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28 chapters
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
Anyone who has been in Greece at Easter time, especially among the more remote peasants, must have been struck by the emotion of suspense and excitement with which they wait for the announcement " Christos anestê ," "Christ is risen!" and the response " Alêthôs anestê ," "He has really risen!" I have referred elsewhere to Mr. Lawson's old peasant woman, who explained her anxiety: "If Christ does not rise tomorrow we shall have no harvest this year" ( Modern Greek Folklore , p. 573). We are evide
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
In revising the Four Stages of Greek Religion I have found myself obliged to change its name. I felt there was a gap in the story. The high-water mark of Greek religious thought seems to me to have come just between the Olympian Religion and the Failure of Nerve; and the decline—if that is the right word—which is observable in the later ages of antiquity is a decline not from Olympianism but from the great spiritual and intellectual effort of the fourth century b.c. , which culminated in the Met
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SATURNIA REGNA
SATURNIA REGNA
Many persons who are quite prepared to admit the importance to the world of Greek poetry, Greek art, and Greek philosophy, may still feel it rather a paradox to be told that Greek religion specially repays our study at the present day. Greek religion, associated with a romantic, trivial, and not very edifying mythology, has generally seemed one of the weakest spots in the armour of those giants of the old world. Yet I will venture to make for Greek religion almost as great a claim as for the tho
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THE OLYMPIAN CONQUEST
THE OLYMPIAN CONQUEST
The historian of early Greece must find himself often on the watch for a particular cardinal moment, generally impossible to date in time and sometimes hard even to define in terms of development, when the clear outline that we call Classical Greece begins to take shape out of the mist. It is the moment when, as Herodotus puts it, 'the Hellenic race was marked off from the barbarian, as more intelligent and more emancipated from silly nonsense'. [39:1] In the eighth century b. c. , for instance,
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THE GREAT SCHOOLS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY, B. C.
THE GREAT SCHOOLS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY, B. C.
There is a passage in Xenophon describing how, one summer night, in 405 b. c. , people in Athens heard a cry of wailing, an oimôgê , making its way up between the long walls from the Piraeus, and coming nearer and nearer as they listened. It was the news of the final disaster of Kynoskephalai, brought at midnight to the Piraeus by the galley Paralos. 'And that night no one slept. They wept for the dead, but far more bitterly for themselves, when they reflected what things they had done to the pe
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THE FAILURE OF NERVE
THE FAILURE OF NERVE
Any one who turns from the great writers of classical Athens, say Sophocles or Aristotle, to those of the Christian era must be conscious of a great difference in tone. There is a change in the whole relation of the writer to the world about him. The new quality is not specifically Christian: it is just as marked in the Gnostics and Mithras-worshippers as in the Gospels and the Apocalypse, in Julian and Plotinus as in Gregory and Jerome. It is hard to describe. It is a rise of asceticism, of mys
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THE LAST PROTEST
THE LAST PROTEST
In the last essay we have followed Greek popular religion to the very threshold of Christianity, till we found not only a soil ready for the seed of Christian metaphysic, but a large number of the plants already in full and exuberant growth. A complete history of Greek religion ought, without doubt, to include at least the rise of Christianity and the growth of the Orthodox Church, but, of course, the present series of studies does not aim at completeness. We will take the Christian theology for
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I. What the Disciple should be; and concerning Common Conceptions.
I. What the Disciple should be; and concerning Common Conceptions.
Those who wish to hear about the Gods should have been well guided from childhood, and not habituated to foolish beliefs. They should also be in disposition good and sensible, that they may properly attend to the teaching. They ought also to know the Common Conceptions. Common Conceptions are those to which all men agree as soon as they are asked; for instance, that all God is good, free from passion, free from change. For whatever suffers change does so for the worse or the better: if for the w
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II. That God is unchanging, unbegotten, eternal, incorporeal, and not in space.
II. That God is unchanging, unbegotten, eternal, incorporeal, and not in space.
Let the disciple be thus. Let the teachings be of the following sort. The essences of the Gods never came into existence (for that which always is never comes into existence; and that exists for ever which possesses primary force and by nature suffers nothing): neither do they consist of bodies; for even in bodies the powers are incorporeal. Neither are they contained by space; for that is a property of bodies. Neither are they separate from the First Cause nor from one another, just as thoughts
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III. Concerning myths; that they are divine, and why.
III. Concerning myths; that they are divine, and why.
We may well inquire, then, why the ancients forsook these doctrines and made use of myths. There is this first benefit from myths, that we have to search and do not have our minds idle. That the myths are divine can be seen from those who have used them. Myths have been used by inspired poets, by the best of philosophers, by those who established the mysteries, and by the Gods themselves in oracles. But why the myths are divine it is the duty of Philosophy to inquire. Since all existing things r
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IV. That the species of Myth are five, with examples of each.
