and the Gods.\n\nTo take another myth, they say that the Mother of the Gods seeing Attis\nlying by the river Gallus fell in love with him, took him, crowned him\nwith her cap of stars, and thereafter kept him with her. He fell in love\nwith a nymph and left the Mother to live with her. For this the Mother\nof the Gods made Attis go mad and cut off his genital organs and leave\nthem with the Nymph, and then return and dwell with her.\n\nNow the Mother of the Gods is the principle that generates life; that is\nwhy she is called Mother. Attis is the creator of all things which are\nborn and die; that is why he is said to have been found by the river\nGallus. For Gallus signifies the Galaxy, or Milky Way, the point at\nwhich body subject to passion begins.[204:1] Now as the primary gods\nmake perfect the secondary, the Mother loves Attis and gives him\ncelestial powers. That is what the cap means. Attis loves a nymph: the\nnymphs preside over generation, since all that is generated is fluid.\nBut since the process of generation must be stopped somewhere, and not\nallowed to generate something worse than the worst, the Creator who\nmakes these things casts away his generative powers into the creation\nand is joined to the gods again. Now these things never happened, but\nalways are. And Mind sees all things at once, but Reason (or Speech)\nexpresses some first and others after. Thus, as the myth is in accord\nwith the Cosmos, we for that reason keep a festival imitating the\nCosmos, for how could we attain higher order?\n\nAnd at first we ourselves, having fallen from heaven and living with the\nNymph, are in despondency, and abstain from corn and all rich and\nunclean food, for both are hostile to the soul. Then comes the cutting\nof the tree and the fast, as though we also were cutting off the further\nprocess of generation. After that the feeding on milk, as though we were\nbeing born again; after which come rejoicings and garlands and, as it\nwere, a return up to the Gods.\n\nThe season of the ritual is evidence to the truth of these explanations.\nThe rites are performed about the Vernal Equinox, when the fruits of the\nearth are ceasing to be produced, and day is becoming longer than night,\nwhich applies well to Spirits rising higher. (At least, the other\nequinox is in mythology the time of the Rape of Kor\u00ea, which is the\ndescent of the souls.)\n\nMay these explanations of the myths find favour in the eyes of the Gods\nthemselves and the souls of those who wrote the myths.\n\n\nV. _On the First Cause._\n\nNext in order comes knowledge of the First Cause and the subsequent\norders of the gods, then the nature of the world, the essence of\nintellect and of soul, then Providence, Fate, and Fortune, then to see\nVirtue and Vice and the various forms of social constitution good and\nbad that are formed from them, and from what possible source Evil came\ninto the world.\n\nEach of these subjects needs many long discussions; but there is perhaps\nno harm in stating them briefly, so that a disciple may not be\ncompletely ignorant about them.\n\nIt is proper to the First Cause to be One--for unity precedes\nmultitude--and to surpass all things in power and goodness. Consequently\nall things must partake of it. For owing to its power nothing else can\nhinder it, and owing to its goodness it will not hold itself apart.\n\nIf the First Cause were Soul, all things would possess Soul. If it were\nMind, all things would possess Mind. If it were Being, all things would\npartake of Being. And seeing this quality (i. e. Being) in all things,\nsome men have thought that it was Being. Now if things simply _were_,\nwithout being good, this argument would be true, but if things that are\n_are_ because of their goodness, and partake in the good, the First\nthing must needs be both beyond-Being and good. It is strong evidence of\nthis that noble souls despise Being for the sake of the good, when they\nface death for their country or friends or for the sake of\nvirtue.--After this inexpressible power come the orders of the Gods.\n\n\nVI. _On Gods Cosmic and Hypercosmic._\n\nOf the Gods some are of the world, Cosmic, and some above the world,\nHypercosmic. By the Cosmic I mean those who make the Cosmos. Of the\nHypercosmic Gods some create Essence, some Mind, and some Soul. Thus\nthey have three orders; all of which may be found in treatises on the\nsubject.\n\nOf the Cosmic Gods some make the World _be_, others animate it, others\nharmonize it, consisting as it does of different elements; the fourth\nclass keep it when harmonized.\n\nThese are four actions, each of which has a beginning, middle, and end,\nconsequently there must be twelve gods governing the world.\n\nThose who make the world are Zeus, Poseidon, and Hephaistos; those who\nanimate it are Demeter, Hera, and Artemis; those who harmonize it are\nApollo, Aphrodite, and Hermes; those who watch over it are Hestia,\nAthena, and Ares.\n\nOne can see secret suggestions of this in their images. Apollo tunes a\nlyre; Athena is armed; Aphrodite is naked (because harmony creates\nbeauty, and beauty in things seen is not covered).\n\nWhile these twelve in the primary sense possess the world, we should\nconsider that the other gods are contained in these. Dionysus in Zeus,\nfor instance, Asklepios in Apollo, the Charites in Aphrodite.\n\nWe can also discern their various spheres: to Hestia belongs the Earth,\nto Poseidon water, to Hera air, to Hephaistos fire. And the six superior\nspheres to the gods to whom they are usually attributed. For Apollo and\nArtemis are to be taken for the Sun and Moon, the sphere of Kronos\nshould be attributed to Demeter, the ether to Athena, while the heaven\nis common to all. Thus the orders, powers, and spheres of the Twelve\nGods have been explained and celebrated in hymns.\n\n\nVII. _On the Nature of the World and its Eternity._\n\nThe Cosmos itself must of necessity be indestructible and uncreated.\nIndestructible because, suppose it destroyed: the only possibility is to\nmake one better than this or worse or the same or a chaos. If worse, the\npower which out of the better makes the worse must be bad. If better,\nthe maker who did not make the better at first must be imperfect in\npower. If the same, there will be no use in making it; if a chaos . . .\nit is impious even to hear such a thing suggested. These reasons would\nsuffice to show that the World is also uncreated: for if not destroyed,\nneither is it created. Everything that is created is subject to\ndestruction. And further, since the Cosmos exists by the goodness of God\nit follows that God must always be good and the world exist. Just as\nlight coexists with the Sun and with fire, and shadow coexists with a\nbody.\n\nOf the bodies in the Cosmos, some imitate Mind and move in orbits; some\nimitate Soul and move in a straight line, fire and air upward, earth and\nwater downward. Of those that move in orbits the fixed sphere goes from\nthe east, the Seven from the west. (This is so for various causes,\nespecially lest the creation should be imperfect owing to the rapid\ncircuit of the spheres.[208:1])\n\nThe movement being different, the nature of the bodies must also be\ndifferent; hence the celestial body does not burn or freeze what it\ntouches, or do anything else that pertains to the four elements.[209:1]\n\nAnd since the Cosmos is a sphere--the zodiac proves that--and in every\nsphere 'down' means 'towards the centre', for the centre is farthest\ndistant from every point, and heavy things fall 'down' and fall to the\nearth <it follows that the Earth is in the centre of the Cosmos>.