[59] Grote, 10-vol. ed. 1888, i, 307, 326, 329, 413. Cp. i, 27–30; ii, 52; iii, 39–41, etc. [↑]
[60] K. O. Müller, Introd. to Mythology, p. 192. [↑]
[61] “Then one [of the Persians] who before had in nowise believed in [or, recognized the existence of] the Gods, offered prayer and supplication, doing obeisance to Earth and Heaven” (Persae, 497–99). [↑]
[62] Agamemnon, 370–372. This is commonly supposed to be a reference to Diagoras the Melian (below, p. 159). [↑]
[63] Agam. 170–72 (160–62). [↑]
[64] So Whittaker, Priests, Philosophers, and Prophets, 1911, pp. 42–43. [↑]
[65] So Buckley, in Bohn trans. of Æschylus, p. 100. He characterizes as a “skeptical formula” the phrase “Zeus, whoever he may be”; but goes on to show that such formulas were grounded on the Semitic notion that the true name of God was concealed from man. [↑]
[66] Grote, ed. 1888, vii, 8–21. See the whole exposition of the exceptionally interesting 67th chapter. [↑]
[67] Cp. Meyer, ii, 431; K. O. Müller, Introd. to Mythol. pp. 189–92; Duncker, p. 340; Curtius, i, 384; Thirlwall, i, 200–203; Burckhardt, Griech. Culturgesch. 1898, ii. 19. As to the ancient beginnings of a priestly organization, see Curtius, i, 92–94, 97. As to the effects of its absence, see Heeren, Polit. Hist. of Anc. Greece, Eng. tr. 1829, pp. 59–63; Burckhardt, as cited, ii, 31–32; Meyer, as last cited; Zeller, Philos. der Griechen, 3te Aufl. i, 44 sq. Lange’s criticism of Zeller’s statement (Gesch. des Materialismus, 3te Aufl. i, 124–26, note 2) practically concedes the proposition. The influence of a few powerful priestly families is not denied. The point is that they remained isolated. [↑]
[68] Cp. K. O. MÜller, Introd. to Mythol. p. 195; Curtius, i, 387, 389, 392; Duncker, iii, 519–21, 563; Thirlwall, i, 204; Barthélemy St. Hilaire, préf. to tr. of Metaphys. of Aristotle, p. 14. Professor Gilbert Murray, noting that Homer and Hesiod treated the Gods as elements of romance, or as facts to be catalogued, asks: “Where is the literature of religion: the literature which treated the Gods as Gods? It must,” he adds, “have existed”; and he holds that we “can see that the religious writings were both early and multitudinous” (Hist. of Anc. Greek Lit. p. 62; cp. Meyer and Mahaffy as cited above, pp. 125–26. “Writings” is not here to be taken literally; the early hymns were unwritten). The priestly hymns and oracles and mystery-rituals in question were never collected; but perhaps we may form some idea of their nature from the “Homeridian” and Orphic hymns to the Gods, and those of the Alexandrian antiquary Callimachus. It is further to be inferred that they enter into the Hesiodic Theogony. (Decharme, p. 3, citing Bergk.) [↑]