Compare v. 167-196, vi. 68.
Comparing the two doctrines, we see that Plato, though he did not reject altogether, as Epikurus did, the agency of the Gods in the universe, — restricted it here nevertheless so as to suit the ethical exigencies of his own mind. He thus discarded so large a portion of it, as to place himself, or rather his spokesman Sokrates, in marked hostility with the received religious faith. If Melêtus and Anytus lived to read the Platonic Republic (we may add, also the dialogue called Euthyphron), they would probably have felt increased persuasion that their indictment against Sokrates was well-grounded:[81] since he stood proclaimed by the most eminent of his companions as an innovator in matters of religion, and as disbelieving a very large portion of what was commonly received by pious Athenians. With many persons, it was considered a species of sacrilege to disbelieve any narrative which had once been impressed upon them respecting the Gods or the divine agency: the later Pythagoreans laid it down as a canon, that this was never to be done.[82]
[81] Xenoph. Memorab. i. 1. Ἀδικεῖ Σωκράτης, οὓς μὲν ἡ πόλις νομίζει θεοὺς οὐ νομίζων, ἕτερα δὲ καινὰ δαιμόνια εἰσφέρων· ἀδικεῖ δὲ καὶ τοὺς νέους διαφθείρων.
This was the form of the indictment against Sokrates. The Republic of Plato certainly shows ground for the first part of it. Sokrates did not introduce new names and persons of Gods, but he preached new views about their characters and agency, and (what probably would cause the greatest offence) he emphatically blames the received views. The Republic of Plato here embodies what we read in the Platonist Maximus Tyrius (ix. 8) as the counter-indictment of Sokrates against the Athenian people — ἡ δὲ Σωκράτους κατὰ Ἀθηναίων γραφή· Ἀδικεῖ ὁ Ἀθηναίων δῆμος, οὓς μὲν Σωκράτης νομίζει θεοὺς οὐ νομίζων, ἕτερα δὲ καινὰ δαιμόνια ἐπεισφέρων … Ἀδικεῖ δὲ ὁ δῆμος καὶ τοὺς νέους διαφθείρων.
[82] Jamblichus, Vit. Pythag. c. 138-148. Adhortatio ad Philosophiam, p. 324, ed. Kiessling. See chap. xxxvii. of my “History of Greece,” p. 345, last edit.
Plato conceives the Gods according to the exigencies of his own mind — complete discord with those of the popular mind.
Now the Gods, as here conceived by Plato conformably to his own ethical exigencies, are representatives of abstract goodness, or of what he considers as such[83] — but they are nothing else. They have no other human emotions: they are invoked for the purposes of the schoolmaster and the lawgiver, to distribute prizes, and inflict chastisements, on occasions which Plato thinks suitable. But Gods with these restricted functions were hardly less at variance with the current religious belief than the contemplative, theorising, Gods of Aristotle — or the perfectly tranquil and happy Gods of Epikurus. The Gods of the popular faith were not thus specialised types, embodiments of one abstract, ethical, idea. They were concrete personalities, many-sided and many-coloured, endowed with great variety of dispositions and emotions: having sympathies and antipathies, preferences and dislikes, to persons, places, and objects: sensitive on the score of attention paid to themselves, and of offerings tendered by men, jealous of any person who appeared to make light of them, or to put himself upon a footing of independence or rivalry: connected with particular men and cities by ties of family and residence.[84] They corresponded with all the feelings of the believer; with his hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows, his pride or his shame, his love or preference towards some persons or institutions, his hatred and contempt for others. They were sometimes benevolent, sometimes displeased and unpropitious, according to circumstances. They were indeed believed to interfere for the protection of what the believer accounted innocence or merit, and for the avenging of what he called wrong. But this was only one of many occasions on which they interfered. They dispensed alternately evil and good, out of the two casks mentioned in that Homeric verse[85] which Plato so emphatically censures. Nay, it was as much a necessity of the believer’s imagination to impute marked and serious suffering to the envy or jealousy of the Gods, as good fortune and prosperity to their kindness. Such a turn of thought is not less visible in Herodotus, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Lykurgus, &c., than in Homer and the other poets whom Plato rebukes. Moreover it is frequently expressed or implied in the answers or admonitions delivered from oracles.[86]
[83] Plato, Republic, ii. p. 379.
In the sixteenth chapter of my “History of Greece” (see p. 504 seq.) I have given many remarks on the ancient Grecian legends, and on the varying views entertained in ancient times respecting them, considered chiefly in reference to the standard of historical belief. I here regard them more as matters of religious belief and emotion.
[84] Nowhere is the relation between men and the Gods, and the all-covering variety of divine agency, in ancient Grecian belief, more instructively illustrated than in the Hippolytus of Euripides. Hippolytus, a youth priding himself on piety and still more upon inexorable continence (1140-1365), is not merely the constant worshipper of the goddess Artemis, but also her companion; she sits with him, hunts with him; he hears her voice and converses with her; he knows her presence by the divine odour, though he does not see her (σύνθακε, συγκύναγε, 1093-1391-87). But he disdains to address a respectful word to Aphrodité, or to yield in any way to her influence, though he continually passes by her statue which stands at his gates; he even speaks of her in disparaging terms (13-101). Aphrodité becomes deeply indignant with him, not because he is devoted to Artemis, but because he neglects and despises herself (20): for the Gods take offence when they are treated with disrespect, just as men do (6-94). His faithful attendant laments this misguided self-sufficiency, and endeavours in vain to reason his master out of it (see the curious dialogue 87-120, also 445). Aphrodité accordingly resolves to punish Hippolytus for this neglect by inspiring Phædra, his step-mother, with an irresistible passion for him: she foresees that this will prove the destruction of Phædra as well as of Hippolytus, but no such consideration can be allowed to countervail the necessity of punishing her enemies. She accordingly smites Phædra with love-sickness, which, since Phædra will not reveal the cause, the chorus ascribes to the displeasure and visitation of some unknown divinity, Pan, Hekatê, Kybelê, &c. (142-238). The course of this beautiful drama is well known: Aphrodité proves herself a goddess and something more (359): Phædra and Hippolytus both perish; Theseus is struck down with grief and remorse (1402); while Artemis, who appears at the end to console the dying Hippolytus and reprove Theseus, laments that it was not in her power, according to the established etiquette among the Gods, to interpose for the protection of Hippolytus against the anger of Aphrodité, but promises to avenge him by killing with her unerring arrows some marked favourite of Aphrodité (1327-1421). “Non esse curæ Diis securitatem nostram, esse ultionem.” — Tacitus.