\n\nAll these things are made by the Gods, ordered by Mind, moved by Soul.\nAbout the Gods we have spoken already.\n\n\nVIII. _On Mind and Soul, and that the latter is immortal._\n\nThere is a certain force,[209:2] less primary than Being but more\nprimary than the Soul, which draws its existence from Being and\ncompletes the Soul as the Sun completes the eyes. Of Souls some are\nrational and immortal, some irrational and mortal. The former are\nderived from the first Gods, the latter from the secondary.\n\nFirst, we must consider what soul is. It is, then, that by which the\nanimate differs from the inanimate. The difference lies in motion,\nsensation, imagination, intelligence. Soul, therefore, when irrational,\nis the life of sense and imagination; when rational, it is the life\nwhich controls sense and imagination and uses reason.\n\nThe irrational soul depends on the affections of the body; it feels\ndesire and anger irrationally. The rational soul both, with the help of\nreason, despises the body, and, fighting against the irrational soul,\nproduces either virtue or vice, according as it is victorious or\ndefeated.\n\nIt must be immortal, both because it knows the gods (and nothing mortal\nknows[210:1] what is immortal), it looks down upon human affairs as\nthough it stood outside them, and, like an unbodied thing, it is\naffected in the opposite way to the body. For while the body is young\nand fine, the soul blunders, but as the body grows old it attains its\nhighest power. Again, every good soul uses mind; but no body can produce\nmind: for how should that which is without mind produce mind? Again,\nwhile Soul uses the body as an instrument, it is not in it; just as the\nengineer is not in his engines (although many engines move without being\ntouched by any one). And if the Soul is often made to err by the body,\nthat is not surprising. For the arts cannot perform their work when\ntheir instruments are spoilt.\n\n\nIX. _On Providence, Fate, and Fortune._\n\nThis is enough to show the Providence of the Gods. For whence comes the\nordering of the world, if there is no ordering power? And whence comes\nthe fact that all things are for a purpose: e. g. irrational soul that\nthere may be sensation, and rational that the earth may be set in order?\n\nBut one can deduce the same result from the evidences of Providence in\nnature: e. g. the eyes have been made transparent with a view to seeing;\nthe nostrils are above the mouth to distinguish bad-smelling foods; the\nfront teeth are sharp to cut food, the back teeth broad to grind it. And\nwe find every part of every object arranged on a similar principle. It\nis impossible that there should be so much providence in the last\ndetails, and none in the first principles. Then the arts of prophecy and\nof healing, which are part of the Cosmos, come of the good providence of\nthe Gods.\n\nAll this care for the world, we must believe, is taken by the Gods\nwithout any act of will or labour. As bodies which possess some power\nproduce their effects by merely existing: e. g. the sun gives light and\nheat by merely existing; so, and far more so, the Providence of the Gods\nacts without effort to itself and for the good of the objects of its\nforethought. This solves the problems of the Epicureans, who argue that\nwhat is Divine neither has trouble itself nor gives trouble to others.\n\nThe incorporeal providence of the Gods, both for bodies and for souls,\nis of this sort; but that which is of bodies and in bodies is different\nfrom this, and is called Fate, Heimarmen\u00ea, because the chain of causes\n(Heirmos) is more visible in the case of bodies; and it is for dealing\nwith this Fate that the science of 'Mathematic' has been\ndiscovered.[211:1]\n\nTherefore, to believe that human things, especially their material\nconstitution, are ordered not only by celestial beings but by the\nCelestial Bodies, is a reasonable and true belief. Reason shows that\nhealth and sickness, good fortune and bad fortune, arise according to\nour deserts from that source. But to attribute men's acts of injustice\nand lust to Fate, is to make ourselves good and the Gods bad. Unless by\nchance a man meant by such a statement that in general all things are\nfor the good of the world and for those who are in a natural state, but\nthat bad education or weakness of nature changes the goods of Fate for\nthe worse. Just as it happens that the Sun, which is good for all, may\nbe injurious to persons with ophthalmia or fever. Else why do the\nMassagetae eat their fathers, the Hebrews practise circumcision, and the\nPersians preserve rules of rank?[212:1] Why do astrologers, while\ncalling Saturn and Mars 'malignant', proceed to make them good,\nattributing to them philosophy and royalty, generalships and treasures?\nAnd if they are going to talk of triangles and squares, it is absurd\nthat gods should change their natures according to their position in\nspace, while human virtue remains the same everywhere. Also the fact\nthat the stars predict high or low rank for the father of the person\nwhose horoscope is taken, teaches that they do not always make things\nhappen but sometimes only indicate things. For how could things which\npreceded the birth depend upon the birth?\n\nFurther, as there is Providence and Fate concerned with nations and\ncities, and also concerned with each individual, so there is also\nFortune, which should next be treated. That power of the gods which\norders for the good things which are not uniform, and which happen\ncontrary to expectation, is commonly called Fortune, and it is for this\nreason that the goddess is especially worshipped in public by cities;\nfor every city consists of elements which are not uniform. Fortune has\npower beneath the moon, since above the moon no single thing can happen\nby fortune.\n\nIf Fortune makes a wicked man prosperous and a good man poor, there is\nno need to wonder. For the wicked regard wealth as everything, the good\nas nothing. And the good fortune of the bad cannot take away their\nbadness, while virtue alone will be enough for the good.\n\n\nX. _Concerning Virtue and Vice._\n\nThe doctrine of Virtue and Vice depends on that of the Soul. When the\nirrational soul enters into the body and immediately produces Fight and\nDesire, the rational soul, put in authority over all these, makes the\nsoul tripartite, composed of Reason, Fight, and Desire. Virtue in the\nregion of Reason is Wisdom, in the region of Fight is Courage, in the\nregion of Desire it is Temperance: the virtue of the whole Soul is\nRighteousness. It is for Reason to judge what is right, for Fight in\nobedience to Reason to despise things that appear terrible, for Desire\nto pursue not the apparently desirable, but, that which is with Reason\ndesirable. When these things are so, we have a righteous life; for\nrighteousness in matters of property is but a small part of virtue. And\nthus we shall find all four virtues in properly trained men, but among\nthe untrained one may be brave and unjust, another temperate and stupid,\nanother prudent and unprincipled. Indeed these qualities should not be\ncalled Virtues when they are devoid of Reason and imperfect and found in\nirrational beings. Vice should be regarded as consisting of the opposite\nelements. In Reason it is Folly, in Fight, Cowardice, in Desire,\nIntemperance, in the whole soul, Unrighteousness.\n\nThe virtues are produced by the right social organization and by good\nrearing and education, the vices by the opposite.