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arose and placed the double cup in her hands and said, "Be patient, my mother, lest I again behold thee beaten, and cannot help thee."

He here refers to a time when Jupiter hung his wife up in mid-heaven with anvils tied to her heels; and when Vulcan untied them he was pitched from Olympus down into the island of Lemnos, whence came his lameness. A rude and brutal head of a household was the poetic Zeus.

No doubt other and much more sublime views of the gods are to be found in Homer. Thus (II. XV. 80) he compares the motion of Juno to the rapid thought of a traveller, who, having visited many countries, says, "I was here," "I was there." Such also is the description (II. XIII. 17) of Neptune descending from the top of Samothrace, with the hills and forests trembling beneath his immortal feet. Infinite power, infinite faculty, the gods of Homer possessed; but these were only human faculty and power pushed to the utmost. Nothing is more beautiful than the description of the sleep of Jupiter and Juno, "imparadised in each other's arms" (II. XIV. 350), while the divine earth produced beneath them a bed of flowers, softly lifting them from the ground. But the picture is eminently human; quite as much so as that which Milton has imitated from it.

After Homer and Hesiod, among the Greek poets, come the lyrists. Callinus, the Ephesian, made a religion of patriotism. Tyrtæus (B. C. 660), somewhat later, of Sparta, was devoted to the same theme. Pindar, the Theban, began his career (B. C. 494) in the time of the conquests of Darius, and composed one of his Pythian odes in the year of the battle of Marathon. He taught a divine retribution on good and evil; taught that "the bitterest end awaits the pleasure that is contrary to right," taught moderation, and that "a man should always keep in view the bounds and limits of things."+ He declared that " Law was the ruler of gods and men." Moreover, he proclaimed that gods and men were of one family, and though the gods were far higher, yet that + Pythian, II.

*

Isthmian, VI.

something divine was in all men.* And in a famous fragment (quoted by Bunsen +) he calls mankind the majestic offspring of earth; mankind, "a gentle race, beloved of heaven."

The tragic poet, Eschylus, is a figure like that of Michael Angelo in Italian art, grand, sombre, and possessed by his ideas. The one which rules him and runs darkly through all his tragedies is the supreme power of Nemesis, the terrible destiny which is behind and above gods and men. The favorite theme of Greek tragedy is the conflict of fate and freedom, of the inflexible laws of nature with the passionate longings of man, of "the emergency of the case with the despotism of the rule." This conflict appears most vividly in the story of Promêtheus, or Forethought; he, "whose godlike crime was to be kind"; he who resisted the torments and terrors of Zeus, relying on his own fierce mind. In this respect, Prometheus in his suffering is like Job in his sufferings. Each refuses to say he is wrong, merely to pacify God, when he does not see that he is wrong. As Prometheus maintains his inflexible purpose, so Job holds fast his integrity.

Sophocles is the most devout of the Greek tragedians, and reverence for the gods is constantly enjoined in his tragedies. One striking passage is where Antigonê is asked if she had disobeyed the laws of the country, and replies, "Yes; for they were not the laws of God. They did not proceed from Justice, who dwells with the Immortals. Nor dared I, in obeying the laws of mortal man, disobey those of the undying gods. For the gods live from eternity, and their beginning no man knows. I know that I must die for this offence, and I die willingly. I must have died at some time, and a premature death I account a gain, as finishing a life filled with sorrows."§ This argument reminds us of the higher-law discussions of the antislavery conflict, and the religious defiance of the fugitive slave law by all honest men.

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Euripides represents the reaction against the religious tragedy. His is the anti-religious tragedy. It is a sneering defiance of the religious sentiment, a direct teaching of pessimism. Bunsen ("God in History") goes at length into the proof of this statement, showing that in Euripides the theology of the poets encountered and submitted to the same sceptical reaction which followed in philosophy the divine teachings of Plato.* After this time Greek poetry ceased to be the organ of Greek religion. It is true that we have subsequent outbreaks of devout song, as in the hymn of Cleanthes, the stoic, who followed Zeno as teacher in the Porch (B. C. 260). Though this belongs rather to philosophy than to poetry, yet on account of its truly monotheistic and also devout quality, I add a translation here: †

Greatest of the gods, God with many names, God ever-ruling and ruling all things!

Zeus, origin of nature, governing the universe by law,

All hail! For it is right for mortals to address thee;

Since we are thy offspring, and we alone of all

That live and creep on earth have the power of imitative speech.

Therefore will I praise thee, and hymn forever thy power.

Thee the wide heaven, which surrounds the earth, obeys;

Following where thou wilt, willingly obeying thy law.
Thou holdest at thy service, in thy mighty hands,

The two-edged, flaming, immortal thunderbolt,

Before whose flash all nature trembles.

