The Religious thought of the Greeks E-Book

Clifford Herschel Moore

• Herausgeber: Clifford Herschel Moore
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

In this book eight lectures given before the Lowell Institute in Boston during the late autumn of 1914 are combined with material drawn from a course of lectures delivered the previous spring before the Western Colleges with which Harvard University maintains an annual exchange—Beloit, Carleton, Colorado, Grinnell, and Knox. The lecture form has been kept, even at the cost of occasional repetition.
The purpose of these lectures is to present within a moderate compass an historical account of the progress of Greek religious thought through something over a thousand years. No attempt has been made to give a general treatment of Greek religion, or to deal with pre-Hellenic origins, with religious antiquities, or with mythology. The discussions are confined rather to the Greeks’ ideas about the nature of the gods, and to their concepts of the relations between gods and men and of men’s obligations toward the divine. The lectures therefore deal with the higher ranges of Greek thought and at times have much to do with philosophy and theology.
Yet I have felt free to interpret my subject liberally, and, so far as space allowed, I have touched on whatever seemed to me most significant. Ethics has been included without hesitation, for the Greeks themselves, certainly from the fifth century b.c., regarded morals as closely connected with religion. A treatment of the oriental religions seemed desirable, since the first two centuries and a half of our era cannot be understood if these religions are left out of account. Still more necessary was it to include Christianity. In my handling of this I have discussed the teachings of Jesus and of Paul with comparative fullness, in order to set forth clearly the material which later under the influence of secular thought was transformed into a philosophic system. Origen and Plotinus represent the culmination of Greek religious philosophy.
Such a book as this can be nothing more than a sketch; in it the scholar will miss many topics which might well have been included. Of such omissions I am fully conscious; but limitations of subject and of space forced me to select those themes which seemed most significant in the development of the religious ideas of the ancient world.
It is not possible for me to acknowledge all my obligations to others. I wish, however, to express here my gratitude to Professor C. P. Parker, who has shared his knowledge of Plato with me; to Professor J. H. Ropes, who has helped me on many points in my last two lectures, where I especially needed an expert’s aid; and to Professor C. N. Jackson, who has read the entirebook in manuscript and by his learning and judgment has made me his constant debtor. The criticism which these friends have given me has been of the greatest assistance even when I could not accept their views; and none of them is responsible for my statements.
 

Leseprobe

Clifford Herschel Moore

The Religious Thought of the Greeks

First digital edition 2017 by Anna Ruggieri

PREFACE

In this book eight lectures given before the Lowell Institute inBoston during the late autumn of 1914 are combined with materialdrawn from a course of lectures delivered the previous springbefore the Western Colleges with which Harvard University maintainsan annual exchange—Beloit, Carleton, Colorado, Grinnell, andKnox. The lecture form has been kept, even at the cost ofoccasional repetition.

The purpose of these lectures is to present within a moderatecompass an historical account of the progress of Greek religiousthought through something over a thousand years. No attempt hasbeen made to give a general treatment of Greek religion, or to dealwith pre-Hellenic origins, with religious antiquities, or withmythology. The discussions are confined rather to the Greeks’ideas about the nature of the gods, and to their concepts of therelations between gods and men and of men’s obligationstoward the divine. The lectures therefore deal with the higherranges of Greek thought and at times have much to do withphilosophy and theology.

Yet I have felt free to interpret my subject liberally, and, sofar as space allowed, I have touched on whatever seemed to me mostsignificant. Ethics has been included without hesitation, for theGreeks themselves, certainly from the fifth centuryb.c., regardedmorals as closely connected with religion. A treatment of theoriental religions seemed desirable, since the first two centuriesand a half of our era cannot be understood if these religions areleft out of account. Still more necessary was it to includeChristianity. In myhandling of this I have discussed the teachingsof Jesus and of Paul with comparative fullness, in order to setforth clearly the material which later under the influence ofsecular thought was transformed into a philosophic system. Origenand Plotinus represent the culmination of Greek religiousphilosophy.

Such a book as this can be nothing more than a sketch; in it thescholar will miss many topics which might well have been included.Of such omissions I am fully conscious; but limitations of subjectand of space forced me to select those themes which seemed mostsignificant in the development of the religious ideas of theancient world.

It is not possible for me to acknowledge all my obligations toothers. I wish, however, to express here my gratitude to ProfessorC. P. Parker, who has shared his knowledge of Plato with me; toProfessor J. H. Ropes, who has helped me on many points in my lasttwo lectures, where I especially needed an expert’s aid; andto Professor C. N. Jackson, who has read the entirebook inmanuscript and by his learning and judgment has made me hisconstant debtor. The criticism which these friends have given mehas been of the greatest assistance even when I could not accepttheir views; and none of them is responsible for my statements.

The translations of Aeschylus are by A. S. Way, Macmillan,1906-08; those of Euripides are from the same skilled hand, in theLoeb Classical Library, Heinemann, 1912; for Sophocles I have drawnon the version by Lewis Campbell, Kegan Paul, Trench and Company,1883; and for Thucydides and Plato I have used the classicrenderings of Jowett with slight modifications in one or twopassages.

In an appendix will be found selected bibliographies for eachlecture. To these lists I have admitted, with one ortwo exceptions,only such books as I have found useful from actual experience; andfew articles in periodicals have been named.

Clifford Herschel Moore.

Cambridge, Mass.

August 1, 1916.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I.

Homer and Hesiod

3

II.

Orphism,Pythagoreanism, and the Mysteries

40

III.

Religion in the Poets of the Sixth and Fifth Centuries B.C.

74

IV.

The Fifth Century at Athens

109

V.

Plato and Aristotle

144

VI.

Later Religious Philosophies

183

VII.

The Victory of Greece over Rome

221

VIII.

Oriental Religions in the Western Half of the RomanEmpire 

257

IX.

Christianity

296

X.