\n\n\nXI. _Concerning right and wrong Social Organization._[214:1]\n\nConstitutions also depend on the tripartite nature of the Soul. The\nrulers are analogous to Reason, the soldiers to Fight, the common folk\nto Desires.\n\nWhere all things are done according to Reason and the best man in the\nnation rules, it is a Kingdom; where more than one rule according to\nReason and Fight, it is an Aristocracy; where the government is\naccording to Desire and offices depend on money, that constitution is\ncalled a Timocracy. The contraries are: to Kingdom tyranny, for Kingdom\ndoes all things with the guidance of reason and tyranny nothing; to\nAristocracy oligarchy, when not the best people but a few of the worst\nare rulers; to Timocracy democracy, when not the rich but the common\nfolk possess the whole power.\n\n\nXII. _The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil._\n\nThe Gods being good and making all things, how do evils exist in the\nworld? Or perhaps it is better first to state the fact that, the Gods\nbeing good and making all things, there is no positive evil, it only\ncomes by absence of good; just as darkness itself does not exist, but\nonly comes about by absence of light.\n\nIf Evil exists it must exist either in Gods or minds or souls or bodies.\nIt does not exist in any god, for all god is good. If any one speaks of\na 'bad mind' he means a mind without mind. If of a bad soul, he will\nmake soul inferior to body, for no body in itself is evil. If he says\nthat Evil is made up of soul and body together, it is absurd that\nseparately they should not be evil, but joined should create evil.\n\nSuppose it is said that there are evil spirits:--if they have their\npower from the gods, they cannot be evil; if from elsewhere, the gods do\nnot make all things. If they do not make all things, then either they\nwish to and cannot, or they can and do not wish; neither of which is\nconsistent with the idea of God. We may see, therefore, from these\narguments, that there is no positive evil in the world.\n\nIt is in the activities of men that the evils appear, and that not of\nall men nor always. And as to these, if men sinned for the sake of evil,\nNature itself would be evil. But if the adulterer thinks his adultery\nbad but his pleasure good, and the murderer thinks the murder bad but\nthe money he gets by it good, and the man who does evil to an enemy\nthinks that to do evil is bad but to punish his enemy good, and if the\nsoul commits all its sins in that way, then the evils are done for the\nsake of goodness. (In the same way, because in a given place light does\nnot exist, there comes darkness, which has no positive existence.) The\nsoul sins therefore because, while aiming at good, it makes mistakes\nabout the good, because it is not Primary Essence. And we see many\nthings done by the Gods to prevent it from making mistakes and to heal\nit when it has made them. Arts and sciences, curses and prayers,\nsacrifices and initiations, laws and constitutions, judgements and\npunishments, all came into existence for the sake of preventing souls\nfrom sinning; and when they are gone forth from the body gods and\nspirits of purification cleanse them of their sins.\n\n\nXIII. _How things eternal are said to 'be made' (\u03b3\u03af\u03b3\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9)._\n\nConcerning the Gods and the World and human things this account will\nsuffice for those who are not able to go through the whole course of\nphilosophy but yet have not souls beyond help.\n\nIt remains to explain how these objects were never made and are never\nseparated one from another, since we ourselves have said above that the\nsecondary substances were 'made' by the first.\n\nEverything made is made either by art or by a physical process or\naccording to some power.[216:1] Now in art or nature the maker must\nneeds be prior to the made: but the maker, according to power,\nconstitutes the made absolutely together with itself, since its power is\ninseparable from it; as the sun makes light, fire makes heat, snow makes\ncold.\n\nNow if the Gods make the world by art, they do not make it _be_, they\nmake it _be such as it is_. For all art makes the form of the object.\nWhat therefore makes it to be?\n\nIf by a physical process, how in that case can the maker help giving\npart of himself to the made? As the Gods are incorporeal, the World\nought to be incorporeal too. If it were argued that the Gods were\nbodies, then where would the power of incorporeal things come from? And\nif we were to admit it, it would follow that when the world decays, its\nmaker must be decaying too, if he is a maker by physical process.\n\nIf the Gods make the world neither by art nor by physical process, it\nonly remains that they make it by power. Everything so made subsists\ntogether with that which possesses the power. Neither can things so made\nbe destroyed, except the power of the maker be taken away: so that those\nwho believe in the destruction of the world, either deny the existence\nof the gods, or, while admitting it, deny God's power.\n\nTherefore he who makes all things by his own power makes all things\nsubsist together with himself. And since his power is the greatest power\nhe must needs be the maker not only of men and animals, but of Gods,\nmen, and spirits.[217:1] And the further removed the First God is from\nour nature, the more powers there must be between us and him. For all\nthings that are very far apart have many intermediate points between\nthem.\n\n\nXIV. _In what sense, though the Gods never change, they are said to be\nmade angry and appeased._\n\nIf any one thinks the doctrine of the unchangeableness of the Gods is\nreasonable and true, and then wonders how it is that they rejoice in the\ngood and reject the bad, are angry with sinners and become propitious\nwhen appeased, the answer is as follows: God does not rejoice--for that\nwhich rejoices also grieves; nor is he angered--for to be angered is a\npassion; nor is he appeased by gifts--if he were, he would be conquered\nby pleasure.\n\nIt is impious to suppose that the Divine is affected for good or ill by\nhuman things. The Gods are always good and always do good and never\nharm, being always in the same state and like themselves. The truth\nsimply is that, when we are good, we are joined to the Gods by our\nlikeness to them; when bad, we are separated from them by our\nunlikeness. And when we live according to virtue we cling to the gods,\nand when we become evil we make the gods our enemies--not because they\nare angered against us, but because our sins prevent the light of the\ngods from shining upon us, and put us in communion with spirits of\npunishment. And if by prayers and sacrifices we find forgiveness of\nsins, we do not appease or change the gods, but by what we do and by our\nturning towards the Divine we heal our own badness and so enjoy again\nthe goodness of the gods. To say that God turns away from the evil is\nlike saying that the sun hides himself from the blind.\n\n\nXV. _Why we give worship to the Gods when they need nothing._\n\nThis solves the question about sacrifices and other rites performed to\nthe Gods. The Divine itself is without needs, and the worship is paid\nfor our own benefit. The providence of the Gods reaches everywhere and\nneeds only some congruity[218:1] for its reception. All congruity comes\nabout by representation and likeness; for which reason the temples are\nmade in representation of heaven, the altar of earth, the images of life\n(that is why they are made like living things), the prayers of the\nelement of thought, the mystic letters[219:1] of the unspeakable\ncelestial forces, the herbs and stones of matter, and the sacrificial\nanimals of the irrational life in us.