CHAPTER IV.

So the foundations of his mind were laidIn such communion, not from terror free.While yet a child, and long before his time,Had he perceived the presence and the powerOf greatness; and deep feelings had impressedSo vividly great objects, that they layUpon his mind like substances, whose presencePerplexed the bodily sense.... In the after-dayOf boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags,He sat, and even in their fixed lineaments,Or from the power of a peculiar eye,Or by creative feeling overborne,Or by predominance of thought oppressed,Even in their fixed and steady lineamentsHe traced an ebbing and a flowing mind....Such was the Boy,--but for the growing Youth,What soul was his, when, from the naked topOf some bold headland, he beheld the sunRise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked:Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earthAnd ocean's liquid mass, in gladness layBeneath him; far and wide the clouds were touched.And in their silent faces could he readUnutterable love. Sound needed none,Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drankThe spectacle: sensation, soul, and formAll melted into him; they swallowed upHis animal being; in them did he live,And by them did he live; they were his life,In such access of mind, in such high hourOf visitation from the living God.125

So the foundations of his mind were laid

In such communion, not from terror free.

While yet a child, and long before his time,

Had he perceived the presence and the power

Of greatness; and deep feelings had impressed

So vividly great objects, that they lay

Upon his mind like substances, whose presence

Perplexed the bodily sense.

... In the after-day

Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,

And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags,

He sat, and even in their fixed lineaments,

Or from the power of a peculiar eye,

Or by creative feeling overborne,

Or by predominance of thought oppressed,

Even in their fixed and steady lineaments

He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind....

Such was the Boy,--but for the growing Youth,

What soul was his, when, from the naked top

Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun

Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked:

Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth

And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay

Beneath him; far and wide the clouds were touched.

And in their silent faces could he read

Unutterable love. Sound needed none,

Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank

The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form

All melted into him; they swallowed up

His animal being; in them did he live,

And by them did he live; they were his life,

In such access of mind, in such high hour

Of visitation from the living God.125

But it may be said this is all mere poetry; to which we answer, in the words of Aristotle, "Poetry is a thing more philosophical and weightier than history."126The true poet is the interpreter of nature. His soul is in the fullest sympathy with the grand ideas which nature symbolizes, and he "deciphers the universe as the autobiography of the Infinite Spirit." Spontaneous feeling is a kind of inspiration.

It is true that all minds may not be developed in precisely the same manner as Wordsworth's herdsman's, because the development of every individual mind is modified in some measure by exterior conditions. Men may contemplate nature from different points of view. Some may be impressed with one aspect of nature, some with another. But none will fail to recognize a mysteriouspresenceand invisiblepowerbeneath all the fleeting and changeful phenomena of the universe. "And sometimes there are moments of tenderness, of sorrow, and of vague mystery which bring the feeling of the Infinite Presence close to the human heart."127

Footnote 125:(return)"The Wanderer."

Footnote 126:(return)Poet, ch. ix.

Footnote 127:(return)Robertson.

Now we hold thatthis feeling and sentiment of the Divine--the supernatural--exists in every mind. It may be, it undoubtedly is, somewhat modified in its manifestations by the circumstances in which men are placed, and the degree of culture they have enjoyed. The African Fetichist, in his moral and intellectual debasement, conceives a supernatural power enshrined in every object of nature. The rude Fijian regards with dread, and even terror, the Being who darts the lightnings and wields the thunderbolts. The Indian "sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind." The Scottish "herdsman" on the lonelymountain-top "feels the presence and the power of greatness," and "in its fixed and steady lineaments he sees an ebbing and a flowing mind." The philosopher128lifts his eyes to "the starry heavens" in all the depth of their concave, and with all their constellations of glory moving on in solemn grandeur, and, to his mind, these immeasurable regions seem "filled with the splendors of the Deity, and crowded with the monuments of his power;" or he turns his eye to "the Moral Law within," and he hears the voice of an intelligent and a righteous God. In all these cases we have a revelation of the sentiment of the Divine, which dwells alike in all human minds. In the Athenians this sentiment was developed in a high degree. The serene heaven which Greece enjoyed, and which was the best-loved roof of its inhabitants, the brilliant sun, the mountain scenery of unsurpassed grandeur, the deep blue sea, an image of the infinite, these poured all their fullness on the Athenian mind, and furnished the most favorable conditions for the development of the religious sentiments. The people of Athens spent most of their time in the open air in communion with nature, and in the cheerful and temperate enjoyment of existence. To recognize the Deity in the living powers of nature, and especially in man, as the highest sensible manifestation of the Divine, was the peculiar prerogative of the Grecian mind. And here in Athens, art also vied with nature to deepen the religious sentiments. It raised the mind to ideal conceptions of a beauty and a sublimity which transcended all mere nature-forms, and by images, of supernatural grandeur and loveliness presented to the Athenians symbolic representations of the separate attributes and operations of the invisible God. The plastic art of Greece was designed to express religious ideas, and was consecrated by religious feeling. Thus the facts of the case are strikingly in harmony with the words of the Apostle: "All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in religion," your "reverence for the Deity," your "fear of God."129"The sacred objects" inAthens, and especially "the altar to the Unknown God," were all regarded by Paul as evidences of their instinctive faith in the invisible, the supernatural, the divine.