Christianity and Paganism

326

Appendix I (Bibliographies)

361

Appendix II (Specimen of Roman Calendar)

370

Index

373

THE RELIGIOUS THOUGHT OF THE GREEKS

THE RELIGIOUS THOUGHTOF THE GREEKS

I -HOMER AND HESIOD

“Homer and Hesiod created the generations of the gods forthe Greeks; they gave the divinities their names, assigned to themtheir prerogatives andfunctions, and made their forms known.”So Herodotus describes the service of these poets to the centurieswhich followed them.[1]But the modern historian of Greek religioncannot accept the statement of the father of history as whollysatisfactory; he knows that the excavations of the last forty yearshave revealed to us civilizations of the third and second milleniabefore Christ, the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures, of which thehistorical Greeks were hardly conscious, but which neverthelessmade large contributions to religion in the period after Homer. Yetat the most the Mycenaean and Minoan Ages were for the Greek of thesixth and fifth centuries only a kind of dim background for theremote history of his race. The Homeric poems represented for himtheearliest stage of Hellenic social life and religion. We arejustified, then, in taking the Iliad and Odyssey as starting pointsin our present considerations. These matchless epics cast anineffable spell over the imaginations of the Greeks themselves andinfluenced religion hardly less than literature.

It is obvious that in this course of lectures we cannot considertogether all the multitudinous phases of Greek religion: it will beimpossible to discuss those large primitive elements in thepractices and beliefs of the ancient Greek folk which are soattractive to many students of religion today, for these thingswere, by and large, only survivals from a ruder past and did notcontribute to the religious progress from age to age; nor can werehearse thedetails of worship, or review all the varieties ofreligious belief which we find in different places and insuccessive centuries; still less can we concern ourselves withmythology. Alluring as these things are they do not concern ourpresent purpose. I shall invite you rather to trace with me thedevelopment of Greek religious thought through something over athousand years, from the period of the Homeric poems to the triumphof Christianity. In such a survey we must be occupied for the mostpart with thelarger movements and the higher ranges of Greekthought, with the advance which was made from century to century;and we shall try to see how each stage of religious developmentcame to fruition in the next period. To accomplish this purpose wemust takeinto due account the social, economic, and politicalchanges in the Greek world which influenced the course of Hellenicthinking. Ultimately, if our study is successful, we shall havediscovered in some measure, I trust, what permanent contributionsthe Greeks made to our own religious ideas. With these things inmind, therefore, let us return to the Homeric Poems.

Whatever the date at which the Iliad and the Odyssey receivedtheir final form, the common view that they belong to a periodsomewhere between850 and 700b.c.is substantially correct. Theyrepresent the culmination of a long period of poetic developmentand picture so to speak on one canvas scenes and deeds from manycenturies. Yet the composite life is wrought by poetic art into onesplendid whole, so that the ordinary reader, in antiquity as today,was unconscious of the variety and contradictions in thepoems; onlythe analytic mind of the scholar detects the traces of the variedmaterials which the epic poet made his own. It is important that weshould realize the fact that the Homeric poems made the impressionof a consistent unity upon the popular mind in antiquity, for theinfluence of these epics through the recitations of rhapsodes atgreat public festivals and through their use in school wasenormous. The statement of Herodotus, with which I began, was verylargely true.

These poems were composed to be recited at the courts of princesin Ionia for the entertainment of the nobles at the banquet orafter the feast was over. This purpose naturally influenced thepoet in depicting life and religion, for the incidents chosen, theadventures recounted, all the life represented, of necessity had tobe consonant with the interests and life of the bard’saudience. His lays were for the ears of men who had not yet lostthe consciousness that they were in a new land, who knew that theywere living in stirring times, and who feeling the spirit ofadventure still fresh within them responded joyously to tales ofheroic combat. This fact explains in part why it is that we find solittle that is primitive or savage in Homer. Such elements weredeliberately left out by the bard as unsuited to his audience; hechose to neglect them, not because of any antagonism toward them,but because they did not agree with his artistic aim. Again, theantiquity of the themes, even at the time of composition, made afreedom and picturesqueness of treatment possible, which anarrative of contemporaneous events could never have possessed.Furthermore since the peoples of Ionia, on migrating from themainland of Greece, had left behind their sacred places and hadcarried with them their gods, severed from their ancient homes, theepic poet could treat religion with a liberty and could exercise afreedom of selection among thedivinities, could use his poeticimagination to modify forms and to emphasize certain attributes, ashe never could have done if singing for a people long resident inan ancient home where their gods had been localized and fixed incharacter time out of mind. A poet singing of Hera in the Argolidwould have found himself bound by the traditions of the Heraeumwhere the goddess had been domiciled from prehistoric time, but theHomeric bard in Ionia was under no such limitation.

Therefore we find that the Iliad and Odyssey present to us apicture of life and religion composed of selected elements and souniversalized that it was understood everywhere and at all latertimes. Exactly as the Homeric dialect, probably never spoken in anyplace or period, was universally comprehended, so the contents ofthe poems seemed nothing strange or difficult to audiences in theremotest parts of the Greek world; in the Greek colonies in Sicily,along the western shores of the Mediterranean, or on the borders ofthe Black Sea, the epic tales were as easily understood as atDelos, Olympia, or Athens.

Yet we have no warrant for using the Homeric poems as sourcesfor the full history of Greek religion in the ninth and eighthcenturiesb.c.We must remember that the epic bard wasleast of allcomposing systematic treatises about religion; on the contrary hewas narrating heroic tales, such as the wrath of Achilles, thedeath of Hector and the ransoming of his body, and the return ofOdysseus; he introduced the gods solely as mighty actors in thestruggles and adventures of his mortal heroes. The divinities whoplay their parts in the Iliad, for example, were summoned, like theAchaean princes, so to speak, from many places to take part in thecombat before Troy, and in the Odysseyonly those gods appearwho arerequired by the story. In short, the poet used the gods andreligion exactly as he used his other materials, drawing from agreat stock of beliefs and practices that which suited his tale,disregarding all the rest, and troubling little about consistency.Homer’s aim, like that of most poets, was primarily artistic,and least of all didactic.

