From the poets we now pass to the philosophers. The former we have regarded as reflecting the traditional beliefs of the unreasoning multitude. The philosophers unquestionably represent the reflective spirit, the speculative thought, of the educated classes of Greek society. Turning to the writings of the philosophers, we may therefore reasonably expect that, instead of the dim, undefined, and nebulous form in which the religious sentiment revealed itself amongst the unreflecting portions of the Greek populations, we shall find their theological ideas distinctly and articulately expressed, and that we shall consequently be able to determine their religious opinions with considerable accuracy.
Now that Thales, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were all believers in the existence of one supreme, uncreated, eternal God, has been, we think, clearly shown by Cudworth. [183]
[Footnote 183: ][ (return) ] Vol. i. pp. 491-554.
In subsequent chapters on "the Philosophers of Athens," we shall enter more fully into the discussion of this question. Meantime we assume that, with few exceptions, the Greek philosophers were "genuine Theists."
The point, however, with which we are now concerned is, that whilst they believed in one supreme, uncreated, eternal God, they at the same time recognized the existence of a plurality of generated deities who owe their existence to the power and will of the Supreme God, and who, as the agents and ministers of His universal providence, preside over different departments of the created universe. They are at once Monotheists and Polytheists--believers in "one God" and "many gods." This is a peculiarity, an anomaly which challenges our attention, and demands an explanation, if we would vindicate for these philosophers a rational Theism.
Now that there can be but one infinite and absolutely perfect Being--one supreme, uncreated, eternal God--is self-evident; therefore a multiplicity of such gods is a contradiction and an impossibility. The early philosophers knew this as well as the modern. The Deity, in order to be Deity, must be one and not many: must be perfect or nothing. If, therefore, we would do justice to these old Greeks, we must inquire what explanations they have offered in regard to "the many gods" of which they speak. We must ascertain whether they regarded these "gods" as created or uncreated beings, dependent or independent, temporal or eternal We must inquire in what sense the term "god" is applied to these lesser divinities,--whether it is not applied in an accommodated and therefore allowable sense, as in the sacred Scriptures it is applied to kings and magistrates, and those who are appointed by God as the teachers and rulers of men. "They are called gods to whom the word of God came." [184] And if it shall be found that all the gods of which they speak, save one, are "generated deities"--dependent beings--creatures and subjects of the one eternal King and Father, and that the name of "god" is applied to them in an accommodated sense, then we have vindicated for the old Greek philosophers a consistent and rational Theism. In what relation, then, do the philosophers place "the gods" to the one Supreme Being?
Thales, one of the most ancient of the Greek philosophers, taught the existence of a plurality of gods, as is evident from that saying of his, preserved by Diogenes Laertius, "The world has life, and is full of gods." [185] At the same time he asserts his belief in one supreme, uncreated Deity; "God is the oldest of all things, because he is unmade, or ungenerated." [186] All the other gods must therefore have been "generated deities," since there is but one unmade God, one only that had "no beginning." [187]
[Footnote 184: ][ (return) ] See John x. 35.
[Footnote 185: ][ (return) ] "Lives," bk. i.; see also Aristotle's "De Anima," bk. i. ch. viii. πάντα θιῶν πληρη.
[Footnote 186: ][ (return) ] "Lives," bk. i.