Footnote 128:(return)Kant, in "Critique of Practical Reason."

Footnote 129:(return)See Parkhurst's Lexicon, underΔεισιδαιµονία, which Suidas explains by εὐλάßεια περὶ τὸ θεῖον--reverence for the Divine, and Hesychius by Φυßυθέια--fear of God. Also, Josephus, Antiq., book x. ch. iii, § 2: "Manasseh, after his repentance and reformation, strove to behave himself (τῇ δεισιδαιµονία χρῆσθαί) in themost religious mannertowards God." Also see A. Clarke on Acts xvii.

Along with this sentiment of the Divine there is also associated, in all human minds, aninstinctive yearningafter the Invisible; not a mere feeling of curiosity to pierce the mystery of being and of life, but what Paul designates "a feeling after God," which prompts man to seek after a deeper knowledge, and a more immediate consciousness. To attain this deeper knowledge--this more conscious realization of the being and the presence of God, has been the effort of all philosophy and all religion in all ages. The Hindoo Yogis proposes to withdraw into his inmost self, and by a complete suspension of all his active powers to become absorbed and swallowed up in the Infinite.130Plato and his followers sought by an immediate abstraction to apprehend "the unchangeable and permanent Being," and, by a loving contemplation, to become "assimilated to the Deity," and in this way to attain the immediate consciousness of God. The Neo-Platonic mystic sought by asceticism and self-mortification to prepare himself for divine communings. He would contemplate the divine perfections in himself; and in anecstaticstate, wherein all individuality vanishes, he would realize a union, or identity, with the Divine Essence.131While the universal Church of God, indeed, has in her purest days always taught that man may, by inward purity and a believing love, be rendered capable of spiritually apprehending, and consciously feeling, the presence of God. Some may be disposed to pronounce this as all mere mysticism. We answer, The living internal energy of religion is alwaysmystical, it is grounded infeeling--a "sensus numinis" common to humanity. It is the mysterioussentiment of the Divine; it is the prolepsis of the human spirit reaching out towards the Infinite; the living susceptibility of our spiritual nature stretching after the powers and influences of the higher world. It is upon this inner instinct of the supernatural that all religion rests. I do not say every religious idea, but whatever is positive, practical, powerful, durable, and popular. Everywhere, in all climates, in all epochs of history, and in all degrees of civilization, man is animated by the sentiment--I would rather say, the presentiment--that the world in which he lives, the order of things in the midst of which he moves, the facts which regularly and constantly succeed each other, are notall. In vain he daily makes discoveries and conquests in this vast universe; in vain he observes and learnedly verifies the general laws which govern it;his thought is not inclosed in the world surrendered to his science; the spectacle of it does not suffice his soul, it is raised beyond it; it searches after and catches glimpses of something beyond it; it aspires higher both for the universe and itself; it aims at another destiny, another master.

Footnote 130:(return)Vaughan, "Hours with the Mystics," vol. i. p. 44.

Footnote 131:(return)Id. ib., vol. i. p. 65.

"'Par delà tous ces cieux le Dieu des cieux réside.'"132

So Voltaire has said, and the God who is beyond the skies is not nature personified, but a supernatural Personality. It is to this highest Personality that all religions address themselves. It is to bring man into communion with Him that they exist.133

Footnote 132:(return)"Beyond all these heavens the God of the heavens resides."

Footnote 133:(return)Guizot, "L'Eglise et la Societé Chretiennes" en 1861.

4. The Athenians had that deep consciousness of sin and guilt, and of consequent liability to punishment, which confesses the need of expiation by piacular sacrifices.

Every man feels himself to be an accountable being, and he is conscious that in wrong-doing he is deserving of blame and of punishment. Deep within the soul of the transgressor is the consciousness that he is a guilty man, and he is haunted with the perpetual apprehension of a retribution which, like the spectre of evil omen, crosses his every path, and meets him at every turn.

"Tis guilt alone,Like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish mode,Fills the light air with visionary terrors,And shapeless forms of fear."

"Tis guilt alone,

Like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish mode,

Fills the light air with visionary terrors,

And shapeless forms of fear."

Man does not possess this consciousness of guilt so much as it holds possession of him. It pursues the fugitive from justice, and it lays hold on the man who has resisted or escaped the hand of the executioner. The sense of guilt is a power over and above man; a power so wonderful that it often compels the most reckless criminal to deliver himself up, with the confession of his deed, to the sword of justice, when a falsehood would have easily protected him. Man is only able by persevering, ever-repeated efforts at self-induration, against the remonstrances of conscience, to withdraw himself from its power. His success is, however, but very partial; for sometimes, in the moments of his greatest security, the reproaches of conscience break in upon him like a flood, and sweep away all his refuge of lies. "The evil conscience is the divine bond which binds the created spirit, even in deep apostasy, to its Original. In the consciousness of guilt there is revealed the essential relation of our spirit to God, although misunderstood by man until he has something higher than his evil conscience. The trouble and anguish which the remonstrances of this consciousness excite--the inward unrest which sometimes seizes the slave of sin--are proofs that he has not quite broken away from God."134

Footnote 134:(return)Müller, "Christian Doctrine of Sin," vol. i. pp. 225, 226.