Furthermore every reader of the Homeric epics is struck by thefreshness of the treatment; indeed, scholars of an earlier daythought that the Iliad and the Odyssey were the first fruits ofEuropean poetic inspiration. Today we know that Homer representsthe culmination of a long fine of bards, that his artistry was wonby effort and was not simply the incredible inspiration of oneuntaught; but this knowledge does not diminish in the slightestdegree our appreciation of the freshness and directness oftreatment which that art realized. These qualities are obtained inpart by a freedom from reflection, by a lack of self-consciousnessin the poems. They do not deal with the origin of the gods, theypresent no theogonies, any more than they concern themselves withthe descent of man. It is true that Zeus is the son of Cronos, asHera is the daughter of Cronos and Rhea, and that it is said thatZeus drove Cronos beneath the earth and sea, but we have no accountof the rule of the elder gods or of the struggle by which Zeus wonhis place. For the epic poet the world of gods, men, and naturesimply is; he does not indulge in speculation himself nor does hemake his heroes debate questions of whence or whither; the livingpresent with its actions, its struggles, victories, and defeatsfilled the compass of the poet’s thought and of hisaudience’s desire.

The Iliad and the Odyssey then must not be considered astreatises or as reflective and philosophical works. This elementarypoint must be emphasized here, for there is always danger of losingthe true perspective when we are considering a single theme. Thepoems derive their great significance forthe history of Greekreligion from the fact that through recitations they became thechief popular literature of Greece, and that from the sixth centurythey were the basis of education, as I have already said. Thus theywere universally known and universally influential; they created acommon Olympic religion beside the local religions; and through theindividualities which they gave the gods they fixed the types whichpoets were to recall and which artists were to embody in marble orin wood, ivory, andgold at the centers of the Greek world.

With these facts in mind we may ask what are the nature andcharacteristics of the gods in Homer. Excavations have shown usthat the Mycenaean Age had already passed beyond the ruder stagesand had conceived some atleast of its divinities in anthropomorphicfashion. In Homer the gods are frankly made in man’s image.They are beings larger, wiser, and stronger than mortals; they havea superhuman but not complete control over nature and mankind.Their chief preëminence over man lies in this superior powerand in the possession of immortality as well as of that eternalyouth and beauty which is appropriate to immortals. In their veinsflows a divine ichor instead of blood; their food and drink are notthe bread and winewhich mortals need. Yet for all this they arehardly more independent of physical needs than men: they must sleepand eat, and they need the light of the sun. The passions hold swayover them to such an extent that the morality of the gods, of Zeusin particular, is distinctly inferior to that of mortal princes.The divinities can suffer pain and indignities. Diomedes was ableto wound both Aphrodite and Ares, whereat thevaliant god of warbawled out as loud, the poet says, “as nine or ten thousandmen shout in battle,” and fled into the broad heaven toappeal to Zeus.[2]In the twenty-first book of the Iliad Athena hitsAres in the neck with a large boundary stone and overthrows him,adding insult to injury by laughing merrily at the god’sdiscomfiture;then when Aphrodite would lead him off groaning,Athena hurries after and with a blow of her stout hand lays goddessand god prostrate on the ground.[3]Nor are the gods more just andhonorable than men; they are moved by caprice; and their godheaddoes not prevent their quarreling or making up their differences invery human fashion, as the domestic jar between Zeus and Hera inthe first book of the Iliad shows.[4]

Furthermore the Homeric gods are neither omniscient noromnipotent. “The gods know all things” is a pioustribute of the poet, but the narrative shows it to be untrue. Inthe thirteenth book of the Iliad, when Zeus is gazing off intoThrace he fails to notice that Poseidon enters the battle on theplain immediately below him.[5]In the fifth bookof the Odyssey thetables are turned in a sense, for Poseidon finds that during hisabsence among the Ethiopians the Olympians have taken actionfavorable to Odysseus, whose return the god of the sea would fainprevent.[6]For nine years Thetis and Eurynome alone among the godsknew where Hephaestus was concealed: when he had been thrown fromheaven by his mother in shame for his lameness, they hid him in agrotto where the sound of the stream of Oceanus drowned the noiseof his smithy.[7]Apollo arrivestoo late to save Rhesus from hisfate;[8]and we are told that in the previous generation Ares wasimprisoned by the giants Otus and Ephialtes in a bronze jar, likean Oriental jinn, for thirteen months. There he had perished if ithad not been for the friendly aid of Hermes who stole him from hisprison.[9]The gods at times thwart one another’s purposes,and, as we have seen, they may even be wounded or frightened likehuman beings.[10]In such ways as these do the Homeric divinitiesshow their limitations.

Not only can the gods thwart one another, but they are all attimes subject to Fate or Destiny, which, although vaguely conceivedby the poet, is none the less inexorable. It seems usually to be animpersonal power, although sometimes it is identified with the willof an indefinite god(δαἰμονοςαἶσα) or with that of Zeus himself(Διὸς αἶσα). It was fatedthat Sarpedon, the son of Zeus, should die, and Zeus, in spite ofhis grief, yielded him up to his doom, not because he could nothave opposed Fate successfully, but because he feared that otherdivinities would wish to save their children if he savedhis.[11]Yet in the Odyssey Athena disguised as Mentor declares toTelemachus that not even the gods can save a man they love wheneverthe fatal doom of death lays hold on him.[12]So naturallyinconsistent is the poet, for in his day men had not reached thestage where they could form any adequate notion of unity in theworld. Fate therefore is not conceived to be an inexorable powerwhich is constantly operative, as we find it represented at a latertime among the Greeks and among the Romans, notably in Virgil.