\n\nFrom all these things the Gods gain nothing; what gain could there be to\nGod? It is we who gain some communion with them.\n\n\nXVI. _Concerning sacrifices and other worships, that we benefit man by\nthem, but not the gods._\n\nI think it well to add some remarks about sacrifices. In the first\nplace, since we have received everything from the gods, and it is right\nto pay the giver some tithe of his gifts, we pay such a tithe of\npossessions in votive offerings, of bodies in gifts of <hair and>\nadornment, and of life in sacrifices. Then secondly, prayers without\nsacrifices are only words, with sacrifices they are live words; the word\ngives meaning to the life, while the life animates the word. Thirdly,\nthe happiness of every object is its own perfection; and perfection for\neach is communion with its own cause. For this reason we pray for\ncommunion with the Gods. Since, therefore, the first life is the life of\nthe gods, but human life is also life of a kind, and human life wishes\nfor communion with divine life, a mean term is needed. For things very\nfar apart cannot have communion without a mean term, and the mean term\nmust be like the things joined; therefore the mean term between life\nand life must be life. That is why men sacrifice animals; only the rich\ndo so now, but in old days everybody did, and that not indiscriminately,\nbut giving the suitable offerings to each god together with a great deal\nof other worship. Enough of this subject.\n\n\nXVII. _That the World is by nature Eternal._\n\nWe have shown above that the gods will not destroy the world. It remains\nto show that its nature is indestructible.\n\nEverything that is destroyed is either destroyed by itself or by\nsomething else. If the world is destroyed by itself, fire must needs\nburn itself and water dry itself. If by something else, it must be\neither by a body or by something incorporeal. By something incorporeal\nis impossible; for incorporeal things preserve bodies--nature, for\ninstance, and soul--and nothing is destroyed by a cause whose nature is\nto preserve it. If it is destroyed by some body, it must be either by\nthose which exist or by others.\n\nIf by those which exist: then either those moving in a straight line\nmust be destroyed by those that revolve, or vice versa. But those that\nrevolve have no destructive nature; else, why do we never see anything\ndestroyed from that cause? Nor yet can those which are moving straight\ntouch the others; else, why have they never been able to do so yet?\n\nBut neither can those moving straight be destroyed by one another: for\nthe destruction of one is the creation of another; and that is not to be\ndestroyed but to change.\n\nBut if the World is to be destroyed by other bodies than these it is\nimpossible to say where such bodies are or whence they are to arise.\n\nAgain, everything destroyed is destroyed either in form or matter. (Form\nis the shape of a thing, matter the body.) Now if the form is destroyed\nand the matter remains, we see other things come into being. If matter\nis destroyed, how is it that the supply has not failed in all these\nyears?\n\nIf when matter is destroyed other matter takes its place, the new matter\nmust come either from something that is or from something that is not.\nIf from that-which-is, as long as that-which-is always remains, matter\nalways remains. But if that-which-is is destroyed, such a theory means\nthat not the World only but everything in the universe is destroyed.\n\nIf again matter comes from that-which-is-not: in the first place, it is\nimpossible for anything to come from that which is not; but suppose it\nto happen, and that matter did arise from that which is not; then, as\nlong as there are things which are not, matter will exist. For I presume\nthere can never be an end of things which are not.\n\nIf they say that matter <will become> formless: in the first place, why\ndoes this happen to the world as a whole when it does not happen to any\npart? Secondly, by this hypothesis they do not destroy the being of\nbodies, but only their beauty.\n\nFurther, everything destroyed is either resolved into the elements from\nwhich it came, or else vanishes into not-being. If things are resolved\ninto the elements from which they came, then there will be others: else\nhow did they come into being at all? If that-which-is is to depart into\nnot-being, what prevents that happening to God himself? (Which is\nabsurd.) Or if God's power prevents that, it is not a mark of power to\nbe able to save nothing but oneself. And it is equally impossible for\nthat-which-is to come out of nothing and to depart into nothing.\n\nAgain, if the World is destroyed, it must needs either be destroyed\naccording to Nature or against Nature. Against Nature is impossible, for\nthat which is against nature is not stronger than Nature.[222:1] If\naccording to Nature, there must be another Nature which changes the\nNature of the World: which does not appear.\n\nAgain, anything that is naturally destructible we can ourselves destroy.\nBut no one has ever destroyed or altered the round body of the World.\nAnd the elements, though they can be changed, cannot be destroyed.\nAgain, everything destructible is changed by time and grows old. But the\nworld through all these years has remained utterly unchanged.\n\nHaving said so much for the help of those who feel the need of very\nstrong demonstrations, I pray the World himself to be gracious to me.\n\n\nXVIII. _Why there are rejections of God, and that God is not injured._\n\nNor need the fact that rejections of God have taken place in certain\nparts of the earth and will often take place hereafter, disturb the mind\nof the wise: both because these things do not affect the gods, just as\nwe saw that worship did not benefit them; and because the soul, being of\nmiddle essence, cannot be always right; and because the whole world\ncannot enjoy the providence of the gods equally, but some parts may\npartake of it eternally, some at certain times, some in the primal\nmanner, some in the secondary. Just as the head enjoys all the senses,\nbut the rest of the body only one.\n\nFor this reason, it seems, those who ordained Festivals ordained also\nForbidden Days, in which some temples lay idle, some were shut, some had\ntheir adornment removed, in expiation of the weakness of our nature.\n\nIt is not unlikely, too, that the rejection of God is a kind of\npunishment: we may well believe that those who knew the gods and\nneglected them in one life may in another life be deprived of the\nknowledge of them altogether. Also those who have worshipped their own\nkings as gods have deserved as their punishment to lose all knowledge of\nGod.\n\n\nXIX. _Why sinners are not punished at once._\n\nThere is no need to be surprised if neither these sins nor yet others\nbring immediate punishment upon sinners. For it is not only\nSpirits[223:1] who punish the soul, the Soul brings itself to judgement:\nand also it is not right for those who endure for ever to attain\neverything in a short time: and also, there is need of human virtue. If\npunishment followed instantly upon sin, men would act justly from fear\nand have no virtue.