In Grecian mythology there was a very distinct recognition of the power of conscience, and a reference of its authority to the Divinity, together with the idea of retribution. Nemesis was regarded as the impersonation of the upbraidings of conscience, of the natural dread of punishment that springs up in the human heart after the commission of sin. And as the feeling of remorse may be considered as the consequence of the displeasure and vengeance of an offended God, Nemesis came to be regarded as the goddess of retribution, relentlessly pursuing the guilty until she has driven them into irretrievablewoe and ruin. The Erinyes or Eumenides are the deities whose business it is to punish, in hades, the crimes committed upon earth. When an aggravated crime has excited their displeasure they manifest their greatest power in the disquietude of conscience.

Along with this deep consciousness of guilt, and this fear of retribution which haunts the guilty mind, there has also rested upon the heart of universal humanity a deep and abiding conviction thatsomething must be done to expiate the guilt of sin--some restitution must be made, some suffering must be endured,135some sacrifice offered to atone for past misdeeds. Hence it is that men in all ages have had recourse to penances and prayers, to self-inflicted tortures and costly sacrifices to appease a righteous anger which their sins had excited, and avert an impending punishment. That sacrifice to atone for sin has prevailed universally--that it has been practised "sem-per, ubique, et ab omnibus," always, in all places, and by all men--will not be denied by the candid and competent inquirer. The evidence which has been collected from ancient history by Grotius and Magee, and the additional evidence from contemporaneous history, which is being now furnished by the researches of ethnologists and Christian missionaries, is conclusive. No intelligent man can doubt the fact. Sacrificial offerings have prevailed in every nation and in every age. "Almost the entire worship of the pagan nations consisted in rites of deprecation. Fear of the Divine displeasure seems to have been the leading feature of their religious impressions; and in the diversity, the costliness, the cruelty of their sacrifices theysought to appease gods to whose wrath they felt themselves exposed, from a consciousness of sin, unrelieved by any information as to the means of escaping its effects."136

Footnote 135:(return)Punishment is the penalty due to sin; or, to use the favorite expression of Homer, not unusual in the Scriptures also, it is the payment of a debt incurred by sin. When he is punished, the criminal is said to pay off or pay back (άποτίνειν) his crimes; in other words, to expiate or atone for them (Iliad, iv. 161,162),σύν τε µεγάλω ἀπέτισανσίν σφῇσιν κεφαλῇσι γυναιξί τε καὶ τεκέεσσιν,that is, they shall pay off, pay back, atone, etc., for their treachery with a great price, with their lives, and their wives and children.--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 194.

σύν τε µεγάλω ἀπέτισανσίν σφῇσιν κεφαλῇσι γυναιξί τε καὶ τεκέεσσιν,

σύν τε µεγάλω ἀπέτισαν

σίν σφῇσιν κεφαλῇσι γυναιξί τε καὶ τεκέεσσιν,

that is, they shall pay off, pay back, atone, etc., for their treachery with a great price, with their lives, and their wives and children.--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 194.

Footnote 136:(return)Magee, "On the Atonement," No. V. p. 30.

It must be known to every one at all acquainted with Greek mythology that the idea ofexpiation--atonement--was a fundamental idea of their religion. Independent of any historical research, a very slight glance at the Greek and Roman classics, especially the poets, who were the theologians of that age, can leave little doubt upon this head.137Their language everywhere announces the notion ofpropitiation, and, particularly the Latin, furnishes the terms which are still employed in theology. We need only mention the words ἱλασµός, ἱλάσκοµαι, λύτρον, περίψηµα, as examples from the Greek, andplacare, propitiare, expiare, piaculum, from the Latin. All these indicate that the notion of expiation was interwoven into the very modes of thought and framework of the language of the ancient Greeks.

Footnote 137:(return)In Homer the doctrine is expressly taught that the gods may, and sometimes do, remit the penalty, when duly propitiated by prayers and sacrifices accompanied by suitable reparations ("Iliad," ix. 497 sqq.). "We have a practical illustration of this doctrine in the first book of the Iliad, where Apollo averts the pestilence from the army, when the daughter of his priest is returned without ransom, and asacrifice(ἑλατόµßη) is sent to the altar of the god at sacred Chrysa.... Apollo hearkens to the intercession of his priest, accepts the sacred hecatomb, is delighted with the accompanying songs and libations, and sends back the embassy with a favoring breeze, and a favorable answer to the army, who meanwhile had beenpurifying(ἀπελυµαίνοντο) themselves, and offering unblemished hecatombs of bulls and goats on the shore of the sea which washes the place of their encampment.""The object of the propitiatory embassy to Apollo is thus stated by Ulysses: Agamemnon, king of men, has sent me to bring back thy daughter Chryses, and to offer a sacred hecatomb for (ὑπέρ) the Greeks, that we maypropitiate(ιλασόµεσθα) the king, who now sends woes and many groans upon the Argives" (442 sqq.).--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 196, 197.

"The object of the propitiatory embassy to Apollo is thus stated by Ulysses: Agamemnon, king of men, has sent me to bring back thy daughter Chryses, and to offer a sacred hecatomb for (ὑπέρ) the Greeks, that we maypropitiate(ιλασόµεσθα) the king, who now sends woes and many groans upon the Argives" (442 sqq.).--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 196, 197.