At times we find a more or less fatalistic view of life, Fatebeing conceived as a destiny fixed at birth, for the notion thatthe thread of life was spun already existed. So Hecuba, wailing forher son, cries that mighty Fate spun Hector’s doom at thehour she gave him birth;[13]and Alcinous declares that underPhaeacian escort Odysseus shall reach his home, but that there hewill suffer all that Fate and the cruel spinsters spun for him whenhismother bore him.[14]This fatalism is most clearly expressed inpassages such as that where Odysseus on Circe’s isle cheershis companions by reminding them that they shall not enter thehouse of Hades until their fated day shall come,[15]and especiallyin those lines in which Hector comforts his wife Andromache whowould have restrained his impetuous desire for battle:[16]“Mygood wife, grieve not overmuch for me in thy heart, for no manshall send me to Hades contrary to my fate; and I say that none, behe a coward or brave, has ever escaped his doom, when once itcomes.” Still the Homeric bard had not arrived at anyconsistent view of destiny; he gave utterance to that feeling whichmen had vaguely then as now, that beyond all lies something fixedand invariable to which all things and beings are ultimatelysubject.

As we have seen, the divinities may work at cross purposes;there is nothing in the Homeric poems like monotheism or pantheismin any true sense. When the Homeric man said that a thing happened“with god’s help,” he was simply recognizing theagency of the gods in everything. Not knowing the special divinityconcerned, he left him nameless; least of all had he any concept ofa complete divine polity. There is, therefore, no such thing in theepics as a divine providence in the way of a definite purpose orplan such as we shall later find in the fifth century. Like mortalsthe Homeric gods discuss their plans, without being able to see theend from the beginning; they are moved by caprice, so that Zeuschanges sides twice on the second day of the great battle betweenthe Achaeans and Trojans.[17]The vacillating and capriciouscharacter of the gods is not offset by the protection that adivinity may give a favorite, such as Athena gave to Odysseus inhis long wanderings and on his return to Ithaca. Throughout bothpoems we find the assumption constantly held that every blessingcomes from the gods, that they give every distinction. In likefashion men believed that all misfortunes were due to divine angeror hostility. So Odysseus was kept from home for nearly ten yearsby Poseidon’s hate; the favor of Athena toward the Achaeansturned to wrath because of the violence done her shrine in the sackof Troy so that she caused an evil return for her former favorites.Indeed in misfortune the Homeric hero’s first question was asto what god he had offended. The problem of evil therefore was asimple one—all depended on the will or whim of somedivinity.

But there are other things which we should note with regard tothese divinities. As has been said, they are universalized, notattached to definite localities; in fact the epics contain fewtraces of that localization which was the rule in the commonreligion of Greece. Although Hera declares:[18]“Verily threecities thereare most dear to me, Argos and Sparta andbroad-streeted Mycenae,” she is in no sense regarded as boundto these localities. In Demodocus’ song of the love of Aresand Aphrodite it is said that when released from the bonds in whichHephaestus had ensnaredthem, the god of war fled to Thrace andlaughter-loving Aphrodite to Paphos in Cyprus,[19]but these placesare not their homes in any strict sense. And so with the othergods. The Olympians are rather free, universal divinities,unhampered by local attachments. Olympus itself is in the upperheaven more than in Thessaly. It is of course true that lesserdivinities, like river-gods and mountain-nymphs, are localized, butthese beings have little influence on the affairs of men.

Let us now consider brieflythe most important Homeric gods. Atthe head of the divine order stands Zeus, “father of gods andof men”(πατὴρἀνδρῶντε θεῶν τε), “mostexaltedof rulers” (ὔπατεκρειόντων),“most glorious and most mighty”(κύδιστεμέγιστε), as he iscalled.[20]To himthe elements are subject and at his nod greatOlympus trembles. He is the guardian of oaths, the protector of thestranger and the suppliant. Famed for his prowess and might henever in person enters battle, but indirectly he takes a hand inthe strife between the Greeks and the Trojans. Although hesurpasses all in wisdom and power, at times he is outwitted byother divinities. Like a mortal chieftain he presides at council onOlympus in his great hall, whither he may on occasion summon thedivinities of every class to attend a general assembly.[21]Olympusindeed is conceived as loosely organized after the fashion of anaristocratic state with Zeus as chief(βασιλεύς), the Olympiansas members of the council (βουλή), andthe whole body of minor divinitiesas making up the assembly(ἀγορή).

Hera, the queen of Olympus, is at once both sister and wife ofZeus; they are the only wedded pair on Olympus. She belongs,however, distinctly to the second class of Olympians. She takes nopart in the Odyssey; and in the Iliad, although she favors theAchaeans most vehemently, she is less active than Athena. Incharacter she is a good deal of a scold, so that Zeus fears herjealous anger.[22]He knows that she is accustomed to block hisplans, although on one occasion hehad punished her by stringing herup by the wrists and tying anvils to her feet! Of this heindignantly reminds her: “Dost thou not remember when Istrung thee up aloft and from thy feet I hung two anvils, and roundthy wrists I bound a golden bond unbreakable? And thou wast hung inthe upper air and the clouds. Wroth were the gods throughout highOlympus, but still they could not approach and freethee.”[23]Again he had beaten her, and when Hephaestus triedto intervene, Zeus seized the meddler by the foot and threw him outof Olympus. Hephaestus himself recalls the experience: “Allthe day long I fell and at setting of the sun I dropped in Lemnos,and there was little life left in me.”[24]

Athena is above all the goddess of war, and she plays alargepart in both the Iliad and Odyssey. In the latter poem she isthe special guardian of Odysseus, whose ready mind wins heradmiration. She is also the most skilled of all divinities, thepatroness of every handicraft.[25]She is perhaps the chief divinityof Troy; on the Trojan citadel stands her temple to which the noblematrons bring a gift of a beautiful robe with the promise ofgenerous sacrifice if the goddess will give them her protectionagainst Diomedes.[26]She also has a home on the acropolis atAthens.[27]

Apollo, the archer god, is a patron of war and of bowmen. In theIliad he is a violent enemy of the Achaeans and gives mosteffective aid to the Trojans; but in the Odyssey he plays no activepart. He also inspires seers and prophets; and he isthe god of thelyre and the teacher of bards. In prayers he is named with Zeus andAthena when an object is most earnestly desired.[28]

These three are the greatest of the Homeric divinities, althoughthere is no close connection among them. Apollo’s virginsister, Artemis, plays a part much inferior to that of her brother,but in many ways she is similar to him. Her arrows bring a quickand peaceful end to women as Apollo’s do to men. In the chaseshe is preëminent: she is the fair goddess of wood andmountain.