IV. That the species of Myth are five, with examples of each.
Of myths some are theological, some physical, some psychic, and again some material, and some mixed from these last two. The theological are those myths which use no bodily form but contemplate the very essences of the Gods: e. g. Kronos swallowing his children. Since God is intellectual, and all intellect returns into itself, this myth expresses in allegory the essence of God. Myths may be regarded physically when they express the activities of the Gods in the world: e. g. people before now hav
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V. On the First Cause.
V. On the First Cause.
Next in order comes knowledge of the First Cause and the subsequent orders of the gods, then the nature of the world, the essence of intellect and of soul, then Providence, Fate, and Fortune, then to see Virtue and Vice and the various forms of social constitution good and bad that are formed from them, and from what possible source Evil came into the world. Each of these subjects needs many long discussions; but there is perhaps no harm in stating them briefly, so that a disciple may not be com
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VI. On Gods Cosmic and Hypercosmic.
VI. On Gods Cosmic and Hypercosmic.
Of the Gods some are of the world, Cosmic, and some above the world, Hypercosmic. By the Cosmic I mean those who make the Cosmos. Of the Hypercosmic Gods some create Essence, some Mind, and some Soul. Thus they have three orders; all of which may be found in treatises on the subject. Of the Cosmic Gods some make the World be , others animate it, others harmonize it, consisting as it does of different elements; the fourth class keep it when harmonized. These are four actions, each of which has a
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VII. On the Nature of the World and its Eternity.
VII. On the Nature of the World and its Eternity.
The Cosmos itself must of necessity be indestructible and uncreated. Indestructible because, suppose it destroyed: the only possibility is to make one better than this or worse or the same or a chaos. If worse, the power which out of the better makes the worse must be bad. If better, the maker who did not make the better at first must be imperfect in power. If the same, there will be no use in making it; if a chaos . . . it is impious even to hear such a thing suggested. These reasons would suff
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VIII. On Mind and Soul, and that the latter is immortal.
VIII. On Mind and Soul, and that the latter is immortal.
There is a certain force, [209:2] less primary than Being but more primary than the Soul, which draws its existence from Being and completes the Soul as the Sun completes the eyes. Of Souls some are rational and immortal, some irrational and mortal. The former are derived from the first Gods, the latter from the secondary. First, we must consider what soul is. It is, then, that by which the animate differs from the inanimate. The difference lies in motion, sensation, imagination, intelligence. S
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IX. On Providence, Fate, and Fortune.
IX. On Providence, Fate, and Fortune.
This is enough to show the Providence of the Gods. For whence comes the ordering of the world, if there is no ordering power? And whence comes the fact that all things are for a purpose: e. g. irrational soul that there may be sensation, and rational that the earth may be set in order? But one can deduce the same result from the evidences of Providence in nature: e. g. the eyes have been made transparent with a view to seeing; the nostrils are above the mouth to distinguish bad-smelling foods; t
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X. Concerning Virtue and Vice.
X. Concerning Virtue and Vice.
The doctrine of Virtue and Vice depends on that of the Soul. When the irrational soul enters into the body and immediately produces Fight and Desire, the rational soul, put in authority over all these, makes the soul tripartite, composed of Reason, Fight, and Desire. Virtue in the region of Reason is Wisdom, in the region of Fight is Courage, in the region of Desire it is Temperance: the virtue of the whole Soul is Righteousness. It is for Reason to judge what is right, for Fight in obedience to
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XI. Concerning right and wrong Social Organization.[214-1]
XI. Concerning right and wrong Social Organization.[214-1]
Constitutions also depend on the tripartite nature of the Soul. The rulers are analogous to Reason, the soldiers to Fight, the common folk to Desires. Where all things are done according to Reason and the best man in the nation rules, it is a Kingdom; where more than one rule according to Reason and Fight, it is an Aristocracy; where the government is according to Desire and offices depend on money, that constitution is called a Timocracy. The contraries are: to Kingdom tyranny, for Kingdom does
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XII. The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil.
XII. The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil.
The Gods being good and making all things, how do evils exist in the world? Or perhaps it is better first to state the fact that, the Gods being good and making all things, there is no positive evil, it only comes by absence of good; just as darkness itself does not exist, but only comes about by absence of light. If Evil exists it must exist either in Gods or minds or souls or bodies. It does not exist in any god, for all god is good. If any one speaks of a 'bad mind' he means a mind without mi
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XIII. How things eternal are said to 'be made' (γίγνεσθαι).