We do not deem it needful to discuss at length the question which has been so earnestly debated among theologians, as to whether the idea of expiation be a primitive and necessary idea of the human mind, or whether the practice of piacular sacrifices came into the post-diluvian world with Noah, as apositive institution of a primitive religion then first directly instituted by God. On either hypothesis the practice of expiatory rites derives its authority from God; in the latter case, by an outward and verbal revelation, in the former by an inward and intuitive revelation.

This much, however, must be conceded on all hands, that there are certain fundamental intuitions, universal and necessary, which underlie the almost universal practice of expiatory sacrifice, namely,the universal consciousness of guilt, and the universal conviction that something must be done to expiate guilt, to compensate for wrong, and to atone for past misdeeds. Buthowthat expiation can be effected, how that atonement can be made, is a question which reason does not seem competent to answer. That personal sin can be atoned for by vicarious suffering, that national guilt can be expiated and national punishment averted by animal sacrifices, or even by human sacrifices, is repugnant to rather than conformable with natural reason. There exists no discernible connection between the one and the other. We may suppose that eucharistic, penitential, and even deprecatory sacrifices may have originated in the light of nature and reason, but we are unable to account for the practice of piacular sacrifices for substitutional atonement, on the same principle. The ethical principle, that one's own sins are not transferable either in their guilt or punishment, is so obviously just that we feel it must have been as clear to the mind of the Greek who brought his victim to be offered to Zeus, as it is to the philosophic mind of to-day.138The knowledge that the Divine displeasure can be averted by sacrifice is not, by Plato, grounded upon any intuition of reason, as is the existence of God, the idea of the true, the just, and good, but on "tradition,"139and the "interpretations" of Apollo. "To the Delphian Apollo there remains the greatest, noblest, and most important of legal institutions--the erection of temples, sacrifices,and other services to the gods,... and what other services should be gone through with a view to theirpropitiation. Such things as these, indeed,we neither know ourselves, nor in founding the State would we intrust them to others, if we be wise;... the god of the country is the natural interpreter to all men about such matters."140

Footnote 138:(return)"He that hath done the deed, to suffer for it--thus cries a proverb thrice hallowed by age."--Æschylus, "Choëph," 311.

Footnote 139:(return)"Laws," book vi. ch. xv.

Footnote 140:(return)"Republic," book iv. ch. v.

The origin of expiatory sacrifices can not, we think, be explained except on the principle of a primitive revelation and a positive appointment of God. They can not be understood except as a divinely-appointed symbolism, in which there is exhibited a confession of personal guilt and desert of punishment; an intimation and a hope that God will be propitious and merciful; and a typical promise and prophecy of a future Redeemer from sin, who shall "put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." This sacred rite was instituted in connection with theprotevangeliumgiven to our first parents; it was diffused among the nations by tradition, and has been kept alive as a general, and, indeed, almost universal observance, by that deep sense of sin, and consciousness of guilt, and personal urgency of the need of a reconciliation, which are so clearly displayed in Grecian mythology.

The legitimate inference we find ourselves entitled to draw from the words of Paul, when fairly interpreted in the light of the past religious history of the world, is, that the Athenians were a religious people; that is,they were, however unknowing, believers in and worshippers of the One Supreme God.

"That there is one Supreme Deity, both philosophers and poets, and even the vulgar worshippers of the gods themselves frequently acknowledge; which because the assertors of gods well understood, they affirm these gods of theirs to preside over the several parts of the world, yet so that there is only one chief governor. Whence it follows, that all their other gods can be no other than ministers and officers which one greatest God, who is omnipotent, hath variously appointed, and constituted so as to serve his command." --LACTANTIUS.

The conclusion reached in the previous chapter that the Athenians were believers in and worshippers of the One Supreme God, has been challenged with some considerable show of reason and force, on the ground that they werePolytheistsandIdolaters.

An objection which presents itself so immediately on the very face of the sacred narrative, and which is sustained by the unanimous voice of history, is entitled to the fullest consideration. And as the interests of truth are infinitely more precious than the maintenance of any theory, however plausible, we are constrained to accord to this objection the fullest weight, and give to it the most impartial consideration. We can not do otherwise than at once admit that the Athenians werePolytheists--they worshipped "many gods" besides "the unknown God." It is equally true that they wereIdolaters--they worshipped images or statues of the gods, which images were also, by an easy metonymy, called "gods."

But surely no one supposes that this is all that can be said upon the subject, and that, after such admissions, the discussion must be closed. On the contrary, we have, as yet, scarce caught a glimpse of the real character and genius of Grecianpolytheistic worship, and we have not made the first approach towards a philosophy of Grecian mythology.

The assumption that the heathen regarded the images "graven by art and device of man" as the real creators of the world and man, or as having any control over the destinies of men, sinks at once under the weight of its own absurdity. Such hypothesis is repudiated with scorn and indignation by the heathens themselves. Cotta, inCicero, declares explicitly: "though it be common and familiar language amongst us to call corn Ceres, and wine Bacchus, yet who can think any one so mad as to take that to be really a god that he feeds upon?"141AndPlutarchcondemns the whole practice of giving the names of gods and goddesses to inanimate objects, as absurd, impious, and atheistical: "they who give the names of gods to senseless matter and inanimate things, and such as are destroyed by men in the using, beget most wicked and atheistical opinions in the minds of men, since it can not be conceived how these things should be gods, for nothing that is inanimate is a god."142And so also the Hindoo, the Buddhist, the American Indian, the Fijian of to-day, repel the notion that their visible images are real gods, or that they worship them instead of the unseen God.