\n\nSouls are punished when they have gone forth from the body, some\nwandering among us, some going to hot or cold places of the earth, some\nharassed by Spirits. Under all circumstances they suffer with the\nirrational part of their nature, with which they also sinned. For its\nsake[224:1] there subsist that shadowy body which is seen about graves,\nespecially the graves of evil livers.\n\n\nXX. _On Transmigration of Souls, and how Souls are said to migrate into\nbrute beasts._\n\nIf the transmigration of a soul takes place into a rational being, it\nsimply becomes the soul of that body. But if the soul migrates into a\nbrute beast, it follows the body outside, as a guardian spirit follows a\nman. For there could never be a rational soul in an irrational being.\n\nThe transmigration of souls can be proved from the congenital\nafflictions of persons. For why are some born blind, others paralytic,\nothers with some sickness in the soul itself? Again, it is the natural\nduty of Souls to do their work in the body; are we to suppose that when\nonce they leave the body they spend all eternity in idleness?\n\nAgain, if the souls did not again enter into bodies, they must either be\ninfinite in number or God must constantly be making new ones. But there\nis nothing infinite in the world; for in a finite whole there cannot be\nan infinite part. Neither can others be made; for everything in which\nsomething new goes on being created, must be imperfect. And the World,\nbeing made by a perfect author, ought naturally to be perfect.\n\n\nXXI. _That the Good are happy, both living and dead._\n\nSouls that have lived in virtue are in general happy,[224:2] and when\nseparated from the irrational part of their nature, and made clean from\nall matter, have communion with the gods and join them in the governing\nof the whole world. Yet even if none of this happiness fell to their\nlot, virtue itself, and the joy and glory of virtue, and the life that\nis subject to no grief and no master are enough to make happy those who\nhave set themselves to live according to virtue and have achieved it.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[200:1] I translate \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 generally as 'World', sometimes as 'Cosmos'.\nIt always has the connotation of 'divine order'; \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae always 'Soul', to\nkeep it distinct from \u03b6\u03c9\u03ae, 'physical life', though often 'Life' would be\na more natural English equivalent; \u1f10\u03bc\u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd 'to animate'; \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\nsometimes 'essence', sometimes 'being' (never 'substance' or 'nature');\n\u03c6\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 'nature'; \u03c3\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1 sometimes 'body', sometimes 'matter'.\n\n[203:1] e. g. when we say 'The sun is coming in through the window', or\nin Greek \u1f10\u03be\u03b1\u03af\u03c6\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2 \u1f25\u03ba\u03c9\u03bd \u1f10\u03ba \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f21\u03bb\u03af\u03bf\u03c5, Plat. _Rep._ 516 E. This appears to\nmean that you can loosely apply the term 'Osiris' both to (i) the real\nOsiris and (ii) the corn which comes from him, as you can apply the name\n'Sun' both to (i) the real orb and (ii) the ray that comes from the orb.\nHowever, Julian, _Or._ v, on the Sun suggests a different view--that\nboth the orb and the ray are mere effects and symbols of the true\nspiritual Sun, as corn is of Osiris.\n\n[204:1] \u1f04\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 Mr. L. W. Hunter, \u1f14\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 MS. Above the Milky Way\nthere is no such body, only \u03c3\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1 \u1f00\u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03ad\u03c2. Cf. Macrob. in _Somn. Scip._ i.\n12.\n\n[208:1] i. e. if the Firmament or Fixed Sphere moved in the same\ndirection as the seven Planets, the speed would become too great. On the\ncircular movement cf. Plot. _Eun._ ii. 2.\n\n[209:1] The fire of which the heavenly bodies are made is the \u03c0\u03ad\u03bc\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\n\u03c3\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1, matter, but different from earthly matter. See p. 137.\n\n[209:2] Proclus, _Elem. Theol._ xx, calls it \u1f21 \u03bd\u03bf\u03b5\u03c1\u1f70 \u03c6\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2, _Natura\nIntellectualis_. There are four degrees of existence: lowest of all,\nBodies; above that, Soul; above all Souls, this 'Intellectual Nature';\nabove that, The One.\n\n[210:1] i. e. in the full sense of Gn\u00f4sis.\n\n[211:1] i. e. Astrology, dealing with the 'Celestial Bodies'.\n\n[212:1] Cf. Hdt. i. 134.\n\n[214:1] [This section is a meagre reminiscence of Plato's discussion in\n_Repub._ viii. The interest in politics and government had died out with\nthe loss of political freedom.]\n\n[216:1] \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03b9\u03bd, secundum potentiam quandam; i. e. in accordance\nwith some indwelling 'virtue' or quality.\n\n[217:1] The repetition of \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 in this sentence seems to be a\nmistake.\n\n[218:1] \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c4\u03b7\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2.\n\n[219:1] On the mystic letters see above, p. 142.\n\n[222:1] The text here is imperfect: I have followed Mullach's\ncorrection.\n\n[223:1] \u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2.\n\n[224:1] i. e. that it may continue to exist and satisfy justice.\n\n[224:2] \u03b5\u1f50\u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n   Achaioi, 45, 49\n\n   Acropolis, 71, 72\n\n   Aeschylus, [12:4], 43\n\n   Affection, 104, 109\n\n   Agesilaus, 86\n\n   Agriculture, Religion in, 5 f.\n\n   Alexander the Great, 92, 93, 94, 115, 159\n\n   Allegory, in Hellenistic philosophy, 165 ff.;\n     in Olympian religion, 74\n\n   \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03bb\u03bf\u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03af\u03b1, [98:1]\n\n   Alpha and Omega, God as, 148\n\n   Anaximander, [33:1]\n\n   Angel = Megethos, 142;\n     star, 144\n\n   Animal sacrifice, 188 f.\n\n   Anthesteria, 16-18, 34\n\n   _Anthister_, [18:2]\n\n   Anthropomorphism, 10 ff., 140\n\n   Antigonus Gonatas, [152:1]\n\n   Antiochus I, 144\n\n   Anti-semitism, 162\n\n   Antisthenes, 87, 89 f., 96\n\n   Apathy, [103:1], 109\n\n   _Apell\u00f4n_ = Apoll\u00f4n, 51\n\n   _Aphiktor_, 28\n\n   Aphrodite, 57\n\n   Apollo, 50, 72\n\n   Apotheosis of Hellenistic kings, [152:1]\n\n   Apparitions, primitive belief in, 27\n\n   Apuleius, 148\n\n   Aquinas, 3\n\n   Archontes, 164\n\n   Ares, 57\n\n   _Aret\u00ea_, 89, 96, 99, 104 f.\n\n   Aristarchus of Samos, 141\n\n   Aristophanes, [20:3], [22:1], [62:1]\n\n   Aristotle, 3, 114 f., 117, 120, 127, 136, 153, [154:3]\n\n   Ark of Israel, 68\n\n   Arnim, von, [129:1], 172\n\n   Arnold, Professor E. V., [100:1]\n\n   Asceticism in antiquity, 196\n\n   Astrology, 143 f., [211:1]\n\n   Astronomy, 97\n\n   \u1f08\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1 (\u1f08\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7), [53:1]\n\n   Atheism, 181 f., 190\n\n   Athena, [53:1], 71, 72, 74;\n     = Athenaia Kor\u00ea, 52;\n     Pallas, 52\n\n   Athens, effect of defeat of, 79 f.\n\n   Atomic Theory of Democritus, 101;\n     of Ionia, 105\n\n   Attis, 185\n\n   'Attributes', animals as, 20\n\n   Augustine, St., 175, 177\n\n   Aurelius, Marcus, religion of, 175 f.