Truth also belongs to god: indeed she is “the daughter of Zeus”, “the foundation of virtue.” Of Apollo it is said that he “lays not hold of lies.”[120] Here is a great advance over Homer’s ideas of the godhead. Pindar’s attitude in this respect is not dissimilar to that of Hesiod, who, as we have seen, first gave poetic expression to the idea that justice is an attribute and handmaid of Zeus.
Consonant with these higher views of divinity is Pindar’s treatment of the myths. The grosser elements he leaves aside as being unworthy of the gods. At times he openly protests, as for example in the first Olympian Ode where he declares that he will not treat the story of Pelops in the traditional way, which made Tantalus offer his son’s flesh at a dinner given the immortals: “I will speak differently from those who have gone before. I may not call any one of the blessed gods a cannibal.”[121] This revolt against the current forms of myths was due in part to his belief in the moral perfection of divinity, in part to his moral sense concerning man. His rule was, as laid down by himself, that man should say only good things of the gods, and he shrank from attributing to the divinities things which it would be base for men to do. So in his fifth Nemean Ode he was unwilling to tell of the fratricide of the heroes Peleus and Telamon, but broke off his narrative abruptly, just as he rejected with indignation the shameful tales told of Tantalus. Furthermore Pindar subjected the myths and religious beliefs with which he had to deal to the test of reason; among the several versions which he found current he recognized that some must be false, and so he endeavored to separate the good from the evil, to control the traditions of his people, and thus to practise a free criticism in his work.
On the nature of sin Pindar, as the Greeks in general, holds that whenever man passes the bounds appointed between a mortal and a god, or between man and his fellowmen, he becomes thereby a sinner. Excess is the form of sin which he makes repeatedly his theme. When he praises Lampon of Aegina for “pursuing the mean with his thought and maintaining it in his acts,”[122] he is recalling the principle laid down in Hesiod’s verse, which had passed long since into a proverb: “Keep a middle course; the seasonable in all things is best.”[123]
Again and again in varied forms he warns us to remember that man is mortal: “If one prosper and enjoy a good name, still seek not to become Zeus. Thou hast all, if ever perchance the fate to possess these honors should come to thee. Mortal things befit a mortal.”[124] And again he says: “But if a man shall have wealth and excel other men in beauty, and if in the games he hath exhibited his strength and gained distinction, let him still remember that his garment wraps mortal limbs and that earth shall be the raiment of all in the end.”[125] Sin then is presumption, and as such is punished by the gods. That “envy of the gods,” which seems in Homer almost a childish resentment, is thus given an ethical value which coincides very closely with Aeschylus’ interpretation of this belief. The moral character of Pindar’s form of this doctrine is secured in part by the poet’s apparent belief that man is a free moral agent. The sinner sometimes, like Ixion, might not be able to endure prosperity, and so fall into insolent pride, and thence into blind infatuation. In like fashion Bacchylides teaches that the giants were destroyed by insolent pride, whereas the path to happiness is open to all who will follow justice: “Warriors of Troy, Zeus, who rules on high and beholds all things, is not the author of grievous woes for mortals; no, open before all men is the path that leads to unswerving Justice, attendant of holy Eunomia and prudent Themis: happy the land whose sons take her to dwell with them. But insolence—the spirit void of reverence, who luxuriates in shifty wiles and illicit follies—who swiftly gives a man his neighbor’s wealth and power, but anon plunges him into a gulf of ruin—she it was who destroyed the Giants, overweening.”[126]
On the question of man’s freedom Pindar is not entirely clear. And yet he seems to hold that man, and not some god, is responsible for his initial wrongdoing. But he also points out that when man has once given way to that insolent pride, which is presumptuous sin, then the gods in punishing him may drive him on his wrong course until the man is utterly ruined. This doctrine appears more clearly in Aeschylus.