Footnote 141:(return)Cudworth's "Intell. System," vol. ii. p. 257, Eng. ed.

Footnote 142:(return)Quoted in Cudworth's "Intell. System," vol. ii. p. 258, Eng. ed.

And furthermore, that even the invisible divinities which these images were designed to represent, were each independent, self-existent beings, and that the stories which are told concerning them by Homer and Hesiod were received in a literal sense, is equally improbable. The earliest philosophers knew as well as we know, that the Deity, in order to be Deity, must be eitherperfector nothing--that he must beone, not many--without parts and passions; and they were scandalized and shocked by the religious fables of the ancient mythology as much as we are.Xenophanes, who lived, as we know, before Pythagoras, accuses Homer and Hesiod of having ascribed to the gods every thing that is disgraceful amongst men, as stealing, adultery, and deceit. He remarks "that men seem to havecreated their gods, and to have given them their own mind, and voice, and figure." He himself declares that "God isone,the greatest amongst gods and men, neither in form nor in thought like unto men." He calls the battles of the Titans and the Giants, and the Centaurs, "the inventions of former generations," and he demands that God shall be praised in holy songs and nobler strains.143Diogenes Laertius relates the following ofPythagoras, "that when he descended to the shades below, he saw the soul of Hesiod bound to a pillar of brass and gnashing his teeth; and that of Homer, as suspended on a tree, and surrounded by serpents; as a punishment for the things they had said of the gods."144These poets, who had corrupted theology,Platoproposes to exclude from his ideal Republic; or if permitted at all, they must be subjected to a rigid expurgation. "We shall," says he, "have to repudiate a large part of those fables which are now in vogue; and, especially, of what I call the greater fables,--the stories which Hesiod and Homer tell us. In these stories there is a fault which deserves the gravest condemnation; namely, when an author gives abad representation of gods and heroes. We must condemn such a poet, as we should condemn a painter, whose pictures bear no resemblance to the objects which he tries to imitate. For instance, the poet Hesiod related an ugly story when he told how Uranus acted, and how Kronos had his revenge upon him. They are offensive stories, and must not be repeated in our cities. Not yet is it proper to say, in any case,--what is indeed untrue--that gods wage war against gods, and intrigue and fight among themselves. Stories like the chaining of Juno by her son Vulcan, and the flinging of Vulcan out of heaven for trying to take his mother's part when his father was beating her, and all other battles of the gods which are found in Homer, must be refused admission into our state,whether they are allegorical or not. For a child can not discriminate between what is allegorical and what is not; and whatever is adopted, as amatter of belief, in childhood, has a tendency to become fixed and indelible; and therefore we ought to esteem it as of the greatest importance that the fables which children first hear should be adapted, as far as possible, to promote virtue."145

Footnote 143:(return)Max Muller, "Science of Language," pp. 405, 406.

Footnote 144:(return)"Lives," bk. viii. ch. xix. p. 347.

Footnote 145:(return)"Republic," bk. ii. ch. xvii.

If, then, poetic and allegorical representations of divine things are to be permitted in the ideal republic, then the founders of the state are to prescribe "the moulds in which the poets are to cast their fictions."

"Now what are these moulds to be in the case ofTheology?They may be described as follows: It is right always to represent God as he really is, whether the poet describe him in an epic, or a lyric, or a dramatic poem. Now God is, beyond all else,good in reality, and therefore so to be represented. But nothing that is good is hurtful. That which is good hurts not; does no evil; is the cause of no evil. That which is good is beneficial; is the cause of good. And, therefore, that which is good is not the cause ofallwhich is and happens, but only of that which is as it should be.... The good things we must ascribe to God, whilst we must seek elsewhere, and not in him, the causes of evil things."

We must, then, express our disapprobation of Homer, or any other poet, who is guilty of such a foolish blunder as to tell us (Iliad, xxiv. 660) that:

'Fast by the threshold of Jove's court are placedTwo casks--one stored with evil, one with good:'placed

'Fast by the threshold of Jove's court are placed

Two casks--one stored with evil, one with good:'placed

and that he for whom the Thunderer mingles both--

'He leads a life checkered with good and ill.'

But as for the man to whom he gives the bitter cup unmixed--

'He walksThe blessed earth unbless'd, go where he will.'

'He walks

The blessed earth unbless'd, go where he will.'

And if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties by the act of Pandarus was brought about by Athené and Zeus (Iliad, ii. 60), we should refuse our approbation. Nor can we allow it to be said that the strife and trial of strength betweenthe gods (Iliad, xx.) was instigated by Themis and Zeus.... Such language can not be used without irreverence; it is both injurious to us, and contradictory in itself.146

Inasmuch as God is perfect to the utmost in beauty and goodness,he abides ever the same, and without any variation in his form. Then let no poet tell us that (Odyss. xvii. 582)

'In similitude of strangers oftThe Gods, who can with ease all shapes assume,Repair to populous cities.'

'In similitude of strangers oft

The Gods, who can with ease all shapes assume,

Repair to populous cities.'