\n\n\n   Bacchos, 161\n\n   Bacon, Professor, 172\n\n   'Barbaroi' as opposed to Hellenes, 39;\n     \u03b2\u03b1\u03c1\u03b2\u03b1\u03c1\u03cc\u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9, [42:2]\n\n   Bardesanes, [164:1]\n\n   Barnabas, St., 161\n\n   Beast-mask, 23-5\n\n   Bendis, 151\n\n   Bethe, E., [150:1]\n\n   Bevan, E., xvi, [39:1], [100:1], [154:2], 172\n\n   Birth-rate, its effect on early Christian sects, 194\n\n   Blessedness, Epicurus on, 106\n\n   Body, Fifth, 137\n\n   \u03b2\u03bf\u1ff6\u03c0\u03b9\u03c2, 24\n\n   Bousset, W., xv, 126, [150:3], 162, 172\n\n   Buddhism, 10\n\n   Bull, blood of, 20;\n     in pre-Hellenic ritual, 19-21\n\n   Bury, Professor J. B., xv\n\n\n   Carpenter, Dr. E., 172\n\n   Cauer, P., [49:1]\n\n   Centaurs, 60\n\n   Chadwick, H. M., xv, 46 _n._, [57:3], 59\n\n   Chaldaeans, 144, 151\n\n   Chance, 131, 147\n\n   Charles, Dr., 172\n\n   \u03c7\u03c1\u1fb6\u03bd, 37\n\n   \u03c7\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b1, 90\n\n   Christianity, 88, 90, 96, 109, 115, 119, 123-5, 173, 181 f., 192-5\n\n   Christmas, Father, 15\n\n   Christos, 163\n\n   Chrysippus, 115, [145:1], [145:3], [145:4], 146, 166\n\n   Chthonioi, as oracles, 37\n\n   Cicero, [27:2]\n\n   Circular movement, [208:1]\n\n   _Circumcelliones_, 36 _n._\n\n   City of gods and men, world as, 76;\n     of Refuge, in the _Laws_, 83;\n     of Righteousness, in the _Republic_, 83:\n     _see_ Polis\n\n   Cleanthes, 135, 141, 165\n\n   Clemen, Carl, 172\n\n   Coinage, deface of, 90\n\n   'Collective Desire', God defined as the, 26, 29\n\n   Colotes, [111:1]\n\n   _Comitatus_, 46\n\n   Commagene, 144\n\n   Conceptions, Common, 200\n\n   Constantine, 194\n\n   Constantius, 179\n\n   Convention, 91\n\n   Conybeare, F. C., 172\n\n   Cook, A. B., [16:1], 23, [24:1], 49 f., [56:3], 66 _n._\n\n   Copernicus, 97\n\n   Corinna, 43\n\n   Cornford, F. M., [33:1]\n\n   Cornutus, 166\n\n   _Cosmopol\u00eetes_, 92\n\n   Cosmos, 97-100, 208\n\n   Crates, [95:1], 166\n\n   Creeds, 173 f., 178, 183\n\n   Crucifixion, [163:1]\n\n   Cumont, F., [35:1], 126, 172\n\n   Cynics, 3, 90-2, 93-5, 104;\n     women among, [95:1]\n\n   _Cyropaedeia_, 85\n\n   Cyrus, 85\n\n\n   Daemon = Stoicheion, 142\n\n   Dance, religious, 27 f.\n\n   Davenport, F. M., [26:1]\n\n   Davy, G., 7 _n._\n\n   Dead, worship of, 62\n\n   Deification, E. Bevan on, [154:2]\n\n   Deliverer, the, 108\n\n   Delos, 51\n\n   _Delusio_, 169\n\n   Demeter, 72\n\n   Democritus, Atomic Theory of, 101\n\n   Demos, 82\n\n   Demosthenes, 82\n\n   Destiny, Hymn to, 135:\n     _see_ Fate\n\n   _Dharma_, 10\n\n   _Diadochi_, 155\n\n   Diasia, 14-15\n\n   \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b2\u03ae, 90\n\n   Dicaearchus, 121 f.\n\n   _Didascaliae_, 121\n\n   Diels, [33:1], [129:1], 172\n\n   Dieterich, A., [17:1], [23:1], [29:2], 126, 146, [150:3], 172\n\n   Dio Cassius, 142\n\n   Diocletian, 194 f.\n\n   Diodorus, 144 f.\n\n   Diogenes, 90-3, 95;\n     his 'tub,' 92\n\n   Diogenes of Oenoanda, [101:1], 114, 169 f.\n\n   Dione, 56\n\n   Dionysius, 17, 20, 72, 84, 159\n\n   \u03b4\u03af\u03bf\u03c0\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1, 122\n\n   Disciples, qualifications and conduct of, 200\n\n   Discouragement due to collapse of the Polis, 81\n\n   Dittenberger. W., [16:1], [156:1]\n\n   Divine Mother, 164;\n     'Divine Wisdom', personified, 165\n\n   Dodds, E. R., [181:1]\n\n   Doutt\u00e9, E., 26 f.\n\n   Dramaturge, 97\n\n   _Dr\u00f4menon_, spring, 32 f.\n\n   D\u00fcmmler, [87:1]\n\n   Durkheim, Professor \u00c9mile, [6:1]\n\n\n   Earth, divinity of, 137;\n     Earth-mother, 29\n\n   \u1f21\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae, 106\n\n   Education, [113:3]\n\n   _Ekstasis_, 150\n\n   Elements, Apuleius on, 148;\n     divinity of, 137;\n     in the Kosmos, 142\n\n   \u1f10\u03bc\u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd, [200:1]\n\n   _Enthousiasmos_, 150\n\n   E\u00f4s, 53\n\n   Epictetus, morals of, 176\n\n   Epicureans, 3, 110 f., 113, 119, 130, 145 f., 181\n\n   Epicurus, 101-11, 113, 129 f., 135, 140 f., 170, [192:1]\n\n   _Epiphan\u00eas_, 155\n\n   Epiphanius, 172\n\n   \u1f25\u03c1\u03c9\u03b5\u03c2, 37\n\n   Euerget\u00eas, 156\n\n   _Euhemerus_, 160\n\n   Euripides, [12:4], [54:3], _passim_, 143, 152\n\n   Eusebius, [27:4], 197\n\n   Evans, Sir A., 20, 66 _n._\n\n   Evil, existence of, 215;\n     origin of, 186, 214-16\n\n   Expurgation of mythology, 75 f.;\n     Olympian, 61 f., 67 f.\n\n   _Eye of Bel_, 143\n\n\n   Failure, Great, 82\n\n   Farnell, Dr. L. R., [18:1], [20:1], 44\n\n   Fate, 132, 134, 145, 146 f., 211 f.\n\n   Federations, 80\n\n   Ferguson, W. S., [152:1]\n\n   First Cause, 185, 205 f.\n\n   Fortune, 91, 131 f., 212 f.\n\n   Fourth Century, Movements of, 3, 79-122\n\n   Frazer, Sir J. G., [16:1], [18:1], [35:1], [154:1]\n\n\n   Gaertringen, Hiller von, [18:2]\n\n   Galaxy, 204\n\n   Games, Roman gladiatorial, 94\n\n   Garden, 107 f., 114\n\n   Gardner. P., [57:2], [149:1]\n\n   Gennep, A. Van., [31:1]\n\n   \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd, 31\n\n   _Gerontes_, 36\n\n   Ghosts, 221\n\n   Giants, 60\n\n   \u03b3\u03af\u03b3\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9, forms of, 216 f.\n\n   \u03b3\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03ba\u1ff6\u03c0\u03b9\u03c2, 24\n\n   Gnostics, 3, 123, 128, 137 f., 148, 162\n\n   God, as the 'collective desire', 26, 29;\n     conception of, in savage tribes, 9;\n     does not rejoice, nor is angered, 218;\n     essence of, 158;\n     home of, 148;\n     of the Jews, 163;\n     rejections of, 222 f.;\n     unchangeable, 187;\n     Union with, 147\n\n   God-Man, as King, 152 f.\n\n   Gods, communion with, 188;\n     Cosmic and Hypercosmic, 206 f.;\n     men as, 136;\n     nature of, 200 f.;\n     Twelve, 207;\n     unchangeable, 217;\n     why worshipped, 218\n\n   Good, the, 88 f., 110, 185 f., 206;\n     happiness of, 224 f.;\n     Idea of, as Sun of the spiritual universe, 94\n\n   \u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u1fe6\u03c2, 31\n\n   Gruppe, Dr., [18:1], [50:3], [52:1], [56:3], 172\n\n\n   Hagia Triada, sarcophagus of, 20\n\n   Halliday, W. R., [32:2]\n\n   Happiness, Natural, 104\n\n   Harnack, A., 193\n\n   Harrison, Miss J. E., xiv, 13-30, _passim_, [148:1]\n\n   Hartland, E. S., 9\n\n   Haverfield, Professor F. J., 127\n\n   Heath, Sir T., [141:1]\n\n   Heaven, Third, 149\n\n   Hebrews, 125\n\n   Hecataeus, 143\n\n   _Heimarmen\u00ea_, 134, 145, 211\n\n   Helen, Kor\u00ea as, 138\n\n   Hellenes, conquered tribes took name of, 42;\n     no tribe of, existing in ancient times, 41;\n     same as Achaioi, 40\n\n   Hellenism, as standard of culture, 41\n\n   Hellenistic Age, 3 f., 114, 117, 125, 131, 144, 161, 167;\n     culture, 125;\n     philosophy, 165;\n     revival, 40 f.;\n     spirit, 152\n\n   Hera, 56\n\n   Heraclitus of Ephesus, 167\n\n   Herakles, 56, 89\n\n   Hermes, 55, 151\n\n   Hermetica, 148, 151\n\n   Hermetic communities, 146\n\n   Hermias, [116:1]\n\n   Herodotus, [27:3], 39, 41, [42:1], 44;\n     religion of, 175\n\n   Heroes, philosophers as, 153\n\n   Heroic Age, 48 f., 57\n\n   Heroism, religious, of antiquity, 192\n\n   Hesiod, 44, 64 f.\n\n   Hipparchia, [95:1]\n\n   Hippolytus, 172\n\n   Hoffmann, Dr. O., [43:1], [52:1]\n\n   Hogarth, D. G., [24:1]\n\n   Holocaust, 14\n\n   Homer, 9, 44 f., 48 f., [54:3], _passim_, 64 f.\n\n   _Hosi\u00f4t\u00ear_, bull as, 20 f.