XIII. How things eternal are said to 'be made' (γίγνεσθαι).
Concerning the Gods and the World and human things this account will suffice for those who are not able to go through the whole course of philosophy but yet have not souls beyond help. It remains to explain how these objects were never made and are never separated one from another, since we ourselves have said above that the secondary substances were 'made' by the first. Everything made is made either by art or by a physical process or according to some power. [216:1] Now in art or nature the ma
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XIV. In what sense, though the Gods never change, they are said to be made angry and appeased.
XIV. In what sense, though the Gods never change, they are said to be made angry and appeased.
If any one thinks the doctrine of the unchangeableness of the Gods is reasonable and true, and then wonders how it is that they rejoice in the good and reject the bad, are angry with sinners and become propitious when appeased, the answer is as follows: God does not rejoice—for that which rejoices also grieves; nor is he angered—for to be angered is a passion; nor is he appeased by gifts—if he were, he would be conquered by pleasure. It is impious to suppose that the Divine is affected for good
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XV. Why we give worship to the Gods when they need nothing.
XV. Why we give worship to the Gods when they need nothing.
This solves the question about sacrifices and other rites performed to the Gods. The Divine itself is without needs, and the worship is paid for our own benefit. The providence of the Gods reaches everywhere and needs only some congruity [218:1] for its reception. All congruity comes about by representation and likeness; for which reason the temples are made in representation of heaven, the altar of earth, the images of life (that is why they are made like living things), the prayers of the elem
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XVI. Concerning sacrifices and other worships, that we benefit man by them, but not the gods.
XVI. Concerning sacrifices and other worships, that we benefit man by them, but not the gods.
I think it well to add some remarks about sacrifices. In the first place, since we have received everything from the gods, and it is right to pay the giver some tithe of his gifts, we pay such a tithe of possessions in votive offerings, of bodies in gifts of <hair and> adornment, and of life in sacrifices. Then secondly, prayers without sacrifices are only words, with sacrifices they are live words; the word gives meaning to the life, while the life animates the word. Thirdly, the
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XVII. That the World is by nature Eternal.
XVII. That the World is by nature Eternal.
We have shown above that the gods will not destroy the world. It remains to show that its nature is indestructible. Everything that is destroyed is either destroyed by itself or by something else. If the world is destroyed by itself, fire must needs burn itself and water dry itself. If by something else, it must be either by a body or by something incorporeal. By something incorporeal is impossible; for incorporeal things preserve bodies—nature, for instance, and soul—and nothing is destroyed by
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XVIII. Why there are rejections of God, and that God is not injured.
XVIII. Why there are rejections of God, and that God is not injured.
Nor need the fact that rejections of God have taken place in certain parts of the earth and will often take place hereafter, disturb the mind of the wise: both because these things do not affect the gods, just as we saw that worship did not benefit them; and because the soul, being of middle essence, cannot be always right; and because the whole world cannot enjoy the providence of the gods equally, but some parts may partake of it eternally, some at certain times, some in the primal manner, som
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XIX. Why sinners are not punished at once.
XIX. Why sinners are not punished at once.
There is no need to be surprised if neither these sins nor yet others bring immediate punishment upon sinners. For it is not only Spirits [223:1] who punish the soul, the Soul brings itself to judgement: and also it is not right for those who endure for ever to attain everything in a short time: and also, there is need of human virtue. If punishment followed instantly upon sin, men would act justly from fear and have no virtue. Souls are punished when they have gone forth from the body, some wan
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XX. On Transmigration of Souls, and how Souls are said to migrate into brute beasts.
XX. On Transmigration of Souls, and how Souls are said to migrate into brute beasts.
If the transmigration of a soul takes place into a rational being, it simply becomes the soul of that body. But if the soul migrates into a brute beast, it follows the body outside, as a guardian spirit follows a man. For there could never be a rational soul in an irrational being. The transmigration of souls can be proved from the congenital afflictions of persons. For why are some born blind, others paralytic, others with some sickness in the soul itself? Again, it is the natural duty of Souls
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XXI. That the Good are happy, both living and dead.
XXI. That the Good are happy, both living and dead.
Souls that have lived in virtue are in general happy, [224:2] and when separated from the irrational part of their nature, and made clean from all matter, have communion with the gods and join them in the governing of the whole world. Yet even if none of this happiness fell to their lot, virtue itself, and the joy and glory of virtue, and the life that is subject to no grief and no master are enough to make happy those who have set themselves to live according to virtue and have achieved it....
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