Ares and Aphrodite also belong to a lower rank. In function theyare limited to an appeal to a single passion each, Ares to rage forslaughter, Aphrodite to the passion of love. They are both treatedwith a certain contempt and are mocked by the other gods.

Hephaestus is the god of fire, the lame craftsman of Olympus. Itwas he who built the homes of the gods; but his skill wasespecially shown in the wondrous works he wrought in gold andsilver. Such were the mixing-bowl which Phaedimus, theSidonianking, gave to Menelaus;[29]wonderful automata, twentygolden tripods, which on occasion would go of their own accord tothe assemblage of the gods and then return;[30]or the gold andsilver dogs which guarded the palace of Alcinous.[31]Still moremarvellous were the golden maidens endowed with reason, speech, andcunning knowledge, which supported their maker as he limped fromhis forge to his chair;[32]and above all the splendid armor wroughtfor Achilles.[33]

Poseidon, the brother of Zeus, has as his special province thesea; but he appears on Olympus at the councils of the gods. In theIliad he supports the Achaeans vigorously; no doubt from anger atthe Trojans whose king Laomedon had once cheated him of the paywhich was his due for building the walls of Troy;[34]in theOdyssey, angry at the blinding of his son, Polyphemus, he holdsOdysseus far from Ithaca, until at last the Phaeacians bring himhome. Then in wrath he turns their vessel into stone.[35]

Such in brief are the eight great gods of the Homeric poems. Ofthese Zeus is easily the first, but in the first rank also areAthena and Apollo; Hera and Poseidon hold a second place; andHephaestus, Ares, and Aphrodite belong to the third class. Manyother divinities there are, but all of lesser rank, like Hermeswhose duties are those of a higher servant or messenger. He is sentto escort King Priam to the tent of Achilles to ransomHector’s body,[36]and he is despatched to Calypso’sisle to bid her let Odysseus go.[37]There are some indicationsthathe is already the patron of thieves, as he is of servants. Dionysusand Demeter, so prominent in later Greece, have not yet won a placein the Olympic circle. There is no hint in the epics of themysteries and the orgiastic cults which were afterwards of greatsignificance. Hades, the brother of Zeus and Poseidon, holds as hisrealm the dark abode of the dead, where he reigns with Persephoneas queen. His murky kingdom is now represented as beneath theearth, again as far out on the bounds of Oceanus. But Hades takesno active part in either poem.

Besides these there is a host of divinities, some named but mostunnamed, who cause all the phenomena of the visible world. In fact,the Homeric man could not conceive of a natural world obeying lawswhose operation was fixed; on the contrary, he could only think ofanimated beings as the causes of all events. For him everyoccurrence was the manifestation of the will of some divinity; thenatural and the miraculous were one.

It is evident from this hasty review of the Homeric gods that wehave in the epics no complete and fully organized pantheon. Zeus isregarded as supreme but he is thwarted and outwitted by lessermembers of the Olympic circle, even as they block one another. Infact Homer’s view of the gods abounds in contradictions ofwhich however only the scholar and the critic have ever been veryconscious. From our modern standpoint we notice the moralinconsistencies above all. Although Zeus is the guardian ofjustice, he is deceitful andtreacherousif occasion arises, as whenat the request of Thetis he sends a delusive dream to Agamemnon tourge him to give battle, in spite of the fact that he cannot besuccessful.[38]It is Zeus also who is responsible for the faithlessbreaking of the truce between the Achaeans and Trojans[39]; andmany other instances might be cited to illustrate his utteruntrustworthiness. On his lack of domestic morality I need hardlydwell.

Yet we must remind ourselves that to the Homeric Age there waslittle connection, ifany, between morals and religion. Religion isconcerned with man’s relation to the gods, morality with hisrelation to his fellow men. Morality is therefore developed throughthe social relations first of all, and only later is brought intorelation to religion. In Homer the sense of social obligations ismuch more keenly realized than is that of religious sanctions. Thecardinal virtues are bravery, wisdom, love of home and family, andregard for hospitality. In a life of action, filled with war,bravery is of prime importance; by it wealth, power, and honor arewon. Proper to such a life are practical wisdom and even cunning.The highest praise is to be called “first in council andfirst in battle.”[40]Agamemnon is lauded by Helen as“both a good king anda mighty warrior.”[41]The standingepithets of Odysseus, “very crafty”(πολύμητις) and“the man of many devices”(πολυμήχανος),show the qualities which were deemed praiseworthy. Yet Odysseus hadwon this distinction by his skill in lying anddeceiving—practices still deemed highly laudable in our ownworld if employed against a foe, or sometimes even when used asacts of caution. Yet if our modern views do not wholly coincidewith the ancient on these points, we can feel only admiration forthe regard for home and family, the unselfish generosity, and theuniversal hospitality toward strangers which the epic heroesdisplay.

The poems also set a high value on personal honor. The outragedone Menelaus by Paris, who violated the most sacred lawsofhospitality by carrying away his host’s wife, was the wholecause of the Trojan War. To avenge this outrage all the princes ofthe Achaeans rallied as if the wrong suffered had been their own.Agamemnon’s high-handed act in taking the captive BriseisfromAchilles roused that wrath which is the first word of theIliad. The Odyssey is the epic of a personal will which, triumphingover all disasters, finally wreaked a terrible vengeance on theinsolent suitors who had wooed Odysseus’ wife, devoured hissubstance, plotted against his son, and at the end shamefullyinsulted Odysseus himself. The punishment of the suitors is thevictory of justice over lawlessness, and possesses a moralsignificance which was not lost on antiquity.