\n\n   Hubert and Mauss, MM., [189:1]\n\n\n   Idealists, 82\n\n   Idols, defence of, [77:1]\n\n   Illusion, 112, 119\n\n   Impalement, [163:1]\n\n   Infanticide, 177\n\n   Initiations, Hellenistic, 148-52\n\n   Instinct, 100\n\n   Interpreters, Planets as, 144\n\n   Ionia, 59 f.\n\n   Ionian tradition, 101, 104\n\n   Ionians, 51\n\n   Iphigenia, [61:1]\n\n   _Iranes_, 32\n\n   Irenaeus, 172\n\n   Iris, 55\n\n   Isis, 151, 166\n\n   Isocrates, 81\n\n\n   Jacoby, [160:1]\n\n   Jaldabaoth = Saturn, 147\n\n   Javan, sons of, 42\n\n   Jews, 125, 151, 188;\n     God of, 163\n\n   Judaism, 193\n\n   Julian, xvi, 4, 179 ff., 184 f., 197\n\n   Justin, [64:1]\n\n\n   Kaibel, [61:1]\n\n   Kant, 136\n\n   Keraunos, 155\n\n   _K\u00eares_, 34\n\n   Kern, O., [21:2]\n\n   King, I., [29:1]\n\n   Kings, as gods, 191;\n     divine, titles of, 155 ff.;\n     predictions concerning, by Planets, 144;\n     worship of, 156\n\n   Koios, 166\n\n   Kor\u00ea, 63 f.;\n     as fallen Virgin, 138;\n     Earth, 30;\n     Earth Maiden and Mother, 137\n\n   Kosmokratores, 146, 148, 164\n\n   Kosmos, 147, [200:1];\n     Moon as origin of, 169;\n     planets as Elements in, 142\n\n   Kour\u00ea, Zeus, 150\n\n   Kour\u00eates, 150;\n     Spring-song of, 30\n\n   Kouroi, 30;\n     dance of, 28\n\n   Kouros, 63 f., 71;\n     _Megistos_, 28;\n     Sun as, 30;\n     Year-Daemon, 32\n\n   Kourotrophos, Earth, 30\n\n   \u03ba\u03c1\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 and \u03b2\u03af\u03b1, 25, [157:1]\n\n   Kronos, 45\n\n   \u03ba\u03c4\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, 23\n\n   \u03ba\u03c4\u03af\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, 23\n\n   Kynosarges, 89\n\n\n   Lampsacus, 107\n\n   Lang, Andrew, xiii, [16:2], [23:2]\n\n   \u039b\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5 \u03b2\u03b9\u03ce\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2, 110\n\n   Leaf, W., [40:1], [49:1]\n\n   Leagues, 80\n\n   Leontion, 108\n\n   Life, inward, 119 f.\n\n   \u039b\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2, 135\n\n   Lucian, _Icaro-Menippos_, [15:1]\n\n   Lucretius, 38, 105, [106:1], 114\n\n   Lysander, 155\n\n   Lysias, 81\n\n\n   McDougall, W., 125 _n._\n\n   Macedon, 81, 127\n\n   Macedonians, 93, 116, 122\n\n   Mackail, Professor J. W., 42\n\n   Man, First, 164;\n     Righteous, of Plato, 163;\n     Second, 163 f.;\n     Son of Man, 163\n\n   Man-God, worship of, 156 ff.\n\n   _Mana_, 19, 21, 24, 34, [157:1]\n\n   Marett, R. R., [124:1]\n\n   Margoliouth, Professor, [167:1]\n\n   Markos the Gnostic, 150\n\n   Marriage, Sacred, 17 f.\n\n   Maximus of Tyre, [77:1]\n\n   Mayer, M., 46 _n._\n\n   Meade, G. R. S., 172\n\n   Mediator between God and worshipper, 189;\n     Mithras as, 151;\n     Saviour as, 162\n\n   Medicine-king, as \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2, 25, 152;\n     powers of, 25\n\n   Megethos, 142\n\n   Meilichios, in the Diasia, 14-15, 19\n\n   Meister, R., [53:1]\n\n   Meyer, Ed., [154:3]\n\n   Mind, nature of, 209\n\n   Mithraic communities, 146\n\n   Mithraism, 148\n\n   Mithras, 123, 139, 152;\n     as Mediator, 151;\n     Liturgy, 146, 148;\n     religion of, 21\n\n   Mommsen, August, [14:1], [17:1], [18:1]\n\n   Monotheism, 69 f.\n\n   Moon, as Kourotrophos, 30;\n     as origin of Kosmos, 169;\n     divinity of, 136 ff.\n\n   Morals, minor, 177;\n     of antiquity, 177 f.;\n     of Christians, 178\n\n   Moret, [23:2]\n\n   Mother, Divine, 164;\n     Great, 185\n\n   M\u00fclder, D., [53:1], [57:1]\n\n   Mullach, 172\n\n   M\u00fcller, H. D., [57:1]\n\n   Music of the Spheres, 142\n\n   Myres, J. L., 40\n\n   Mysteries, 93\n\n   Mystic letters, 219\n\n   Mysticism, 169\n\n   Mythology, Olympian, 75\n\n   Myths, Sallustius' treatment of, 221 f.;\n     why divine, 201;\n     five species, 202;\n     explanation of examples, 203-5\n\n\n   Naassenes, 146, 162\n\n   Nature, the return to, as salvation for man, 91\n\n   Nausiphanes, 101\n\n   Neo-Platonism, 181\n\n   Nerve, failure of, chap. iv.\n\n   Nikator, 155\n\n   Nilsson, M. P., [18:2], [21:2], [31:1], [32:1]\n\n   Nilus, St., 21\n\n   Norden, [159:1]\n\n\n   _Octavius_, 164, 182, [190:1]\n\n   Odin, 59\n\n   Ogdoas, 147\n\n   _Oim\u00f4g\u00ea_, 79, 116\n\n   Olympian expurgation, 61 f., 67 ff.;\n     family, 11;\n     reformation, 58, 61 ff.;\n     stage, 2;\n     theology, 4\n\n   Olympian Gods, brought by Northern invaders, 45;\n     character of, 46-58;\n     coming of, 43;\n     why so called, 44 f.\n\n   Olympian religion, achievements of, 72 ff.;\n     beauty of, 73;\n     conception of, 131;\n     failure of, 67-72\n\n   Olympians, origin of, 39 ff.\n\n   Olympus, Mount, 46\n\n   Optimism, 193\n\n   Oracles, 37-8\n\n   Oreibasius, 27\n\n   Oreibates, 27\n\n   Organization, social, 214\n\n   Origins, Religious, 1\n\n   Orphic Hymns, [30:1];\n     literature, [64:1]\n\n   Orphism, 148\n\n   _Orthia_, 32\n\n   Osiris, 166\n\n   Othin, [50:1]\n\n   \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1, [200:1]\n\n   Ovid, [52:2]\n\n   Ozymandia, 144\n\n\n   Pagan prayer, a, 197 f.;\n     reaction, 173 f.\n\n   Paganism, final development of, 192 f.;\n     struggle with Christianity, 195 f.\n\n   Palimpsest, manuscript of man's creed as, 199\n\n   Palladion, 52\n\n   Pallas, Athena as, 52, 71\n\n   Panaetius, 145\n\n   Paribeni, R., [20:2]\n\n   Parker, Mrs. Langloh, 12\n\n   Parmenides, 12, [113:2]\n\n   \u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1, \u03c4\u1f70, 37\n\n   Paul. St., 2 f., 7, 23, 33, 60, 124, 137, 149, 158 _n._, 161, 164\n\n   Pauly-Wissowa, [14:1]\n\n   Pausanias, [27:3], [54:2], _passim_\n\n   Payne, E. J., [29:1], [30:1]\n\n   Pelasgians, 42, 44\n\n   \u03c0\u03ad\u03bc\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c3\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1, 137\n\n   Periclean Age, 87, 89\n\n   Peripatetic School, 114 f., 116;\n     spirit, 122\n\n   _Peripatos_, 114\n\n   Persecution of the Christians, 181\n\n   Persephone, 74 f.\n\n   \u03c6\u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2, 34\n\n   Pheidias, 50\n\n   \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03af\u03b1, 156, 158\n\n   \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b1, 104, 109\n\n   Philo, 172, 177\n\n   _Phusis_, 99, 134, [200:1]\n\n   Pindar, [31:3], 43, [52:2]\n\n   Pisistratus, 43, 53\n\n   \u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2, 7\n\n   Planets, seven, history and worship of, 140 ff.\n\n   Plato, 3, 13 _n._, 82-4, 109, 126, 129, 163\n\n   Pleasure, pursuit of, 110\n\n   Plotinus, 2, 4, [10:2], 135;\n     his union with God, 149\n\n   Plutarch, [27:3] 32{1}, [34:2], [54:2], _passim_\n\n   Poimandres, 162\n\n   \u03a0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03ac\u03c2, \u1f21, or \u03a0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03b5\u03cd\u03c2, \u1f41, 71\n\n   _Poliouchoi_, 67\n\n   Polis, collapse of, 80, 127 f.;\n     projection of, 71;\n     religion of, 71, 75 f.;\n     replaces Tribe, 66 f.\n\n   Polybius, 80\n\n   Porch, 114\n\n   Porphyry, [149:2], [188:2]\n\n   Poseidon, 54\n\n   Posidonius, 146, 159\n\n   Predestination, 145\n\n   Preuss, Dr., 2\n\n   Proclus, [209:2]\n\n   Proletariates, 194\n\n   Pronoia _or_ Providence, Stoic belief in, 90, 135\n\n   Providence, 210 f.\n\n   \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae, [200:1]\n\n   Ptah, 151\n\n   Ptolemaios Epiphan\u00eas, 156 f.