Greek Pantheism
Before considering the classical and Neo-platonic Greek speculations commonly regarded as Pantheistic, we may do well to recall to mind the immense difference between the established habit of theological thought in our day, and the vague, or at best, poetically vivid ideas of the ancients. For the long tradition of nearly two thousand years, which has made monotheism to us almost as fixed an assumption as that of our own individuality, was entirely wanting in this case. Not that the idea of Evolved from Polytheism one supreme God had never been suggested. But it was not the Hebrew or Christian idea that was occasionally propounded; for in the ethnic mind it was rarely, if ever, regarded as inconsistent with polytheism; and consequently it verged on Pantheism. "Consequently," I say, because such monotheism as existed had necessarily to explain the innumerable minor deities as emanations from, or manifestations of the supreme God. And though such conscious attempts at reconciliation of beliefs in many gods and in one Supreme were confined to a small minority of meditative priests and speculative philosophers, yet really, the combination was implicit in the sort of polytheistic religion which possessed the family affections and patriotic associations of the early Greek world.
Not the Material Figure but the Divinity Suggested was the Object of Worship.
For though we may find a difficulty in ridding ourselves of a prejudice wrought into the tissue of our early faith by the nursery lessons of childhood, it was not the graven or molten image which was really worshipped by the devout, but that form of superhuman power which, by local accident, had been identified with the "idol." If, indeed, we supposed every "idolator" to have received definite religious teaching, analogous to that with which we ourselves were imbued in youth, we might well find his attitude inconceivable. But he had nothing of the kind. He only knew that in war, in hunting, in fishing, in farming, he was confronted with powers which passed his comprehension; and tradition permeated him with the expectation that such powers would be propitiated by his worship of the images set up in their names. There was therefore no reasoned creed, such as those of the Catholic and Reformed Churches, but only a vague sentiment brought to a focus by the associations of the shrine. From such a view of polytheism it is easy to understand how most, if not all, of the old speculative philosophers could allow the existence of the traditional gods, even while in reasoned contemplation they saw that all deities were subordinate to and merged in one universal God.
Possible Influence of Oriental Pantheism.
How far this unstable religious position was subject to the influence of the oriental mysticism at which we have glanced already, is, at any rate, so far as concerns the classical age of Greek philosophy, a matter of conjecture. But the resurrection of a prehistoric and almost forgotten civilization from the buried cities of Crete has brought to light many evidences of frequent intercourse, two or three thousand years before the Christian era, between European and Egyptian, or Asiatic, centres of life. Therefore, we may well believe that during the earliest stages of the evolution of thought in East and West, it was as impossible as at the present time for any local school of thinkers to be absolutely original or independent. Thus, later Greek philosophers, whether themselves within sound of the echoes of Hindoo teaching or not, may very well have grown up in an atmosphere impregnated with mythic germs, whose origin they did not know. But however that may be, Greek Pantheism, while it had many points of contact with Eastern speculation, was more purely intellectual and less essentially religious than the Pantheism of the Vedas, or the solemn dream that haunted Egyptian temples. For while the aspiration of Hindoo Pantheists was to find and assume the right attitude toward "the glory of the sum of things," the Greeks, as St. Paul long afterward said, "sought after wisdom," and were fascinated by the idea of tracing all the bewildering variety of Nature up to some one "principle" ([Greek: archê]), beginning, origin. Thales, about 640 B.C. Thus Thales of Miletus, during the late seventh and early sixth century B.C., is said to have been satisfied when he found in water—or moisture—the ultimate principle out of which all things and all life, including gods and men, were evolved. With such a speculation of infant philosophy we are here not concerned, except to say that it was not Pantheism as understood in modern times. For while his ablest exponents admit that no sufficient evidence is left to show very clearly what he meant, there seems no reason for supposing that to him the Universe was a Living God.
Successors of Thales.
It would be fruitless to relate how successors of Thales varied his theory of an ultimate "principle," by substituting air or fire for water. But it is worth while to note that another citizen of Miletus, Anaximander, after an interval of some forty years, pronounced that the beginning, the first principle, the origin of all things, was neither water, nor air, nor fire, but the Infinite ([Greek: to apeae on]). And though the best authorities confess that they cannot be sure of his meaning, this may very well be because he anticipated Herbert Spencer by two and a half millenniums, in acknowledging that all things merge in one and the same Unknowable. But, so far as our evidence goes, he made no such attempt as the modern philosopher did, to persuade the religious instinct that this Unknowable could supply the place of all the gods.
Xenophanes of Elea, about 570 to 480 B.C.
The position of Xenophanes, who, toward the latter part of the sixth century B.C. migrated, apparently for political reasons, in fear of Persian imperialism, from Colophon in Asia Minor to Elea in Italy, was a little different, and, for our purpose, more interesting. For the few fragments which are unfortunately all that is left to us of his philosophical poetry, are strongly suggestive of Pantheism, and the interpretation put upon them by later classical and sub-classical writers, who had his works before them, would appear decisive. True, the distinguished and enlightened scholar, Simon Karsten, who, in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, found a labour of love in collecting and editing the remains of early Greek philosophers, deprecated such a judgment. Yet, while the motives for his special pleading were honourable, seeing the odious misrepresentations of Pantheism still His Pantheism Disputed but well Established. prevalent in the Dutch scholar's native land,—misrepresentations undissipated even by the splendour of Spinoza,—his protest remains special pleading still. And he himself candidly quotes at large from an alleged work of Aristotle—possibly, only a student's notes of the latter's lectures—and also from Simplicius, as reported by Theophrastus in a comment on Aristotle's Physics, sentences which describe the system of Xenophanos as unquestionably Pantheistic. From, which description I His Religion. gather that the devout philosopher regarded God as the only real Being, including all that in human language has been, is, and will be, without beginning or end, living and perceiving equally everywhere throughout His infinite essence. And if that essence is compared by Xenophanes to a sphere, neither bounded nor boundless, neither moving nor immovable, this is only because few, if any, in that age of the world, could content themselves with loyally accepting the limits imposed on man by the very nature of things, limits which now compel us to own that, while the Eternal is more real than ourselves, yet, in the strict sense of knowing, He is, from an intellectual standpoint, the Unknowable.