In what I have just been sayingI have already implied thatman’s relation to the gods was not ethical but ritualistic.We must remember that when we speak of “sin” or a“consciousness of guilt,” we are presupposing aself-conscious and self-searching individual. This the Homeric manwas not; on the contrary he was in the highest degree natural,unreflective, and unconscious of self. In fact the Homeric conceptof sin touches our moral ideas at hardly more than three points.Disregard for an oath, failure to honor one’s father andmother, and disrespect for the stranger and suppliant were highoffenses against heaven and brought down divine wrath on thetransgressor. But in general sin is failure to recognizeman’s absolute dependence on the immortals, to give them duehonor, to pay themproper sacrifice, and to walk humbly on theearth. Sacrifice is tribute whereby man acquires merit withdivinity; of such meritorious credit the priest ChrysesremindsApollo in his prayer at the beginning of theIliad:[42]“Hear me, Lord of the silver bow, ... if ever Ihave roofed over a temple pleasing to thee, or if ever I have burntin thy honor fat thighs of bulls or of goats, then accomplish thismy prayer.” Agamemnon in the stress of battle reproaches Zeusfor bringing his present disaster upon himin spite of the fact thathe made sacrifice on every altar as he hurried to Ilion;[43]andmany other illustrations might be cited. Failure to make dueoffering might bring serious disaster. Menelaus, on his way homefrom Troy, omitted sacrifice before leaving Egypt; so he was forcedto return from the island of Pharos and repair his failure, afterwhich he accomplished his voyage easily.[44]When Oeneus neglectedArtemis, she sent the Calydonian boar to afflict his land:“Artemis of the golden throne senta plague upon them, angrythat Oeneus did not offer her the first fruits of his rich land.All the other gods had their feast of hecatombs, and only to thedaughter of mighty Zeus did he fail to make offering, whether heforgot or had no thought of the matter. But he showed great follyin his soul.”[45]Again the plague sent by Apollo on theAchaean host before Troy suggests to Achilles that the god may beangered at a failure to perform some vow or to offer ahecatomb.[46]It is little wonder that the enlightened Plato felthorror and disgust at such notions as these and that he condemnedthis kind of worship as an “art of trafficking”(ἐμπορικὴτέχνη).[47]Stillthis Homeric idea of the relations between men and gods—anidea which has not wholly disappeared from the worldtoday—rests on the notion that gods and men belong to onecommon society in which the obligations are binding on bothsides.

Especially to be avoided was insolent pride; man must not boasthimself overmuch; there were fixed bounds set for him which hemight not transgress. So Ajax met his fate because of his insolentdefiance: “Even so he had escaped his doom, hateful though hewas to Athena, if he had not let fall an insolent speech andcommitted great folly. He said that in spite of thegods he hadescaped the great gulf of the sea; but Poseidon heard his loudboasting. Straightway then he took his trident in his mighty handsand struck the Gyraean rock and cleft it in twain. Part remained inits place, but a portion fell in the deep, that part on which Ajaxfirst sat and uttered his great folly; but it now bore him downbeneath the vast billowy sea.”[48]But Achilles showed theapproved attitude of mind when he thus addressed the dead Hector:“Lie now dead; but my doom I will accept whenever it pleaseZeus and the other immortal gods to send it.”[49]This fear ofpunishment from heaven, of that which Aeschylus and Herodotus call“the envy of the gods,” long operated to keep in checkexcess of speech and added no doubt to the comfort of Greeksociety. Of magic whereby man can compel the gods there is nothingin Homer; the inferiority of mortals to the immortals iscomplete.

We may now properly consider the Homeric view of life afterdeath. The epic psychology made no sharp distinction between thesoul and the body; on the whole the body was identified with theself rather than the soul (ψυχή), which goesto the realm of Hades when the man is dead. There in the world ofshadows beneath the earth or far out by the stream of Oceanus theshades, pale images of the men who were, exist; they do not live.The pathetic plaints of the shades that come up to Odysseus in theeleventh book of the Odyssey show how hopeless is their lot. ThoughOrion pursue the wild beasts over the cheerless plains of asphodeland Minos hold his golden staff and sit in judgment over the dead,yet all is insubstantial and far less than life. The often quotedwords of Achilles’ shadesum up the whole matter: “Speaknot to me of death, glorious Odysseus. For so I might be onearth, Iwould rather be the servant of another, of a poor man who hadlittle substance, than to be lord over all the dead.”[50]

There is no system of future punishment or rewards, although afew individuals have won supreme suffering like Tityus, Sisyphus,and Tantalus or gained high station like Minos, the judge.Therefore beyond the grave there was for the Homeric man no hope,no satisfaction. Only here under the light of the sun and in theglory of action could the epic hero find his joy. This is, in nosmall measure, the cause of that pathos which strikes usoccasionally in the poems. Man is spoken of as the most pitiful ofcreatures, the feeblest of all beings which the earth nourishes.Evil and suffering sent by the gods are his lot, unrelieved by anyprospect of the future.[51]

Let us now summarize briefly the matter we have thus far beenconsidering together. As I said at the beginning of this lecture,religion in the Homeric poems shows the influence of the conditionsunder which the poems were composed. Intended for Ionian princes ofAsia Minor, emigrants who had lost the support which localattachment always gives, the Iliad and Odyssey present those traitsof religion which were everywhere understood and which made auniversal appeal. Therefore the Homeric gods have a syntheticcharacter; they are, as has been aptly said, “compositephotographs” of local Zeus’s, Apollos, Athenas, and soon. Again since the epics were intended for entertainment, the godsare represented not as remote, but human andreal; they havecharacters and personalities which local divinities did notpossess. In picturing them as more human, in rehearsing theirquarrels, intrigues, passions, and even physical peculiarities, thepoet not only amused his carefree audience, but brought the godscloser to men; he made them more comfortable creatures to livewith, even if they were moved by whims and fancies. Their worshipwas sacrifice associated with the banquet which men and gods sharedin common fellowship; the gods were thought to wish man’sofferings and service just as man desired communion with them.Malevolent divinities, daemons of the earth, rites of riddance bywhich man seeks to avert the wrath of some spiteful or angry being,all the great mass of practices unquestionably common to thefolk-religion of the age, were for the most part omitted by thepoet as unsuited or uninteresting to his aristocratic audience.There is almost nothing bearing on the cult of the dead savepossibly in connection with the funeral of Patroclus; incantationproper is mentioned only once; and Circe’s potent herbs bywhich she transformed Odysseus’s companions into beasts, likeCirce herself, belong to fairyland. The Homeric religion,therefore, is largely a social religion of this world, of sunlightand of action.