\n\n   Punishment, eternal, 9;\n     why not immediate, 223\n\n   Purpose of Dramaturge, 97-100\n\n   Pythagoras, 167\n\n   Pythias, 116\n\n\n   Rack, martyrs happy on the, 192\n\n   Reason, as combatant of passion, 91\n\n   Redeemer, of the Gnostics, 162 f.;\n     Son of the Kor\u00ea, 138\n\n   Redemption, mystery of, 163\n\n   Reformation, Olympian, 61 ff.\n\n   Refuge, City of, in the _Laws_, 83\n\n   Refugees, sufferings of, 102\n\n   Reinach, A. J., [25:1]\n\n   Reinach, S., [25:1], [68:1], 172\n\n   Reisch, E., [11:1]\n\n   Reitzenstein, xv, 126, [150:3], 172\n\n   Religion, description of, 5-9;\n     eternal punishment for error in, 9;\n     falseness of, 7 ff.;\n     Greek, extensive study of, xiii;\n     traditional, 127;\n     significance of, 1\n\n   Religious Origins, 1\n\n   _Republic_, 94\n\n   Retribution, 33\n\n   Reuterskiold, [21:3]\n\n   Revelations, divine, 171;\n     series of, to worshippers, 151\n\n   Revival, Hellenistic, 40 ff.\n\n   Ridgeway, Professor, [40:1], [54:1]\n\n   Righteousness, City of, in the _Republic_, 83\n\n   Rivers, Dr., [31:2]\n\n   Robertson Smith, Dr., 21 f.\n\n   Rome, a Polis, 127\n\n   Ruah, 138\n\n\n   Sacraments, 148\n\n   Sacrifice, human, 35, [61:1];\n     condemned by Theophrastus, [188:2];\n     Porphyry on, [188:2];\n     reason for, 219 f.\n\n   Sallustius, xvi, 165, 179-81, 183-5, 193\n\n   Saturn, 147\n\n   Saviour, as Son of God and Mediator, 161 f.;\n     dying, 35 f.;\n     Third One, 33\n\n   Sceptics, _jeux d'esprit_ of, 87\n\n   Schultz, W., 172\n\n   Schurtz, Ed., [31:1]\n\n   Schwartz, [159:1]\n\n   Scott, W., 172\n\n   Seeck, O., [53:1], 172\n\n   Sky, phenomena of, as origin of man's idea, 136\n\n   Snake, supernatural, 19\n\n   Social structure of worshippers, 151\n\n   Solon, 43\n\n   \u03c3\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1, [200:1]\n\n   Sophocles, 123\n\n   _Sophrosyn\u00ea_, 73, 83, 114, 152, 197\n\n   _Sors_: _see_ Fortune.\n\n   S\u00f4t\u00ear, 155\n\n   Soul, divinity of, 153-65;\n     human, as origin of man's idea, 136;\n     immortal, 186;\n     nature of, 209 f.;\n     salvation of, 164\n\n   Sparta, Athens defeated by, 80;\n     constitution of, 87;\n     power of, 81\n\n   Spirit, Holy, 137;\n     personified, 165\n\n   Stars, divinity of, 136 ff., [153:1]\n\n   Steiner, von H., _Mutaziliten_, [10:2]\n\n   Stoicism, 117, 146\n\n   Stoics, 3, 76, 95-7, 104, 109 f., 119, 128, 130, 145, 160, 165\n\n   \u03a3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f45\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd, 145\n\n   Sun, 187;\n     as Kouros, 30;\n     = both orb and ray, [203:1];\n     divinity of, 137 ff.;\n     worship of, 139\n\n   _Sunoikismos_, 63\n\n   Superstition, 130\n\n   Sweetness, Epicurus on, 106\n\n   Swine, sacred, 19\n\n\n   _Tabu_, 34 ff.\n\n   Tarn, W. W., [80:1], [152:2]\n\n   _Teletai_, 32\n\n   Thales, 2\n\n   \u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd, 95, 103 f.\n\n   Themis, 36, 37\n\n   Theodoret, 181\n\n   Theoi Adelphoi, 154\n\n   Theophrastus, 143, [188:2]\n\n   \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 = \u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03cc\u03c2, 24;\n     use of the word by poets, 12\n\n   Thera, [18:2]\n\n   \u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03af, derivation of, [16:1]\n\n   Thesmophoria, 16\n\n   Thespis, 43\n\n   Third One _or_ Saviour, 33\n\n   Thomson, J. A. K., 46 _n._\n\n   Thoth, 151\n\n   Thought, subjective, 128\n\n   Thracians, 150 f.\n\n   Thucydides, 41;\n     religion of, 175\n\n   Thumb, A., [43:1], [45:2]\n\n   Transmigration of souls, 224\n\n   Trigonometry, 122\n\n   Trinity, 164\n\n   Tritos S\u00f4t\u00ear, 163\n\n   \u03a4\u03cd\u03c7\u03b7: _see_ Fortune\n\n   'Tyrants, Thirty', 84\n\n\n   Uncharted region of experience, 5 ff., 171, 198\n\n   _Urdummheit_, 2, 44, 72\n\n   Usener, [101:1], [113:2], [129:1], 172\n\n   Uzzah, 68\n\n\n   Vandal, [40:2]\n\n   Vegetarianism, [8:1]\n\n   Vegetation-spirit, 32\n\n   Verrall, A. W., [16:1]\n\n   Vice, definition of, 213 f.\n\n   Virgin, fallen, Kor\u00ea as, 138\n\n   Virtue, definition of, 213 f.\n\n   Vision, 104\n\n\n   Warde Fowler, W., [17:1]\n\n   Webster, H., [31:1]\n\n   Week of seven days, established, 142 f.\n\n   Wendland, P., xvi, 126, 156, 172\n\n   Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von, [43:1], 59\n\n   Wisdom, Divine, personified, 165;\n     Wisdom-Teachers, 2\n\n   Woodward, A. M., [32:1]\n\n   Word, the, personified, 165\n\n   World, ancient and modern, 120;\n     blessedness of, 168;\n     end of, by fire, Christian belief in, 190;\n     eternal and indestructible, 186 f., 189, 208-9, 220-2\n\n\n   Xenophanes, 12\n\n   Xenophon, 79, 85, 86\n\n   \u039e\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2, 73\n\n\n   Year-Daemon, 32 f.\n\n\n   Zeller, E., 128\n\n   Zeno, 96 f., 98, 109, 128\n\n   Zeus, Aphiktor, 28;\n     in Magnesia bull-ritual, 21;\n     Kour\u00eas, 150;\n     Meilichios, 14-15;\n     origin and character of, 49 f.;\n     watchdog of, 93\n\n   Zodiac, 144\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes\n\n\nThe following corrections have been made to the text.\n\n     Page 99: if[original has is] he a governor, it is his function\n\n     Page 139: some more full-blooded and less critical\n     element[original has critica lelement]\n\n     Page 166: ('holy' and '[opening quote missing in\n     original]sacred', or perhaps more exactly 'lawful' and\n     '_tabu_')\n\n     Page 184: proceeds straight to the traditional[original has\n     traditiona]\n\n     Page 227: Antigonus Gonatas[original has Gonatus], [152:1]\n\n     Page 228: Chaldaeans[original has Chaldeans], 144, 151\n\n     Page 230: Kronos, 45[original has [43:2]]\n\n     Page 231: Mommsen, August, [14:1], [17:1],[comma missing in\n     original] [18:1]\n\n     Page 232: Pausanias, [27:3], [54:2], _passim_[original has\n     extraneous period]\n\n     Page 233: Plutarch, [27:3], [32:1], [34:2], [54:2],\n     _passim_[original has extraneous period]\n\n     Page 234: _Urdummheit_,[comma missing in original] 2, 44, 72\n\n     Footnote [16:2] A. B. Cook, _J. H. S._ xiv,[comma missing in\n     original] pp. 153-4\n\n     Footnote [28:1] \u1f39\u03ba\u03c4\u03b1\u1fd6\u03bf\u03c2[smooth breathing mark missing in\n     original] are common\n\n     Footnote [33:2] Rom. vi.[period missing in original]\n     generally, 3-11\n\n     Footnote [53:1] \u0391\u03b8\u03b7\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03b1[original has \u1f09\u03b8\u03b7\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03b1] is of course\n     simply 'Athenian'\n\n     Footnote [53:1] \u1f01 \u03dd[original has capital digamma--source\n     document has small digamma]\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1;--\u1f01 \u03b8\u03b9\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f01 \u0393\u03bf\u03bb\u03b3\u03af\u03b1\n\n     Footnote [90:1] see _Life_ in Diog.[original has Diorg.]\n     Laert.\n\n     Footnote [95:1] Diog.[original has Diorg.] Laert. vi. 96 ff.\n\n     Footnote [113:3] \u03c6\u03b5\u1fe6\u03b3\u03b5 \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f00\u03ba\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd[original has \u03ba\u1f00\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd]\n\n     Footnote [152:2] Ferguson's _Hellenistic Athens_, e. g.[period\n     missing in original] p. 108 f.\n\n     Footnote [164:3] Gal. iv.[period missing in original] 9\n\n     Footnote [197:1] Mullach, _Fragmenta Philosophorum_,\n     iii.[period missing in original] 7","title":"Five Stages of Greek Religion","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":72456}