And let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, or introduce in tragedies, or any other poems, Hera transformed into the guise of a princess collecting

'Alms for the life-giving children of Inachus, river of Argos,'

not to mention many other falsehoods which we must interdict.147

"When a poet holds such language concerning the gods, we shall be angry with him, and refuse him a chorus. Neither shall we allow our teachers to use his writings for the instruction of the young, if we would have our guards grow up to be as god-like and god-fearing as it is possible for men to be."148

We are thus constrained by the statements of the heathens themselves, as well as by the dictates of common sense, to look beyond the external drapery and the material forms of Polytheism for some deeper and truer meaning that shall be more in harmony with the facts of the universal religious consciousness of our race. The religion of ancient Greece consisted in something more than the fables of Jupiter and Juno, of Apollo and Minerva, of Venus and Bacchus. "Through the rank and poisonous vegetation of mythic phraseology, we may always catch a glimpse of an original stem round which it creeps and winds itself, and without which it can not enjoy that parasitical existence which has been mistaken for independent vitality."149

Footnote 146:(return)"Republic," bk. ii. ch. xix.

Footnote 147:(return)"Republic," bk. ii. ch. xx. Much more to the same effect may be seen in ch. ii.

Footnote 148:(return)"Republic," bk. ii. ch. xxi.

Footnote 149:(return)Max Müller, "Science of Language," 2d series, p. 433.

It is an obvious truth, attested by the voice of universal consciousness as revealed in history, that the human mind can never rest satisfied within the sphere of sensible phenomena. Man is impelled by an inward necessity to pass, in thought, beyond the boundary-line of sense, and inquire after causes and entities which his reason assures him must lie beneath all sensible appearances. He must and will interpret nature according to the forms of his own personality, or according to the fundamental ideas of his own reason. In the childlike subjectivity of the undisciplined mind he will either transfer to nature the phenomena of his own personality, regarding the world as a living organism which has within it an informing soul, and thus attain apantheisticconception of the universe; or else he will fix upon some extraordinary and inexplicable phenomenon of nature, and, investing it withsupernatural significance, will rise from thence to a religious andtheocraticconception of nature as a whole. An intelligence--a mindwithinnature, and inseparable from nature, or elseabovenature and governing nature, is, for man, an inevitable thought.

It is equally obvious that humanity can never relegate itself from a supernatural origin, neither can it ever absolve itself from a permanent correlation with the Divine. Man feels within him an instinctive nobility. He did not arise out of the bosom of nature; in some mysterious way he has descended from an eternal mind, he is "the offspring of God." And furthermore, a theocratic conception of nature, associated with a pre-eminent regard for certain apparently supernatural experiences in the history of humanity, becomes the foundation of governments, of civil authority, and of laws. Society can not be founded without the aid of the Deity, and a commonwealth can only be organized by Divine interposition. "A Ceres must appear and sow the fields with corn." And a Numa or a Lycurgus must be heralded by the oracle as

"Dear to Jove, and all who sit in the halls of the Olympus."

He must be a "descendant of Zeus," appointed by the godsto rule, and one who will "prove himself a god." These divinely-appointed rulers were regarded as the ministers of God, the visible representatives of the unseen Power which really governs all. The divine government must also have its invisible agents--its Nemesis, and Themis, and Diké, the ministers of law, of justice, and of retribution; and its Jupiter, and Juno, and Neptune, and Pluto, ruling, with delegated powers, in the heavens, the air, the sea, and the nethermost regions. So that, in fact, there exists no nation, no commonwealth, no history without a Theophany, and along with it certain sacred legends detailing the origin of the people, the government, the country itself, and the world at large. This is especially true of India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Their primitive history is eminentlymythological.

Grecian polytheism can not be otherwise regarded than as a poetico-historical religion ofmythandsymbolwhich is under-laid by a natural Theism; a parasitical growth which winds itself around the original stem of instinctive faith in a supernatural Power and Presence which pervades the universe. The myths are oral traditions, floating down from that dim; twilight ofpoetichistory, which separates real history, with its fixed chronology, from the unmeasured and unrecorded eternity--faint echoes from that mystic border-land which divides the natural from the supernatural, and in which they seem to have been marvellously commingled. They are the lingering memories of those manifestations of God to men, in which he or his celestial ministers came into visible intercourse with our race; the reality of which is attested by sacred history. In all these myths there is a theogonic and cosmogonic element. They tell of the generation of the celestial and aërial divinities--the subordinate agents and ministers of the Divine government. They attempt an explanation of the genesis of the visible universe, the origin of humanity, and the development of human society. In the presence of history, the substance of these myths is preserved bysymbols, that is, by means of natural or artificial, real or striking objects, which, by some analogyor arbitrary association, shall suggest theideato the mind. These symbols were designed to represent the invisible attributes and operations of the Deity; the powers that vitalize nature, that control the elements, that preside over cities, that protect the nations: indeed, all the agencies of the physical and moral government of God. Beneath all the pagan legends of gods, and underlying all the elaborate mechanism of pagan worship, there are unquestionably philosophical ideas, and theological conceptions, and religious sentiments, which give as meaning, and even a mournful grandeur to the whole.