Yet if Homer’s gods are human, they are still impressive;they have the dignity which comes from unchanging age andsuperhuman power; they are conceived in the grand way. So true wasthis that as the Homeric poems became popular literature, studiedin school and known to all men, they created a universal religion.They also influenced the types under which the Greek artistsrepresented their great gods. Tradition says that when Phidias wasasked by his associate Panaenus what type he had selected for hisZeus at Olympia, he replied with Homer’s lines: “Theson of Cronos spoke and nodded under his dark brows; and theambrosial locks of the king fell down from his immortal head, andheshook great Olympus.”[52]Such was the effect of this statueafter it had stood for five centuries and a half that the oratorDio Chrysostom said of it: “Whoever among mankind is whollyweary in soul, whoever has experienced many misfortunes and sorrowsin life, and may not find sweet sleep, he, methinks, if he stoodbefore this statue, would forget all the calamities and griefs thatcome in the life of man.”[53]

We must, however, recognize that the spiritual contribution ofthe Homeric poems to later Greece was inevitably less than theartistic. No inspiredbard was needed to teach the lessons ofman’s inferiority to the gods and of his dependence on them,although these are constantly emphasized; yet the epics alsoinculcate the necessity of moderation in act and speech; and theyteach that Zeus is the guardian of oaths and of hospitality.Furthermore they express the half-realized belief that Zeus is theprotector of all justice; and they bring home the fact that theindividual must pay for his sin, however he may have been led intoit. But the greatest contribution which the poems made to laterreligious thought was paradoxically due to the fact that they madetheir gods so thoroughly human, for it inevitably followed in dueseason that the gods were measured by the same standards of rightand wrong that were applied to men. This eventually ennobledman’s concept of divinity, so that he required of the gods aperfection to match their immortal nature.

Herodotus names Homer and Hesiod together as the greattheological teachers of Greece. But when we comparethe later poetwith the earlier we find a marked contrast between them. Homerlooks backward to an earlier day; his poems reflect the glory ofthat splendid age when the Achaean princes, like Agamemnon ingolden Mycenae, ruled at home in power, or on the plains of Troycontended with divine and human foes. Homer is aristocratic,universal, objective, with little self-consciousness, hardlyconcerned with the origins of gods and men or with the possiblegoals toward which the world was moving. Hesiod was theson of afarmer, who according to tradition had come from Cyme in Asia Minorto Boeotian Ascra which lay on a spur of the range of Helicon neara shrine of the Muses. When Hesiod wrote, the land had felt theexhaustion of war, the coming of ruder tribes from the north andwest had swamped the earlier civilization, and both noble andpeasant were finding life harder. These conditions are reflected inthe Hesiodic poetry: it deals with fact rather than fancy; for thesplendid dramatic deeds of men and gods itsubstitutes homely adage,reasoned reflection, and moral tale. Hesiod is self-conscious andreflective. He uses the first person, whereas Homer never nameshimself. A dour son of the soil, born in gloomy days, he is thefirst writer of Europe to speak forthe common man.

The two chief poems which bear the name of Hesiod are theTheogony and the Works and Days. The former deals with the originof the world and the generations of the gods. It is an attempt tobring order into current myths by sifting and arranging them into asystem. The material Hesiod found ready to his hand; his task wasto systematize and set it forth to his audience. The Theogony isthe first extant work of European literature to present the ideathat dynasties of the gods have succeeded each other in time, therule of Uranus giving way to the sway of Cronos, who in his turnwas displaced by Zeus. We have seen that Homer did not concernhimself about such matters as these; that only vague references tosuch ideas are found in the Iliad and Odyssey. Hesiod, however,represents another age and another aspect of the Greek mind, adesire to bring harmony into the varied andinconsistent tales ofcurrent mythology and thus in a way to render the gods intelligibleto men.

The gods of the Theogony are hardly moral beings; on thecontrary much of the theology there presented is far ruder thanthat of the Iliad and Odyssey. Some of the tales are on the levelof primitive mythology, such as the account of the way in whichearth and heaven were separated and of the manner in which theearth was fertilized; others retain more offensive elements likethat of Cronos devouring his children, or of Zeus swallowing hiswife Metis when she was about to give birth to Athena, for it wasfated that her child should be the equal of its father in wit andcunning. In general the poet gives no sign of being conscious thatthis work might have moral or religious significance. The wordjustice (δίκη), which is so frequent in theWorks and Days, occurs but twice in theTheogony. The wives of Zeusare in succession Wisdom (Μῆτις) andRight (Θέμις), but his constantattendants are Violence (Κράτος) andForce (Βίη). In neither case, however, is any moralconclusion drawn therefrom. The only beings to whom moral functionsare assigned are the Fates, “Goddesses who visittransgressions of men and gods and never cease from their fearfulwrath until they have inflicted dire punishment on thesinner.”[54]Save for this passage and one in which thepunishment of the gods for perjury is described, the Theogony isless ethical than even the Iliad and Odyssey, for they have regardfor certain social sanctions. The work is nevertheless significantand requires notice here because it bears witness to the criticalmind that set the myths in order, and because it shows that the ageof Hesiod was a reflective one.

Hesiod’s other poem, the Works and Days, is of high moralimport. It owes its title to the fact that it gives directions forvarious kinds of occupations and that it also contains a kind ofpeasant’s calendar. By bribing his judges the poet’sbrother Perses had deprived the poet of the inheritance which wasproperly his. To this unjust brother Hesiod addresses his poem, buthe rises constantly from the particular case to general moralconsiderations; indeed the poet’s ethical lessons gain inforce because they start with a personal application.

