Into any consideration of these it is not my design to enter; but the Greeks had another philosophy, which, resting on the basis of theology, comprehended religion, morals, and politics, and may be regarded as the instrument, the soul, and the measure of their civilisation. It seems to be a truth frequently overlooked, that man is civilised exactly in proportion as he is religious; at least this was the case in Greece, where the highest developement of the national mind concurred in Socrates and Plato with the utmost developement of the religious instinct, and began immediately to decline in Aristotle and his successors, arriving at the lowest degradation among the grovelling sophists of the lower empire. This division of philosophy occupied among the Greeks the place, which in modern times is assigned to religion,[[994]] that is, it was their guide through this life, and their preparation for a better. It may, indeed, be regarded as the spiritual part of paganism, teaching man his duties, and explaining the grounds and motives which should lead to their performance.
There is one article of faith without which no religion can of course exist—the belief in God. Devoid of this, it may be doubted whether an individual or a nation ought not rather to be classed among the inferior animals than among men. It is superfluous, therefore, to say that the Greeks, preëminently endowed with the highest attributes of humanity, were a religious people, and held firmly all the doctrines which entitle a people to such an appellation. From their ancestors, the Pelasgi,[[995]] they inherited a pure and lofty theism, which seems to have always continued to be the religion of the more enlightened; while among the mass of the people, this central truth of religion was gradually surrounded by a constantly expanding atmosphere of fable, which obscured its brightness, and in a great measure concealed its form. Mr. Mitford, whose acute and philosophical mind clearly discerned this verity, also seems to have understood the cause. “A firm belief both in the existence of the Deity, and in the duty of communication with him, appears to have prevailed universally in the early ages. But religion was then the common care of all men, a sacerdotal order was unknown.”[[996]]
The institution of an order of priests, however effected, almost necessarily corrupted the simple truths of religion, but it is unphilosophical in the highest degree to consider those ancient priests as impostors on this account, or to speak of their propagation of error as craft. Meditating, in seclusion and solitude, on the few truths which had come down to them by tradition or been discovered by reason, they soon bewildered their own wits, and wandered into superstition.[[997]] As was too natural, they conceived that the Divinity must be desirous of giving them signs, marking what was to be done and what avoided. The mistake of concomitance for causation, often made in more learned and refined ages, would confirm them in this view. They would, for example, find that in the order of time the flight of certain birds over their heads, the appearance of a serpent in their path, the apparition of certain objects in a dream, was followed by certain misfortunes; while other apparitions were succeeded by contrary events. Out of these observations the science of augury, divination, &c. arose. Yet the inventors were not therefore impostors, but rather, in their intentions, benefactors of mankind; and to be respected accordingly.
The generation of polytheism is to be in like manner explained. It was an abuse of the inductive method of philosophy. Men perceived, as soon as they began to observe nature and draw inferences from what they beheld, that the sun and moon[[998]] exert extraordinary influence, beneficial or hurtful, upon mankind and the world they inhabit; and the supposition was neither unnatural nor absurd that those glorious bodies, by whose rising and setting, by whose approximation or retreat, they were in turn affected with gladness or melancholy, with comfort or discomfort, with good or evil, must be themselves possessed of intelligence as well as power, or at least be inhabited and directed by beings on whom they bestowed the name of gods. The air, too, “which bloweth where it listeth while thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth,” sweeping around them invisibly, and appearing only in its effects, soon obtained the rank of a deity,[[999]] as did the ocean which appears to be alive in all its extent, and the earth on whose inexhaustible bounty we subsist.
Out of these elements the sacerdotal families of Greece framed its religion, which, however, is by no means to be considered a system of materialism. They conceived every portion of nature to be animated by its particular soul, just as they believed the whole, as a whole, to have one universal soul, the source of all the others. Their mythology was based on unity. At every step backwards we find the number of gods diminish, till at length we arrive at the Great One, surrounded by the unfathomable splendours of eternity. This is the θεὸς ὁ θεῶν Ζεὺς, of whom Plato[[1000]] and Aristotle constantly speak when they employ the expression τὸ δαιμόνιον.[[1001]] Philosophy, indeed, considered it to be its chiefest task to deliver men from their multitudinous errors respecting the nature of God, and of our duties towards Him; so that, in their speculative notions, very little difference from our own can be detected. Above all men, Plato sought to elevate the sphere of philosophy. In his works, in truth, it moves frequently within the confines of theology, and seldom quits them except for the purpose of infusing spirituality into politics and morals.
This great man, whose profound veneration for the Deity equalled, perhaps, that of Newton himself, conceived that human happiness consists wholly in the knowledge of God, concerning whose character and attributes he was anxious that no unworthy ideas should be entertained. His doctrine was, “that we should ever describe God such as he is.” But, as Muretus has well observed, this was requiring too much of human nature, for, most assuredly, we should never speak of God if we waited to discover language befitting His majesty. “For the mind of man is incapable of comprehending the essence of God; the nature of God is known to God alone; he alone perfectly understands himself, and in himself all things. The mind of man waxes dim, beholding that stupendous light whose brightness excels all other lights; and, in proportion as it endeavours more daringly to soar, is it conscious of falling below its great aim.”[[1002]] The Egyptians expressed the same conviction in the celebrated epigraph on the base of the veiled statue of Neith at Saïs: “I am whatever has been, is, or shall be, and no mortal has drawn aside my veil.” To the same purpose was the saying of Simonides to Hiero, “that the more he contemplated the Divine Nature the less he appeared to comprehend it.” And Socrates, in the Philebos of Plato, observes that he shuddered as often as the Great Name was to be pronounced lest he should bestow upon it some unworthy epithet.
It would appear, indeed, that the idea which the theologians of Greece had formed of the Almighty was very nearly the same as our own; though, in compliance with popular prejudices, they often made use of the plural for the singular. Goodness, power, and knowledge were his characteristics, which in substance are the same as the types of the theologians of modern times—goodness, immutability, truth,—goodness leading the van in both cases, and the remaining conditions answering perfectly to each other. For in supreme power and supreme wisdom must be immutability and truth, since the Almighty can do all he wills and must ever will what is right.[[1003]] In accordance with these views, the spiritual philosophy of Greece maintained that the Deity is the source of no evil, though traces of a far different theory are here and there discoverable among the poets. Thus, speaking of the calamities arising from the anger of Achilles, Homer says
Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή.
And, again—
Ζεὺς δ᾽ ἀρετὴν ἄνδρασιν ὀφέλλει τε, μινύθει τε