[39] Relation sur le Quiétisme.
Augustin pleasantly remarked that we are all born for hell. One need not agree with him. In the presence of the possibly monstrous and the impossibly blasphemous, there is always a recourse. It is to turn away, though it be to Zeus, a belief in whom, however stupid, is ennobling beside the turpitudes that Christian mysticism produced.
At Athens, meanwhile, the religion of State persisted. So also did philosophy. When, occasionally, the two met, the latter bowed. That was sufficient. Religion exacted respect, not belief. It was not a faith, it was a law, one that for its majesty was admired and for its poetry was beloved. In the deification of whatever is exquisite it was but an artistic cult. The real Olympos was the Pantheon. The other was fading away. Deeper and deeper it was sinking back into the golden dream from which it had sprung. Further and further the crystal parapets were retreating. Dimmer and more dim the gorgeous host became. In words of perfect piety Epicurus pictured them in the felicity of the ideal. There, they had no heed of man, no desire for worship, no wish for prayer. It was unnecessary even to think of them. Decorously, with every homage, they were being deposed.
But if Epicurus was decorous, Evemerus was devout. It was his endeavour, he said, not to undermine but to fortify. The gods he described as philanthropists whom a grateful world had deified. Zeus had waged a sacrilegious war against his father. Aphrodite was a harlot and a procuress. The others were equally commendable. Once they had all lived. Since then all had died. Evemerus had seen their tombs.
One should not believe him. Their parapets are dimmer, perhaps, but from them still they lean and laugh. They are immortal as the hexameters in which their loves unfold. Yet, oddly enough, presently the oracle of Delphi strangled. In his cavern Trophonios was gagged. The voice of Mopsos withered.
That is nothing. On the Ionian, the captain of a ship heard some one calling loudly at him from the sea. The passengers, who were at table, looked out astounded. Again the loud voice called: "Captain, when you reach shore announce that the great god Pan is dead."[40]
[40] Plutarch: de Oracul. defect. 14.
It may be that it was true. It may be that after Pan the others departed. When Paul reached Athens he found a denuded Pantheon, a vacant Olympos, skies more empty still.