Work, justice, right social relations, and piety toward the godsare the cardinal themes of the Works and Days. At the very openingof thepoem Hesiod points out that there are two kinds of Strife orRivalry on earth, the one good and praiseworthy, the other evil.Evil strife leads to war and to discord, but the good, implanted byZeus in the very order of things, ever urges men on to work.Hesioddelights in emphasizing the value of toil; he has given enduringexpression to the natural dignity of labor in the verse,

Εργον δ'οὐδὲνὂνειδος,ἀεργίηδέτ'ὂνειδος.

Work is no disgrace, but laziness is a disgrace.[55]

By constant toil alone,he says, can the many misfortunes of lifebe relieved; by it riches and honor are won; and the worker isbeloved by the gods. The lazy man on the contrary has hunger forhis portion and is detested by gods and men: “Gods andmortals are alike indignant with the man who lives without toiling;he is like in energy to the stingless drones, for they withouttoiling waste and devour the product of the honey-bees’ work.But do thou (Perses), love all seemly toil that thy barns may befilled with food in the proper seasons.”[56]For the poor manthe poet, and apparently his contemporaries, had little compassion,since he regards poverty as proof of a lack of industry, of afailure to work unceasingly with a determined spirit, which heholds to be the only way in which man can acquire the comfortswhich give dignity to life. In his mind shame is the natural lot ofthe poor, but self-respect the proper possession of the successfulworker. And toil has for him a divine sanction; it is a moral dutyimposed on men by the gods. By it alone men attain not onlymaterial prosperity but virtue as well. “I perceive the goodand will tell it thee, Perses, very foolish though thou art.Wickedness men attain easily and in great numbers, for level is theroad to her and she dwellsvery near; but before Virtue the immortalgods have set the sweat of toil. Long and steep is the path to herand rough at the outset; but when one has reached the summit,thereafter it is easy, hard though it was before.”[57]

Smarting under the injusticedone him by his unjust brother andthe venal judges, Hesiod naturally praised justice(δίκη) in his work. He repeats the word againand again. In the name of outraged universal justice he protestsagainst the particular wrong he has suffered, but in his handlingof this theme he passes far beyond the matter between him and hisbrother, and treats justice in a universal and impressive manner.He thus exhorts Perses: “Perses, harken to justice, and makenot insolence prosper. For insolence is baneful even tothe humble;nor can the noble easily bear the burden of it, but he sinkethbeneath its weight, meeting doom. Yet the road that leadeth in theopposite direction, toward justice, is better to travel. Justiceprevaileth over insolence in the end; even the fool knoweth fromexperience.”[58]He presses home the truth that wrong harmsthe doer no less than him who suffers the wrong: “The man whoworketh evil to another, worketh evil to himself, and evil counselis most evil for him who counselled it.”[59]Againhe teachesthat even if retribution is slow in coming, Zeus accomplishes it inthe end: “Finally Zeus imposes due requital for the wickedman’s unjust deeds.”[60]On the other hand Hesiod in afamous passage pictures with satisfaction the prosperity of thejust: “But for those who render straight judgments to bothstrangers and citizens and never depart from justice, their cityflourishes and their people prosper in it. Peace, which nurturesyouth, dwells in the land and never does far-seeing Zeus bringfearful war upon the inhabitants. Never does famine or woe attendmen who do justice, but in good cheer do they perform their duetasks. For them the earth yields abundant food, the oak on themountains bears them acorns in its topmost branches, and its trunkis the honey-bees’ home; fleecy sheep are heavy withwool,wives bear children who are like their parents. The justflourish in prosperity continually; nor do they go away on ships,for the fruitful earth gives them its product.”[61]

The last sentence shows that trading in ships was less highlyregarded than agriculture. The reason is to be found not alone inthe comparatively undeveloped state of commerce, but also in thevery nature of such commerce as the poet saw it, for he admitscommerce into his plan rather unwillingly. He knows that the sea istreacherous and often wrecks ships and causes ruin; he holds thatonly men’s inordinate desires and folly tempt them to ventureacross the waters and to stake all on the chances of loss anddeath. More thanthis, he feels a moral defect in transmarinetrading, even when profitable, for one may gain wealth by a singleventure. Such is not his ideal; rather he would see materialprosperity won by the long toil and frugality which makeagriculture successful.

But to return to justice. Hesiod, as we have already seen, makesthis the whole basis of man’s relation to his fellows; onjust actions and labor depends all prosperity; injustice injuresthe doer no less than the object of the wrong, and in the end issureof punishment. Indeed according to the poet justice is whatdistinguishes man from the lower animals: “Perses, put thesewords now in thy heart, and harken to justice, but forget violenceutterly. For this the son of Cronos has established as a rule formen. Fishes and wild beasts and winged birds he ordained shoulddevour one another, since there is no justice among them; but toman he has given justice, which is by far the best.”[62]Thetheme of justice in human relations is developed into injunctionstobe kind to the stranger, the suppliant, and the orphan, torespect parents, to regard another’s bed, and to givehospitality to one’s friends. Yet it must be said thatHesiod’s social morality is strictly utilitarian, notaltruistic; indeed there is something in his poem which reminds usof the maxim “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for atooth,” as when he writes: “If thy friend is the firstto do thee an unkindness either in word or deed, remember to returnhim twofold; but if he would bring thee again into friendship andconsent to render thee justice, accept it.”[63]But we mustremember that this was the almost universal teaching among theGreeks down to the end of the fifth century.

Justice, however, is more than a social virtue between men; itis thechief attribute of Zeus, personified as his daughter andconstant attendant: “Justice is the daughter of Zeus,glorified and honored by the gods who hold Olympus; and wheneveranyone does her wrong with perverse blame, straightway she sits byZeus, son ofCronos, and she tells him the thoughts of unjust men,that the people may pay for the folly of the princes who by theirwrongful purposes and crooked speeches turn judgments from theright course.”[64]In his work of defending justice Zeus isaided not only by his daughter, but by a host of watchfulguardians, intermediaries who report mortals’ deeds:“Thrice ten thousand are the immortal servants of Zeus uponthe rich earth, who watch mortal men. Clad in mist they fare to andfro on the earth watching deeds of justice and wrongfulacts.”[65]Justice then never fails to bring sooner or laterthe due return to right and wron [...]