Whilst the pagan polytheistic worship is, under one aspect, to be regarded as a departure from God, inasmuch as it takes away the honor due to God alone, and transfers it to the creature; still, under another aspect, we can not fail to recognize in it the effort of the human mind to fill up the chasm that seemed, to the undisciplined mind, to separate God and man--and to bridge the gulf between the visible and the invisible, the finite and the infinite. It was unquestionably an attempt to bring God nearer to the sense and comprehension of man. It had its origin in that instinctive yearning after the supernatural, the Divine, which dwells in all human hearts, and which has revealed itself in all philosophies, mysticisms, and religions.150This longing was stimulated by the contemplation of the living beauty and grandeur of the visible universe, which, to the lively fancy and deep feeling of the Greeks, seemed as the living vesture of the Infinite Mind,--the temple of the eternal Deity. In this visible universe the Divinity was partly revealed, and partly concealed. The unity of the all-pervading Intelligence was veiled beneath an apparent diversity of power, and a manifoldness of operations. They caught some glimpses of this universal presence in nature, but were more immediately and vividly impressed by the several manifestations of the divine perfections and divine operations, as so many separate rays of the Divinity, or so many subordinate agents andfunctionaries employed to execute the will and carry out the purposes of the Supreme Mind.151That unseen, incomprehensible Power and Presence was perceived in the sublimity of the deep blue sky, the energy of the vitalizing sun, the surging of the sea, the rushing wind, the roaring thunder, the ripening corn, and the clustering vine. To these separate manifestations of the Deity they gavepersonal names, as Jupiter to the heavens, Juno to the air, Neptune to the sea, Ceres to the corn, and Bacchus to the vine. These personals denoted, not the things themselves, but the invisible, divine powers supposed to preside over those several departments of nature. By a kind of prosopopœia "they spake of the things in nature, and parts of the world, as persons--and consequently as so many gods and goddesses--yet so as the intelligent might easily understand their meaning,that these were in reality nothing else but so many names and notions of that one Numen,--divine force and power which runs through all the world, multiformly displaying itself."152"Their various deities were but different names, different conceptions, of that Incomprehensible Being which nothoughtcan reach, and nolanguageexpress."153Having given to these several manifestations of the Divinity personal names, they now sought to represent them to the eye of sense byvisible forms, as the symbols or images of the perfections of the unseen, the incomprehensible, the unknown God. And as the Greeks regarded man as the first and noblest among the phenomena of nature, they selected the human form as the highest sensible manifestation of God, the purest symbol of the Divinity. Grecianpolytheism was thus a species ofmythical anthropomorphism.

Footnote 150:(return)The original constitution of man is such that he "seeks after" God Acts xvii. 27. "All men yearn after the gods" (Homer, "Odyss." iii. 48).

Footnote 151:(return)"Heathenism springs directly from this, that the mind lays undue stress upon the bare letter in the book of creation; that it separates and individualizes its objects as far as possible; that it places the sense of the individual part, in opposition to the sense of the whole,--to theanalogia fideiorspirituswhich alone gives unity to the book of nature, while it dilutes and renders as transitory as possible the sense of the universal in the whole.... And as it laid great stress upon the letter in the book of nature, it fell into polytheism. The particular symbol of the divine, or of the Godhead, became a myth of some special deity."--Lange's "Bible-work," Genesis, p. 23.

Footnote 152:(return)Cudworth, "Intellect. System," vol. i. p. 308.

Footnote 153:(return)Max Müller, "Science of Language," p. 431.

A philosophy of Grecian mythology, such as we have outlined in the preceding paragraphs, is, in our judgment, perfectly consistent with the views announced by Paul in his address to the Athenians. He intimates that the Athenians "thought that the Godhead waslike unto(ἐ ναι ὄµοιον)--to be imaged or represented by human art--by gold, and silver, and precious stone graven by art, and device of man;" that is, they thought the perfections of God could be represented to the eye by an image, or symbol. The views of Paul are still more articulately expressed in Romans, i. 23, 25: "They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into thesimilitude of an imageof corruptible man,.... and they worshipped and served the thing made, παρά--ratherthan, ormorethan the Creator." Here, then, the apostle intimates, first, that the heathenknewGod,154and that they worshipped God. They worshipped the creature besides or even more than God, but still they also worshipped God. And, secondly, they represented the perfections of God by an image, and under this, as a "likeness" or symbol, they indirectly worshipped God. Their religious system was, then, even to the eye of Paul, asymbolicworship--that is, the objects of their devotion were theὁµοιώµατα--the similitudes, the likenesses, the images of the perfections of the invisible God.

Footnote 154:(return)Verse 21.

It is at once conceded by us, that the "sensus numinis," the natural intuition of a Supreme Mind, whose power and presence are revealed in nature, can not maintain itself, as an influential, and vivifying, and regulative belief amongst men, without the continual supernatural interposition of God; that is, without a succession of Divine revelations. And further, we grant that, instead of this symbolic mode of worship deepening and vitalizing the sense of God as a living power and presence, there is great danger that the symbol shall at length unconsciously take the place of God, and be worshipped instead of Him. From the purest form of symbolism which prevailed inthe earliest ages, there may be an inevitable descent to the rudest form of false worship, with its accompanying darkness, and abominations, and crimes; but, at the same time, let us do justice to the religions of the ancient world--the childhood stammerings of religious life--which were something more than the inventions of designing men, or the mere creations of human fancy; they were, in the words of Paul, "aseeking after God, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, who is not far from any one of us." It can not be denied that the more thoughtful and intelligent Greeks regarded the visible objects of their devotion as mere symbols of the perfections and operations of the unseen God, and of the invisible powers and subordinate agencies which are employed by him in his providential and moral government of the world. And whatever there was of misapprehension and of "ignorance" in the popular mind, we have the assurance of Paul that it was "overlooked" by God.