Thou rulest in the common reason, which goes through all,

And appears mingled in all things, great or small,

Which, filling all nature, is king of all existences.

Nor without thee, O Deity, does anything happen in the world,
From the divine ethereal pole to the great ocean,

Except only the evil preferred by the senseless wicked.

But thou also art able to bring to order that which is chaotic,

Giving form to what is formless, and making the discordant friendly;

So reducing all variety to unity, and even making good out of evil.

Thus, through all nature is one great law,

* Yet, even in Euripides, we meet a strain like that (Hecuba, line 800), which we may render as follows:

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'For, though perhaps we may be helpless slaves,
Yet are the gods most strong, and over them
Sits LAW supreme. The gods are under law,
So do we judge, and therefore we can live
While right and wrong stand separate forever."

+ See the original in Herder's Greek text, Hellenische Blumenlese, and in Cudworth's Intellectual System.

Which only the wicked seek to disobey, —

Poor fools! who long for happiness,

But will not see nor hear the divine commands.

But do thou, O Zeus, all-bestower, cloud-compeller!

Ruler of thunder! guard men from sad error.

Father! dispel the clouds of the soul, and let us follow
The laws of thy great and just reign!

That we may be honored, let us honor thee again,

Chanting thy great deeds, as is proper for mortals.

For nothing can be better for gods or men

Than to adore with perpetual hymns the law common to all.

The result of our investigation thus far is, that beside all the polytheistic and anthropomorphic tendencies of the old religion, there yet lingered a faith in one supreme God, ruler of all things. This is the general opinion of the best writers. For example, Welcker thus speaks of the original substance of Greek religion:*

“In the remotest period of Greek antiquity, we meet the words θεός and δαίμων, and the names Ζεός and Κρονίων; anything older than which is not to be found in this religion. Accordingly, the gods of these tribes were from the first generally, if not universally, heavenly and spiritual beings. Zeus was the immortal king of heaven, in opposition to everything visible and temporal. This affords us a permanent background of universal ideas, behind all special conceptions or local appellations. We recognize as present in the beginnings of Greek history the highest mental aspirations belonging to man. We can thus avoid the mistaken doubts concerning this religion, which came from the influence of the subsequent manifestations, going back to the deep root from which they have sprung. The Divine Spirit has always been manifested in the feelings even of the most uncultivated peoples. Afterwards, in trying to bring this feeling into distinct consciousness, the various childish conceptions and imperfect views of religious things arise."

§ 5. The Gods of the Artists.

The artists, following the poets, developed still further the divinely human character of the gods. The architects of the temples gave, in their pure and harmonious forms, the conception of religious beauty and majesty. Standing

* Welcker, Grieschische Götterlehre, § 25.

in some open elevated position, their snowy surface bathed in sunshine, they stood in serene strength, the types of a bright and joyful religion. A superstitious worship seeks caves and darkness; the noble majesty of the Greek temples said plainly that they belonged to a religion of light and peace.

The sculptor worked originally in company with the architect. The statues were meant to adorn the temples, the temples were made as frames and pedestals for the statues. The marble forms stood and walked on the pediments and gave life to the frieze. They animated the exterior, or sat, calm and strong, in the central shrine.

The poets, in giving a moral and human character to the gods, never quite forgot their origin as powers of nature. Jupiter Olympus is still the god of the sky, the thunderer. Neptune is the ruler of the ocean, the earthshaker. Phoebus-Apollo is the sun-god. Artemis is the moonlight, pure, chaste, and cold. But the sculptors finally leave behind these reminiscences, and in their hands the deities become purely moral beings. On the brow of Jupiter sits a majestic calm; he is no angry wielder of the thunderbolt, but the gracious and powerful ruler of the three worlds. This conception grew up gradually, until it was fully realized by Phidias in his statues at Olympia and Elis. Tranquil power and victorious repose appear even in the standing Jupiters, in which last the god appears as more youthful and active.

That

The conception of Jupiter by Phidias was a great advance on that of Homer. He, to be sure, professed to take his idea from the famous passage of the Iliad where Jove shakes his ambrosial curls and bends his awful brows; and, nodding, shakes heaven and earth. might be his text, but the sermon which he preached was far higher than it. This was the great statue of Jupiter, his masterpiece, made of ivory and gold for the temple at Olympia, where the games were celebrated by the united Hellenic race. These famous games, which occurred every fifth year, lasting five days, calling together all Greece, were to this race what the Passover was to the Jewish nation, sacred, venerable, blending divine worship and

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