When we come to Pindar’s view of the life after death, we find that he has a more exalted vision than the poets of an earlier day. The ideas of immortality, of future rewards and punishments, of rebirth, and of a possible final bliss, which were current from the early sixth century at least, had not failed to have their effect on our poet. In a remarkable fragment he sets forth a doctrine as to the relation of body and soul which is very similar to that held by the Orphics, under whose influence he had evidently come: “The bodies of all men follow all-conquering death; but life’s image still liveth on, for that only is from the gods. It sleeps when the limbs are active, but ofttimes in dreams it shows to the sleeper coming judgment, a judgment of peace and pain.”[127] That is, when the body is awake it hampers the soul so that the soul is numbed in sleep; but when the soul is free from the domination of the imprisoning flesh, it then enjoys its proper powers. There is a famous passage in the second Olympian which sets forth Pindar’s views of future reward and punishment. According to this passage, sins committed on the earth are punished beneath the earth, and those done beneath the earth are punished in the soul’s next reincarnation. So heaven and hell are always present to man’s soul, whether here in the light of the sun, or in the darkness of Hades. Those from whom atonement is accepted in the lower world are allowed to return to the earth in high positions; when they have accomplished this rebirth thrice, if they have been just, they may enter into their final happiness. These are Pindar’s words: “The guilty souls of the dead straightway pay the penalty here on earth; and the sins done in this kingdom of Zeus are judged by one beneath the ground, who delivereth his judgment to hateful necessity. But ever in the night and in the day alike the good receive as their lot a life free from toil, enjoying the light of the sun. They vex neither the ground nor the water of the sea for food that does not satisfy, but among the honored gods, those who have found their pleasure in keeping their oaths, enjoy a life free from tears; but the others bear suffering too great to look upon. Yet all those who have tarried thrice on either side (of death) and have persevered in keeping their souls wholly free from unjust deeds, travel the road of Zeus to the tower of Cronos. There the ocean breezes blow around the islands of the blest, golden flowers bloom, some from glorious trees on the land, others water feeds. With garlands the blest entwine their hands and crown their temples.”[128]
We need not pause here to point out in detail the great contrast between Pindar’s ideas of religion and those expressed in the Homeric and Hesiodic poetry. He presented a higher doctrine of future rewards and punishments, which was binding upon men in all the relations of this life; and he expressed a higher conception of morality and of justice, to whose obligations the gods as well as men were subject. The baser elements of mythology he refined away and elevated thereby men’s ideas of the divine; and by making righteousness and truth the prime attributes of the gods, in accordance with which they punished the wicked and blessed the good, he lifted morality and religion to a nobler plane.
When we turn to the two older tragic poets, Aeschylus and Sophocles, we find that they teach doctrines very like those of Pindar, although naturally they dwell on those elements in religion and morality that are adapted to their tragic themes; and they differ between themselves in the points which they emphasize. Aeschylus makes prominent the punitive aspect of divine justice; he dwells upon the punishment which must inevitably follow sin, and which pursues a guilty line from generation to generation. The poet displays a moral earnestness and intensity like that of a Hebrew prophet, and he shows an extraordinary profundity in his handling of moral and religious themes; furthermore he is consciously a religious teacher. Sophocles keeps religion more in the background, using it as one of the materials which he as a literary artist can employ in his dramas; yet he is important as a religious poet for he lays especial stress on the necessity of purity of heart, which for him is the substance of piety toward the gods.
The elder tragedian, Aeschylus, was born at Eleusis about the year 525 b.c. Tradition told that he fought in the Persian wars and was wounded at Marathon. He began to present tragedies about the year 500, and continued to produce them until about three years before his death in 456. Aeschylus was a man of mighty concepts and massive thought, to which his condensed and pregnant style corresponds; a man of a profound and religious nature, strongly influenced by the Mysteries, he thought deeply upon the problems of men and of gods. He faced with honesty the contradictions involved in the current notions with regard to the moral nature of the gods, and in the ethical standards of men. Like Pindar he elevated and refined the traditional myths and made them a medium for the teaching of great moral truths.
Aeschylus regards the order of the universe as moral throughout. This view appears even in the Prometheus Bound, that unique drama of revolt. When we now read this tragedy alone, it seems as if Zeus were represented as a lawless tyrant, using his power and might in most unjust ways. But it is evident that if we had the other two plays of the trilogy, the sympathy which we feel with the Titan Prometheus would be lessened, that we should realize that the extant play represents the transition from violence to law, and that in reality the rule of Zeus is not one of might but one subject ultimately to the law of justice.