The views here presented will, we venture to believe, be found most in harmony with a true philosophy of the human mind; with the religious phenomena of the world; and, as we shall subsequently see, with the writings of those poets and philosophers who may be fairly regarded as representing the sentiments and opinions of the ancient world. At the same time, we have no desire to conceal the fact that this whole question as to the origin, and character, and philosophy of the mythology and symbolism of the religions of the ancient world has been a subject of earnest controversy from Patristic times down to the present hour, and that even to-day there exists a wide diversity of opinion among philosophers, as well as theologians.

The principal theories offered may be classed as theethical, thephysical, and thehistorical, according to the different objects the framers of the myths are supposed to have had in view. Some have regarded the myths as invented by the priests and wise men of old for the improvement and government of society,as designed to give authority to laws, and maintain social order.155Others have regarded them as intended to be allegorical interpretations of physical phenomena--the poetic embodiment of the natural philosophy of the primitive races of men;156whilst others have looked upon them as historical legends, having a substratum of fact, and, when stripped of the supernatural and miraculous drapery which accompanies fable, as containing the history of primitive times.157Some of the latter class have imagined they could recognize in Grecian mythology traces of sacred personages, as well as profane; in fact, a dimmed image of the patriarchal traditions which are preserved in the Old Testament scriptures.158

It is beyond our design to discuss all the various theories presented, or even to give a history of opinions entertained.159We are fully convinced that the hypothesis we have presented in the preceding pages, viz.,that Grecian mythology was a grand symbolic representation of the Divine as manifested in nature and providence, is the only hypothesis which meets and harmonizes all the facts of the case. This is the theory of Plato, of Cudworth, Baumgarten, Max Müller, and many other distinguished scholars.

Footnote 155:(return)Empedocles, Metrodorus.

Footnote 156:(return)Aristotle.

Footnote 157:(return)Hecatæus, Herodotus, some of the early Fathers, Niebuhr, J.H. Voss, Arnold.

Footnote 158:(return)Bochart, G.J. Vossius, Faber, Gladstone.

Footnote 159:(return)To the English reader who desires an extended and accurate acquaintance with the classic and patristic literature of this deeply interesting subject, we commend the careful study of Cudworth's "Intellectual System of the Universe," especially ch. iv. The style of Cudworth is perplexingly involved, and his great work is unmethodical in its arrangement and discussion. Nevertheless, the patient and persevering student will be amply rewarded for his pains. A work of more profound research into the doctrine of antiquity concerning God, and into the real import of the religious systems of the ancient world, is, probably, not extant in any language.

There are two fundamental propositions laid down by Cudworth which constitute the basis of this hypothesis.

1.No well-authenticated instance can be furnished from among the Greek Polytheists of one who taught the existence of a multiplicity of independenty uncreated, self-existent deities; they almost universallybelieved in the existence ofONE SUPREME, UNCREATED, ETERNAL GOD, "The Maker of all things"--"the Father of gods and men," --"the sole Monarch and Ruler of the world."

2.The Greek Polytheists taught a plurality of"GENERATED DEITIES,"who owe their existence to the power and will of the Supreme God, who are by Him invested with delegated powers, and who, as the agents of his universal providence, preside over different departments of the created universe.

The evidence presented by Cudworth in support of his theses is so varied and so voluminous, that it defies all attempts at condensation. His volumes exhibit an extent of reading, of patient research, and of varied learning, which is truly amazing. The discussion of these propositions involves, in fact, nothing less than a complete and exhaustive survey of the entire field of ancient literature, a careful study of the Greek and Latin poets, of the Oriental, Greek, and Alexandrian philosophers, and a review of the statements and criticisms of Rabbinical and Patristic writers in regard to the religions of the pagan world. An adequate conception of the varied and weighty evidence which is collected by our author from these fields, in support of his views, could only be conveyed by transcribing to our pages the larger portion of his memorablefourthchapter. But inasmuch as Grecian polytheism is, in fact, the culmination of all the mythological systems of the ancient world, the fully-developed flower and ripened fruit of the cosmical and theological conceptions of the childhood-condition of humanity, we propose to epitomize the results of his inquiry as to thetheological, opinions of the Greeks, supplying additional confirmation of his views from other sources.

And first, he proves most conclusively that Orpheus, Homer, and Hesiod,160who are usually designated "the theologians"of Greece, but who were in fact the depravers and corrupters of pagan theology, do not teach the existence of a multitude ofunmade, self-existent, and independent deities. Even they believed in the existence ofoneuncreated and eternal mind,one Supreme God, anterior and superior to all the gods of their mythology. They had some intuition, some apperception of theDivine, even before they had attached to it a sacred name. The gods of their mythology had all, save one, a temporal origin; they were generated of Chaos and Night, by an active principle calledLove. "One might suspect," says Aristotle, that Hesiod, and if there be any other who madeloveordesirea principle of things, aimed at these very things (viz., the designation of the efficient cause of the world); for Parmenides, describing the generation of the universe, says:

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